Chapter Thirty-Two: A Journey Through the Skies

After listening to all of this, Zhu Yan did not respond immediately. Instead, she pulled out a map and studied it intently. In the end, she ignored the crew member and began speaking directly with the manager of the rookery. The two of them conversed for about ten minutes before Zhu Yan finally turned back to the group and said, “Alright, we’ll head to the Gold Pine Valley outpost first. We can discuss the rest on the way.”

As she spoke, the rookery manager led out ten pig-headed winged beasts from the nest, guiding each one to stand before Liu Zong and the others. With every beast handed over, the manager would remind them, “Use with caution. Please do not use any skills while flying.”

Liu Zong had only ever heard about flight points and their mounts, never having ridden one himself. Generally, these mounts were the largest flying beasts native to the area, and if the map was vast enough, the flight point might even offer transfer services. In particularly dangerous regions, armed flying mounts would sometimes escort travelers.

Of course, none of this came free. Without real, hard currency, the flight point manager wouldn’t even spare you a glance. Trying to rob them was wishful thinking—these locals were every bit as formidable as the players themselves. Picking a fight with them would mean not only the flying beasts but also all the flight points across the map would turn against you and ban you from flying altogether.

Thus, unless pressed by urgent matters, most players chose to travel on foot or by regular mount or carriage to their destinations. If not for Zhu Yan’s wealth and the urgency of their situation this time, Liu Zong would not have had the chance to ride a flying mount.

Once astride the pig-headed winged beast, Liu Zong finally appreciated the advantages of flight. The beast wasn’t large—about a meter and a half long with a wingspan just over two meters. When he first climbed on, Liu Zong worried he might be too heavy and crush the creature. To his surprise, everything had been taken care of by the flight manager; all he had to do was grip the saddle tightly and keep his balance.

Once he settled in, the pig-headed winged beast beat its wings effortlessly and began to rise, climbing steadily and smoothly into the air. At first, Liu Zong glanced about uneasily, but soon he realized no matter how he moved, it didn’t disturb the beast’s stability. This emboldened him to look around more freely.

Earlier, when he had been aboard the airship, the descent had been so precipitous that he hadn’t managed to get a clear look at the Storm Isles.

Now, from the back of his flying mount, he could finally observe the land below. While his vision didn’t reach far, he could see that the area beneath them had been utterly consumed by desert. Even in the distant southwest, where a small patch of forest remained, the trees were withered beyond recognition.

Farther out, all was swirling dust and endless yellow wasteland. Even places that differed from the rest were nothing but stretches of desolation. Once the pig-headed winged beast reached its cruising altitude, it circled once in the sky, chose a direction, and flew straight ahead.

The beast’s speed was not particularly fast, but it was remarkably steady—so much so that the wind ahead was deflected, leaving Liu Zong sheltered as he peered below. After about ten minutes of flight, he noticed that the desert below hadn’t always been so barren; the ground bore traces of ruined buildings, remnants left behind after the ravages of wind and sand.

From above, it was clear the city that once stood there had been enormous. At the beast’s speed of sixty kilometers per hour, it would take nearly an hour just to fly from one end of the city to the other. But now, the city had vanished entirely. If not for the scattered people moving through the dust and a few landmark buildings not yet swallowed by sand, Liu Zong would never have guessed this was once a great metropolis.

Heading northwest, the pig-headed winged beasts flew for nearly three hours before the group found themselves amid a sandstorm. This storm was peculiar, as if locked in place by some unseen force—no matter how fiercely the wind blew at its center, the dust never strayed beyond its boundaries.

It was precisely this containment that made the interior even more chaotic. Before they even reached it, Liu Zong could see heavy debris tumbling and spinning in the storm’s grip. Yet the pig-headed winged beasts seemed unconcerned. Without even glancing at the path ahead, they plunged straight into the maelstrom.

In that instant, Liu Zong’s vision went black. It was impossible to see anything around him. The beast shielded him from the dust, but beyond that, the world was nothing but a swirling wall of sand.

They flew on through the storm for more than an hour before Liu Zong heard a strange, piercing cry over the roar. The sound was uncanny, like the muffled wailing of a goat submerged in water—distorted but carrying a penetrating force.

At the sound, the pig-headed winged beasts paused midair, circling for a moment before locking on to the direction from which it came and heading that way. Only then did Liu Zong realize that this was how the flying mounts navigated the sandstorm. Without such guidance, even if the beasts could orient themselves, they would never find their destination so precisely.

With the cry leading the way, the beasts flew for another half hour. Liu Zong felt the mount beneath him dip, and suddenly they burst out of the sandstorm’s shadow.

Ahead lay a small valley, its flanks lined with pale golden pines. These trees seemed stunted, the tallest only reaching a person’s shoulder, but their branches were long and often intertwined with those of neighboring trees, weaving a vast net of needles and boughs that formed a canopy over the valley.

It was this pine net that kept out the wind and sand; without it, the valley below would long since have vanished beneath the dust-laden sky.

Following a channel left open by the pines, the beasts glided into the valley. Liu Zong saw about thirty people walking below. In the center, a bonfire burned, around which a handful of figures—leaders, by their bearing—were deep in conversation.

The landing zone for the flying mounts was at the very edge of the valley. Compared to the airship dock before, the conditions here were far more primitive. There wasn’t even a rookery; just a few wooden frames nailed together from pine served as the flight point.

Once the beasts had landed, a flight manager came forward to assist the players as they dismounted, then led the mounts away to the wooden racks.