"Look! What's that?"
On a street in the Kingdom of Ye, a passerby in coarse, short work clothes hurried along with a bamboo basket. When he happened to glance up at the gray sky, he suddenly spotted sesame-sized black dots emerging from the clouds.
His voice carried a hint of panic. Like a stone thrown into a still lake, it drew the attention of nearby vendors, porters, and passersby.
People stopped in their tracks and looked in the direction he was pointing.
At first, there were only densely packed black dots. Within a few breaths, however, they rapidly grew larger, their outlines gradually becoming clear.
Burning all over from atmospheric friction, island after island plummeted straight toward the earth from ten thousand meters above, their edges wrapped in crimson tails of flame and long columns of gray-black smoke trailing behind them.
The air currents at ground level grew scorching and chaotic.
"Run!!"
Someone let out a piercing scream, and the once-bustling street instantly descended into chaos.
The vendors abandoned their stalls, pushing their carts as they fled for their lives; children burst into tears at the sudden chaos and instinctively clung to their parents' legs; elderly people stumbled away with younger people supporting them.
Terrified cries mingled with the crash and shatter of objects.
High in the sky, the women hovered steadily in their High-Tech Power Boots, streams of deep blue flame jetting from the soles, conserving the stamina they would otherwise have spent using Geppo.
The fierce winds at that altitude whipped their hair about, and none of their faces showed the slightest ease.
After three full days of tireless effort without sleep or rest, they had only barely managed to destroy just over thirty islands.
They blasted enormous holes through the centers of the islands, punching all the