Waazi rises out of the ocean, having been summoned to the Material Plane
The Sundering of the World was the apocalyptic cataclysm which ended the Third Age and the Octarchy. It was a magical ruination which literally broke the world apart. It is believed that the inhabitants of Armiloth enacted a ritual to gain forbidden knowledge from Waazi, inadvertently summoning Its avatar and causing It to wreak havoc upon the world. During the Sundering, the Elohim were awakened from Their healing slumber in El-Asil by a group of forgotten heroes, allowing them to awaken Bouwen and attempt to protect the Beldkind.
Following the Sundering, Bouwen was awoken for a second time. They sundered each of the eight cities to ruin and scattered their peoples across the world. Using magic, Beld and Tover hid the eight cities from the eyes of the Beldkind to prevent them from being rediscovered by mankind.
The Sundering is speculated to have had a catastrophic effect on the fabric of time. There are more civilizations of the Third Age which had died out or greatly diminished by the Sundering than the accepted timeline of events (based on Kardunashi records) has room for, implying that the summoning of the avatar of one of the El Shaddai may have catastrophically influenced the timeline of the world, wiping many civilizations from time itself while leaving their effects on the world intact.