CHAPTER 467: 467. HER ADVENTURES

The air above Ixalaria Continent was heavy — clogged with the stench of burning lands and the dark pulse of the Abyss Breakout. Tyler and the others were deep in the chaos, allocating defenses, sending aid to towns, and sealing infected rifts.

Zuzia was not with them.

The abyssal storms didn’t interest her today. She was restless. She wanted to feel the wind on her wings and the sky beneath her claws. But with half of Ixalaria plagued by abyssal corruption, the air here was unpredictable — thick with abyss energy, poisonous to prolonged flight unless one was atleast Divine Seeker Realm.

And Zuzia had not reached that level yet.

So she decided to do something she rarely did: leave the continent altogether and play there for a while.

With a flash of black scales and a swing of her tail, she lifted from the shore, talons slicing through spray as she caught a warm ocean breeze. Freedom — pure and intoxicating — rushed into her lungs. Below, the waves rolled like silver glass; above, the clouds painted lazy mountains across the sky.

She flew for hours, then days. Sometimes she dove to snatch glittering fish from the waves — not for hunger, but for sport. The salt in the air clung to her scales; the sun painted her wings with molten gold.

In her joy, she didn’t count the days.

It was only a week later, hovering in the vast emptiness above an endless plain of water, that the realization struck her.

There was no land in sight.

No ships. No other Cultivators to guide her.

"Which way ... Tyler?" she murmured in slight panic. Then she laughed nervously at herself — but the laughter faded quickly. East and west, north and south... all meaningless in this expanse of blue.

Her first instinct was to reach out mentally for Tyler — to feel their thread of connection. But...

Nothing.

It was like reaching into smoke.

Frowning, she went deeper, trying to sense the dragon blood within Tyler — a resonance only dragons could share.

She felt... something. Very faint. Her eyes lit up and thought it was Tyler.

But she doesn’t know that It was in a different direction altogether.

That was the resonance she felt from wide sea. She just followed the direction without any thoughts.

Soon she felt the dragon blood becoming faint and disappeared.

"No..." She panicked.

But without knowing where else to go, she angled her wings toward the direction she sensed.

She didn’t get far before the ocean erupted.

Something moved beneath her, a shadow the size of a small island. The water’s surface bulged, foamed, and then — exploded upward.

Half a kilometer into the air came a Titan. It was vaguely whale-shaped, but its mouth was a nightmare — serrated teeth like a shark’s, lining rows that glinted wet and hungry. Its hide was armored in jagged black spikes, each one long enough to impale a galleon.

Zuzia’s heart stopped. It had moved from water to sky in a heartbeat.

Instinct screamed.

She began shifting into her human form mid-air, about to crush the escape charm Tyler had given her — her only sure way out.

But before she could activate it — before she even finished changing — the Titan stopped.

No, not stopped.

It was crushed.

An invisible pressure snapped bone, shattered armor, and folded the monster like paper. Not a drop of blood spilled — as if its very essence had been sealed away. The mutilated mass was then hurled like a pebble into the distant horizon, vanishing in the spray.

Zuzia hovered, frozen.

Then she felt him.

A figure coalesced from the mist — a silhouette her mind could not hold. She tried to look at his face but it was as if her thoughts slid away every time, like water over glass. No features, no colors... only a presence that pressed on her chest.

And his voice.

"Oh... a True Dragon," he mused, as though the discovery was mildly amusing. "An ascender, probably? Hm. Been decades since I saw a pure-blood dragon."

Zuzia’s mouth worked, but no words came.

"Don’t worry. I won’t eat you," he said, almost lazily. Then, tilting his head: "Are you lost?"

She blinked in mute shock.

"I have... few territories on my name, " he continued, "where my subordinates play at ruling. Useless places. You can stay there — have your fun."

Something warm and heavy fell into her claws — a drop of liquid, dark gold in hue, swirling with power.

"My true blood," he said. "Merge it, and they’ll think you share my lineage."

Before she could answer, before she could refuse or ask his name, the drop dissolved into her skin. Heat ripped through her, coiling her in a cocoon of light and power.

"Now," he murmured to himself, already turning away, "I have to find Mermaid Queen Lydia again. The Era of..." He trailed off, voice lost to the waves. "...is going to appear."

The world blurred.

When she awoke, she was in darkness — or something close to it. The soft glow of turquoise light illuminated the walls of an underwater cave.

