The sound of twenty-two thousand pounds of pressure of white-hot steam venting through a tuned bronze relief valve didn’t look like a mortal whistle.
It sounded like the roar of an enraged sky dragon having its throat cleared by a heavy-duty sandblaster.
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
A blinding, blazing bright jet of pure white vapor—high-pressure at five times the yield strength of ordinary cast iron and heated to eight hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit—erupted from the bypass discharge port of Jiang Ling’er’s pipe hub.
The column of steam screamed into the northern spatial projection mirrors, visible to every mortal and fighter across three empires.
“The Primordial Sky Fire!” an ancient grand elder from the Pure Yang Temple shrieked. He fell backward from his seat and grabbed his stitched sleeves. “The fiery core has breached the crust! The white-hot breath of the underground demon-serpent will scorch the capital city into ash! Flee! The northern continent will be swallowed by steam and magma!”
Across the terraces of Tongtian Apex, three hundred high-stage sect elders scrambled to their feet, summoning flying swords and defensive barrier magic charms in blind, disorganized panic.
Princess Jiang Ling’er didn’t even blink.
