The terrifying reality unfolding directly beneath them was vastly, infinitely worse than anything they had previously believed.
Selthia wasn't defeated.
Ren's autonomous towers hadn't beaten her. The mutant strikes against the Great Wall, the Platinum decoy in the Southwest sector, the meticulously probing of his defensive grid, all of it had been nothing but secondary, performative noise. It was a massive distraction playing out on the surface, while her true operation was being quietly executed down here in the dark, miles away from the Vanguard's prying eyes.
Selthia had been dedicating the absolute vast majority of her real military power to an entirely different front from the very beginning.
And that hidden front was marching straight toward Yano's remaining dragons.
Ren and Zhao pushed fast through the invisible atmospheric barrier of the ring's frontier, crossing directly into the Platinum 2 ring.
