The silence following the explosion was absolute.
A five-hundred-mile gap had been violently torn into the impenetrable Aegis Wall. The outer districts of the Kentari capital were a smoldering ruin of melted durasteel and pulverized silver spires.
The atmosphere of the Ringworld, previously sealed perfectly within the barrier, was bleeding slowly out into the vacuum of space, creating a swirling, atmospheric mist around the breach.
Lucifer stood on Isolde's neck as the massive Crystalline White Dragon hovered above the devastation.
Zephyria sailed smoothly through the breach. The five-mile-wide floating city entered the atmosphere of the Ringworld, its pitch-black Void-shield cutting cleanly through the dissipating smoke of the nuclear blast.
Lucifer didn't order the city to bombard the remaining structures. He didn't order the mortal army to deploy.
He was looking closely at the massive crater his bombs had created.
