The Demon King is back, leading adorable kids on an adventure around the world!

The southeastern coastal defense line remained stable for three days, but on the evening of the fourth day, ground tremors were felt.

It wasn't the waves, nor the intense rhythmic vibrations of a sea monster landing, but something much deeper.

The vibrations transmitted from underground came in bursts, with long intervals between them.

It was as if some enormous creature had turned over in its sleep; the movement, though unconscious, had already traveled for miles.

Niannian stood at the observation point on the defensive line, her palm touching the ground as she felt the aftershocks for a moment, without mentioning it to anyone.

At midnight that night, the island collapsed.

About thirty nautical miles from the coastline lies an uninhabited island, covered only with reefs and withered grass, with no settlements or settlements.

At midnight, the entire island split open from the middle, with the crack extending along the island's ridge to both ends.

The rock layers inside the surface crack are collapsing, sinking, and being recompacted layer by layer, revealing a huge cavity below.

Something is climbing up from the bottom of the cave. Part of its body is exposed first, like a pillar-shaped rock rising from the ground.

Then more parts gradually detach from the opening and slowly unfold into a complete form.

By the time it completely detached from the cave, the entire island had been shattered into pieces. Rock fragments and mud were shaken off by its lifting action and sank to the surrounding sea surface, piling up into a shallow beach.

It was a giant tortoise, its back covered with a grayish-black shell, the surface of which was uneven and covered with thick moss and vines, as if it were carrying the entire rock layer of the island on its back.

Its limbs are thick and strong, and its head slowly emerges from its shell. The movement is very slow, as if it hasn't done this action in a long time.

The joints made a soft cracking sound as they stretched outwards, one joint at a time.

Its eyes opened a crack, its pupils were cloudy, it turned once toward the coast, and then turned back.

It did not accelerate when it came ashore; it simply moved toward the coastline at a fixed speed.

Where I passed, the sand was pressed into two neat, deep grooves with smooth edges and no loose soil was turned up.

The alarm had sounded three times on the defensive line. Nian Nian stood at the forefront, drawing her Taiyi Sword.

She saw that the turtle's shell was covered with a layer of pale golden spiritual energy patterns that were slowly flowing.

That's armor only found on ancient monsters; it's a natural array structure, not something carved on later. It's something they're born with inside their shells.

Luo Nannan rushed over from the flank and stood next to Niannian. She watched the turtle's movements, didn't use fire, and simply said:

"Its shell has a layer that my fire can't burn through."

Xiao Jin arrived as well, landing on the other side of Niannian.

When he landed, the spiritual energy fluctuations on his body could no longer be suppressed, and his bones were making a slight stretching sound, which was a sign that he was about to transform into his true form.

He watched the turtle move and said:

"This thing is a bit old; it didn't just wake up recently. It's been awake for a while now, just waiting for something."

Before Niannian could respond, his back was already arched, and golden scales appeared on his skin.

He bent over and sank down, his body rapidly expanding upon landing.

Dragon horns protruded from its forehead, its entire body was covered in scales, and it kicked up a cloud of fine dust when it touched the ground with its limbs.

A hundred-foot-long, five-clawed golden dragon coiled above the sea, its head shaking and causing the surrounding spiritual energy to vibrate, creating several outward-spreading arc-shaped depressions in the waves.

The tortoise stopped, looked up in the direction of Xiao Jin, its cloudy eyes slowly focused, and then let out a low, long cry.

The sound wave of the cry spread out along the ground, like a low-pressed string gliding across the sea.

When Luo Nannan saw the sound wave sweep across the sea, a layer of fine white foam appeared on the surface of the seawater.

She leaped into the air and transformed into her original form; when her crimson-gold phoenix wings unfolded, they covered half the sky.

The edges of her feathers shimmered with a flowing, fiery halo, like a slowly burning ring of light, extending outwards, contracting, and then extending again at the boundaries of her wings, like a scorching shell being pushed outwards from her body.

Without hesitation, she swooped down, her wings folding as she transformed into a crimson-gold pillar of light that struck the tortoise's back.

