By dusk on the third day, the scattered clouds had swiftly piled into a heavy, low-hanging dome of darkness. The wind blowing in from the sea carried a scent unlike that of an ordinary sea breeze. The slender fissure on the southern sea began widening, as though some force below were steadily prying it open. Along its edges, a dark blue sheen flowed slowly through the twilight.
The tide remained high longer than usual, nearly reaching places the water normally never touched. The intervals between waves shortened, as though the entire sea were breathing at a faster rhythm.
Lightning briefly illuminated the clouds overhead, revealing contours and thicknesses unlike those of ordinary clouds.
No one wandered through town on that rainy night; instead, everyone had gathered along the southern coast.
Zhao Feng stood on a high rock, looking out at figures standing motionless in the wind and rain, like clay statues and wooden carvings. Some stood on elevated rocks, others on the sand and gravel below. Some had their backs to the wind, rainwater streaming down their robes and forming tiny rivulets beneath their feet.
Everyone was waiting for the Falling Star Secret Realm to open.
"They're all at least in the Innate Realm-strong enough to claim a share of this secret realm that opens once every hundred years," Lu Bing explained beside him.
Just then, rumble!
An enormous, blinding bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the entire world and the sea.
A thunderous crash followed, rolling across the sky from far away to directly overhead.
The sound of the tide continued reverberating above them, as though something were rising from the depths of the seabed, passing through the water toward the surface. Meanwhile, the fissure on the sea steadily widened.
Amid the lightning and thunder,
the water began receding in