The eastern shoulder of Mount Clear Sky had never been surveyed for an armed standoff.
On Austin’s master site blueprint, tacked to the cedar job trailer table with four galvanized roofing nails, the three-acre graded terrace was marked in faded yellow grease pencil as **[OVERFLOW VEHICLE STAGING: TIER 1]**.
Parked across that compacted stone lot, arranged in twelve dead-straight parallel rows, sat the twelve heavy warships of the Great Yan Imperial Void Armada.
Forged from cold-rolled abyssal iron, laminated spirit-pine timbers, and gold-leaf bastions, each vessel was built to level provinces. Right now, stripped of their propulsion and grounded in loose pea gravel, they looked like an unauthorized fleet of long-haul tractor-trailers stuck in an empty shopping mall parking lot.
At the head of the line rested the eight-hundred-foot flagship *Sun-Slayer*. Its carved dragon prow was split down the middle, its gold leaf scraped away, and its forecastle coated in a greasy glaze of three-headed nether-dog drool. The dark iron hull sat square between two crisp white chalk lines that Austin had snapped earlier with an eighty-foot braided reel.
Austin walked down the crushed limestone ramp, leaning into the rubber grips of a heavy-duty steel handcart. The steel axle groaned under twelve massive, forged-steel assemblies coated in safety-yellow powder coat: **Contractor-Grade Heavy Vehicle Wheel Clamps**.
Right behind him came Supreme Grand Supervisor Tie Kuang. The dwarf wore an XXL neon-orange mesh safety vest over his soot-blackened leather apron. He wheeled a twin-tank gas compressor on a hand truck, whistling a jaunty mining tune while a bright yellow coiled air line trailed behind him, hooked to an industrial one-inch-drive pneumatic impact wrench.
Bringing up the rear was Framing Subcontractor Jiang Taixu. The former supreme elder of the Ninefold Sky Sect had his white beard tucked securely inside a nylon safety harness, sleeves rolled past his bony elbows, hauling a thick stack of oversized, neon-orange weatherproof adhesive notices against his ribs.
"Master Austin," Tie Kuang said, eyeing the forward timber skids of the *Sun-Slayer*. "The skids on these imperial hulls are laminated iron-oak bound in half-inch bronze strap. Regular commercial tire boots won’t bite into that grain."
"That’s why we brought the Tier 4 forged manganese-alloy units," Austin said. He adjusted his midnight-blue Sovereign Hard Hat, squinting through the dark green lenses of his Shade-14 welding goggles. "Anti-drill hardened pins. Each jaw is rated for fifty tons of shearing force. Once that locking collar cams home into the keyway, they can dump all the spirit fuel they want into the keels. All they'll do is twist their own drive-shafts into pretzels. Physics doesn't care about royal warrants, Tie Kuang. Even imperial ones."
Austin parked the handcart beside the starboard forward skid of the *Sun-Slayer*.
The timber skid was three feet thick, scarred by gravel and black powder burns. Austin hoisted an eighty-pound yellow clamp off the stack, sliding the heavy bottom tongue underneath the oak runner:
*CLANG-GRIND.*
He swung the hinged top jaw down, wrapping the thick forged collar around the timber:
*THUNK.*
"Air up," Austin said.
Tie Kuang stepped in with practiced tradesman rhythm. He shoved the heavy six-point socket over the grade-8 hex bolt and clamped down on the trigger:
*BZZZZT-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!*
The impact gun hammered against the bolt head with a deafening, metallic chatter. The hardened steel locking pin drove home, sinking into the keyway until the heavy rubber compression pad mashed flat against the wood.
"Give me a torque reading," Austin said.
Tie Kuang grabbed a three-foot digital clicker wrench and heaved his full dwarven weight onto the handle.
*CLICK.*
"Eight hundred and fifty foot-pounds, Boss! She ain't moving until the Second Sun burns out!"
"Good," Austin said. "Paperwork."
Austin turned to Jiang Taixu. The old patriarch peeled back the heavy waxed backing paper from one of the neon-orange placards:
*SHRRRRR-IP.*
Austin caught the placard by the edges, centered it over the dark lacquer of the flagship’s main gangway door, and slapped it home with both palms:
*SLAP!*
A scraping shuffle echoed from the head of the boarding ramp thirty feet above.
A battered figure dragged himself down the timber stairs, gripping the bronze balustrade for support.
Grand Admiral Meng looked like he had been through an industrial rock crusher. His ornate dragon battle plate was buckled across the chest and coated in a sticky, drying crust of Cerberus Pug’s drool. His gold helmet plume was snapped clean off, his imperial cape was gone, and dark purple circles hung beneath bloodshot eyes.
Behind him, two hundred imperial marines peered out from the gun ports, their polearms rattling in nerveless hands.
Meng’s boots reached the gravel. He stared at the yellow manganese-steel clamp bolted across his ship’s landing runner.
His eyes twitched.
Slowly, his gaze drifted up to the screaming neon-orange adhesive notice plastered across the imperial crest on his gangway hatch.
Meng pointed a shaking, armored gauntlet at Austin’s chest:
"Thou... thou hast clamped... an iron fetter upon the Emperor’s divine warship?!" Meng’s voice cracked into a hoarse shriek. "We are the Imperial Void Armada! We command the six armies of the heavenly throne! Under whose authority dost thou dare bolt this vulgar yellow scrap iron to royal timber?!"
Austin didn't budge. He pulled his yellow grease pencil from behind his ear, flipped a clip on his aluminum board, and shoved the manifest toward Meng’s chest:
"Sign on the line by the 'X', Admiral. Print clearly: legal name, rank, and imperial vessel ID number."
