Ahead of the thousand-foot silver Void Dragon’s horns, the entrance to the Broken-Tooth Asteroid Belt loomed like a row of jagged grey shark teeth across the star-lane.
Fifty skull-painted Black-Claw pirate warships waited inside the narrow canyon, their golden gravity mines humming across the only path forward.
On the front porch of the [Gu Family Flying Courtyard Star-Cruiser], twelve-year-old Gu Nian stood alone by the side garden gate.
His sharp black-gold eyes locked onto the faint golden shimmer of the minefield three hundred miles ahead. Even without Ye Xiao’s radar, Gu Nian’s Chaos Demon instincts could smell the malicious fate-magic waiting in those rocks. The exact same creeping chill that had made his left shoulder ache half an hour ago.
They came here to chop my arm off, Gu Nian thought, his jaw tightening. And if those fifty mines hit the front fence, the shockwave might rattle the kitchen stove while Dad is boiling afternoon tea.
Without making a sound, Gu Nian reached behind his back, untied the bow of his yellow bunny apron, and folded it neatly over the porch rail so it wouldn’t get scorched.
He rolled up his dark martial sleeves, stepped onto the bottom stone of the front gate threshold, and reached for the outer latch of the golden biosphere dome.
