With the survival of the Great Han Immortal Dynasty and the Liu Lineage at stake, preparations for the great calamity advanced at tremendous speed.
The first installations completed were the Interstellar Teleportation Arrays and Communication Formations directly linking Taibai Star to Hundred Spirits Star and Mysterious Yellow Star.
Meanwhile, work on upgrading the Clan-Defense Grand Formation at the Liu Lineage's ancestral grounds and opening secret realm spaces proceeded in orderly fashion.
Late at night on September 18, Great Han year 2218, deep in the starry sky an unknown number of trillions of li from Taibai Star.
A barely perceptible distortion abruptly appeared in the once silent, ink-black void, like a needle piercing still water. It swiftly became a vortex the size of a bowl's mouth, its edges shimmering with an eerie purple-black halo as tiny spatial fissures flickered within.
In mere moments, the vortex began expanding wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye. Stars were swallowed and light warped wherever it spread. Within half an incense stick's time, it had swollen to an unimaginable size, its center pitch-black, as though connected to another dimension of chaos.
Humm-
After a low drone so deep it seemed to rise from the depths of the soul, countless figures surged out of the vortex. They were innumerable giant insects. Some had steel-like carapaces and legs that gleamed coldly like blades; others had membranous wings whose beating raised shrieks that tore through space; still others opened and closed their mouthparts, dripping mucus that corroded the surrounding meteorites into nothingness.
They filled the entire starry sky in a dense mass of flailing claws and snapping jaws. Stars shattered and nebulae dispersed in their wake as they bore down on Taibai Star, blotting out the heavens with a savage, baleful aura capable of destroying heaven