Pirate Queen Hong Ye woke up with a splitting headache right between her eyebrows.
That was the exact spot where the young mayor in the gray cloth robe had flicked her with one finger after crushing her hundred-mile Crimson Star-Splitting Saber Wave like a cheap sparkler.
“Bastard!” Hong Ye roared, trying to leap to her feet and summon her forty-foot Blood-Dragon Saber.
Clink-rattle!
Heavy black-iron chains forged on Black-Iron Moon pulled her arms and ankles tight, dropping her right back down onto a tiny red plastic stool. Her knees came all the way up to her chest. For a terrifying Rank 7 Peak Pirate Queen who had ruled the outer star lanes from a throne made of giant beast skulls, sitting on a six-inch-tall plastic stool was worse than getting stabbed in the ribs.
She shook her head to clear her vision and glared around the room.
She was not in a dark blood-dungeon, nor was she tied to an execution pillar over a pit of demon fire. Instead, she was sitting inside a bright, white-painted hall that smelled faintly of lemon floor soap and fresh ink. Across the front wall hung a long red cloth banner with neat golden words sewn onto it:
