Several hours later, as evening bled into night, a lone fishing boat crept through the smoke-choked waters toward the burning coast. Its sail was lowered long before it neared the shore, the old man aboard unwilling to be seen by whatever caused the scene laid out before him.
He watched in silent horror as Ardor smoldered—towers collapsed, canals boiling, the glow of fire painting the clouds a sickened red. Everything he had loved, everything he had known, lay broken before him.
Then he saw it.
The figure hovered above the harbor, unmoving, cloaked in deep blue, the air itself bending around its presence. A weight pressed down upon the old man's chest, stealing his breath as glowing eyes fixed upon him from beneath the figure's hood.
A voice followed—calm, absolute.
"Go," it commanded. "Bear witness. Speak of what you have seen this day."
The old man trembled, frozen in place.
"The Third Reaper of Souls…," the voice continued. "Prima Rosé has ended the Kingdoms of Man."
The fisherman collapsed backward into his boat, gasping as though the sea itself had surged into his lungs. The pressure mounted with every heartbeat, crushing, merciless—until, just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone.
The figure vanished into the night, leaving only a faint green trace in the air where it had hovered.
Alone. Broken. Afraid.
With nothing left to anchor him to the shore, the old man turned his boat now facing the treacherous outer sea—toward the dark continent and the world beyond.
He would spread the word.
He would speak the truth.
Even if no one believed him.