Zephyria was no longer a beautiful, sweeping kingdom in the clouds.
As the massive floating city prepared for its suicide dive into the earth, the architecture violently reconfigured itself.
This wasn't a gentle adjustment. It was a brutal, militaristic lockdown.
"Retract the outer spires!" Lucifer barked over the comms rune, his voice booming through the grand hall.
Outside, the elegant, towering obsidian minarets that had defined the city's skyline began to grind downward. Ancient gears, reinforced by Thrain's hasty modifications, shrieked as they pulled the fragile towers flush against the bedrock.
The beautiful, open-air courtyards were sealed by massive, interlocking plates of thick, dark-matter-infused steel.
The ten thousand Cryo-Pylons ringing the perimeter did not retract. They shifted.
"Pylons angled down thirty degrees!" Vexia yelled, hovering near the Aether-Forge controls. "Sanguine Grid routing maximum coolant to the lower chassis!"
