The empty pocket of the high void didn’t carry sound, but through the medium of condensed astral ether, the shrieking of sky battle claxons rang like screaming iron whistles across the stars.
Fifty miles above the mortal world. There, the golden cloud mantle formed a flat, endless horizon below, the five hundred war galleons of the Heavenly Tribulation Court shifted into motion. Huge hulls cast from sun-refined brass began to pivot with heavy, rhythmic driving force. Their three-story stern castles glowed with intense golden sigils. Internal forward thrust arrays flared to life. Great bronze rudders sliced through the thin ether, leaving trails of sparkling solar dust in their wake.
Aboard the flagship Radiant Solar Sovereign, Celestial Envoy Bai Ming clutched the gold-trimmed dragon stone railing so hard that his knuckles were bone-white. His tall jade coronet sat slightly crooked upon his brow, knocked askew. Just then, the bone-shaking blast wave of Lin Xiao’s cloud breach rattled the ship’s keel.
“Impossible!” Bai Ming shrieked, his voice pitching into a frantic rasp that made his honor guards wince beneath their visors. “They were given seventy-two hours! They were supposed to be weeping in the northern plains! They were supposed to be slaughtering their cattle and begging our pardon with carts of spirit stones! How did mortal vermin breach the Golden Cloud Barrier? How did they survive the Total ruin Field?”
