BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Fifty miles beneath the surface of the Red-Sand Wastes, right in the middle of Planet Canglan’s golden magma core, a giant blood-red light flashed on the side of the ten-mile-tall Planetary Spirit-Draining Nail.
Every time the light blinked, a booming voice echoed across the underground cavern like two iron mountains slamming together:
“WARNING! TAX TANK ROBBED! NEGATIVE THREE HUNDRED JADE CHAIRS DETECTED! SELF-DESTRUCT CORE MELTDOWN INITIATED! TIME UNTIL PLANETARY ANNIHILATION: NINE DAYS, TWENTY-THREE HOURS, FIFTY-EIGHT MINUTES!”
General Tie Zhan nearly choked on the spicy mutton bun in his mouth. He coughed twice, pounded his broad chest with a gauntlet, and stared up at the pulsing purple-black pillar that vanished into the rock ceiling ten miles above their heads.
“Lord Pei!” Tie Zhan shouted over the ear-splitting alarm. “This Upper-Realm tax collector is a sore loser! We just drank his ninety-nine years of stolen Qi and sucked a few hundred jade tables out of his living room, and now he wants to blow up the whole planet?!”
Beside him, Abacus Su adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles and furiously clacked the beads of his Rank 6 Golden Core abacus. Rather than looking scared, the former sect bookkeeper looked deeply offended.
