Doing the air walk maneuver while submerged was surprisingly not that different from doing it above ground.
It yielded greater results in actual fact, throwing not just me, but Yue and Siv clean past the surface on the first try.
We broke past the water's clear blue surface with a splash, our heightened elevation allowing us to properly drink in the sights, scents, and sounds of our new locale.
Kicking off the air again, I arrested and reversed our downward movement, launching us towards the sandy white beach in a short arc.
Our soaked boots crunched loudly against the fine sand, overshadowing the uncomfortable, wet squelches as I uncoiled my arms from around the girls. "You both okay?"
"Mmn…" They both nodded.
Nodding in return, I looked down, noting how my feet failed to find proper purchase on the ground, the sand parting all too easily for what I wanted to do.
"Babe…" I turned to Yue, my lover having already read my thoughts.
She nodded and held an arm out, yellow light shooting a few inches from her palm towards the ground as the latter began to shift and move with a life of its own.
The sand beneath our feet smoothened and flattened before the light hit it, shifting from its former white softness into hard and unyielding gray rock.
Feeling the solid support beneath my boots, I smiled at her and offered my thanks before freeing myself from said boots, triggering the Treasure Trove.
All three of us changed into dry, clean, and undamaged clothing, with Siv finishing first. There wasn't much normal clothing on her to get wet in the first place, just armor and an undersuit that needed wiping down.
Soon we were all set, basking in the comfort of fresh attires that did not cling to our skin. We set off immediately, the magic compass leading the way through the forest at the edge of the beach.
I waved the darksword about, sending ruined green and grey shapes flying as I pruned the grass, vines and branches in our path. There were even some roots among the debris, the tree trunks in our path comprised dozens of the underground anchors.
Our journey went on interrupted and we arrived at the forest's other end, the only hiccup (if it could even be called that) being a regular-sized yet horrid looking spider with 12 legs trying and failing to bite me.
Contrasting the white smoothness of the beach was a dull gray that stretched as far as the eye could see. In addition to being all rock, the ground was misshapen as well, making walking difficult. Well, not that difficult.
Especially not for people like us.
What drew all three of our gazes though, were the ships. They were huge, and they were everywhere, laying in various damaged states with the wood that made up their bulk looking drab and rotten.
They reminded me of corpses for some reason, and if they were indeed corpses, then this was a cemetery, or a graveyard. 'Yeah, graveyard fits better,' I thought while nodding to myself.
"A ship graveyard…" Siv muttered and made a small leap, landing on a rock that jutted out of the ground. "Is this the next trial? That last one was strange."
I met her searching gaze and nodded. "Yeah. We're going to fight here so prepare. And I don't think we can escape this one."
My memory was still spotty, and the exact details of the trials ahead eluded me, but I could recall that fights were involved. A lot of fights.
Darksword held firmly in hand, I went in the direction dictated by the compass' needle and the girls tagged along beside me, our collective vigilance at an all time high.
Our steps soon brought us into the midst of the ship carcasses, giant shadows cast over us while we dodged broken, rotted ropes and masts, rust covered anchors and a host of other unrecognizable parts both big and small.
We got to appreciate how large the ships were. Walking along the length of one brought to mind the instances I walked on a football field from one end to the other. And this was the smallest of the intact ships.
The largest ones were three times that size, reminding me of cruise ships. Just what were these ships being used for? I mean, the various "injuries" we've observed hinted that they were obviously used for war.
But was that true for all of them? Yue came to mind as a possible source for answers. She did live hundreds of years ago and was a sovereign to boot. If someone could provide concrete info about these boats, it would be her.
However, I refrained from asking her and even hid my curiosity and that line of thoughts from our connection. Saying her past as a sore spot for her was an understatement.
It paralyzed her and drained her confidence in a way I'd only seen and read about in articles about trauma. That single instance I'd asked about her past had almost triggered a panic attack.
