Early the next morning, at the newly built Green-Sprout Municipal Compost & Recycling Yard two miles behind the train station, a mountain of dead jungle leaves, rotten swamp wood, and leftover wheat stalks stood three hundred feet high.
Standing in front of the leaf mountain in their bright Reflective Yellow Debtor Vests were Locust Demon King Huang Tianba (released back to his twelve-foot humanoid bug size, though still wearing a heavy black-iron debtor collar) and his fifty surviving Rank 6 Locust Generals.
“My... my Lord Pei,” Huang Tianba stammered, holding his golden antennae in his hands as he looked at the three-hundred-foot pile of dead leaves and rotten tree bark. “I am the Golden-Winged Locust Demon King, a dignified Rank 7 Planetary Overlord! Even if I owe you eight hundred million Spirit Stones, you can send me to fight space monsters or pull train cars! How can you ask this King to eat dead leaves and... and poop fertilizer?!”
Behind him, the fifty Rank 6 Locust Generals nodded tearfully, clutching their yellow vests in shame.
“Yeah! If word gets out in the Star Sector that the terrifying Golden-Winged Locust Gang is working as a manure factory, how will we ever hold our heads up in front of the Star Pirates?!”
