The azure sky resembled a sapphire, flawless above the heavens.
Unfortunately, beautiful things never last.
A pitch-black crack appeared out of nowhere, shattering the beautiful sapphire.
Then, three figures, like trash discarded from high above, were casually tossed out of the spatial rift, tumbling awkwardly through the air.
The wind howled past their ears, but the anti-gravity dresses ensured no compromising view of the overdue young ladies was ever revealed.
“Is this how she treats her own daughter? Bad Mommy doesn’t know the first thing about cherishing a lady. Tsk, so petty. I only complained a little, didn’t I?”
Tunzuo crossed her arms, head down, falling straight like a stubborn block of carved wood.
She kept complaining as she fell, her words torn apart by the wind, yet her stomach full of grievances refused to scatter.
Above her, Olivia and Hai Lanyue heard Tunzuo’s self-pitying lament.
They exchanged a glance and let out giggles in midair, showing absolutely no intention of comforting her.
“Forget it, let’s see where we are first.”
Seeing no witch understood his sorrow, Tunzuo could only let out a helpless sigh.
She stabilized her body mid-fall, squinted, and looked down to try to figure out her location, readying herself for the upcoming landing.
But as Tunzuo’s gaze swept outward, all she saw was an endless expanse of white.
Thick clouds, like a chain of snowy mountains, blanketed the entire region in layers, completely impenetrable.
It was impossible to tell what kind of terrain lay below.
Seeing this, Tunzuo could only withdraw her gaze and abandon the idea of scouting for information.
She pursed her lips and began adjusting her posture in the air.
As a witch, she naturally had the ability to fly, but who wouldn’t want a dramatic, dominating entrance?
So Tunzuo rummaged through her mind, scenes from her mental cinema flashing past.
Of course, Kimura-style landings were excluded.
After careful selection, Tunzuo decided that when she was about to land, she would use magic to precisely control her gravitational potential energy, dispel the landing impact, and kick up a dramatic ring of dust for a cheap special effect.
Then she’d drop into a one-knee landing with a heavy fist slamming the ground—a super absolutely cool, legendary hero landing.
With the plan set, Tunzuo confidently closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and abruptly flipped her body over, head up, feet down, ready to descend in the perfect pose she had imagined.
“OK! I’m ready! I’m ready!”
In Tunzuo’s full anticipation, she broke through the clouds and fell straight down.
The howling wind grew sharper in her ears, and the pure white clouds wrapped around Tunzuo’s entire body, coating her in a layer of damp moisture.
Finally—
Splash!
“Pfft?! Glub glub glub glub—!”
A massive splash resounded.
Completely caught off guard, Tunzuo plunged headfirst into the sea like an iron turtle, sending a massive spray of water flying.
Ice-cold, salty seawater instantly flooded her lungs, choking Tunzuo terribly.
In this situation, she could only flail her limbs in panic, struggling through a stream of bubbles for a long while before finally breaking the surface.
“Cough! Cough, cough, cough!”
The moment she surfaced, Tunzuo tilted her head back to the sky and, like a whale spouting, shot out a magnificent column of water with a “pfft!” The flying droplets sparkled under the sunlight, even refracting a tiny rainbow.
Yeah, beautiful in every color.
“Into the sea! Is this any way for a witch to be treated? Seriously? What’s wrong with her? Who throws a witch into the ocean right off the bat?”
Tunzuo wiped the remaining droplets from her face, her black hair plastered to her cheeks, looking very much like a grudge-filled water ghost.
She was about to curse out her frustration, but before she could speak, two growing shadows loomed over her again.
Tunzuo stiffly looked up to see two figures, one gold and one blue, descending with tremendous force like divine weapons falling from the sky, heading straight for her with clear intent.
Tunzuo’s pupils trembled.
She flailed her hands in a desperate attempt to stop them.
“Wait, wait! You two, don’t come over here!”
Her voice cracked from sheer fright, but alas, it was too late.
Splash! Splash!
Two more deafening impacts.
The two deep-sea bombs dropping from above smashed the just-surfaced Tunzuo straight back underwater.
“Whoa! I didn’t expect there to be an ocean down here.”
Olivia broke through the surface, shook the water from her long golden hair, and floated on the sea like a seal sunbathing.
She scanned the area around her and realized something—wasn’t one witch missing?
“Huh? Where’s Little Ghost? Didn’t she come down before us?”
Hai Lanyue also surfaced at that moment, wiped the water from her face, and dutifully joined Olivia in calling out.
“Miss Tunzuo? Miss Tunzuo!”
