The ten-mile Rank 8 Peak Solar-Furnace Wok Spatula began to move.
It didn’t whistle through the air like a delicate rapier. As the ten-mile-wide flat blade of thousand-sun brass swept back behind Gu Changsheng’s right hip, it displaced fifty cubic miles of underground atmosphere. A low, majestic, rumbling hum echoed through the chamber like a cosmic millstone preparing to grind a star.
Down on the floating slab of scrap brass, Headmaster Hong’s survival instinct—honed over five millennia of scheming and backstabbing—completely overrode his pride.
He didn’t care about the Central Mega-Sun anymore. He didn’t care about his ruined furnace or the two trillion people watching on the sky-screens. He knew in the deepest marrow of his parchment-bones that if that ten-mile golden spatula connected with his backside, his five-thousand-year dignity would be obliterated beyond repair!
“Emergency Escape Protocol!!”
He reached into his charred sleeve with trembling skeletal fingers and pulled out his final, most precious life-saving trump card. It was a thumb-sized purple jade talisman personally bestowed upon him by the Vice-Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Script Pavilion!
He crushed the purple jade talisman behind his back.
KRA-RIPPPPP!!
