CREEEEEEAK—GRIIIIIND!
High up in the northern sky above Galaxy #350, the hundred-light-year Heaven-Reaping Gate was closing fast!
The two colossal doors—forged from Upper-World Divine Gold and ancient white jade dragon-bones—had already swung from a hundred-light-year opening down to a narrow ten-light-year gap. Inside the Upper World on the other side of the portal, the automatic gate-closing arrays of the Heaven-Reaping Ministry had sensed that General Jin Ge’s flagship was no longer transmitting its command signal, and twelve giant golden spring-hinges on the sides of the frame were pulling the doors shut with the force of a thousand collapsing stars!
Down on the observation catwalk of Black-Hole Sewer Pipe #1, former Upper-World scout Lord Kui—who had just come up for air carrying a bucket of scrubbed slag—looked up at the closing portal and clapped his hands in relief.
“Thank goodness! The Heaven-Reaping Gate is closing on its own!” Lord Kui shouted happily toward Pei Xuan’s platform. “Lord Pei! Once those two golden doors click shut, the spatial coordinates between the Upper World and our northern cluster will seal back up for at least three years! Chief Sha Tian won’t even be able to peek down here to see what happened to General Jin Ge’s fleet!”
