Three thousand miles above the snow-covered peaks of Iron-Root Star, the cloaked main-clan Orbital Leyline-Siphon & Curse Satellite opened its ten-mile-wide purple aperture like the maw of a mechanical abyssal leech.
HUMMMMMM—SCREEEEECH!
A colossal pillar of inverted purple suction light slammed down through the winter clouds, locking directly onto the central planetary leyline beneath Iron-Root Village #4.
In the span of three heartbeats, the roaring bonfire in the village square shrank to a flickering blue spark, the freshly fallen snow hardened into black iron-ice. The spiritual qi in the valley dropped by eighty percent as the orbital satellite began violently ripping the planet’s core life-force upward into space!
“G-Gods above! It’s the main clan’s Scorched-Pasture Siphon!”
Captured Fleet Commander Gu Lie, still clutching his wooden snow shovel in his frilly pink apron, stumbled backward into a snowbank as his face went chalk-white.
“Second Uncle Gu Yin planted thirty-six of those secret curse satellites across the branch star systems a hundred years ago!” Gu Lie stammered, his teeth chattering in terror.
“They’re anchored directly to the Galactic Capital’s central leyline pipeline! Normally they suck away ninety percent of a branch planet’s spiritual qi every hour to feed Golden Heir Gu Wuji’s nine-moon pleasure gardens. But if a planet’s tax monolith is destroyed, the satellite switches to Total Drain Mode and sucks the entire planetary core dry in sixty seconds!”
