The sun blazed overhead, the sky a crystalline blue.
A streak of red light tore across the horizon, vanishing in the blink of an eye. Even if someone had happened to spot it, they'd have been unable to make out its true form.
Qiong Qi's speed could be summed up in a single phrase.
Fast, very fast, incredibly fast!
As befitting an ancient Sacred Spirit of lofty standing among his kind — though inferior to the Dragons and Phoenixes in prestige — the name Qiong Qi alone carried formidable weight in the Sacred Spirit world.
What made him especially convenient was the vast breadth of his back. Yang Kai and Mo Xiaoqi sat facing each other without a hint of crowding. Mo Xiaoqi had spread a thick beast-skin blanket over Qiong Qi's spine, and the two of them chatted away atop it as comfortably as could be.
The last time Yang Kai had seen Mo Xiaoqi was back in the Shattered Star Sea. That occasion, Mo Xiaoqi had been provoked into fury, the seal on the butterfly marking her face had begun to unravel, and she had nearly gone berserk — only Zhang Ruoxi's intervention had brought her back under control.
Quite a few years had passed since then.
But time erodes quickly while friendship endures. From the day of her birth, Mo Xiaoqi had spent most of her life on Spirit Beast Island. The first time she had sneaked away from home, she had run into Yang Kai in the Southern Region, and she naturally treasured this only friend of hers above all else.
Come to think of it, Yang Kai had always found it a little puzzling — how had the Mo Xiaoqi of those days managed to make her way from the Eastern Region all the way to the Southern Region? Her strength had been modest at the time, and the distance between the two regions stretched across hundreds of millions of miles. Without anyone to escort her, how could she have traversed that vast expanse in safety?
Thinking back on it now, Li Wuyi and Jiu Feng had probably been protecting her from the shadows all along. The little girl simply believed she had successfully run away from home and was quite pleased with herself.
Mo Xiaoqi's life experience was limited, but Yang Kai had traveled far and wide, seeing all manner of things. Once they got talking, conversation never ran short — though most of the time it was Yang Kai doing the talking while Mo Xiaoqi cupped her cheeks in both hands, listening quietly with an expression of rapt fascination.
When the topic turned to that old swindler they had encountered in Maple Forest City back in the day, the two of them burst into laughter with perfect mutual understanding.
They truly had been blind back then — the great Hongchen Great Emperor himself, manifesting countless incarnations to frolic among mortals, and they had taken him for a mere con artist. They had even borne a grudge against him.
But as the conversation continued, Yang Kai gradually noticed a shift in Mo Xiaoqi's mood. She grew tense, expectant, and uncertain — and the closer they drew to Dragon Island, the more pronounced these feelings became.
Clearly, she was deeply anxious. This trip to Dragon Island meant meeting her mother, and she had no idea how to face the woman who had given birth to her yet whom she had never met.
By the end, the little girl had fallen almost completely silent. Even when Yang Kai deliberately steered the conversation toward interesting topics to lighten her spirits, he could only coax from her a strained smile.
There was little Yang Kai could do about that. She would have to work through her feelings on her own.
Qiong Qi, of course, knew the route to Dragon Island, so there was no need for Yang Kai to use the Dragon Island Token to confirm their bearing.
After a few days of travel, Qiong Qi descended and landed on a small island amid the vast blue ocean.
"Is this the nearest island to Dragon Island?" Yang Kai turned his head and surveyed his surroundings.
Qiong Qi answered in his deep, rumbling voice: "Reporting to Young Master — within a thousand-li radius, there is no island closer than this one."
He didn't know why Yang Kai wanted to find such a small island, but since the Young Master had given an order, he would carry it out.
"Good, this will do." Yang Kai nodded, then jumped down from Qiong Qi's back together with Mo Xiaoqi. A sweep of his spiritual sense told him everything he needed to know, and he quickly found a suitable spot.
"Brother Yang, what are we doing here?" Mo Xiaoqi looked around curiously. Countless islands like this one dotted the ocean, none of them particularly special. They wouldn't yield any rare treasures or spiritual herbs, yet Yang Kai had ordered Qiong Qi to find a place like this.
"I'm setting up a spatial formation," Yang Kai explained.
Dragon Island was like the Myriad Demons Boundary — a self-contained realm with its own laws of heaven and earth. Even if Yang Kai placed a spatial formation on Dragon Island itself, it wouldn't be able to link up with any other spatial formation, because the island's natural boundary severed such connections.
Yang Kai figured he would have frequent dealings with Dragon Island going forward. The distance between them was enormous, and traveling back and forth would be inconvenient. Leaving a spatial formation here would make future trips far easier.
It would still require a bit of travel, but that was still better than flying all the way from the Barbarian Ancient Land every time.
Mo Xiaoqi gave a small "oh." Though she didn't understand Yang Kai's reasoning, she didn't press the matter either, simply following obediently at his heels.
Before long, the two of them entered a cave — a natural cavern formed on the seaward face of the island, extending deep into its interior. The inside was dry, a natural shelter from the wind.
Yang Kai set to work immediately, and Mo Xiaoqi helped at his side — though her efforts mostly produced the opposite of what was intended. Yang Kai didn't chide her for it. Instead, he offered plenty of encouragement, and gradually her spirits recovered a fair bit.
After the better part of half a day, a brand-new spatial formation was complete. Yang Kai inspected it thoroughly, confirmed there were no issues, and then led Mo Xiaoqi back out of the cave.
The two of them climbed back onto Qiong Qi's back, only for the old beast to flap his massive wings and turn his head to ask: "Young Master… are we really going to Dragon Island?"