CHAPTER 190 — WAR ROOM UNDER A JADE SKY
The emerald beam did not just strike.
It erased.
A line of incandescent jade tore across the sky and carved through forty kilometers of landscape before dispersing into the upper atmosphere. Mountains sheared in half. A transmission tower vaporized without debris. The air along the beam's path crystallized momentarily into suspended green shards before shattering like glass.
Across the nation, alarms detonated simultaneously.
Air raid sirens wailed.
Emergency broadcasts cut into every channel.
The Jade Dragon's silhouette loomed across live feeds—massive, ancient, impossible.
In underground command bunkers, hardened war rooms, and secure military facilities across the continent, officers stared at screens that refused to make sense.
General Arvind Rao stood in the central defense command chamber, a cavernous room carved deep beneath reinforced granite. The ceiling vibrated faintly from distant tectonic tremors.
He did not blink.
