Year 180 of the Light-Dust Calendar, spring equinox.
The lamplight of the Nine Provinces was no longer confined to mountains, rivers, and cities. Since the "Echo of the Ruin Abyss," the Source of Starfire had resonated completely with the lamps of the mortal world. Lamp Language was no longer bound by geography, and the Heart Flame messengers discovered that—the light of lamps could cross vast oceans, pierce storms, and reach those distant shores submerged by seawater and forgotten by time.
On the spring equinox that year, a rare "light tide" surged from the depths of the Southern Sea. Silver-blue light rippled across the surface—not waves, not ghostly fire, but countless tiny motes of Light Dust, drifting with the waves like fragments of stars. Wherever they passed, seaweed glowed, schools of fish hummed softly, and ancient runes appeared on the wreckage of sunken ships.
A Zhou, a disciple of the Heart Flame messenger Zhaoming, led a Lamp Language delegation aboard a "Light Boat" into the depths of the Southern Sea. They carried the purest "Heartfire Lamp Oil" and "Lamp Language Crystal Core" from the Nine Provinces, hoping to speak with that unknown light tide.
That night, they reached waters never marked on any map—the Sunken Light Trench. Beneath the sea, they could faintly make out toppled stone towers, broken lamp pillars, and enormous steles covered in Lamp Language runes. A Zhou leaned over the gunwale and slowly lowered a Heart Flame lamp into the water.
The lamp did not go out. Instead, its light spread, rippling outward in every direction.
In an instant—
The seabed lit up.
A sunken city-state slowly emerged, its lamps awakening amid the ruins, one after another, like a river of stars hanging upside down. No living people remained within the city, but countless figures coalesced from