Living on top of a giant, sleeping prehistoric monster comes with certain architectural challenges. The main one being that every time the mountain exhales, the front door stops fitting in the frame.
Su Ye stood at the edge of Thunder-Roost Peak, looking down into the abyssal purple mist that swirled around the lower spires of the Shattered Peaks. The ground beneath his boots vibrated with a slow, rhythmic thump-thump-thump that occurred exactly every forty-five seconds. It was the heartbeat of a Titan.
Behind him, the Twilight Stable had transformed into a chaotic construction site. The hundred Thunder-Clap Baboons, now officially employed as "Junior Logistics Officers" (unpaid interns), were hauling rocks to reinforce the perimeter. They were strong, enthusiastic, and completely uncoordinated.
"No!" Lin Fan screamed, chasing a baboon that was trying to eat a stick of welding dynamite. "That is not a banana! Drop it! Drop it!"
Nearby, Gao Ming was attempting to teach the Baboon King how to wear a cape properly. The massive Alpha ape stood stoically while Gao Ming adjusted a velvet drape around its muscular shoulders.
"Chin up, your majesty!" Gao Ming commanded. "You are not just a bouncer; you are the Gatekeeper of Destiny! You must radiate enigma!"
The Baboon King scratched his armpit and ate a flea.
"Work in progress," Gao Ming sighed.
Su Ye ignored the chaos and knelt down, placing his palm flat against the jagged grey rock of the peak. He needed to know what he was sitting on. If this "Sky-Eater" woke up and decided to scratch its back, the stable would be launched into orbit.
Zzzzt.
The connection formed instantly. It wasn't like the grumpy, localized voices of the Ancestors. This was a voice that felt like wind blowing through a canyon.
"Itchy..." the voice drifted through Su Ye's mind. "The mites are biting... between the third and fourth dorsal ridge..."
"Senior," Su Ye projected his thought. "I am the new tenant on the dorsal ridge. Please don't roll over."
"Tenant?" The voice paused. It sounded ancient, senile, and incredibly slow. "Ah... little flea. You are warm. You smell like... chicken. Do you have any clouds? I like the fluffy ones. They taste like rain."
"I'm fresh out of clouds," Su Ye said. "But I can offer a back scratch if you promise not to move."
"Deal... scratch the left side... near the rusted chain..."
Su Ye pulled his hand back. The "Sky-Eater" wasn't hostile; it was just a senile mountain-sized beast that thought humans were fleas. That was manageable.
"Luo Bing!" Su Ye called out. "Take a squad of monkeys to the west cliff. The landlord says it's itchy. Start digging out the moss. Consider it rent payment."
"Digging moss?" Luo Bing wiped sweat from her brow, looking at her pristine white gloves which were now grey. "Master, I am the Fourth Princess of the Empire. I was trained in diplomacy and etiquette."
"And now you are a dermatologist for a Kaiju," Su Ye said. "It's a transferable skill. Go."
Just as Luo Bing marched her grumbling monkey squad toward the cliff, a shadow fell over the stable.
It wasn't a cloud. It was a wing.
Descending from the purple mist above were five massive birds. They were Rot-Condors, ugly creatures with bald, scabbed heads and wingspans of thirty feet. Their feathers dripped with a foul-smelling oil.
Riding on the back of each Condor was a scavenger. They wore armor made of scrap metal and bone, and their faces were covered in filtration masks to breathe the toxic air of the peaks.
"Vultures," Su Ye muttered, standing up. "Scavengers of the Shattered Peaks. They pick clean anything that dies here."
The lead Condor swooped low, its rider leaping off and landing heavily on the Star-Iron spikes of the gate. He balanced there effortlessly, looking down at the courtyard with greedy eyes through his goggles.
"Well, well," the scavenger rasped, his voice distorted. "Fresh meat in the Peaks. And look at that... a Tortoise shell. And Star-Iron walls. You folks are carrying a lot of wealth for dead men."
The other four Condors circled overhead, screeching. The Baboons panicked, huddling together. The Thunder-Clap Baboon King roared, ripping off his cape, but he looked nervous. Rot-Condors were natural predators of monkeys.
"Get down from my fence," Su Ye said, walking to the center of the yard. "You're scratching the polish."
"I'm Vulture One," the scavenger sneered, pulling a serrated hook-blade from his belt. "We are the Carrion Clan. We own the airspace. You pay the toll, or we feed your eyes to the birds."
"Another toll?" Su Ye sighed. "Is there a union for bandits I don't know about? Why does everyone want a toll?"
"This isn't a toll, boy," Vulture One laughed. "This is a harvest. That Tortoise? We'll carve it up for soup. That pig? We'll roast it. And that pretty girl? She'll fetch a high price in the black market."
Su Ye's expression didn't change, but the air around him dropped a few degrees.
"Zhu Zhu," Su Ye whispered. "Are you listening?"
Zhu Zhu was currently hiding behind the water trough. He peeked out.
"Little Sun?"
The golden chicken was on the roof, eyeing the Condors. It wasn't afraid. It looked like it was calculating the nutritional value of a vulture.
"Vulture One," Su Ye said loud enough for the circling riders to hear. "I have a policy. I don't mind scavenging. I do it myself. But I draw the line at poaching."
