The sky over the Divine Dragon Kingdom isn't blue; it's gold. Kaguya Akemono Yume stands on the balcony of the Jade Spire, watching the Divine Emperor's fleet arrive. Not as guests, but as executioners. We see the majesty of the dragon riders before they are swarmed by the Emperor's "Heavenly Void" technology. The chapter ends with the first explosion hitting the palace gates. Kaguya went a livee Dragon Kingdom.
he sky over the Divine Dragon Kingdom wasn't blue; it's gold. A shimmering, liquid amber that had protected the realm for ten thousand years. Kaguya Akemono Yume stood on the balcony of the Jade Spire, her knuckles white as she gripped the cold railing. Below her, the capital city of Ryujin was a masterpiece of white stone and flowing water, but the atmosphere was thick with the scent of ozone and impending doom.
The horizon cracked. It wasn't a natural storm, but a mechanical tear in reality. Out of the rift emerged the fleet of the Heavenly Demon Empire. These weren't the wooden junks of old legends, but massive, obsidian-plated dreadnoughts powered by "Heavenly Void" technology. They hummed with a low, dissonant frequency that made Kaguya's dragon blood boil with instinctive revulsion.
"They aren't here to negotiate," Kaguya whispered, her voice lost in the sudden roar of the Dragon Horns.
From the floating peaks around the palace, the Dragon Riders took flight. Thousands of emerald, azure, and crimson dragons rose like a living wall of scales and fire. It was a sight of absolute majesty—until the Demon Fleet opened their hangars. Thousands of metallic, spider-like drones swarmed out, propelled by dark gravity engines. The "Heavenly Void" beams cut through the sky, erasing the dragons' fire breath mid-air and turning the majestic beasts into falling cinders.
The Clash of Sovereigns
Then, the air pressure dropped so sharply that the jade floor beneath Kaguya's feet began to spider-web.
From the highest terrace of the palace, a beam of pure solar light shot upward. Long Xuantian, the Divine Dragon Emperor, ascended. He did not need a mount; he was the dragon. Clad in armor forged from the heart of a dying star, his cape billowed like a solar flare.
Opposing him, standing on the prow of the largest dreadnought, was Yuan Shi Tian. The Heavenly Demon Emperor was draped in shadows that seemed to eat the surrounding light. He held a staff of Void-Iron, tipped with a pulsing, violet core.
"Long Xuantian!" Yuan Shi Tian's voice echoed through the minds of every living soul in the city. "Your era of 'Balance' is a cage. The Void offers true freedom—the freedom of nothingness!"
"You speak of freedom while wielding the chains of a parasite, Yuan Shi Tian," Long Xuantian countered. He raised his hand, and the Nine Dragon Seals appeared behind him in a halo of blinding gold.
The Battle of Gods
The collision was instantaneous. Long Xuantian lunged forward, his movement a blur of golden light. He struck with the Dragon's Palm: Heaven-Shattering Impact. The force of the blow created a shockwave that leveled the outer spires of the city instantly.
Yuan Shi Tian didn't flinch. He raised his Void-Iron staff, creating a localized black hole that swallowed the kinetic energy of the blow. "Is that the strength of the True Dragon? It tastes like a fading memory."
The Demon Emperor countered with Void Art: Thousand Souls Devour. From his shadow, thousands of spectral, mechanical arms reached out, each tipped with a needle of dark energy. They lashed out at Long Xuantian, seeking to drain his immortality.
Long Xuantian let out a primal roar. His human form flickered, replaced by the gargantuan silhouette of a Golden Ancestral Dragon. The sky turned from gold to a violent, burning white. He unleashed the Divine Dragon Breath, a torrent of white-hot plasma intended to melt the very atoms of the Demon Fleet.
But Yuan Shi Tian was prepared. He tapped into the "Heavenly Void" core of his flagship. A barrier of negative matter expanded, turning the holy fire into harmless sparks.
"Your fire requires oxygen, Long Xuantian. My Void requires... nothing," Yuan Shi Tian sneered. He teleported directly onto the Golden Dragon's back, driving his staff into the scales. The Void energy began to liquefy the Emperor's divine armor, turning gold into black sludge.
The Ultimate Sacrifice
Kaguya watched in horror as her father, the invincible protector of her childhood, screamed in agony. The golden blood of a god rained down upon the city like molten metal.
"Father!" Kaguya's own dragon aura flared, but a group of palace guards held her back. "Princess, you must go! The Emperor's orders!"
High above, Long Xuantian realized he could not win this battle of attrition. The Heavenly Demon Empire had spent centuries perfecting technology specifically designed to negate Dragon Qi. If he died normally, Yuan Shi Tian would harvest his core and become a True God of Destruction.
"Kaguya... look away," Long Xuantian's voice whispered in her heart.
The Golden Dragon coiled around the main Demon Dreadnought. He began to glow with a terrifying, rhythmic pulse. He was forced to use the Forbidden Art: Final Rebirth of the Sun. He was turning his own life essence into a supernova.
"You fool!" Yuan Shi Tian's calm facade finally broke into a mask of rage. "You would destroy your own kingdom just to spite me?"
"I am not destroying it," Long Xuantian's voice was calm, even as his body began to dissolve into pure photons. "I am hiding it from your filth."
The Fall of the Gate
As Long Xuantian detonated his soul, the resulting explosion didn't just kill; it warped space-time. The blinding light forced Yuan Shi Tian to retreat into the Void, his fleet taking massive damage as obsidian hulls cracked like eggshells.
The shockwave hit the Jade Spire. Kaguya was thrown back as the very foundation of her world crumbled. Through the smoke and the falling debris of the palace, she saw the first of the Demon Empire's ground troops—the Void-Walkers—stepping through the flames.
The golden sky was gone. In its place was a bruised purple, choked with the smoke of a burning civilization. The majestic Dragon Kingdom of Ryu-No-Kuni had officially fallen.
Kaguya scrambled through the ruins, her lungs burning. Amidst the screams of the dying and the mechanical hum of the invaders, she saw it—the Emperor's personal escape pod that had crashed into the royal nursery during the fight. Inside wasn't a weapon, but a bundle of white cloth.
The son of the man who had just murdered her father.
Kaguya looked at the infant, then at the burning gates of her home. The first explosion hit the main Palace Gate, shattering the ancient Dragon Seal into a million pieces.
"The Dragon Kingdom is dead," she whispered, her eyes turning a cold, sharp silver. "But its pride will live on in your blood."
She scooped up the child and vanished into the shadows just as the Heavenly Demon soldiers breached the inner sanctum. The True Dragon Goddess was now a ghost, and her journey into the unknown had begun.