Just as the two witches were looking around, searching for where Tunzuo had gone, a black figure floated up from beneath the water like a corpse—face down, back up, body bobbing with the waves, completely still, radiating an unsettling, deathly calm.
“Little Ghost!”
“Miss Tunzuo!”
Seeing this, Olivia and Hai Lanyue panicked and hurriedly swam toward Tunzuo, kicking and paddling.
Olivia reached Tunzuo’s side and reached out to flip her over.
But unexpectedly, the moment Olivia entered Tunzuo’s attack range, a hawk-claw hand suddenly shot up and clamped firmly onto Olivia’s face.
“You perverted dragon! This is petty revenge, isn’t it! You actually kicked me into the sea! You’ve got some nerve!”
Tunzuo raised her head with a dark expression, droplets trailing from her furious eyes.
Her grip tightened steadily, squeezing Olivia’s skull until it ached, the skin of her face nearly being torn off.
“Ugh! Spare, spare me!”
Olivia let out garbled sounds, waving her hands frantically in explanation.
“Mi, mistake! Little Ghost! Let, let go! We were just trying to coordinate with you, we didn’t notice. You, you see, Hai Lanyue came down too, right? I, I got hit as well!”
Seeing Tunzuo’s rising anger, Hai Lanyue quickly swam over, pressed her palms together, and apologized pitifully to Tunzuo, pleading for Olivia.
“I’m sorry, Miss Tunzuo. I wasn’t paying attention. Please don’t blame Miss Olivia…”
“Hmph.”
Looking at the soft, pitiful Hai Lanyue, most of Tunzuo’s anger drained away.
She let out a cold snort, released her grip on Olivia’s face, and said in a huff.
“For Hai Lanyue’s sake, I’ll let you off this time, you perverted dragon. Try pulling something on me again, and I’ll rip your skull open!”
“Th, thank you, my wife, for sparing my life.”
Olivia rubbed her reddened cheek, breathing heavily, her tone full of relief at having survived.
“So what’s the situation now?”
Tunzuo floated on the surface, looked around, and asked Olivia.
Hearing this, Olivia turned and made a quick observation before stating her judgment with certainty.
“Obviously, we fell into the sea. Our priority is to find land, get ashore, and figure out where we are.”
“Great. No useful information at all. Should’ve just stayed in the air instead of coming down. What a waste of time.”
After hearing Olivia’s plain-spoken summary, Tunzuo shook her head in slight disappointment and prepared to fly up from the surface to get a higher vantage point.
But just then, Olivia grabbed Tunzuo’s shoulder, her expression serious.
“Hold on, Little Ghost. I did a scan of our surroundings just now, and I found a serious problem. There’s no sign of land anywhere around here. If we fly aimlessly looking for land, we’ll just waste our mana and stamina.”
Tunzuo raised an eyebrow, clearly waiting for Olivia to come up with a plan.
“So what do we do? Just soak here?”
“I’ve got plenty of energy. I’ll fly out and scout the situation, then come back and report. That way we can plan our next move. You and Hai Lanyue stay here. Don’t wander off.”
With that, a pair of massive dragon wings sprouted from Olivia’s back.
With one powerful flap, she launched into the sky, quickly shrinking to a tiny golden dot before vanishing into the clouds, leaving Tunzuo and Hai Lanyue bobbing in the sea.
“Got to say, the scenery here is pretty nice.”
With nothing else to do, Tunzuo slipped into tourist mode.
The azure seawater was crystal clear with excellent visibility.
A rich coral reef was covered in fish of every color, and some of the bolder ones even swam curiously around Tunzuo and Hai Lanyue.
The deepest part of the sea was only about fifty meters, with sunlight reaching straight to the bottom.
The water shimmered beautifully, perfect for diving.
As the immortal jellyfish witch, Hai Lanyue naturally loved this environment.
She excitedly bobbed up and down in the water, chasing schools of fish and playing about.
Tunzuo also relaxed in the tranquil scenery, floating on her back, hands folded behind her head, enjoying the sea, the sky, and the clouds.
It felt like a vacation, almost making the Academy Tournament not feel so bad.
Just as Tunzuo was on the verge of dozing off and starting to hum softly, a shadow cut off her sunbathing.
Splash!
Olivia, back from scouting, landed heavily in the water, sending up a spray.
She swam over to Tunzuo, her relaxed expression gone, replaced by deep gravity.
“Something’s wrong, Little Ghost.”
Hearing her voice, Tunzuo cracked an eye open.
