After thoroughly observing the surroundings, she didn't find any sort of clue, so Yasenia decided to enter the mines. She took out [Draconic Heart], and all her senses became alert. Even if the strength of the enemies from the previous Monoliths didn't surpass the half-step level of the Mental nourishing realm, Yasenia wouldn't become confident because of that. Her life was on the line, after all.
As she walked, Yasenia used her tail in the Sword shape to mark the floor. She didn't know whether it would be a complex network of tunnels or something simple. Either way, this would be a good method not to get lost as easily.
Her tail was extremely sharp and durable. It had already reached the boundary between High-level Earth treasure and low-level Heaven treasure. Moreover, after being coated by her energy coat, its hardness and sharpness increased, cutting the hard soil like a heated knife would through butter.
Five minutes later, Yasenia felt movement from the right. She placed her sword like a shield in that direction.
*Bang!*
Yasenia felt the impact and heard something sharp making a strident noise as it tried to claw through it. The impact was strong, but her feet didn't move. The world was going slowly as Yasenia observed the creature that hit her sword. 'It isn't very big. I can use my tail as the main weapon.'
The creature that slammed onto her sword had the size of a large dog, with sharp claws on its four legs and a furry grey body.
Without delay, Yasenia used her tail and constricted the creature's lower half, hardening her scales so that it couldn't damage her. Then, Yasenia she pulled with all her strength and swung the beast around, hitting the floor with it.
*BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!*
Yasenia's tail was relentless as she slammed the creature into the floor and walls, creating very shallow craters. The creature didn't even know where the direction of the floor was as its face kept meeting the hard surface of the mine repeatedly. The powerful momentum Yasenia created when flinging it was enough not to let the creature free from the tight grip of her tail.
This beating down continued until Yasenia saw that it had fainted. The dragoness stopped slamming the creature on the walls and floor and looked at it closely. "I may as well try to find a glaring weakness or something before I kill it."
She observed the fainted and ugly creature closely.
The thing that attacked her was quadrupedal with small back legs and very long frontal ones. The frontal limbs had five sharp and big claws, at least thirty centimeters. Yasenia took the claw and tried to hurt her tail with it.
Sparks flew between them as the piercing sound of metal scraping against metal was heard. 'It can't win against my scales. That is good news. Since they use them to dig, I thought they would be much sharper.
She continued observing and was surprised to see that the creature didn't have eyes on its head nor everywhere else. The furry grey skin was deceptive as it was solid like a rock.
The strength of this one was in the middle-level, approaching high-level, of the third rank.
She tried to remember the name of the creature, but Yasenia didn't have any memory of this beast's name. Driven by curiosity, she continued investigating it, covering herself with a protective membrane.
And she did well doing that because it suddenly awakened and directly spat something at her. It was a gooey blue liquid that certainly looked dangerous.
Yasenia dodged to the side, but it managed to touch her arm. Thankfully, the protective membrane made it so the liquid couldn't damage her in any way. Still, when the liquid touched the ground, it sizzled, creating toxic fumes. Yasenia raised an eyebrow, "Bad little thing. Let's see how resistant your body is."
Yasenia delivered an uppercut to the lower jaw of the creature with her whole strength.
*SPLAT!*
That was the sound it created as the head burst like a watermelon, splashing everything on the walls.
Yasenia nodded and said, "Quite fragile."
It wasn't. Dear Yasenia, the creature isn't fragile.
The skin of these creatures was as durable as the rocks they ate, so Yasenia just said that earth-ranked stones were fragile. Still, it was true that for our dragoness, it really felt like that.
To block Yasenia's full physical strength, you had to have at least a high-level earth-ranked armor. Moreover, the bearer of the armor must be at least a peak half-step level.
In short, until reaching the middle of the nest, the dragoness wouldn't have any problems. So it began a journey around the mines, clearing every single creature she met on the way with little to no effort.
Meanwhile, Angel and Kali also advanced without major problems. Since the cave was quite big, they could surround themselves with their summons, tanking the surprise attacks and then eliminating them.
Sarah, even if she was a novice, was strong, so besides being surprised from time to time, she advanced continuously and without major problems. Her five elements synergized quite well, giving her an edge in the battle against these beasts.
Furthermore, these days she has been tempering her will with the monoliths, so she had now very little reservations when killing beasts. Killing humans was still hard for her, but there was a lot of progress.
Right now, she could see splattering bodies and only felt sick in the stomach, but not fearful or cowardly as before.
The system was glad at this progress. Even it couldn't help its host if the host didn't have the will to live. So making these trials was a very good thing that would prepare her for the future.
In the system's opinion, this town was practically tailored for someone like Sarah.
The four of them made quick progress and reached the middle of the mines, where the nest was, in three hours.
This was less than fifteen minutes in the real world, as one hour outside was the same as twelve in the trial.
The nest was a very large cave with tunnel exits in every direction, even in the ceiling. It looked like a honeycomb because of all the tunnels that filled everything.
In the middle of the nest, there was a much bigger than the normal creatures, reaching five meters in height, just enough to move through the tunnels.
Its strength was, to Yasenia's and the others' surprise, in the low level of the fourth rank!
That meant that it had comparable strength to a Unification realm cultivator.
