>>13509https://gaslightchronicles.com/history/theblackeningThis epoch was defined not by the glitz of human ingenuity, but by an insatiable, omnipresent conflagration, a hellfire stoked by mankind's voracious appetite for expansion and an unyielding pursuit of "progress". This was the progress that, in its myopic quest for profits, only served to feed the flames, accelerating the devastation rather than curbing it. Every corner of the world became a crematorium, an unforgiving funeral pyre for nature's finest marvels. Flames of epic proportions danced across the planet, leaping with unfathomable hunger from tree to tree, consuming the once verdant forests in their fiery maws, reducing the vibrant flora to grim monoliths of charred remains. Charred corpses of once sprawling oaks, brisling pines and magnificent redwoods now stood as nothing more than gravestones in a vast no man's land.
The jungles, those lush arteries of life, fell silent under the flames' ruthless march. Once teeming with an orchestra of life's finest melodies, their symphony was silenced, their vibrancy replaced by the grotesque pallor of ash and death. What was green had turned to grey. What was beautiful became ugly. What was pure became tainted. It was a sight that would break the most hardened of hearts, a grim monument to mankind's blind and unyielding ambition. The ambition of growth, at any cost.