Chapter 130: Dawn of Mankind – Part 1

Chapter 130: Dawn of Mankind – Part 1

"I see you'll all do just fine here," Nikolas wryly remarks.

I stare at Penelope, and she holds my gaze, her arms crossed under her bra, assuming a more defensive posture as she tries to get a hold of herself due to my draconic pressure making her feel like prey.

I smirk as I approach, and her face involuntarily twitches as she begins to shyly smile, then she pushes her long floppy ears behind her and forces a more stern expression.

Playing hard to get?

Nikolas notices our silent flirting, and his face stiffens in annoyance.

Oh? It seems he holds a [Spirit Light] for her. They don't act like a couple, so maybe I could play a bit with his jealousy.

Her eyes wander to the purple tentacles coming out of my back, and her demeanor becomes unsure. "What are those... tentacles...?" She hesitantly asks.

I point my palm up and create a slimy, suggestively-shaped meat log. "A spell I've created. It allows me to grow fake, temporary appendages that I can use for... a variety of 'activities,'" I huskily reply with a suggestive grin.

Her eyes open wide, and she stiffens, slightly fearful of me, yet her eyes can't turn away from the purple "tool."

"But why is it... purple...?" She quietly asks and swallows heavily.

I make the tentacles all flesh-colored, then transparent, then I slowly pull them back. "It helps intimidate others, just like how you obviously are, but they're all just fake flesh, like a mana solidification," I kindly explain, and they both visibly relax.

I'm loving playing with them.

But Nikolas sends her a brief glare, then anxiously interjects, "Well aren't you full of 'mysteries,' but we don't have time to play. The next trial should start soon."

"'Trial'?" Roxanne asks, frowning in horror at the word.

The wolf man nods and sternly explains, "Patience, communication, carefulness, unity, bravery, imagination, and righteousness. Those are the trials the dungeon will make you go through."

Roxanne groans out loud, echoing Alissa's and Yunia's internal thoughts. They are not looking forward to being "tested."

Yet Ciel is too eager to share her priestly knowledge with us, so she suddenly interrupts, "In the Extended Tale of Creation, the God of Creation observed that mammals were the type of animal that had advanced the furthest, so They based our form on them and molded the Primes, a man and a woman, from the versatile clay. Those were the first two Symbols we fought.

"But having only two isn't enough to create a population without inbreeding, so Creation used their blood to give birth to true Man, a more flawed but better-balanced form based on the Primes."

Alissa's ears flicker in confusion as she asks, "Is 'Man' not the same as 'humans'?"

Ciel nods. "It is, it's just how we called ourselves in ancient Andraste."

Lina softly snorts and comments, "I find it funny that in Andraste, 'human' is just 'woman,' but with the first two letters cut in half."

"Using 'Man' instead of 'human' sounds unfair to women," Yunia remarks, sounding almost offended.

"In ancient Andraste, 'woman' is simply 'not-man,'" Lina explains, and Yunia's thin, golden eyebrows knit in distaste. "Women are better at magic, but back then, magic was not as well understood, so the physically stronger men usually ruled until the creation of skills equalized power levels."

"Okay, but what about the 'trials'?" I put us back on track.

Ciel excitedly continues, "They're not really 'trials,' at least not during that time. The God of Change simply liked to put Man in situations where they'd be forced to reflect upon life and understand themselves better. These 'trials' were more like 'events,' and there were seven major types, each focusing on one of the seven 'aspects' of our personalities we believe to exist."

"And the first one is to test your patience," Nikolas wisely adds.

But I frown skeptically and ask, "Doesn't knowing what these 'events' are going to be diminish their effect?"

And Penelope kindly explains, "Yes, but Antreos Crea is like participating in a play about the Dawn of Mankind, not a real 'trial.'"

I hum. "Interactive storytelling."

She tilts her head. "An... interesting choice of words, but true, I believe."

Suddenly, Alissa notices a barely audible rumbling, then the weak illumination begins to turn blood red as ripples on the sheet of water come towards us from far off into the mist.

"It's starting," Penelope soberly points out.

The scouting Hollys meet with dark clouds blocking their advance all at the same time, and the moment they fly into the ominous dark wall, they're assaulted by multiple lightning strikes until they've been fried to death.

"The next Symbols will have annoying abilities, but we never know which," Nikolas adds, and I can only frown at that statement.

Then the rest of the girls and I also begin to hear the rumbling, and the ripples grow into small waves.

"We're now being thrown into Rupegia while the Gods fought for control over it," Penelope announces.

The mist clears a bit, allowing us to see further and revealing the outline of mountains surrounding us, looking quite ominous in the red world that we now find ourselves in.

Directly ahead, the mist darkens again, then thickens into clouds, and four T-posing Symbols appear, slowly floating towards us.

We assume our previous battle formation, but a thick wall of water separates us, dividing our group right through the middle. Kyora's group and the guides retreat into the elevator, and the moment the water hits the stone shaft, it releases an oddly familiar type of mana, seemingly enchanted.

Alissa fires both physical [Mana Arrow]s and the magical [Arrow of Annihilation] at the Symbols, but all of her attacks are diverted by them, making her click her tongue in frustration.

Normally, I'd never allow my enemy to just approach us unmolested, but right now, I want to see what they're going to do, and we need the challenge anyway.

Yunia then becomes concerned about our guides. We're already exposing them to many of our hidden powers, and a noble has already shown a lot of interest in getting information about us, so while we wait, she guides Jarn to explain the situation to them.

