The early morning was dark, as it always was in the Vampire State.
There was no sun to herald the start of a new day.
Instead, the sky simply shifted—from the deep, impenetrable black of midnight to a slightly softer shade of dark that signaled the passage of time. Faint silver light bled through the clouds like a wound that refused to close, and the air was sharper than usual.
Colder, too.
It was the kind of morning that demanded you be awake for a reason.
And today, there were plenty of reasons.
The gathering point was a wide expanse of flat terrain at the outermost edge of the Crimson City's borders, where the paved roads gave way to cracked, untamed earth.
The Shattered Road.
It was a transitional zone—neither city nor wilderness—and it felt appropriately in-between for an occasion such as this.
The Mutated Mountain Range loomed in the far distance.
