The sound that followed was unlike anything ever produced by mortal warfare or sky decree.
It wasn’t a thunderclap. It wasn’t the boom of a shattering mountain or the screech of colliding flying swords. It was a rhythmic, wet, and extraordinarily ringing sound that echoed from the stratosphere down to the lowest granite caverns of the Grand Defile:
SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP!
High in the violet twilight, Lin Xiao tightened his elastic non-Newtonian mantle around the nine thrashing necks of the Starry Thunder Hydra. His five-mile funnel acted as a huge, high-pressure suction channel. Working with the boundless stomach empty pocket of his Primordial Chaos Void, he began drawing the mile-long star-fire stalks down into his internal dantian sea.
The Nine-Headed Hydra roared in cosmic agony, its huge star-fire heads twisting and thrashing to escape. But Lin Xiao’s grip was total. To him, the thrashing was nothing more than the springy pushback of freshly kneaded dough resisting the chopstick pull.
SLURP-SLURP-GULP!
With three giant, rhythmic contractions, the nine mile-long stalks were slurped down his gullet in one giant, entangled knot.
Ten miles away on Cloud-Piercing Pass, the thirty thousand crusaders listened to that sound monstrosity in numbed horror. Students looked at one another with wild, blank eyes.
