A medium-sized flying boat, a hundred feet long, sped over the boundless sea.
On the deck, Madam Yan kept lowering her head to check their flight route, her brows unconsciously drawing together.
"What is it?"
Leaning on his black iron staff, the hunchbacked elder slowly walked over to Madam Yan.
He first surveyed their surroundings, then said quietly, "Azure Painting Mystic Pythons prefer stillness to movement. Apart from hunting other demon beasts, they rarely surface."
"As long as our bearings are correct, we can descend to the seabed and search for traces of the mystic python."
Madam Yan shook her head gently.
She pointed to a special mark on the sea chart and said with some hesitation, "The last time I passed this place, that Azure Painting Mystic Python happened to be advancing. Towering waves raged for dozens of miles around, and I didn't dare approach."
"Judging by the time that has passed, it must have reached the sixth tier by now. The thousand miles around here are all its territory. It would never leave lightly."
"It's early autumn, with several months still to go before winter. The Azure Painting Mystic Python hasn't entered hibernation, so its aura should be extremely strong. Yet I've already piloted the flying boat around the vicinity several times and haven't sensed a thing."
The hunchbacked elder looked utterly bewildered.
Under normal circumstances, an Azure Painting Mystic Python would not deliberately conceal its aura. It used that aura to proclaim its territory to other ocean demon beasts and warn them to stay away.
Yet now, neither Madam Yan nor the hunchbacked elder could detect any trace of the Azure Painting Mystic Python's aura.
They could all but conclude that the Azure Painting Mystic Python had left this place to seize territory in another part of