WHOOOOOOSH—CRACK!
On the surface of Wind-Scar Planet, the Great Northern Plain was a frozen hell of black gravel and screaming grey tornadoes.
Because the planet’s core had been over-mined for Wind-Spirit Jade by the Astral Wind Sect for four hundred years, the natural atmosphere had turned into millions of tiny, freezing wind-needles. Every breath a mortal took felt like swallowing crushed ice, and anyone who stayed outside without a spirit shield for more than two hours would lose a toe to black frostbite.
Yet right now, over five hundred million miners—clutching their shivering children wrapped in tattered burlap grain sacks—were standing around the edge of Mining Pit #1, staring up at the dark grey sky with trembling hope.
“Uncle Chen, do you think the Golden Train will really come down here?” a ten-year-old girl named Little Dou asked, her lips blue from the freezing gale as she tucked her bare, frostbitten toes under her ragged hem. “The Wind Sect overseers always said that immortal lords only live up in the clean clouds because our mining mud smells dirty...”
Old Hammer Chen took off his own patched vest and wrapped it around Little Dou’s shoulders, even though his own scarred arms instantly broke out in goosebumps.