And though I desperately wanted to help her overcome it, I didn't think forcing her to remember her past would help the matter at all. Nor did I believe I was the best person to help her. I wasn't a trained psychiatrist in any way.
All I could do was be there for her and not be an asshole.
Still hyper vigilant despite my wandering thoughts, I immediately noticed when the silent and motionless scene around us made a drastic transition into the opposite.
"Sir? What's happening?" Siv asked, her shield and sword equipped. She huddled closer and joined us in covering one another's backs, armored tail clinking with her sharp movements.
"An illusion? I'm not sure, but be on guard."
The world around us began to warp like a mirage but ten times more intense, the air itself dancing and wriggling like oil on the surface of boiling water.
"UUUUAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHH!"
A near deafening battle cry assaulted our ears as the squiggling image that had become our surroundings stretched taut before rebounding like a rubber band, returning reality to normal but displacing us entirely.
We were now on one of the ships, the wood, masts, ropes and sails pristine. A man with a crazed look—bulging eyes, spit flying from his open, foaming mouth—rushed us with his sword held high.
He was the source of the scream, and the murderous intent his whole being conveyed was enough for me to flick the darksword in his direction and send a crescent of cursed energy to meet him.
The amount of energy shouldn't have been lethal, especially for Tortus citizens where the weakest person with a class was ten times stronger than humans from my world.
However, when the cursed energy met the man in his midsection and came apart in pure bludgeoning force, he broke apart into light particles and disappeared.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
I spun around and saw multiple fireballs impact Yue's hastily raised barrier while Siv threw her shield at another crazed assailant, the disc passing through him harmlessly to embed in a wooden staircase.
"They're made of mana," I turned to Yue, her words shedding light on the situation. "They're not real."
Looking at everything around me with this in mind, I sheathed the darksword and defaulted to my finger guns, informing Siv of the development, her frustration turning to glee immediately.
She stopped weaving between the attacks of her assailants and went on the offensive, wrapping her sword with her orange mana. Unlike before when they treated her attacks like illusions, the attacking soldiers dissolved into particles one after another when her sword passed through them.
With the combined efforts of all three of us, we soon cleared the ship of any attackers.
This wasn't the end though, as a quick glance past the ship's confines put more and more of them in sight, all of them bobbing up and down on the sea, blasts of different colors being exchanged messily between them like fireworks.
It was a war, obviously, but in some weird free-for-all way where each nation had sent forth their most loyal but insane soldiers. The men who attacked us were too amped up, and though the first instinct was to blame drugs, I knew the reality was much worse.
"Are we supposed to clear all the ships?" I muttered, not really expecting an answer since I'd resigned myself to do so anyway.
"...That does seem like the most obvious course of action sir," Siv chimed in.
"Mmn…"
Nodding subtly in agreement, I leaned left and right, pecking both women on the cheek. "Let's split up and deal with them. The one who clears most ships wins."
Before they could even say hey, I was soaring up in the illusory sky, manipulating the weight of the darksword to bring me down towards the next ship even faster.
Chuckling at the pouts and allegations of cheating being sent over telepathically, I stopped channeling cursed energy into the sword and held out both arms, index fingers straight and thumbs pointed upward.
"For Ehit!" "Die pagan!" "In the name of god I vanquish you!"
Bullets of cursed energy flew from my fake guns in droves, piercing into the maddened soldiers and their attacks, reducing them all to harmless light particles.
Before I hit the deck and probably crashed into the lower parts, I kicked off a cursed energy explosion, a smaller one compared to the regular ones and landed with a loud thump instead of a crack.
From there, I didn't even need to move a single step. I just spun around and let the bullets fly, and in less than a minute, I was the only person present on the ship.
Frowning, I kicked off the wooden floorboards and took to the air, seeking out my next target. Those things the soldiers screamed before they died. Was Ehit mind controlling them or was this the result of centuries of indoctrination?
