When an Eastern blade's radiance cleaves the star diviner's prophetic crystal, and dwarven steam machinery smelts the cultivators' life-bound spirit jade, Ling Zhao and Ailiya face each other with blades drawn in the crumbling Black Market of Guixu. They have yet to realize that this encounter will unveil the apocalyptic wager sealed away for ten thousand years by the twin dragons of creation. Every breath taken by cultivators and mages counts down the final moments of this parallel universe, which teeters on the brink of annihilation.
Prologue: The Era of the Fallen Dragons
As the last dragon scale crumbled to dust in the void, Yinglong's left claw still clutched half of Bahamut's horn. Their blood congealed in the rift between dimensions, forming amber that would never fade. Eastern azure scales and Western golden patterns remained entwined within it for eternity.
“The 9,700th game...” Yinglong's battered tail swept across the starry chessboard, shattering three pieces that represented civilizations. “This time, the wager is [Fusion].”
The sole remaining eye of Bahamut reflected the collapsing space-time. “When their spiritual energy and magic touch...”
“...the dawn of a new era will break.” The twin dragons' final laughter became twelve chains of law, binding a certain chaos crystal sleeping in the heart of Guixu. On the crystal's surface, Eastern trigrams and Western runes slowly interlocked, too gradually for the naked eye to perceive.
