After searching for some seconds, Andrea finally found the place to push the gates open. She looked back quickly and saw that although the cultivators had advanced through the rain of projectiles, they couldn't go past the middle point where the lava beasts accelerated.
Moreover, the lava beasts were special, as they could shoot at more than one person simultaneously, creating different apertures in their bodies.
That was why they couldn't move, they were linked with a magma reservoir below this place, and the vein-like things in the surroundings served as the medium to deliver that magma to the lava beasts. It was clear that they weren't natural creatures but something created to serve as a trial to enter through those doors.
Andrea just gave a quick glance and refocused on what she had found. Two hand-shaped dents were visible in the giant door at three meters of height. 'Do I have to brute force them?'
Andrea found this to be too simple and stupid, but she didn't have much time to do anything else. Therefore, she created two hands made of molten metal that fit the apertures perfectly and connected them to her arms.
Then, she lowered her waist and placed one foot forward, pushing with all her strength.
But the doors didn't even budge!
Still, Andrea didn't stop trying since she didn't find anything else that was out of place in these big, almost fifty-meter-tall doors. She had looked at every corner with her spiritual sense, so she was quite sure.
'Tsk, they don't move. Why don't seniors create simple tests!?... Hm?' Andrea looked at the bottom of the door and saw a mark that wasn't there before. 'It moved?'
The mark was literally millimeters away from the door, and Andrea could only spot them at first because she was constantly using her Spiritual Sense to see any changes in the door.
Andrea smiled, and her aura burst like a tide! She used her [Chromosphere], surrounding herself in a molten armor, heating up the surroundings. The armor on top of her silver armor gave her a very bulky and menacing appearance.
The princess lobster was pushed back by the heat-wave Andrea's aura released. 'So strong!'
Andrea took a deep breath and put every single muscle, using them in sync as she pushed forward.
If Andrea didn't have her armor on, the delicious scenery of her perfectly defined muscles tensing and creating power would be revealed.
Her arms, back, abdomen, legs, and waist relaxed for a second and then pushed together with her shout. "Move!"
Andrea's body strength and the boost her energy gave her created a low and loud creaking sound after her shout. The sound was similar to that of a heavy object being dragged on gravel, and a small tremble accompanied it. This gathered the attention of the cultivators on the other side.
At first, they didn't believe their own eyes but realizing that what they were seeing was indeed true, many of them began shouting. "Let's combine our efforts! We can't let her enter first, or she will steal everything!"
"Brothers and sisters, push forward!"
"Do not fear and attack the twenty beasts!"
Andrea ignored the shouts and pushed, pushed, and pushed her muscles on the verge of tearing as the weight of those fifty-meter-tall doors was truly tremendous. Her steps were small while advancing, but little by little, she made progress.
Meanwhile, the lobster princess looked stunned as she saw the almost two-meter-tall woman open the massive doors. 'My Lobster Ancestor, is what I am seeing real?'
Ten seconds later, the gap was big enough for them to go through, Andrea ordered, her voice strained, and her face dripped with sweat. "Little one, enter first. I can't maintain them open for too long!"
The lobster princess, who was admiring the imposing sight of Andrea's feat, woke up with a start and made a little run, entering through the gap. Right after, Andrea also jumped inside and let the molten arms dissolve.
*BOOM!*
The enormous doors closed with a big explosion, and the shockwave pushed Andrea and the crab forward some meters.
They were that heavy.
Andrea took deep breaths, trying to catch up her breath. She felt extremely sore and tired. 'That was much harder than I thought. Are they supposed to be opened by more than a single person or what?'
She looked at the closed doors and sighed, "The most important thing is... How will we get out of here? There isn't anything to push or pull them from this side."
Andrea shook her head and said spiritedly, "Well, it doesn't matter. I'm sure we can find a way later."
Andrea then thought with a bad smile, "Since I'm on this side, how about I create a little obstacle?"
Andrea used the [Molten Wall] skill and solidified it beside the doors. This created a literal stopper on the other side of the door. 'Just moving them is hard. I can't imagine moving them with an obstacle behind.'
Her light green eyes moved toward the little one, and she saw that she was looking toward one place with dancing eyes. That only happened when she was feeling strong emotions.
Andrea found it amusing and cute and almost laughed. She held in the urge to pat the cute little thing and moved her eyes toward the place where the Lobster Princess was looking. When the scenery entered her sight, her breath got taken away.
What she saw was a natural volcanic rock bridge that led to a thing similar to a tower. However, what took Andrea's breath away was the size and form of that place.
The structure, made of black volcanic rocks, elevated more than a kilometer upward and was separated into various levels. It had ten kilometers in diameter and gave an imposing feeling to the spectator. A lava sea surrounded the structure that Andrea didn't think would fit inside the volcano. Moreover, the top of the tower gave extreme heat that made the lava and the surroundings feel lukewarm. Andrea couldn't feel it, but she could see the heat.
Andrea could only marvel at the person being able to build something this big. She could see that this structure wasn't natural because even though the surface was made of the same rocks as the surrounding walls, the form was too unnatural.
Andrea heard people thumping the door behind her, waking her up from her stupor. She looked at the princess beside her and smirked, "Impressive, right? Let's enter before those cultivators catch up to us."