The metal golem suddenly moves in front of the duo, scaring them a bit, then Jarn stares with her lifeless eyes while she robotically relays Yunia's words, "As you've already seen, our combat abilities are special, and there are plenty of nobles who would pay a lot of coin to have the knowledge that you now hold-..."

"Oh, fuck!" Nikolas hisses quietly in realization and shares a look with Penelope.

"But we're willing to shelter you while your information is still valuable, which we estimate will remain so for less than a month."

"How considerate..." Alonso remarks amusedly.

"I'll take it," Thunder Thighs immediately accepts with a grin.

"Fuck, Lolo. Why are you like this?" Nikolas grumbles and glares at her.

She coyly glances at him. "It'll be fun..."

And Timas helpfully chimes in, "Ciel will take care of you. She's a priestess, and we're Templars."

Penelope excitedly adds, "Free lodging while living with the elves. You can't pass on that."

But Nikolas is still not taking it. "He's a Lord with a gaggle of women following his tail," he quietly points out, his red eyes staring intensely at her.

The athletic bunny girl simply chuckles nervously and plays with her floppy ears as she stares at my back, but she doesn't reply.

And Roxanne's panties start to become moist from the sight of the horrified face Nikolas makes once he realizes her intentions. I also think that I'm beginning to understand why women have a thing for NTR.

"The fight..." Lina tiredly pulls our attention back to where it matters.

I shift my legs to get my boner into a more comfortable position, then I decide to float up to test things out.

A torrent of water comes out of the mist and shoots towards me, so I dodge, but another attack comes, then another, and another, and a fifth. I believe they're spending a lot more mana on these attacks than I'm using to dodge them, so I'm willing to bet in this war of attrition.

The mist suddenly darkens heavily, then Roxanne, Aoi, and I feel the Symbols' presences "aiming" at me.

Fu-...

I groan in pain as a strong lightning bolt hits me, and my body flashes with a rainbow color as [Rainbow Shield] activates to reduce the damage from the spell. It isn't enough to do more than take just a few HP points from me, but because I have [Mana Body], it's really fucking painful.

Hana summons her wings and shoots towards the Symbols, out for revenge, while I lower back down and let Ciel's [Holy Spirit] heal me.

Multiple water jets get in Hana's way, but they're too slow to change course, and a spiral pattern is enough to dodge them all.

The dark clouds continue to grow, quickly enshrouding the Symbols in a menacing, black barrier.

"The lava could be releasing noxious fumes," Lina worriedly points out.

"'Pay attention to your own situation,'" I repeat soberly.

Far ahead of us, a jet of lava suddenly spurts upwards, but the molten rock almost immediately stops in the air as if it hit a barrier, then it spreads out, creating a floating circular platform that rapidly cools and hardens into obsidian.

The endless pool of glowing lava becomes turbulent, and hundreds of jets spurt upwards, but only a few of them end up creating platforms, and a haphazard path that takes us into the mist soon forms before our eyes.

The orange light makes things annoyingly hard to see, so we all cast [Spirit Light] to make it easier on our eyes.

Then four T-posing Symbols finally descend from the sky, but there's also a shiny orange glass orb the size of a watermelon trailing behind them.

They land on a platform at the edge of the mist and immediately kneel, then we sense their "presences" washing over the lava, and multiple jets shoot towards the orb, which absorbs them all and glows slightly brighter.

"The realm used to be full of godly power, so Man used many methods to absorb it and become stronger," Lina scholarly explains.

"Okay, the objective here is pretty obvious," I point out, and we jump onto an obsidian platform (though Lina has to use [Fly]).

Three of the Symbols immediately stand up and start skipping towards us, performing jumps that'd make Olympic athletes envious. The jets of lava continue to shoot towards the orb, but now, they're much slower.

We quickly split into groups: Aoi and I; Roxanne and Hana; Ciel and Lina; and Alissa and Yunia. That last group will be responsible for sneaking around towards the orb and dealing with it.

Roxanne releases an [Ice Lance] that hits a Symbol right on the chest, but the ice immediately begins to steam and melt away while the wound left behind almost instantly heals.

Oh, Gods, high regeneration is so annoying.

Our three duos meet with our naked, weaponless opponents, and we easily keep them occupied, but we soon learn that they bleed red-hot blood that smells suspiciously nasty, and their regeneration is so good that they're just as resilient as full undead.

Roxanne tests [Explosion] on her opponent's chest, but even that isn't enough to actually kill it, and the strong smell of their blood makes her a bit light-headed, so one test is good enough for us, then Ciel sends her [Holy Spirit] to Roxanne to purify her body.

Hana keeps her Symbol from regenerating, but then a strong orange light shines upon the pair from the orb, and they immediately retreat. A couple of seconds later, a thick beam of plasma slices through the air where they just were, giving the Symbol enough time to fully grow its body back.

Penelope, are you sure this isn't the actual test of our patience?

[Illusion Magic] is extremely effective on them, so just with [Ignorance], Alissa and Yunia successfully sneak past the three Symbols, then they approach the kneeling one without it noticing them.

Yunia dices it up while Alissa uses a war hammer to smash the orb into smithereens, then all of the Symbols let out horrific death screams as their bodies melt into small pools of lava.

"Noooo! My foood!" Aoi cries out in dismay.

"Wait, that's it...?" Hana mumbles confusedly.

"Our teamwork is kind of perfect, even without the Gestalt," Ciel amusedly remarks through [Bind]

"It was so fragile that I could've just used an arrow," Alissa grumbles and pouts.

We hear a laugh coming from the elevator and notice that our guides are having fun observing our confused expressions.

But we don't have time to fool around, for the ground trembles again, and the next "trial" begins.

Announcement

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