Location: Sky-Isle / Platinum Plaza.
Unfiltered sunlight poured onto the white marble of the plaza, a brightness so intense it felt like a physical assault on the eyes. Below lay a churning sea of clouds; above, a sky so perfectly azure. Thousands of Storm Clan nobles preened, extending their exquisite wings, the air saturated with the scent of expensive ambergris and gold dust. They laughed, clinked crystal glasses, and waited to witness a miracle.
Dressed in a stiff, brand-new dark blue formal suit, I stood on the periphery.
“Lord Alex,” Jasta whispered, checking his pocket watch for the third time in a minute. His face was as pale as parchment, and his bejeweled cane trembled in his grip. “According to my calculations, the load-bearing structure of this plaza does not account for the impact force of a ‘freefall.’ If we actually drop, our survival rate is statistically identical to that of an egg thrown off a cliff.”
“Shut up, Jasta,” I muttered. “We’re past the point of no return. If I fall... I’m grabbing you and using you as a cushion.”
Jasta huffed, turned away, and began a silent prayer to whatever Fox deity governed luck.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic rhythm of anxiety and nausea. The anticipation of destroying everything was sickening.
DONG—!
A long, resonant bell tone pierced the cloud layer.
10:00 AM sharp. A tsunami of cheers erupted from the crowd.
At the peak of the fervor, my eardrums popped.
All ambient sound vanished. Garza’s signal—the two-second acoustic vacuum. In that dead silence, I imagined an invisible, colossal wolf howling a soundless challenge at the floating city.
Two seconds passed. Sound returned. The cheering continued, oblivious to the glitch in reality.
From the sky, a massive pillar of azure light descended. Selena had arrived. Thousands of nobles bowed in unison toward the central altar. She didn't walk; she descended. Her massive, pristine wings were fully extended, every feather flowing with divine light. She held the Storm Scepter, her gaze a mix of pity and cold detachment.
Selena landed gently in the center of the altar and slotted the scepter into the console. A holographic projection unfurled above the plaza, displaying a real-time feed of the island’s underside—a massive, glowing red metal needle was slowly extending like a piston, aiming directly at the earth below.
“My subjects.” Selena’s voice bypassed the need for speakers, resonating directly in every mind. “The land below has rotted. The Creator abandoned it, leaving only chaos and filth.” She pointed downward, her eyes sharpening. “Beneath that abyss, the Ancient Dragon King—Valtharax—has slept for a millennium. He is the destroyer of the old era, the source of chaos.”
A murmur of fear rippled through the crowd.
Selena raised the scepter, her voice climbing to a crescendo. “But fear not! After centuries of research by our mages, we have mastered the technology to extract the power of the Ancient Dragon! Today, we drive this needle into his heart and drain his power before he can wake! We will sever the final link to the filthy earth! This power will lift us, establishing an Eternal Kingdom in this broken world!"
"Long live the Queen! Long live the Storm!”
Another wave of cheers erupted.
Precisely then, the vibration beneath our feet changed. The steady, low hum of the reactor shifted into a sharp, muddy grinding—a sound like a brick thrown into a washing machine.
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Last night, Sarak had secretly adjusted the balance weights on the core driveshaft. Under millions of tons of centrifugal force, that microscopic deviation was now being amplified exponentially.
“This vibration... feels wrong,” a noble muttered, looking down at the marble.
I said nothing. I wrapped my arms around a thick marble lamp-post and held on for dear life.
A sound like the spine of the sky snapping. Hundreds of high-tensile steel bolts connecting the left-side thrusters sheared simultaneously. The island, rising smoothly a moment ago, lost lift on its port side.
The world tilted.
Thirty degrees.
“AAAAAAH—!”
Screams detonated. The elegant formations of the plaza, the carefully stacked champagne towers, the heavy gold statues—gravity reclaimed them all. They slid like a landslide down the slick, polished marble floor, rushing toward the unprotected edge of the plaza.
This was five thousand meters up. There were no guardrails.
“Help me!”
“My wings! Why won't they open?!”
A young countess shrieked, her fingers bloody from clawing at the polished marble. She beat her pristine feathers until they bruised, but the wings remained locked and heavy—mere ornaments pinned to her spine.
