"Huh? Her Majesty the Queen is calling us...?"
Deep in the Sea Trench, inside an azure building fashioned from coral and shells, a young Sea Princess lifted her head from the waterbed where she rested.
Dim watery light reflected in her beautiful, clear blue eyes, and her silvery-white tail swayed gently, scattering a string of tiny bubbles.
"We're forming an alliance with the Beast God of Star Dou Forest...?"
The same thought surfaced in the heart of every Sea Princess in the Sea Trench.
Some wondered why they needed an alliance.
Others felt that the alliance seemed to be coming together a little too hastily.
Yet not one of them questioned whether the message itself might...
Not have come from the Sea Princess herself.
"The clan leader has always considered things carefully. Since she has given the order, she must have her reasons..."
"Lord Di Tian is the Beast God. It is an honor for us to form an alliance with him..."
"Stop dawdling. We shouldn't keep the clan leader waiting..."
Similar murmurs rose throughout the Sea Trench.
After receiving that mental transmission, each of them barely hesitated-two or three seconds at most-before swishing their differently colored tails and swimming out of coral palaces, underwater stone forests, and clusters of glowing jellyfish, converging above the Sea Princess clan's territory.
There, a long, narrow spatial rift hovered silently within the Sea Trench.
Its edges shimmered with interwoven deep blue and dark silver light, like an enormous open eye standing upright in the seawater.
An unnerving depth and emptiness seeped from within the rift, through which a blood-red sky and dark, barren earth were faintly visible.
But to the Sea Princess clan, the rift itself was not frightening. Most of them did not even glance inside; they simply swam into it one