Audit-Lord Vaelen’s trembling hand slammed down onto the golden bull distress beacon.
CRACK!
A blinding column of iridescent crimson light punched through the shattered roof of the flight bridge. The beam drilled through the stratosphere, piercing deep into the subspace ether and screaming toward the distant galactic core at infinite velocity.
The distress beacon was forged from condensed starlight diamond and engraved with the private crest of Ancestor Tian Li. It was designed to pierce twenty spatial dimensions, carrying priority emergency distress signals directly into the executive suites of the Central Milky-Way Exchange Ring.
Vaelen threw his head back, laughing like a madman as golden blood trickled from his lips.
“It is done!” Vaelen shrieked, his voice echoing across the open void. “The signal has been transmitted to the Supreme Bullion VIP Lounge on Galactic Wall Street! The Seven Galactic Usury Dao-Ancestors have received my emergency priority alert!”
Vaelen pointed a shaking, blood-stained finger down at Lin Mo and the Sovereign Aurora.
“You think you won because you broke fifty cruisers?” Vaelen spat, his eyes bulging with hysteria. “Those fifty ships were just local collection bailiffs! Tomorrow morning, the Grand Galactic Foreclosure Armada will jump into this sector! Ten thousand planet-cracker dreadnoughts! Dao-Lord Ancestor Tian Li will personally harvest your stars! And those five hundred orphan galaxies you care about? The Turtle Galaxy under Old Master Xuan will be reduced to cosmic gravel before noon!”
