Early the next morning, the Spirit-Furnace Star-Train steamed across the newly carved fifty-thousand-mile wormhole bridge from World 15 and pulled onto the wide central plains of World 16: The Mega-Farm Zone.
At least, the map said it was a flat plain.
Looking out from the train platform, Pei Xuan couldn’t see a single inch of flat ground. For ten thousand miles in every direction, World 16 was buried under a tangled, thirty-foot-deep blanket of rusted flying swords, bent iron halberds, broken chariot axles, and dented bronze breastplates.
Over the centuries, rain and wind had rusted the millions of discarded weapons together into a solid, jagged crust of tetanus and sharp edges.
Out in front of the train station, General Tie Zhan stood shirtless on top of a rusted siege tower, his bronze muscles gleaming with sweat as he bellowed orders through an iron megaphone.
“One, two, heave! Put your backs into it, you lazy pirates!” Tie Zhan roared, chewing on a fist-sized steamed pork bun between words. “Anyone who clears fifty wheelbarrows of rusty swords before lunch gets an extra ladle of braised pork gravy on their rice! Anyone who slacks off gets fifty squats with a boulder on their shoulders!”