Yasenia looked at it with a solemn expression. 'Fourth-ranked… This will be difficult if I want to defeat it without collapsing the mine. Moreover, I bet it can scream and call all the others in the surroundings.'
Yasenia wanted to sneak around a little more, but the creature's mandibles suddenly made a piercing clicking sound. Yasenia frowned since she knew that this was one of the skills they had, echolocation. Moreover, Yasenia was sure that this echolocation was superior since she had tried not moving, but they would always spot her.
As Yasenia expected, right after the sound, its head whipped toward her releasing an intermittent clicking screech. Yasenia cursed in her mind, 'The echolocation is too powerful! I'm hiding my breath and presence, but it still can spot me.'
Then, she heard it making a series of clicking sounds in different frequencies, and all the small creatures rushed toward Yasenia.
Yasenia didn't dare hold back and directly used [Celestial Dress]. The white empyrean dress hugged her body tightly as her strength multiplied exponentially. Then, she activated [Dragon Strenght] and shot forward toward the army of creatures that were still pouring through the tunnel entrances.
*Bang!*
Yasenia collided like a bowling ball against ceramic jars, bursting almost ten of them into flesh chunks. Her aura was extremely deep and profound, overwhelming those under the high level of the third rank.
Then, she began swinging her giant sword around as if it was a weightless branch. Her sword swings sent air gales around, blowing the third-level creatures flying. Whenever it collided with one of them, the strength behind the sword didn't slice it but exploded the creatures.
The fight was extremely gory and bloody, but Yasenia's face didn't even flinch as she continued massacring the hordes of creatures jumping at her without regard for their own life.
The fourth-ranked creature suddenly spoke the human tongue. Its voice was distorted and accompanied by clicking sounds, "Why did you come here to kill us, strong one? I don't remember attacking your race."
Yasenia continued swinging her sword, killing the creatures in batches of five beasts with each swing. 'I also wouldn't meddle with your colony if it wasn't a mission from the monolith. Focus, I better not reason with it and just kill everything with a cold heart.'
Yasenia made a full circular swing, using [Crescent Moon] with her sword and tail. This sent two enormous silver crescents, one before and one behind her, bisecting a big chunk of the creatures present.
The creature spoke again. Even though its voice was screeching, Yasenia could understand perfectly. "Destroying innocent life as if it was common grass under your claws. Do you really want to exterminate us? Don't you feel anything killing us like that?"
Yasenia's heart didn't move, and she continued swinging her sword. 'If you were real, maybe I would bother speaking. But you are not. You are just a challenge, and these words are things to test my will. Therefore…'
"[Absorption of Celestial light: Day and Night Cycle]."
Yasenia's eyes turned silver as a vortex of energy enveloped her figure.
*BOOM!*
Her aura washed the whole cave like a tide, even scaring the fourth-level creature. Yasenia said, her voice having a majestic tone even though Yasenia didn't intend to. "Time to meet your death, creature."
Those questions were asked to the four of them once they began killing the army pouring through the holes in the walls and ceiling.
Kali and Sarah doubted whether what they were doing was correct or not, slowing down their attacks for a moment.
Sarah because of her human empathy and Kali because of her bloodline and personality.
However, Kali steeled herself within four seconds and continued commanding her growing plant army together with Valeria, the [Golden Crown].
Angel, on the other side, didn't mind much about it. The little girl's mind was focused, and she knew that she had to overcome this challenge if she wanted to become gain more points. Therefore, she had been running around and placing down many [Glass Nodes] while it spoke.
The [Glass Golems] helped her open a path between the tide of creatures and those that the golems couldn't block; Angel sent them flying with a shield bash or scorched them with a laser.
The being talking to her was in the unification realm, something she wouldn't be able to defeat if the match was fair.
But because the creature was speaking, she gave her enough time to combine two of her strongest formations. Angel answered with her silvery voice, "Sorry, but you must die for me to complete this challenge."
Then, she activated the [Laser Prison Formation], [Mirage Formation], and [Glass golem formation] at the same time. A colorful show of lights illuminated the gloomy cave.
The fourth level creature had its senses confused as the [Mirage Formation] made even sound behave strangely. This gave Angel enough time to do what she had been planning since the beginning.
The twenty, three-meter-tall golems ignored everything as they rushed across the army of confused creatures and jumped on top of the fourth-level beast. Then, Angel controlled her [Laser prison Formation] and shot one laser at each of the golems. "[GOLEM EXPLOSION]!"
The fourth-level creature felt those golems landing on it and was about to destroy them when…
*BOOOOM!*
*CREEE!*
An enormous multicolored explosion rocked the mines, making its foundation tremble, closely followed by a piercing yet agonizing screech. However, thanks to the prison formation absorbing most of the impact, Angel avoided the mines collapsing because of the enormous explosion.
Still, Angel didn't relax and created attack formations to bombard the explosion's center with lasers continuously.
Of course, as she did that, she was weaving through the third-ranked creatures and blocking the attacks with her shield, killing some of them with shield bashes and other shield attacks.
The heavily injured fourth-ranked creature managed to get out of the middle of the laser barrage, but its state was a sorry sight. The body was open in many places, with the bottom part of its body basically gone.
Even if the difference in strength was high, with those serious injuries, it wasn't long before the fourth-level creature gave its last breath. Then, Angel cleaned the remaining low-level creatures with another two hours of effort.