The air above the Grand Yan continent tasted like burnt quartz and crushed soil.
High above the fertile plains where five hundred million mortals tended their rice paddies and copper mines, three hundred sky-galleons formed an iron sickle across the horizon.
Each vessel of the Crimson Roc Clan was three hundred paces long, their prows forged in the likeness of hungry birds with talons of cold-refined black iron. From the bellies of the flagships, massive runic drilling bores dropped through the clouds, chewing into the world-size crust with ear-splitting, earth-shaking roars.
They weren’t mining for iron or gold. They were strip-mining the main spiritual ley lines of the continent.
Liquid spirit-dew was pumped upward through massive bronze chimney pipes into the galleons’ storage hulls. That turned the surrounding mountain ranges into dry, crumbling chalk.
“Look at them,” Zhao Wuji hissed from the bridge of their commandeered coalition skiff. He was gripping the bronze railing so tightly his knuckles were white. “The royal fiat collapsed, and these vultures right away reverted to barbarian extraction! They’re draining the world’s blood to store it in barrels!”
Beside him, Lin Ke stood motionless. His left hand was bound in fresh linen and his right arm locked tight in dragon-bone splints.