Seeing Olivia’s grim face, most of her drowsiness vanished.
“What’s going on? It takes a lot to put that look on your face. What, are we trapped?”
Olivia’s unusual demeanor made Tunzuo realize this was serious.
She quickly called Hai Lanyue over, and the three witches gathered together.
Once everyone was there, Olivia didn’t speak immediately.
Instead, she gestured for Tunzuo and Hai Lanyue to follow and swam off in a certain direction.
“Come with me.”
Tunzuo and Hai Lanyue didn’t hesitate and immediately followed behind Olivia.
After swimming for what felt like a long time, the current suddenly grew turbulent, and the water temperature plummeted.
What presented itself before the three witches was a sharply defined boundary line that made Tunzuo and Hai Lanyue gasp.
It was an unfathomably deep underwater cliff, like a scar on the earth, tearing the ocean in two.
The two sides were divided into entirely different worlds.
On the side where Tunzuo and the others were, the water was clear, warm, and sunlit, like a vacation paradise.
But on the other side of the cliff, there was a pitch-black, murky, bottomless, silent, and eerie sea.
The water was ink-black, swallowing every ray of light.
The stark contrast between the two sides delivered a powerful visual impact to the witches.
“This is…”
Staring at the deep, ominous expanse before her, Tunzuo couldn’t help but get goosebumps.
She felt her thalassophobia acting up.
In the pitch-black water, something seemed to be peeking out.
Hai Lanyue, terrified, pressed close to Tunzuo and Olivia, clutching the hems of their clothes.
“I flew around up there a while ago. I couldn’t find land anywhere, but across this sea, I could faintly make out a dark line. That should be the only land around.”
Olivia pointed toward the end of the black sea, her voice low.
“But when I tried to fly over this area to take a look, the sea seemed to come alive. It drained my mana and stirred up violent storms, refusing to let me pass. There are mana currents mixed into the storm. Forcing our way through would be extremely dangerous.”
“But going by the rules of the Academy Tournament, if we want to reach other regions, we’ll probably have to cross this sea.”
After listening to Olivia, Tunzuo stared at the lightless depths and couldn’t help feeling a shiver of dread.
It felt like countless malicious things lurked beneath that black surface.
“Hey, perverted dragon… I get the feeling that the second we step into that sea, a bunch of creepy crap is going to come swarm us.”
Olivia didn’t dismiss Tunzuo’s concern.
She nodded, agreeing with her.
There was no way she’d believe her mother hadn’t cooked up some mischief here.
Next, Tunzuo extended her spiritual energy to probe the deep sea.
But it was like throwing a meat bun at a dog—instantly swallowed by the black water with zero feedback.
Tunzuo fell silent.
Just as Tunzuo and Olivia were racking their brains over how to cross this deep sea that was clearly full of “motherly love,” Hai Lanyue, who had been staring blankly at the water, suddenly widened her eyes, pointed in a direction, and gasped.
“Miss Tunzuo, Miss Olivia! Look, there’s a ship!”
Hearing this, Tunzuo and Olivia whipped their heads around.
Sure enough, not far away in their side of the sea, a retro steamship was cruising toward them, puffing out clean white steam while letting out a “putter putter putter” sound.
Tunzuo and Olivia exchanged a glance, instantly reaching an unspoken agreement.
Regardless, get on the ship first.
Floating in the water wasn’t doing them any favors, and given when this ship showed up, it was probably the key to advancing.
The next second, Olivia spat a thin stream of dragon fire into the sky.
It burst midair, signaling their location to the steamship, while Tunzuo and Hai Lanyue waved and shouted.
“Hey! Over here! We’re over here!”
With the dragon fire rising, the ship seemed to receive the signal.
It sounded a long, drawn-out horn and turned toward Tunzuo and the others.
Before long, the hull pulled up alongside the three witches, and a wooden ladder was lowered.
Without hesitation, the witches scrambled up the ladder.
As soon as she set foot on the deck, before Tunzuo could even catch her breath, a lively voice rang out beside her—sharp and highly distinctive.
“Welcome aboard the Willie, ladies! I’m Captain Mickey, a pleasure to serve you!”
The familiar name, the familiar tone—it made Tunzuo freeze and look up.
There, at the helm, was a round-eared, black humanoid mouse wearing white gloves, red shorts, and big yellow shoes, waving a white-gloved hand enthusiastically in greeting.
The familiar character made Tunzuo’s mouth twitch uncontrollably as countless copyright law clauses flashed through her mind.
Oh no!
Disney’s cease and desist is coming!