Chapter 1067 — The Dragon's Shadow Returns

"All right, I have no intention of interrupting this touching exchange of feeling between father and daughter, but at this moment we should first attend to the 'patient's' physical condition," Beira suddenly spoke up from the side, her voice sounding to Bard like music from heaven. "Anluo, blink your eyes and look before you—how do you feel?"

Anluo actually had a great deal she wanted to say to her father, but at this moment she responded to Beira's instruction at once. First she lowered her head and looked at her own body, then raised it to survey this incredible "tree house." After the initial discomfort eased somewhat, she finally confirmed one thing: she had two eyes again.

Bard also turned his attention back to Anluo's eyes. He looked up at his daughter, and after she brushed aside the hair covering one side of her face, he immediately noticed what was unusual about that eye—the newly grown eye had taken on a vivid crimson hue. Though it was still beautiful overall, it stood in stark contrast to the other, pale gray eye, and he was startled. "Wait, the color of this eye..."

"I said the new flesh-regeneration technique still has its limitations, and this is one of them," Beira said from the side, at the same time handing a mirror to Anluo. "But rest assured, apart from the difference in appearance, this new eye has no defects in use. It works just as well as your original eye—even a little better, in fact, since it is brand new."

Anluo took the mirror and finally saw herself as she was now—beneath the short gray-white hair, the two eyes of utterly different colors were strikingly conspicuous, even somewhat eerie and frightening. But in the end she gave a slight nod. "There is nothing bad about it... This will let me remember more clearly everything that happened."

"Since the patient herself has no objection, then I can declare this treatment a complete success," Beira said with a faint smile. "Still, I must remind you, Miss Anluo, that eyes like these may slightly increase the difficulty of marrying you off... But you need not worry too much. Your good father will certainly work hard for your marriage."

Anluo's and Bard's expressions changed at the same time, but Beira's figure had already begun to dissolve into a mass of writhing flowering vines, and only her voice came out from deep within the branches and leaves: "Then I will not intrude on your precious time together as father and daughter—good luck, Mr. Bard Wendell."

...

The crown of the giant tree swayed gently in the wind, layer upon layer of green leaves surging softly like waves. In the mild warm breeze, Beira's figure emerged from the top of the crown. Facing the brilliant afternoon sunlight, she raised her head, revealing a satisfied expression tinged with a hint of pleasure.

It was not easy to produce such a change of expression with a lignified body, but she felt that the happy things that had happened today were worth a smile.

The sunlight was good, and photosynthesis was likewise pleasant. Beira narrowed her eyes. At the edge of her perception, the roots and branches of the Solin Giant Tree touched the thriving breath of life upon the Holy Spirit Plain; and in another of her perceptual systems, the "Narrator Neural Network" was bustling with activity, an enormous quantity of information exchanging rapidly through the hubs scattered across the Holy Spirit Plain and finally converging at the top of the Solin Giant Tree. Those nerve fibers symbiotic with the magic-energy obelisks kept telling Beira what was happening far away—it even gave her the illusion that the entire human world had been merged into that ever-growing, ever-more-complex network.

Just basking in the sun like this every day, carrying out a little photosynthesis, bearing some fruit, feeding the small animals on the plain, sinking into the network in the sunlight, reading news from afar, or anonymously posting some "interesting records" about the Solin Giant Tree... Life after becoming a plant did not seem so bad?

Beira felt her thoughts gradually drifting apart, melting into the mild, warm sunlight—but a high-priority notification that suddenly entered the neural network jolted her awake and made her eyes snap open.

"Air defense identification notice?"

Beira muttered, unconsciously lifting her head to look at the sky. The magic-net hub tower north of Red Maple City was transmitting a signal back, and the monitoring devices distributed across the plain were also continuously sending more precise tracking records. Guided by these signals, she slowly shifted her gaze, and at last caught sight of those tiny dark shapes appearing at the edge above the tree crown.

Those shapes rapidly grew larger—though from the ground they might still be too small to make out clearly, when they swept past the Solin Giant Tree, Beira could see plainly what they were.

It was a small group of giant dragons, flying through the clouds in formation.

Beiyila stared in astonishment at those colossal creatures, yet did not forget to relay the identification markers through the network. She watched as the dragons, formed into columns, flew on toward the south, and atop the Soring Great Tree, on the several air-defense platforms and at the ground positions, the guardian treants lowered their Gorgon cannons aimed at the sky, and the great missile launchers and prismatic-light devices likewise released their locks on those foreign aerial targets.

"So they really are dragons... and more than one?" Only when those dragon-shadows vanished beyond the sensing range of the Soring Great Tree did Beiyila withdraw her gaze from the sky. "This is a rare sight indeed... Looks like 'Brother Gaoyang' is about to stir up something tremendous again?"

...

The vast expanse of the Holy Spirit Plain receded slowly past her vision; the mountains and rivers tinged with green, and the streams that flashed silver in the sunlight, stood out as vividly as lines upon a canvas. Metzen felt the surging of magic in the air, and from her throat came a low, rumbling growl.

Having lost the auxiliary interface once provided by the Omega System, she had needed a long time to finally grow accustomed to flying long distances relying entirely on her own eyesight and bodily senses. At first it had not been easy, but now she found... that without those cluttered auxiliary interfaces, the world in her eyes could be all the more vivid and alive.

Just then, the siren Cassandra's voice suddenly came from behind her: "I've always been curious—why is it that you dragons, when you fly, suddenly let out a roar for no reason at all?"

Metzen reined in her feelings and, turning her head slightly, said: "Is that so strange? Don't you sirens also suddenly take it into your heads to sing when you travel the seas?"

Cassandra's voice turned astonished: "Ah—so that's what your singing is? To be honest, it's really not very pleasant..."

Metzen: "..."

"Hey, why have you gone quiet again?"

"Nothing. I'm just a little envious of you."

"Envious? Envious that we sing well?"

Hearing the voice from upon her back, Metzen wore a somewhat helpless expression. She did not know how to explain to this siren her sudden fit of melancholy, and so could only nod vaguely: "Something like that."

Cassandra, riding the dragon for free on Metzen's back, brightened at once: "Well then, I'll sing you a song! I've nothing better to do anyway—consider it thanks for carrying me all this way..."

"Er, actually, no need—"

"No need for thanks, no need for thanks—sirens love to sing, it's in our nature," Cassandra said, giving Metzen no chance to refuse. "What style do you like? I'm rather good at death metal..."

Metzen: "?"

"Hold on a moment—let me rub my tail a bit and conjure up a set of instruments first..."

Metzen: "?"