The night sky was darker than normal. No stars could be seen. When Desaray, Yi Ling, and Cinder appeared, it was almost impossible to see more than a foot in front of you. It was as if all light was being sucked out of everything. 

    “Juna, are you sure this is the correct place?” Desaray asked as she looked around. If not for one of Cinder’s flames walking around in front of them, trying to light as much of the area up as it could, it would have been like a candlelight in the night, only lighting a foot around it.

“Yeah. I have my roots all over the place now in the country you called China, and it seems the entire country is covered in darkness.” Juna replied. Desaray had Juna send them to China when it was almost eight at night, meaning it would be eight in the morning in China, but from the look of things, something was off.

    “The Demon Queen of Darkness. She is in these lands.” Cinder bit her lip. She did not think the Demon Queen of Darkness would be this powerful already after being sealed for so long.

Desaray frowned. She looked at Yi Long, who had a worried expression on her face and sighed. “Let’s go and find your people. We will have to make this quick. We are in no position to be fighting a demon queen at this time.” 

“Even though you can defeat me!?” Cinder was shocked. She now felt maybe she was much weaker than she had realized.
    
    “It is different with you since I can freeze fire. I can not freeze darkness. If I can’t see the demon queen, I can’t do anything to her. This darkness is enough to block my vision, and I am a dragon!” This was why Desaray was being wary. It was very dangerous to try to fight an opponent you could not see.

“Right… Yeah, that might be hard.” Cinder nodded. She did not think like this. But now that she was thinking about it, it was kind of unfair to be able to block a person's vision like this.

“Cinder, spawn a few more flames and light our path and also have a few trail behind us as well as the sides. We need to be sure we are not leaving ourselves too open. You said the Demon Queen of Darkness can control shadows, so I think this is a shadow that she is using to blanket out the sun.” Desaray wanted to cover every aspect of their surroundings. If they could push the darkness back just enough, they could walk forward without issue.

“On it!” If Cinder had a tail, it would be waging back and forth at this time. She was happy Desaray was relying on her.

The path ahead was still dark as can be, but they could at least walk the dirt path with the help of Juna’s root leading the way. They walked for almost two miles before they came upon a settlement that was hidden in the darkness. Even with all the lights they had going, it only lit up the area within the metal walls. “Who goes there!?”

    “Open the gates! It is me, Yi Ling. I came to speak to my uncle!” Yi Ling was in control from this point on. Desaray could not enter. So she and Cinder had to wait outside. 

“Ling, just tell him to gather all those willing to follow here. Juna’s root will bring you to us.” Desaray had Juna send over a few roots just in case anything happened. She was glad she did, or else she would not have been ready for this.

“I will!”

- - -

“We are out!” Becky yelled out with a happy smile. Her long white hair went down to her butt. She had a set of feathered white wings on her back as well as a long white scaled tail. She now looked eighteen as well. Besides her was Ricky who now was missing an arm. But on the other hand, he had a massive claymore.  

Yu and Mike were also there. Mike now had a humanoid form, but his legs and arms still had scale-like stones covering them at parts. Yu had a fluffy tail on her backside with wolf ears. But besides that, she looked very human. 

“We seem to be over the ocean.” Ricky could smell the scent of the ocean in the air. 

“We reached level sixty, so we should be fine for now on this island, right?” Becky asked. She was not as clingy as she was before to Ricky. She had confessed and was instantly rejected. While she did feel down about it, she did not wish to dwell on it either. She had planned to get rejected since the start. She was just glad it did not end up being too awkward. Ricky acted like it never happened. She knew her chances with him were slim since he was Her best friend’s father, but she couldn’t help but confess.

“It depends. That weird man kept stopping in and giving us updates about the world outside. This island might have some stronger beings now.” Mike replied as he looked around. 

    “Well, we just need to wait until we get over land. Then, we can figure out where we are. Maybe we can get home somehow….” Yu just wanted to find Desaray so that they would all be together once again.  

    Ricky looked out over the water and shook his head. “We may have to wait a while. Those waves looked more like the middle of the ocean. With the speed of this island, though, we should be able to reach land in a month at the latest.”