The bronze mechanical horse pulled the carriage through the sky, while the scenery below had changed into a vast, azure sea.
Li Chen looked back and saw a rainbow resembling the Cloud Bridge appear behind them, as though the clear sky stretching for ten thousand miles had been washed in brilliant colors.
An orchid-like fragrance drifted on the wind. Bubbles carrying phantoms floated around them, reflecting different archipelagos, continents, or phantom Grotto-Heaven worlds with round heavens and square earth.
Before long, something enormous seemed to block the sunlight overhead. Li Chen looked up and saw a gigantic fish swimming through the sky. It resembled a blue whale, but a long, white-jade horn grew from its head.
A dreamlike school of fish, large and small, followed closely behind it, their bodies translucent and jellylike.
"A heavenly steed soaring through the skies..."
For some reason, as Li Chen gazed at the bronze mechanical horse ahead, a phrase he had long known suddenly surfaced in his mind.
He suddenly began to understand why people likened rich, unfettered imagination to a heavenly steed soaring through the skies.
The horse Dancing Maiden had manifested now displayed precisely that ability to gallop through the Illusionary Realm, reaching anywhere without limit. It carried him through one scene after another, seemingly searching for every possible crucial clue.
There was no telling how vast this realm was. If he left the carriage and flew using his own magic power, or even measured the land on foot like a mortal, it would probably take thousands upon thousands of years just to explore one corner.
Dancing Maiden turned her gaze toward the fish. "Those were formed from the thoughts of some kind of spirit body. Even this illusory world we're in seems like a dream."
Li Chen said, "A dream? I've