Chapter 97 - The Crystal Queen’s Fall

The ninety-first dawn roared over Kael El's Ashen Empire with a searing golden blaze, the vast dominion shaking with war's pulse. The capital's skyline towered—bone steel keeps dwarfed by the Golden Colossus, its hundred-meter frame a radiant titan, core pulsing an erratic violet-gold that cast glitching shadows across the plaza. Kael stood atop the eastern outpost's ramparts, 1,200 kilometers from home, Stormforged Blade in hand, shard-pommel screaming like a war horn. EX: Dragonflame Reaver glowed at his hip, Stormhide Armor scorched and dented, Myra's beams and Lyra's chaos burning in his grazed shoulder. His flirty smirk blazed, a cool dominance masking a raw fury—the lieutenant's truth, the "Error Rift," and Myra's defiance fueled his blood. He flexed EX: Gold Dominion, golden veins surging through the stone, molten now, answering the shard's jagged song.