“Acknowledged, Papa! Little Fifth parking house!”
Three thousand feet above the Imperial Colosseum of Blazing-Flame City, three-year-old Ao Xing’s cheerful toddler voice boomed out like summer thunder from his thousand-foot silver Void Dragon jaws.
Instead of firing reverse thrusters to hover politely above the stadium roof, Little Fifth tucked his shimmering silver wings, spun the five-acre [Gu Family Flying Courtyard Star-Cruiser] ninety degrees to line it up with the rectangular granite duel stage below, and gave one neat downward puff of golden Star-Hearth Cushioning Qi.
Down on the center of the duel platform, Rank 7 Early Chosen One Xiao Huo was still frozen in his carefully rehearsed hero pose.
He had both hands raised high on the hilt of his ten-thousand-pound black iron broadsword, his white silk robes billowing from a concealed wind-talisman taped to his belt. A dramatic tear still hanging halfway down his cheek for the close-up spirit-cameras.
“—wash your Nalan Clan in blood!” Xiao Huo finished shouting, swinging his purple Strange-Fire broadsword down toward nineteen-year-old Nalan Yan and her eight-year-old brother Nalan Ming.
He never got the blade past his own eyebrows.
WHOOOOSH—CRACK!