She had forgotten. For decades, the Aviation Inhibitors embedded in the white pylons had ensured that no silhouette but Selena’s ever tainted the Sky-Isle’s horizon. It was a law of aesthetics, a biological leash that the Storm Clan had accepted as a mark of high society.
Now, that vanity had turned the plaza into a slaughter slide. The masters of the air were nothing more than excess baggage, sliding helplessly toward a five-thousand-meter grave because their Queen demanded a tidy sky.
I squeezed the lamp-post until my arms burned, my feet dangling in the air like a flag in a gale. Jasta reacted with survivalist speed, scrambling over and latching onto my leg, his nails digging into my flesh.
I looked down. Dozens of nobles who hadn't reacted in time slid past me, clawing desperately at the smooth stone before vanishing over the lip of the island into the cloud sea. The scene reminded me of the deck of the Titanic.
My stomach churned violently. I gasped for air, watching the horizon tilt further. If this continued, the island would flip, and we would all die.
Just as I thought we were about to plummet, it stopped.
The fall was arrested instantly. The inertia of the sudden stop nearly ejected my internal organs through my throat. Jasta and I were slammed against the lamp-post like ragdolls.
Wind. Endless wind. The chaotic airflow suddenly solidified, becoming as hard as steel.
I struggled to lift my head toward the altar.
Selena was still there. She hadn't fallen. She hovered in the tilted air, her mask of pity shattered, replaced by absolute fury and suffocating majesty. Her eyes burned with pure azure light, her hair whipping in a storm of her own making. She held her hands high, as if propping up the collapsing sky.
“RISE——!!!”
Below the island, the scattered cloud sea was torn apart and forcibly coalesced. It was magic—pure, unreasonable, brute-force magic. Billions of high-pressure hurricanes compressed into a solid form: a gargantuan, azure Hand of Wind. Larger than a mountain, it caught the crumbling city.
Steel groaned, rock cracked, but under the support of that Wind Hand, the fall stopped.
“ALEX!”
Selena looked down from her height, her gaze piercing the chaos and locking onto me clinging to the pillar. Her voice rolled like thunder, dripping with arrogant rage. “I know it was you! Is this your plan?! Did you think loosening a few screws would make a God fall?!”
The storm roared around her. The wind blades that should have been shredding intruders were all being diverted to maintain the Hand. She screamed, her arms pushing upward. The Wind Hand emitted a sonic boom, forcing the tilted island back toward level by a few degrees.
“I am the Storm Queen!! As long as I stand, this city will not sink! What can you do now?!”
I gasped for air, sweat stinging my eyes. She was strong. Terrifyingly strong. This was the Raid Boss of this world. This power... science couldn't explain it.
I peeked out from behind the pillar, swallowing hard.
“Unbelievable.” My legs felt weak. Facing a force that could single-handedly bench-press a city would make any mortal despair.
But...
I looked at her arms, strained and trembling against millions of tons of gravity. I looked at the veins bulging on her neck. She had caught the city. She was invincible.
But that meant she had turned herself into a living Load-Bearing Column. As long as she held on, she couldn't move a single step. She couldn't spare a hand to cast even a minor fireball.
Crack.
A fissure opened in the floor beneath my feet. Not just beneath me—across the entire plaza, deep cracks formed from the structural stress.
AWOOOOOO—!
A wolf's howl erupted from the depths. It was the sound of thousands of beasts, tortured by hunger and vengeance for too long, smashing their cages. Then a second howl. A third. Hundreds of bloodthirsty roars merged into a sonic wave more terrifying than the storm, erupting from the underground.
Next Chapter Intro: The Wolf Legion surges from the depths, turning the pristine plaza into a slaughterhouse. Selena is trapped in her own spell, forced to hold the island.
Question of the Day: Selena is immobilized by her own power. What is her biggest vulnerability right now?
(Click to choose)
?? A) Physical Fatigue.
Result: Endurance Test. If the Wolves kill her guards, she has to drop the city to defend herself. Mutually Assured Destruction.
?? B) Mana Depletion.
Result: Resource War. The Wind Hand consumes mana exponentially. If Alex cuts the connection to the Sun Stone, her spell fails instantly.
?? C) Psychological Shock.
Result: The Engineer's Choice. She believes she is a god. Shatter that belief by showing her that her "loyal dog" Garza is the one leading the charge. Panic induces mistakes.
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