Meng glared at the board like it was a live stick of dynamite:
"Sign... sign what?!" Meng gasped. "This is high treason! We arrived to cleanse the southern heavens of demonic corruption, and thou confrontest me with a clipboard and a grease pencil?!"
"Intake inventory receipt," Austin answered, tapping the yellow lead against the carbon duplicate. "Basic municipal procedure. Whenever commercial transport is impounded on civil easements, we document all existing structural flaws so the owner doesn't try to bill the township for old dents."
Austin used the pencil to point out the mangled bow:
"Look at that prow. Your forward dragon figurehead is cracked down the spine with canine dental impressions measuring six inches across. Your port-side levitation line is severed and leaking hydraulic essence into the ditch. And the main deck smells like a wet sheepdog. I’ve logged all of it under **[PRE-EXISTING OWNER DAMAGE]**."
Meng grabbed his dented breastplate with both hands:
"Pre-existing... owner... damage?!" Meng choked, veins bulging in his neck. "That wasn't pre-existing! That three-headed black monster leaped forty thousand cubits into the clouds! It clamped its jaws on our anti-gravity feeder! It chewed the Emperor’s sacred steering helm to matchsticks while its tails beat like war drums!"
"Which is covered under local livestock and homesteading protection codes," Austin said evenly, sounding like a tired clerk behind a DMV counter. "Domestic working animals are legally permitted to deter unpermitted aircraft operating below the three-hundred-foot property ceiling. You entered Class-B airspace without an active flight plan, and your wash blew two bundles of architectural cedar shingles off my storage shed."
Austin sighed, tapping the board:
"Count your blessings Pug was full. He put away half a roasted spirit-boar for breakfast. If he’d been running on an empty stomach, your tail rudder would be halfway through his lower intestine right now. Sign the intake sheet."
"I will never sign!" Meng roared, his voice cracking with hysteria. "I answer only to His Divine Majesty, Emperor Yan Ming! When the Son of Heaven learns of this humiliation, three million imperial soldiers will march to grind this mountain into gravel!"
"Great," Austin said, entirely unfazed. "Because Emperor Yan Ming is the title holder listed on your vessel's bow registry. That makes him the only party legally authorized to settle the citations and execute the release paperwork."
Austin turned around, waving the grease pencil down the row of silent warships:
"Tie Kuang! Jiang Taixu! Work the line!"
"You got it, Boss!" Tie Kuang bellowed.
Down the terrace, the pneumatic impact gun went to work with steady, rhythmic thumps:
*BZZZZT-CLACK-CLACK!* *BZZZZT-CLACK-CLACK!*
On dreadnought number two, the *Void-Cleaver*, four yellow manganese clamps locked onto the skids with bone-snapping force.
On dreadnought number three, the *Iron-Sky*, Jiang Taixu peeled another waxy backing and slapped an orange impound notice across the bridge observation window with an echoing *SLAP!*
Along the surrounding ridges, fifty thousand sect cultivators—righteous elders, wandering rogue cultivators, and blood-soaked demonic masters—stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the newly poured concrete retaining walls, staring down in absolute, religious silence.
"Look upon the ritual..." an ancient elder whispered, his knees trembling against the concrete coping. "The Master Contractor is applying the Ancient Talismans of Seizure!"
"Those yellow iron shackles..." muttered Patriarch Iron Blood, his demonic aura flickering with panic. "No spirit stones. No runic inscriptions. Yet they pin the Emperor's eighty-thousand-ton fleet to the earth! What mind-melting sealing Dao is this?!"
"And that orange scroll of doom!" another sect leader wheezed, clutching his heart. "Look at the ancient characters of damnation! 'Section 44-B'! A decree of ancient binding! Not even the Grand Admiral dares touch the adhesive edge!"
Austin ripped the top yellow sheet off his clipboard with a crisp *snap*:
*RIIIP.*
He stepped forward and shoved the yellow carbon duplicate straight into the fingers of Meng’s gauntlet.
"Keep the yellow slip for your accounting department," Austin said. "Daily impound fee is five hundred copper coins per vessel every twenty-four hours. For twelve hulls, that's six thousand copper a day just for parking space. Add the fifty-thousand-copper airspace violation per hull, plus twelve thousand for emergency recovery and grounding."
Austin gave the admiral’s dented pauldron a firm, brisk pat:
"Inform your Emperor that municipal office hours are eight in the morning to five in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. We don't take uncertified personal drafts, and we don't release impounded property without a notarized power of attorney. If he wants his ships back, he shows up in person."
Grand Admiral Meng stared down at the yellow slip in his numb hands.
The crisp carbon lettering glared up at him:
`TOTAL OUTSTANDING LIEN: 672,000 COPPER COINS.`
`IMPOUND LOT LOCATION: LOT 1 - OVERFLOW VEHICLE STAGING.`
The supreme commander of the Great Yan Imperial Armada slowly sank to his knees.
His greaves clattered against the gravel. He buried his face in his drool-smeared gauntlets, shoulders shaking as he wept with pure, soul-crushing bureaucratic despair:
"The Emperor... the Son of Heaven... will have to stand in line at a service desk... to pay parking tickets..."
From across the driveway, Cerberus Pug trotted over from the lawn. He dropped the chewed, slobbery chunk of the royal steering helm onto the gravel with a clatter, sniffed Meng’s boot, sneezed once, and wandered back toward the porch to sleep in the sun.