CLANG—CLANG—CLANG!
Across the heart of Solar System No. 100, the nine million-mile chains of ancient divine bronze that linked the nine ancestral suns together pulled taut with a sound that shattered comets into powder.
Atop the Nine-Sun Ancestral Altar, Patriarch Jin Taiyang bit the tip of his tongue and spat a mouthful of boiling, golden sovereign blood straight onto the central rune-pillar of the altar. Around him, ten thousand fanatical Golden-Crow Royal Guards dropped to their knees, pouring every drop of their Rank 6 and Rank 7 Fire Qi into the ancient floor carvings.
“Awaken, Nine-Sun World-Melting Formation!” Patriarch Jin Taiyang roared, his three golden eyes blazing like miniature supernovas as his white-hot hair whipped around his crown. “For a hundred thousand years, my Golden-Crow Clan has ruled these one hundred stars through fire and fear! If this humble mayor thinks he can walk in here with soup pots and paper bills to take my planets, then I will leave him nothing but melted slag!”
Down on the deck of Dry-Well Express No. 1, Supreme Elder Jin Bao clutched the collar of his pink ducky bathrobe and gasped in horror, his face turning as pale as flour.
“He’s completely lost his mind to the Ancestral Fire-Madness!” Jin Bao shouted, pointing up at the nine blinding suns as giant crimson magic circles—each three million miles wide—lit up around the equator of every star. “Lord Pei! That’s the Nine-Sun World-Melting Formation! When our first ancestor built that array, he ran buried fire-conduits…