The way their eyes bulged out while frothing at the mouth told me it was the former. But the sheer number of them exhibiting such traits told me that couldn't be the case.
Could Ehit control so many people? I couldn't remember the novel word for word, but the scene where he stole Yue's mind and held back Hajime with a simple, few words was burned into my memory.
If he could do it to them, two of the most powerful individuals to ever grace Tortus, there was no reason to assume he couldn't do it to an army's worth of people. He was a god, and I had to assume the worst when it came to what could do.
He could never mind control nor possess me, my abilities made sure of that. But when the thought and image of him doing that to Yue or Siv crossed my mind, it made my ribcage feel too small for my racing heart.
The fear and rage was overwhelming, even more than the time the wolf had its fangs around my neck. I would die before I let this parasite god take them from me.
If there was no way to secure their souls and I had to fight him alone as a result, I would do so without a heartbeat. Better me than them.
Speaking of them, the ladies had sensed my sudden emotional outburst and were inquiring with worry about what the problem was.
In order not to distract them nor make them stop clearing the ships altogether, I assured them everything was alright and dove back into the competition.
Yue was winning by the way. Her golden dragon was out in force and decimating the ships with its wind breath, the magic prodigy not even bothering to board them.
Laughing and shaking my head, I landed on the deck of my next target. A familiar scene ensued and soon I was off to repeat it elsewhere.
I cleared a few more ships before deciding to join up with Siv and leave the rest to Yue. She was far ahead in the lead and much more suited for this kind of wide scale destruction.
As soon as I landed on the ship the tigress was clearing, I let her finish off the last of the screaming men before wrapping her in a big hug and kissing her longingly.
I felt the questions in her movements and heard them in my head, but being the obedient cat I'd always known her to be, she gave in to my demands and slowly threw her arms around my neck, eagerly returning the slow affectionate kiss.
Her hard armor made the exchange weird (I couldn't feel her boobs and hips) but it didn't make it less enjoyable as I sought nothing sexual with the gesture.
We came apart after my inner turmoil calmed somewhat, Siv breathless and red in all the right places. "...Sir?"
The "is everything okay?" went unsaid, but it was evident enough, even without the connection between our minds and hearts. I just nodded and gently pulled away, taking her right hand and interlocking my fingers with hers.
"I'm okay. I'm just happy to have you and Yue that's all," I said, earning myself an even deeper blush and wilder tail wagging.
As though I summoned her, the vampire queen rode her signature gold platform over the ship and dispelled it, delivering herself into my wide, open left arm.
Her entire weight crashed into my chest without moving me an inch back and her legs went around my waist, arms around my neck, and lips on top of my own in search of the same comfort I sought with Siv.
Unlike the wild and desperate way we kissed during sex, this was slow and calm, a rarity for both of us really. We had never engaged in simple "making out," and we had never left such sessions at that.
It always ended in sex.
Like the old adage, "there's a first time for everything," Yue lowered herself after both of us satisfied our emotional hunger. Well… Siv also prompted us that things had changed, so that also helped.
With Yue dealing with the last of the ships, we had completed this trial and the surroundings had followed suit and returned to normal. We were back in the ship graveyard, our minds fresh with images of how they ended up here in these deplorable states.
One absolutely humongous difference though, was the giant of a ship, also covered in the telltale signs of battle and the ravages of time, sitting in the midst of the other wooden corpses like it had always been there.
Sharing looks with my lovers, we came to an accord and the fingers we were interlocking changed. My arms snaked tightly around their waists and we were off with a whoosh.
My jumps always took me pretty high, but this thing with a gravitational pull of its own was so tall it nearly matched the peak I reached. It was mind boggling to see and experience.
I don't think ships this size existed back on earth. Not even those cruise ships that could comfortably hold thousands of people could compare to this sea asteroid.
Doing away with those thoughts and the ignorant ramblings, I landed on it and looked around for any change while releasing the girls. Our arrival proved to be the signal for the commencement of the labyrinth's next thing.
