Site eight's assault was scheduled for day two hundred and eighty-four. The intelligence briefing indicated moderate defensive infrastructure, possible S-rank guardian presence, and—critically—proximity to civilian population centers. The site had manifested within two kilometers of a farming community with approximately three hundred permanent residents.
Standard Guild protocol was to evacuate civilians before major rift operations. But the Cascading Dawn had apparently anticipated this. When the evacuation order was issued, the community's residents refused to leave.
Not because they were being threatened or coerced. Because the rift had been generating stable, valuable mana concentrations that local mana farmers had been harvesting for three weeks. The node's presence had created economic opportunity that the community was actively utilizing. Destroying it meant destroying that economic value.
