SKREEEEEEE—SCRAAAAAPE!
Three hundred feet above the bubbling, sizzling surface of the half-mile-wide Meteor-Iron Crater Wok, the Rank 8 Early Ten-Thousand-Foot Centipede King burned every drop of its four-thousand-year-old Star-Beast Qi to slam on the air brakes!
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-FLAP!
It cracked the golden tempura crust around its ten thousand knee joints and fanned all ten thousand sixty-foot legs backward like ten thousand frantic canoe paddles!
Sparks of purple-gold Star Qi flew off its belly as it skidded through the sky, finally coming to a dead stop just twenty feet above the rising steam of Old Guo’s 380-Degree Golden Sesame Oil!
The heat from the boiling sesame oil below turned the bottom layer of tempura batter on the Centipede King’s chin a gorgeous, crispy golden-brown.
Sniff-sniff!
The Centipede King smelled its own delicious, toasted garlic-butter chin, looked down at its reflection in the shimmering golden cooking oil, and shivered so violently that Sect Master Poison-Heart Old Freak—who was still baked inside a puffy batter snowman suit on top of the centipede’s head—was flung right off its forehead!
