The Great Tao Desert was a place where the sun was a tyrannical sovereign, beating down upon the endless dunes of golden sand until the air itself shimmered with a lethal, undulating heat.
Ordinarily, this was a graveyard for any traveler foolish enough to cross its borders, but deep within its heart lay a hidden sanctuary, a marvel of architecture and biological adaptation: Lamia City.
Built from sandstone infused with spirit-quartz and cooled by subterranean rivers that ran beneath the desert crust, it was a sprawling oasis of serpentine elegance.
At this moment, Huo Yue, Zhu Ziyan, Medusa, and the rest of the Huo Clan were here, surrounded by thousands of Lamias.
The desert warriors stood with their long, powerful tails coiled beneath them, their scales glistening like jewels under the harsh light.
The atmosphere was thick with tension, but it wasn't the tension of hostility; it was the vibrating energy of a tribe greeting its long-lost goddess.
