The mountains of the Secret Realm rolled on without end, vast and wild.
Ancient trees that had stood for ages pierced the clouds and blotted out the sky. Bitter winds swept up the old divine bones piled across the ground and scoured the barren wilderness, raising mournful, sobbing howls that made the entire Secret Realm seem all the more silent and desolate.
High above, three swift figures cut through the drifting clouds.
Shiheng, Kaiser, and Kailin flew steadily, following the long-faded traces of divine power Oakes had left over the years. They sped between winding valleys and shattered ancient mountains, precisely tracking his trail.
Before long, a burly figure clad in thick azure dragon scales came into view ahead, sitting alone and motionless in midair.
It was Oakes Redding, who had spent eight years tirelessly searching for his family.
Eight years of wandering the Secret Realm, of fruitless searching through seemingly endless days, had completely worn away the edge of this prodigy of the Azure Dragon Bloodline.
His scales were mottled and cracked, his dragon horns dull. His once fierce, domineering dragon eyes were now filled with bone-deep exhaustion and deathly stillness.
No one knew how many lonely days and nights he had endured over those eight years.
The direct bloodline of the Azure Dragon Clan was noble, yet his life had been full of loss and loneliness since childhood.
When he was young, his birth mother had died in an accident, leaving this world behind.
His father, the patriarch of the Azure Dragon Clan, held the fate of the entire clan in his hands. He spent his days handling its great affairs and overseeing the rise and fall of their race, occupied with countless duties and never free to care for his young son.
Growing up without a father's