Mingdu, Sun-Moon Empire.
Merciless sunlight spilled across the green tiles and red walls that filled the eye. The sharply jutting eaves, the shop banners flying high, the endless stream of carriages and horses, the ceaseless flow of pedestrians, and every panic-stricken face all underscored the pressure the approaching Evil Eye army had placed on this thousand-year-old capital.
Teahouses, taverns, pawnshops, and workshops lined both sides of the streets, but all had long since shut their doors. The small vendors who normally set up large parasols in the open spaces beside the roads had also closed early. Owners called their employees over to pack up anything valuable, laboriously loading it onto wagons so they could flee at any moment.
The streets stretched east and west, reaching all the way to the quieter outskirts beyond the city. Crowds surged through them. With so many people preparing to leave Mingdu, a long, snaking queue stretched out from the city gates, while an unending stream of civilians continued to arrive from within the city. Some hurried along carrying shoulder poles, some drove ox carts loaded with luggage, some urged donkeys onward as they pulled freight wagons, and some set off alone with nothing but a small bundle on their backs.
Mingdu lay inland, in the central region of the Sun-Moon Continent. The Sun-Moon Empire was a country with plains and mountain ranges in equal measure, and its climate was predominantly temperate continental. In most agricultural regions, summer temperatures reached highs of 40°C, while winter temperatures fell to lows of -30°C.
The clouds here were particularly distinctive.
Sometimes, endless banks of clouds edged in gold or silver rolled across the sky. Sometimes, a single spotless white lotus floated in the vast heavens. Sometimes, they resembled the dome of an enormous building, covered in exquisite carvings