The world was about to end.
Eleven hundred years ago, after observing the transformative cycle of the Four Great Elements and their gradual decline, the Great Scholar Borel made a prophecy. He declared that the world would be plunged into an abyss of destruction within two hundred years, all because the Elements were destined to stagnate completely.
However, for the first ten years after the prophecy emerged, the world paid it no mind. Borel was a Great Scholar acknowledged by the Four Great Kingdoms, wielding power that was Near God. Had he prophesied the destruction of a single kingdom, no one would have thought it strange. They might even have believed him unconditionally.
After all, as a Near-God Powerhouse, Borel's strength was great enough that he could single-handedly topple a kingdom. If his prophecy proved false and he, furious from the humiliation, decided to fulfill it himself—well, that wouldn't have been surprising at all.