Our surroundings turned into warped squiggles again before rebounding, a drastically different scene from the battle before and the graveyard overtaking our senses.
It was a… banquet. A party.
"Huh…" I muttered out loud and relaxed, my back straightening and arms lowering when the manifested people, even those with us in their field of vision, didn't react whatsoever to our presence.
"What… is this?" Siv uttered, her astonishment plenty enough to be echoed with her voice.
Her reaction was warranted though, considering the banquet's participants were not just humans, but demons and beastmen as well, their faces all smiles, demeanors leisurely and cheerful as they conversed, toasted and dined.
Quickly seizing her gloved hand and interlocking her fingers with mine, I wrapped her in a mental hug and gave my two cents regarding the strange sight.
"If everything we've seen so far is true, then this must be something that happened in the past."
She tore her gaze away from a rabbitman who just clinked glasses with a red skinned demon, facing me. "But…"
"I know. Remember what I said about someone shaping the world to be this way? Look up there…" I gestured to the wizened man in both appearance and demeanor addressing the people.
Be it human, beastman or demon, everyone present gazed at the man with the kind of respect and admiration rarely seen. That and his kind, fatherly expression painted a clear image of the man's role in the peace fostered between the races.
"It's about to happen. Keep an eye on his face and the hooded person behind him," I reminded Siv, who'd been drawn in by the man's speech.
She joined me in watching him intently and squeezed my hand so hard when a psychotic expression overcame and replaced the nurturing gaze he formerly showered the people with.
Eyes bulging out their sockets, voice rising several octaves, and movements becoming more animated, the old man's beard began to flow wildly as he cursed and decried the beastmen and demons.
A demon standing in the front, right below the podium the old man spoke from, was suddenly ran through from behind with a sword.
I felt a tug on my hand and looked at Siv, shaking my head at her wide eyed and alarmed expression, dying a bit inside when I had to remind her this wasn't real and that it'd already happened.
I could sense her desire to bury her head in my chest and let her tears flow, but she fought against it and held on, joining me and Yue as we watched the soldiers masquerading as sailors slay the party goers, painting the entire ship with blood.
From start to finish, the formerly kind-looking king laughed uproariously with that crazed expression, spouting declaration after declaration about how they were doing the will of Ehit, how they were cleansing the earth of their filth, and how non-believers had no place in his world.
According to him, the people being slaughtered were the various leaders of the three races and the major proponents for peace between them, their very existence being the reason a peace treaty had been signed a year earlier.
For me, this was just extra fuel to push me into clearing the rest of the labyrinths.
For the ladies, this was a first hand look at what I'd told them about Ehit. About the game the races of this world were unknowingly playing.
Its effects on them didn't need to be said. I felt it intimately, the dual deepening resolves and tightening grips on my hands saying everything.
Once the screaming, pleading and battle cries died down, the old king turned around and the hooded person behind him did same, their eyes catching mine for a split-second.
If I didn't know this was just a replay of events, I might've jumped out of my skin. The way those dead blue eyes looked into mine conveyed a sense of wrongness I couldn't place.
As for the silver hair framing that pale face and monotone expression, they answered the question as to who this person was and even shed light on the king's sudden change.
That wasn't our current focus though. In a manner we were growing familiar with, the bloody scene wiggled and returned to the mottled wood, worn tables, chairs, and utensils we came to find.
Whipping out the compass, the path I already guessed we were supposed to take next was confirmed. The needle pointed squarely at the door the old man and Ehit's apostle disappeared behind after the massacre.
"This way…" I said and advanced, careful not to push any table or chair, the blood from the illusion overlaying the current scene and affecting my movements even though I knew it wasn't real.
Inside the ship, we found nothing but darkness. Yue and I were fine, but she conjured a ball of light because of Siv, the beastman offering a nod of thanks as we went deeper.
Shortly after Yue's light chased away the dark shadows, another light gained on us seemingly in response, revealing itself to be a young girl in a flowy white dress tattered at the ends.
