In the spring of 850 CE, a pill furnace exploded in the Daming Palace. The deafening blast shook Chang'an, and Emperor Xuanzong ordered the palace gates shut for seven days. When they opened, the world had changed: the natural order was overturned, and history officially diverged from that moment on. More than a thousand years later, the world has strayed so far from its proper course that it is showing signs of collapse, and chaos reigns everywhere.
