South Mist, the Great Wilderness Sea.
The moonlight was cool and tranquil. The sea lay still, without wind or waves.
Violet Lightning stretched on without end, like the roots of a spirit tree, spreading from the center of the sea and racing across its surface. Azure Horned Serpents and Fire Crows occasionally passed through, gathering the various Spirit Treasures nurtured within Violet Lightning.
The sea was undergoing a transformation, like a cocoon cradling an unborn life. Even the aquatic folk living in its darkest trenches could hear the faint sounds traveling through the water, rising with the Thunderbolt and dying away with it.
They resembled drumbeats from the Primordial Era, desolate and primal. The draconic might in the depths spread throughout the sea with those beats, and Merfolk, golden turtles, black catfish, and others climbed the seaside cliffs to bow in worship from afar.
This rite had been handed down from Heavenly Mist's era. A thousand years had passed, yet these aquatic folk still remembered it-even more deeply and faithfully than Mist Marsh did.
Purple thunder traveled back and forth day and night, rising from the sea as though to race into the heavens, then descending after three cycles. At the heart of this Thunderbolt, before a white jade desk inside a palace pavilion, a woman in a Peach-Red Ruqun held a secret letter and read its final word.
Pine incense burned within the hall, where cool mist drifted quietly. Lustrous pearls studded the lofty ceiling, scattered like stars in the sky, while a white jade disk hung at its center to mirror Greater Yin.
"Yuanxin, don't overwork yourself. You're running between the Great Wilderness Sea and Flame-Offering Mountain now, and both need you to manage their affairs. You must look after yourself."
Lu Lian sat beside her in a