The princess lobster looked at Andrea and agreed, "Let's get delicious things, silver beast!"
As Andrea and her companion entered one of the challenges inside the secret realm, Cecile was destroying giant sand creatures and golems almost without rest.
Compared with the initial ones that died with one arrow, these beasts were resilient and hard to kill, even for our powerful Moon Phoenix. Moreover, if she didn't kill them quickly enough, more would appear, and they would overrun her with numbers.
Cecile looked around and felt her arms numb from firing so many arrows. Even with her powerful regeneration, she had already lost the feeling in her fingers for a day.
A laser beam shot toward her and grazed her cheek, creating a burn mark that slowly but surely healed at a visible speed. 'If that shot were aimed some centimeters to her right, it would have been dangerous.'
Cecile breathed roughly, and her vision was blurred.
She was so tired that she was dodging by pure instinct, so when the shots weren't life dangering, she couldn't react to them properly.
However, she motivated herself by speaking aloud. "There are only four hours left. I've been killing these things for almost a week. What are four hours more? Focus!"
As Cecile said, almost a week has gone by since she entered the challenge. She had lost count of the number of creatures she had killed, and everything in her body hurt. She didn't even know if the pain was because of wounds or her body reaching its limits.
Her meridians were always tense as they absorbed and revolved energy through her body. Skill, after skill, after skill, Cecile shot without rest for a week straight and was about to collapse. She had cast for so many days that even her energy regeneration was reaching its limits.
"Rest! I want to rest!" That is what her body was screaming.
Cecile had open wounds that didn't regenerate on her back, left-wing, and right leg. Her fingers were peeled from shooting the string so much, and her flight was unstable.
No matter how strong the regeneration of a Phoenix was, it also had its limits.
Nonetheless, even in this bad condition, Cecile had a small smile on her dry lips. Her skills had been improving by leaps and bounds, her body and mind following the trend.
It was to such an extent that she was confident in defeating two of her previous self without a problem.
Still, the creatures the silver Moon Phoenix was facing weren't just mindless beasts or constructs like in the beginning. Now, experts made of sand also appeared.
They had different forms, some human, some beast-human, some demons, some divines... The variety of experts was wide, and each wave had one of them.
There were some who had powerful combat techniques and applied them expertly.
There were some who had support skills and strengthened the others.
There were even some who had restraining skills, trying to stop her in place.
Thankfully for Cecile, this was a trial, so the powerful experts were in the mid-low level of the Mental Nourishing Realm.
If they weren't, with the overwhelming amount of creatures that appeared, only a Unification Realm cultivator would be able to overcome this challenge. Even then, Cecile was extremely strong for her level, so taking into account the standard cultivator, it was true that only a Unification realm cultivator would be able to challenge this trial.
Cecile shot a silver arrow with a shredding wind aura around it toward a bipedal sand creature. The strength of the arrow was clearly lacking compared to her habitual arrows. However, when the arrow hit the middle of the chest of that thing, the sand creature came to a stop, dissolving as a sand castle did in the water.
In that spot, these creatures had a core, a weak point. Aiming to that point and making the arrow hit exactly the core wasn't an easy feat, especially when another twenty of those were attacking with different sand attacks all the time.
Cecile had gained very high bow mastery, and there was a subtle, strange, yet profound aura around her whenever she was fighting.
Cecile did not know what it was, but it appeared one day ago when she pushed her tired body to keep shooting arrows beyond her limit.
The moment this aura appeared, tensing the bow became easier, and she could clearly see the paths the arrows needed to take before releasing them. It was as if she had seen a silver about the essence of archery.
Seven creatures remained when another batch of twenty creatures appeared. Cecile's expression changed, 'Did the summoning speed increase?'
Although Cecile wasn't controlling the time, the cycle had been the same for a whole week, and Cecile was already used to it. However, it seemed that the summoning speed had increased for the last four hours. Thankfully, the strength of the waves had stopped growing two days ago, and that remained the same.
Cecile tensed her bow and released a barrage of seven arrows.
The silvery and green arrows flew in dazzling streaks as they approached the seven weakest constructs.
One after another, the seven creatures were pierced and exploded into pieces. Cecile instantly flapped the wing that hurt less and made a barrel roll to the side.
Right after, thirteen lasers pierced the place where she was previously.
Cecile let herself fall and used acceleration to shoot her arrows with more strength. This would have destroyed her aim, but the essence of archery she understood seemed to guide her arrows to hit different targets.
This time, as she had aimed toward the expert sand monsters, it didn't go as well. They moved their weapons and deflected the arrows that lacked strength.
Cecile didn't flinch as she moved the energy through her hurting meridians. It felt as if fire flowed through her veins, but she managed to cast [Moon Tornado]. The silver tornado absorbed two of the experts inside of it, and Cecile shot two arrows in seemingly random directions.
The arrows bent thanks to the gales of the tornado and accelerated, landing on the chest of those two experts. This killed them on the spot. The waves appeared every half an hour before, but now they appeared every twenty minutes.
Cecile felt her body crumbling, thinking about killing so many beasts, but she didn't surrender. That thought didn't even cross her mind. She took a deep breath, and her aura exploded with a silver wave as she shouted, "I'M NOT DONE YET!!"