[TIME REMAINING UNTIL PERMANENT STAR-GATE COLLAPSE: 00:00:07... 00:00:06...]
At the top apex of the fifty-mile-wide Ancient Orbital Star-Gate, the core self-destruct glyph planted by the Heavenly Script Pavilion swelled into a blinding, twenty-mile sphere of compressed purple-black annihilation energy!
A cold, automated mechanical voice from the Upper Realm’s Central Archive echoed across the vacuum of space, broadcasting simultaneously through every spiritual frequency on Planet Canglan:.
*“[Warning: Planetary Harvest Target #4,092 (Canglan) has resisted Upper-Realm Envoys. Executing Final Purge Protocol. In five seconds, the Orbital Star-Gate Keystone will detonate, collapsing local space-time into a Class-9 Dead Zone for ten thousand years.
Have a compliant day.]”*
“Compliant my foot!” White-Tiger Patriarch Hu Lie roared from Tiger Ridge down on the planet’s surface, shaking his massive fist at the sky screen while two billion citizens held their breath. “Guardian Gu! Smash that obnoxious voice right in its teeth!”
Up in high orbit, three-year-old Ao Xing’s ten-thousand-mile Silver Void Dragon body strained with every muscle to. Keep the two buckling halves of the fifty-mile stone arch from snapping shut before his father could arrive.
“Dada! Hurry! The purple ball is getting super fat!” Little Fifth bellowed, his silver dragon horns shooting sparks against the swelling annihilation sphere right above his head.
