Grotto-Heaven Falls, Dharma Net Opens

It was chaos—utter chaos!

On the ground, especially in the wilderness near the cities, people ran about in every direction, shouting and arguing. Many looked as though they had gone mad, tears and mucus streaming down their faces as they screamed, "A meteor is coming! Run—!"

Excitement mixed with fear, clarity with confusion. Everyone was babbling incoherently, completely beside themselves.

Even the cats, dogs, birds, rats, and other animals were fleeing and flapping about in mad panic, having lost all their usual placid habits.

After truly walking once before the gates of death, no one could remain unmoved.

No one knew how many people fell to their knees in tears at that moment, praying toward the sky to some unknown god—

Or cast everything aside and turned to run home on their own two legs—

Or suddenly "made peace" with it at the final moment, repeatedly dialing the phone and, despite the chaotic signal disruptions, stubbornly trying to tell someone on the other end something—

There were still a thousand faces for a thousand people, each different in their own way. Yet they were still the faces of all living beings, all alike.

But many people retained a certain degree of rationality and continued to focus on the magnificent "fireworks" streaking across the sky—

At this moment, the blue "heavens" seemed to be showing signs of fading, though their color had not yet truly disappeared. Beneath the drifting light, everything was shrouded in a hazy blue.

Yet almost no one could truly breathe a sigh of relief.

After all, that incomparably enormous "comet" had exploded before everyone's eyes at an altitude perhaps only a dozen kilometers above the ground!

Who could have expected that?

At first, it had looked so "slow" to the naked eye, yet that impression vanished almost