The next morning at dawn, out on the newly opened construction frontier of Inter-Galactic Wormhole Tunnel #288, the sound of rhythmic chanting and crashing rock echoed across the dark void:
“One, two, swing the spear! Crush the gravel, keep it clear! Three, four, tamp it flat! Work off our royal belly fat!”
BOOM! CRASH! CLANG! CLANG!
Standing at the head of a ten-mile-wide asteroid-gravel quarry inside the wormhole tunnel were Emperor Zhao Wuji, Prince Zhao Lie, Grand Duke Zhao Yan, and ten thousand dukes, marquises, and young masters of the Nine-Suns Royal Clan!
Every single one of the ten thousand former aristocrats was dressed in a bright neon-yellow Debtor Vest over durable blue canvas work-overalls, with a yellow construction hard hat strapped neatly over their hair-buns.
At the very front of the line stood former Emperor Zhao Wuji.
His prized Collapsed Neutron-Star Spear—after being thoroughly washed of barbecue sauce after yesterday’s cattle roast—had been slightly modified by Boom-Pot Sun: a heavy, flat rectangular block of black-hole iron had been welded onto the tip of the spear, turning the supreme Rank 9 Late divine lance into a Super-Heavy Gravel-Crushing Sledgehammer!
standing on a floating platform just above the royal work crew was Ye Guhan, Chief Engineer of the Inter-Galactic Wormhole Paving Division, holding his Tunnel-Slicing Ruler like a conductor’s baton while the former Milky Way Sword Emperor walked down the line with a level-gauge.
