The silver Nine-tailed Demon Fox plunged headfirst into the dense atmosphere of Shouji, dragging a long tail of foxfire behind her. True Spirit Yuan Hao and Xuan Che, flying on their swords, followed close behind like meteors. They began decelerating near the equator and soon encountered immense, incredibly thick clouds.
The clouds surged toward them like endless curtains, growing darker the deeper they went, while the sunlight gradually faded behind them. The Nine-tailed Fox carried Yu Sheng through the depths of cumulonimbus clouds rich with water vapor and tiny ice crystals. Eileen clung tightly to Yu Sheng's arm, hanging from him like a koala, her eyes wide as she stared at the scenery beyond the demon fox's back—howling winds, bright arcs of electricity occasionally bursting through the clouds, and torrential rain pouring down amid sudden flashes of lightning and thunder, surging across the sky like an overturned ocean.
The planet's two poles were cold and dry, while the equator was shrouded in an almost eternal rainy season. A thousand years ago, pioneers had come to the planet for its abundant mineral deposits, building the first formations and mines amid the torrential rain. Although many of those magnificent extraction facilities had since been decommissioned, their main frameworks still stood, sturdy and unyielding, in the downpour encircling the equator, rising into the clouds like monuments.
Most of the many cities later built on the planet had been established around those ancient, colossal extraction stations. They crouched there like anthills, hidden beneath the skies-blocking shadows cast by the refining towers and orbital elevators.
The demon fox burst out from beneath the clouds, crossed the curtain of rain, and flew toward the largest city on the equator—Ink City.
A magnificent structure as immense as a tower reaching the heavens flashed past nearby. Rusted transport