The next morning, the golden sword-beam tracks of the Spirit-Furnace Star-Train descended from the orbital shipyard and curved smoothly down through the smoky atmosphere of Planet #38-A—the central forge-world of the Heavy-Metal Cluster.
For the past three hundred years, Planet #38-A had been a living hell for the five billion miners trapped inside its ten thousand deep volcanic iron-pits. Because the planet orbited a dim, erratic red-brown star, the surface was freezing cold, while the deep subterranean mine shafts were choked with poisonous sulfur gas, black rust-dust, and blistering magma vents.
Under Warlord Tie Kuang’s old laws, every man, woman, and teenager had to swing a forty-pound iron pickaxe for twenty hours a day just to earn two bowls of sour millet gruel.
Today, however, as the gleaming brass locomotive pulled into the central square of Deep-Pit District #1 with a cheerful CHO-CHOO!, five million soot-covered miners stood outside the mine shafts in stunned silence.
First down the train ramp walked Old Wei, swinging his Planet-Cleaving Black Broadsword once through the air.
SHING-CLINK-CLINK-CLINK!
A gentle wave of golden blade-light swept across the entire ten-mile mining valley, slicing the heavy iron ankle-chains off all five million miners at the exact same instant without scratching a single ankle!
