The crushing weight of sixty thousand collapsed galaxies pressed down upon the fleet.
The heavy, suffocating aura of the 100,000-Epoch Compound-Interest Carapace turned the void into a swamp of lead. Across the decks of the Sovereign Aurora, the white-gold merit armor of the crew flared brightly. The metal groans of the hull echoed through the ship under ten thousand times normal gravitational force.
High above, the Chairman’s billion red eyes glowed with sickening yellow usury runes.
“SUBMIT TO THE LAWS OF COMPOUND DEBT,” the Chairman’s mechanical voice echoed across thirty-three heavens. “EVERY BLOW YOU STRIKE IS MULTIPLIED TEN THOUSAND TIMES AND REFLECTED ONTO YOUR OWN MERIDIAN SYSTEMS. PHYSICAL FORCE IS FUTILE AGAINST UNPAID INTEREST.”
On the terrace, former Second Director Hei-Zhang clung to the bars of the cage, nodding with desperate fever:
“That’s the Compound-Interest Carapace! You can’t break it with weapons! If you hit it with an axe, the recoil will crush your own spine! That’s how our bank broke eighty thousand ancient god-kings!”
Beside him, former First Director Mo-Suan squeezed his eyes shut, his neon-yellow vest trembling against his ribs.
“Every punch returns with interest,” Mo-Suan muttered with a sickly grin. “Hit it with ten tons, and you get hit back with one hundred thousand tons! It is the perfect defensive algorithm!”
