The sky above Planet Canglan turned into a bruised, rotting purple.
High above the Central Continent, the five-mile golden quarantine bubble shuddered under a sudden, violent eruption of dark crimson lightning.
Inside the bubble, the three-mile steel hull of the Upper-Realm warship began to groan.
It was not the sound of a ship falling apart.
It was the sickening, grinding screech of cold metal being pulled apart and reassembled by dark, predatory runes.
The three-mile steel keel twisted like a writhing serpent. Metal armor plates peeled open, fusing with the blackened flesh of slaughtered crew members. Hundreds of plasma conduits ruptured, spewing streams of boiling blood-fuel into the air.
At the center of the collapsing bridge, Envoy Xue Sha had completely dissolved into the core terminal.
His flesh had become liquid chrome. His blackened ribs were welded directly to the ship’s main astral reactor. His single eye had been replaced by a glowing, skull-shaped holographic lens blaring emergency overdraft warnings:.