The glow came from a massive turtle. Its shell was carved with runes that pulsed like breathing stars.

"Ahh, you’re awake. Little girl... well, not so little now," the turtle chuckled, voice ancient.

Zuzia blinked. Her memories were fragments — flying... a cocoon... someone’s voice...

"Where... am I?" She spoke softly, her voice strange to her own ears. Looking at her hands, she realized they were longer, stronger. She had grown physically, her frame more mature. The clothes she once wore were gone — dissolved inside the cocoon — except for a phantom mask lying beside her.

Reverently, she picked it up, thinking of Tyler.

The turtle shuffled, then produced a bundle of fabric — or what passed for clothes here: strips of cloth, seawater-scented, barely enough to wrap oneself decently.

"That’s the most proper thing I have," the turtle complained, morphing into a humanoid woman with sea-blue hair.

"I am Myrtle," she introduced herself with a lopsided smile, "I found your egg or cocoon, floating on the sea. And saved you..."

Zuzia opened her mouth to reply — but the roar of an explosion cut her off, shaking the cave.

"Those bastards..." Myrtle hissed under her breath. "Wait here. I’ll shoo some lizards."

She swam from the cave in a burst of light.

Zuzia waited. And waited. The minutes began to stretch in uneasy silence.

Then she moved.

She found Myrtle — but not as she expected.

The glorious glow of the turtle’s shell was gone; her body, in its humanoid form, hung limp in glowing chains, bleeding into the water. Around her swarmed ships — sleek, obsidian-hulled raiders flying the crest of the Sea Dragon Palace.

"What a fine turtle," laughed one armored figure aboard a lead vessel. His power radiated like a blade through the sea — Divine Seeker Realm. His eyes gleamed as he looked at Myrtle’s restrained form.

"She’ll breed some healthy dragonions," he said with a smirk. "Little brother Jia — she’s yours."

The younger one bowed gratefully. "Thank you, Captain."

Myrtle shut her eyes. She had seen such fate happening to others and saved them before.... But this time she would not waste breath fighting it, she was already defeated.

The water shifted.

Low at first... then rising. A roar built in the depths — deeper than any beast’s call, older than time itself — until it rolled through the ocean like an earthquake.

The Divine Seeker Captain stiffened. "What—"

From the shadows surged a dragon.

Not any dragon, but one whose bloodline pressure hit like a tidal wave. The captain’s body locked instantly, his instincts screaming submission even as his mind resisted.

Snarling, he forced his body to change, scales bursting from his skin as he assumed his full dragon form — a massive storm-colored wyrm.

It didn’t matter.

The mysterious dragon did not roar again — she simply looked at him. That gaze alone crushed his dragon form, bent his spine, and froze his blood.

In the next moment, she moved. A claw flicked forward. The captain’s head left his body, dissolved into the currents before his corpse even hit the sea floor.

Another dragonion lunged — dead, his body curling into nothingness.

The others fled without thought, abandoning ships, abandoning prey.

The Dragon then swiped it’s claw. Jia froze and fell on his knee. The claw didn’t touch him, but gently scratched the chains on Myrtle.

The Chains broke and she was free.

Jia pissed his pants, frozen in fear.

The ocean whispered with awe — for that was the day, they would later say, when the Dragon Princess first revealed herself to the world.

┉┈ ◈ ◉ ◈ ┈┉

At Present:

Myrtle was standing quietly on the deck, her gaze fixed firmly on the closed door before her. The Dragon Princess was inside, speaking to the pirates.

Myrtle had absolutely no idea what the conversation was about, yet her heart told her it was something significant. Her thoughts drifted back to that unforgettable day when the Dragon Princess had revealed her overwhelming might and, in doing so, saved her life.

From that very moment, Myrtle had made a silent vow in her heart—to dedicate herself entirely to serving and following the Dragon Princess without hesitation.

Right now, watching from the deck, Myrtle was almost certain— no, she was definitely sure— that the Dragon Princess was engaged in an important discussion.

Inside the room, the scene was entirely different. The girls had already shed their disguises, revealing their true appearances, and were now seated together, listening intently to Zuzia as she shared her story.

Meanwhile, Zuzia was seated on Tyler’s lap, just as she had done before in the past.

"Tyler, now that I have grown up, should we mate?" she asked, her voice dripping with expectations and excitements.