When the beam of light struck the surface of the tortoise shell, it exploded into a ring of intense heat. The vines and moss on the shell instantly vaporized in the high temperature, revealing a smooth, grayish-black shell.

The shell wasn't burned through; only a dark scorch mark, slowly spreading, remained at the point of contact.

Tiny bubbles on the surface constantly burst and close at the edge of the scorch marks, like a membrane that is repairing itself.

During the brief moment of the phoenix's dive, Xiao Jin lashed its tail at the side of the tortoise's neck. The impact of the dragon's tail produced a muffled sound, and the tortoise's head swayed slightly, but did not deviate too much.

It slowly turned in one direction, raised its forelimbs and then lowered them, the stomp shaking the coastline.

Niannian steadied herself amidst the tremors and rose into the air. The Taiyi Sword unleashed a silvery-white sword aura that landed on the crack in the tortoise shell, dissipating after penetrating half an inch.

She struck again, this time cutting two inches deeper.

A dark droplet emerged from the edge of the crack on the surface of the tortoise shell. After falling, the droplet spread into a dark cloud in the seawater and did not disperse.

Xiao Jin and Luo Nannan attacked together several times.

The little golden dragon coiled around the tortoise's body, trying to suppress its movement. Its dragon claws tore at the tortoise's back, tearing off a small piece each time.

Luo Nannan's flames burned the exposed soft flesh around the glans, forcing it to stop advancing.

The turtle slowly resisted, constantly turning around, trying to change its orientation.

However, it takes a long time to turn, and each turn requires a full arc to complete.

The arc itself was enough to force the coastal defenses to adjust their positions multiple times to cope with its movement.

The battle lasted from midnight until dawn.

Under continuous attacks, the turtle's shell gradually cracked into a grid-like pattern.

Luo Nannan's flames and the golden dragon's claws repeatedly cut through those patterns, each strike shaving off a layer.

Niannian finally found the location where the cracks in the shell met, and the Taiyi Sword pierced into it along the direction of the crack, with most of the sword blade disappearing into the crack.

The turtle let out a long, muffled groan, lowered its head to the sand, slowly spread its limbs, and stopped moving.

When Xiao Jin landed, it took a few steps back, its forelimbs braced on the sand, and there were several bleeding spots on the scales of its chest and abdomen. Its breathing was heavy.

There were several deep claw marks and burns on the surface of the dragon's body, with the flesh at the edges beginning to curl up.

Luo Nannan landed not far away. When the phoenix folded its wings, the flames at the edges of its feathers dimmed noticeably.

Her left wing was broken in one place, and the feathers hung down in a mess. A patch of feathers on her chest was scorched, as if it had been roasted by fire and then doused with a layer of ash.

She stood still, and after a while, she slowly used her beak to tidy up the broken feathers.

Qiqi ran over from a distance and squatted down next to the turtle carcass, pressing her hand against the edge of the broken shell. Golden spiritual energy seeped from her fingertips and flowed into the turtle's body along the cracks.

The turtle carcass began to shrivel, the luster of its shell faded at a visible rate, and more fine cracks appeared on the surface before it peeled off piece by piece.

Her aura was rising, and the spiritual power within her body was expanding rapidly, causing the sand beneath her feet to tremble slightly, like a sapling growing wildly.

Qianqian walked to Luo Nannan's side and raised her hand to cover the broken phoenix wing with a soft white light.

Luo Nannan's wings trembled, but she did not dodge.

Niannian sheathed her sword and stood there for a while, staring at the withered turtle corpse and the crisscrossing cracks on the beach. She looked at it for a long time.

The sea breeze carried the peeling shell fragments far away, where they accumulated in the low-lying areas of the beach, forming a slowly rising dark sand dune.

She took out a communication talisman, infused it with spiritual power, and spoke a sentence into the talisman:

"Dad, we've dealt with the old one over there, but we might not be able to stop the next one."

When she put the talisman away, the lingering warmth from her fingertips left a shallow, flattened mark on its surface, which was then blown away by the wind.

She glanced down at her hand holding the Taiyi Sword; there were several bloody gashes on the web of her hand, torn by the recoil.

The edges were already dry, like a thin layer of red paint slowly peeling off.

She looked at it for a while, then put her hand down.