The Flower Country finally appeared on the distant horizon, its outline a deep blue-green beneath the near-noonday sun.
Boer sat upright on the eagle's head, his eyes closed as he carried out his unfailing daily training.
The tips of his silver-white hair stirred slightly. Around him, countless hair-thin arcs of electricity formed out of thin air like living serpents, roaming, interweaving, and vanishing with almost inaudible crackles.
Boer never wasted a spare moment when it came to improving his strength.
He understood clearly that everything he currently possessed-his foundations in Bernia, Robin's peace, his allies' respect-rested, most fundamentally, on his ever-growing power.
Not far behind him, on a relatively flat, broad section of the eagle's back, Robin sat quietly in a chair formed from flowing metal.
She held a thick ancient book, a manuscript on ancient burial customs and strange geographical accounts that she had carefully selected before their departure.
She read intently, her slender fingers occasionally turning a page. Her delicate brows sometimes knitted and sometimes relaxed as she immersed herself completely in the ancient world recorded in those words.
The high-altitude winds were deftly smoothed by the magnetic field Boer had constructed, leaving only a pleasant breeze to stir the hair beside her cheeks and a corner of her book.
Following the direction indicated by Caiyi's Vivre Card tucked against his chest, the giant eagle began descending and adjusting its course toward the Flower Country's coast.
Below them, a military base cleverly constructed around the natural terrain gradually came into view.
The harbor used a vast cluster of jagged black reefs as a natural barrier. Thick logs and embedded iron grilles reinforced and connected the reefs, leaving only a winding channel for entry and exit.
Sturdy gun emplacements stood on the commanding heights to either side of the