KABOOM! CRACK-THOOM!
Star-Train No. 1 glided down along the glowing golden Sword-Qi rail that Ye Guhan had sliced right onto the flat plateau of Central Peak Number One—the widest black-iron mountain range on Thunder-Peak Planet.
Outside the insulated train windows, the ground was a scorching wasteland of magnetized black rock. Every three seconds, a bolt of Rank 7 Purple Sky-Thunder as thick as an ancient oak tree slammed into the cliffside fifty yards from the tracks, sending up a shower of violet sparks and melting the surface rock into bubbling red puddles.
High up on the cliffs around the plateau, thousands of Thunder-Feather Storm-Hawks perched on jagged iron ledges. These birds were the size of warhorses, with razor-sharp beaks and feathers that crackled with blue-and-purple electric arcs.
“Squawk! Look at those crazy two-legged worms!” a Rank 6 Hawk Captain laughed, flapping his sparking wings as a bolt of purple lightning struck his back and made his feathers glow brighter. “They brought an iron box into the Purple Thunder Gorge! Wait until they open the door—the static air alone will fry their lungs into charcoal!”
“Captain, shouldn’t we dive down and rob their shiny copper spools now?” a younger hawk asked, eyeing the rear flatcars greedily.
