Four hours later, Lin Shisan and Bai Youyou left Little Fishing Village with Little Stone.
After they crossed a low ridge, the view suddenly opened up, revealing a barren stretch of coastline ahead.
Black reefs stretched into the distance along the shore.
Not a blade of grass grew on the shattered stone beach. Seawater crashed against the reefs, sending up snow-white spray.
Zi Yuner was already waiting there.
She wore a teal dress cinched with a jade belt, her long hair pinned up with a white jade hairpin, revealing the two small, pale-purple dragon horns on her forehead.
Her bearing was serene and noble, more like a true princess of the Dragon Palace than the bride who had been forced into wedding clothes.
She stood atop a huge reef with her hands behind her back, the breeze stirring her skirt and the ends of her hair as she gazed into the distance. Hearing footsteps, she turned and glanced at the three of them, her gaze finally settling on Lin Shisan. "Have you settled everything in Little Fishing Village?"
"Yes..."
Lin Shisan nodded.
Zi Yuner asked nothing more.
She opened her right hand, and a palm-sized purple shell appeared in it.
It was translucent all over, pale-purple light flowing across its surface, as though it had been carved from the finest amethyst.
She tossed the shell into the air, where it spun once.
Rumble...
It burst apart with a thunderous roar, becoming a purple pillar of light more than ten feet across that extended straight down from overhead to their feet.
The pillar's inner walls were densely covered with silver runes that roamed and combined in midair.
They looked like tiny living silver fish darting back and forth through the purple curtain of light.
"This is a Mobile Teleportation Formation leading