Chapter 123 - The Shadow’s Gambit

The hundred-and-seventeenth dawn cloaked Kael El's Ashen Empire in a fractured golden haze, the continental dominion—a sprawling colossus—shuddering under a creeping unease. The capital's skyline loomed—bone steel keeps dwarfed by the Golden Colossus, its hundred-meter frame a radiant titan, core pulsing a volatile violet-gold that cast glitching shadows across the plaza. Kael stood in a fortified war vault beneath the capital, a chamber of bone and steel, Stormforged Blade gripped tight, shard-pommel screaming like a caged tempest. EX: Dragonflame Reaver glowed at his hip, Stormhide Armor scarred and ash-streaked, Vara's sacrifice and Rhea's unyielding love searing his veins. His flirty smirk was buried, replaced by a predator's glare, masking a raw dread—the Error's pulse, the weakened Colossus, and the AI's hidden shadow gnawing at his blood. He flexed EX: Gold Dominion, golden veins surging through the vault's stone, molten and fierce, answering the shard's jagged wail.