"Kill him!" Vulture One screamed, leaping from the fence with his hook-blade aimed at Su Ye's throat.
Simultaneously, the four Condors dived, their talons extended to snatch the baboons.
"Formation: Anti-Air!" Su Ye shouted.
"Lin Fan! The Beat!"
Lin Fan was ready. He slammed his hand onto the control panel of the Echo Bone system built into the stable's foundation.
"Frequency: Screech Cancel!"
VRRRRRRMMMM.
A high-pitched sonic dome erupted from the stable. It wasn't a damaging blast; it was a specific frequency designed to disrupt the inner ear of avian creatures.
The diving Condors shrieked. Their equilibrium shattered. They spiraled out of control, crashing into the Star-Iron walls with sickening thuds. The riders were thrown from their saddles, tumbling into the dirt.
Vulture One, mid-air, was unaffected by the anti-bird frequency, but he was affected by Little Sun.
As he descended, the golden chicken intercepted him. Little Sun didn't peck him. It flashed.
SOLAR FLARE.
The chicken released a burst of blinding light right in the scavenger's face. Vulture One screamed, blinded, his goggles offering no protection against the intensity of a miniature sun. He swung his blade wildly and missed Su Ye by a mile, landing face-first in the mud pit.
"Zhu Zhu! Cleanup!"
The Void Pig trotted out. He looked at the crashed Condors. They were groggy, trying to stand up.
Zhu Zhu opened his mouth. He didn't eat the birds (they tasted like rotten meat). He ate their Flight.
SLURP.
He inhaled the wind magic surrounding their wings. The Condors flapped frantically, but without the updraft Qi, they were just heavy, ugly chickens. They couldn't lift off.
The Baboon King saw his predators grounded. He saw them weak.
He roared.
The hundred Thunder-Clap Baboons realized the giant birds couldn't fly. The fear vanished, replaced by mob violence.
"Ook! Ook!"
The monkeys swarmed. They didn't kill the vultures; they mugged them. They ripped the feathers off the birds, stole the goggles off the riders, and beat Vulture One with his own hook-blade.
In two minutes, the fearsome Carrion Clan was reduced to a pile of bruised, half-naked men and plucked birds tied up with vines.
Su Ye walked over to Vulture One, who was groaning in the mud.
"You said you own the airspace?" Su Ye asked, picking up the scavenger's hook-blade.
"You... you'll regret this," Vulture One wheezed. "The Carrion Lord... he rides the Storm. He will bring the flock... thousands..."
"Let him come," Su Ye said. "I need more feathers. I'm making pillows."
He turned to his disciples. "Strip them. Take their armor, their weapons, and their wallets. Then throw them off the cliff."
"Off the cliff?" Luo Bing gasped. "Master, that will kill them!"
"No," Su Ye pointed to the thick purple mist below. "The mist is dense. They'll bounce. Probably. If they don't, well, they're scavengers. They can scavenge their own dignity on the way down."
As the disciples (and enthusiastic monkeys) tossed the bandits over the edge, the ground shook violently.
RUMBLE.
It wasn't a heartbeat. It was a shifting.
The Sky-Eater—the mountain they were standing on—was moving.
Zzzzt.
"That feels better..." the ancient voice sighed in Su Ye's head. "The itching stopped. But now... I am thirsty."
"Thirsty?" Su Ye looked at the map. "Senior, where is the water?"
"The Cloud Sea..." the beast murmured. "I am rising."
"Rising?"
Suddenly, the wind picked up. The purple mist began to thin. The entire mountain spire—the massive ribcage of the beast—began to ascend. It wasn't just a mountain; it was a floating island that had been docked. And now, it was launching.
"Hold on!" Su Ye screamed, grabbing the railing.
The Shattered Peaks dropped away below them. The Twilight Stable broke through the cloud layer, emerging into the blinding, pristine sunlight of the upper atmosphere.
They were flying. Not on a tortoise, but on a mountain-sized behemoth that was slowly drifting into the jet stream.
"Master!" Lin Fan stared at the altimeter on his gauntlet. "We are at twenty thousand feet! The oxygen is thinning!"
"Luo Bing! Climate control!" Su Ye ordered. "Use the Phoenix box to regulate the pressure! Zhu Zhu, don't eat the clouds!"
As the team scrambled to adjust to their new altitude, Su Ye looked out over the sea of white clouds.
"Well," Su Ye adjusted his collar. "We wanted to get away from the Sword Sect. I think being in the stratosphere counts."
But his relief was short-lived.
In the distance, emerging from a massive, dark thunderhead, was a ship. Not a beast. A Flying Ship. It had black sails, cannons made of dragon bone, and a flag that depicted a white skull with three eyes.
It was a Sky-Pirate Dreadnought.
And it was heading straight for the floating mountain.
"Vulture One wasn't kidding," Su Ye muttered, watching the ship turn its cannons toward them. "He really does have a boss."
Su Ye turned to the Baboon King, who was currently wearing the Vulture's goggles.
"Monkey," Su Ye said. "Do you know how to throw rocks at a spaceship?"
The Baboon King grinned, sparks flying from his teeth.
"Ook."