The blazing sun hung high, scattering golden light across ten thousand miles.
Blue waves rolled on without end. Gulls circled overhead, sea creatures darted beneath the surface, and the vast, briny wind swept across the sky.
Deep in the Ten Thousand Viper Sea.
On a solitary island shaped like a jellyfish, the mountains had been utterly erased. Lush trees and grasses lay toppled in every direction, while the surviving creatures huddled in corners, cowering and trembling, too frightened to make a sound.
At the island's center, wisps of smoke rose from a vast crater. The smell of scorched earth lingered, undispelled by the sea breeze.
Seen from high above, the crater's shape was unmistakable: it was a gigantic footprint.
The crater floor and walls were black as ink, with a faint, glassy sheen, as though they had been burned by searing flames.
Beside the footprint-shaped crater stood a figure.
It was oxlike, with a white head, a single eye, and a snake's tail. Plague miasma coiled around its body... It was none other than Fei.
Fei's lone eye gazed silently at the footprint before it. The Emperor Venerable had ordered it, Xiu She, and Zheng to find Long Bo War King and bring him back to Qingyao Mountain for an audience.
This enormous footprint had been left by Long Bo War King, but he himself had long since left the place...
Just then, the sea, which had been relatively calm, suddenly erupted into raging waves. Amid the towering swells, a serpentine body flashed into view, its fine scales glinting with a cold sheen beneath the sunlight.
The sea churned and waves crashed, spraying water in every direction as whirlpools of all sizes spun rapidly into being. A gigantic, vividly colored serpent, with seven horns growing from its head, rose from