Down on the mile-wide blood-jade VIP stage of Banquet Moon #1, twenty-two-year-old Golden Heir Gu Wuji stood bathed in nine spotlights of artificial starlight. His chin tilted forty-five degrees toward the ceiling as ten thousand floating projection crystals broadcast his profile to the ten million captive guests across Moons #2 through #9.
Directly behind him towered his favorite monument in the Galactic Capital: a 1,000-foot-tall solid-gold statue of himself cast from three million tons of extorted branch-planet gold. Depicting “Young Sovereign Gu Wuji” standing with one boot on the neck of a weeping Chaos Demon while holding nine miniature suns in his palm.
Although his [Destiny-Plundering System] had given him a strange headache twenty minutes ago. Just then, the Crimson Eye of Fate went offline in Sector #1. Second Uncle Gu Yin had assured him that the ten layers of Spatial Turbulence Mines would keep any outer-rim troublemakers trapped for at least half a year.
Confident that he had all the time in the world to finish his coronation speech, collect the one hundred billion spirit stones in entry gifts. Then march an army out to crush Gu Changsheng at his leisure, Golden Heir Gu Wuji tapped his golden surgical bone-saw against his wine goblet and spoke into the nine-moon microphone array:
