Tension rose immediately as the Scarlet King and the Crimson Exarch faced one another.
It was neither spoken nor announced—but everyone present felt it. The atmosphere itself grew heavy, charged with an invisible pressure that pressed down on the battlefield like an approaching storm.
The Crimson Exarch had earned a great deal of goodwill among the troops. No one could deny that, without his strength and leadership, the Nine Empyrean Suns Alliance might have already collapsed under the relentless assault of the Curse Eaters.
Yet admiration was not the same as loyalty.
When it came to that, there was no comparison.
That loyalty belonged to Cain.
He was the one who had united armies from different Empyrean Worlds. He was the one who had broken through millennia of racial prejudice and forged a single, cohesive force. He had led them into the Heart of the Root and halted the advance of the armies from the Emptiness.
He was their king.