Her head hung low just like her arms, the long, black, dripping hair that obscured her face and part of her torso swaying lightly with her seemingly drunken movements.
An unpleasant sensation, like a cold, barbed tongue going down our necks, complimented her appearance. If the horror movie vibes she gave off wasn't enough reason to waste her, then that disgusting sensation was.
Right arm coming up, hand forming a gun, and a bullet of cursed energy firing in one smooth movement, the scene we'd already played out in our minds didn't come to pass.
In one smooth movement, the girl dropped on all fours, her neck and limbs twisting, the sight more unnatural than the freakish laughter she let out while scampering towards us on all fours.
Unimpressed by the macabre show, I funneled more cursed energy to my hand and turned the bullets into a continuous beam, carving lines in the wood that trailed after the horror movie villain wannabe.
Chasing her all over and finally clipping her in the leg, her pained and fearful screeches became music to my ears when I capitalized on her being stationary and widened the beam, swallowing her entirely.
When I stopped emitting cursed energy, every trace of her was gone. I bit back the urge to blow on my finger and started walking again, Yue and Siv in tow as she ventured deeper.
Not one minute later, we had to fight a headless man with an axe, and then after that, a woman with an inhumanly long neck and wide expressive eyes that followed our every movement.
These strange and unnerving monsters slash ghosts popped out one after another, some bursting through doors and the others appearing silently, sometimes on top of us.
They were nothing before us and the wealth of abilities between us though. So after fighting our way through the various spine-chilling shenanigans, we ended up before a set of thick and heavy looking doors.
They swung open on their own accord and we walked in, the room's identity instantly becoming known to us by way of its contents and Yue's thoughts.
Despite being the ship's hold, it looked and smelled no different than the rest of the abandoned and aged wreck, its distinct lack of treasures or any shiny things for that matter making me a bit annoyed.
To make things worse, as soon as we gathered in the room's center, a loud bang shook it as the doors that opened and ushered us in slammed shut. Lines of fog then crawled into reality, rapidly obscuring everything around us.
"Babe… now."
"Mmn…" Needing no further convincing, Yue generated golden belts of mana and tied them around our waists, joining them into one length but providing enough rope that we wouldn't hinder one another.
Right afterwards, she threw both hands up and barriers of light encased us on all sides, arrows whipping through the fog noisily and breaking against it.
As though angry at being challenged, the fog, which had filled up every inch of the hold, began to bubble and suction the air violently, pulling us in three different directions.
Yue's constructs and our own efforts to keep us in place however held and kept us close to each other. In typical labyrinth fashion, just as the sudden force grabbed our attention, the fog spat out assailants.
On my end, a knight garbed head to toe in armor swung down on me with a longsword.
Both hands wrapped around the darksword's hilt, I kept it buried halfway into the wooden floor and shifted out of the sword's trajectory.
Kicking off the wood floor and keeping one hand wrapped around the sword handle, I threw myself up sideways and kicked the clanking knight in the head, blowing it clean off its neck.
Out of the corner of my vision, I saw Siv catch a hammer on her shield before running her sword's edge over the arms holding it, severing them completely.
Yue on the other hand, stood behind a life-like model of me constructed entirely of mana, controlling its movements in a blur of gold to pummel any thing that dared to step out of the mist.
The attacks didn't stop coming. Once a knight was defeated, another would take its place. Sometimes two and even three would appear, their weapons poised to skewer or bludgeon us.
For a good while, the Siv's battle shouts, the brutal clash of weapons, and breaking and warping metal filled our ears, the fog remaining as it was since the start.
We fought till the frequency of knights began to reduce, from appearing in groups of three on all sides to one and then to a single one remaining, the greatsword wielding apparition tangling with Yue's construct.
Unafraid of losing its non-existent life, her construct fought like a maniac, ignoring the greatsword's slashes and landing an unending flurry of punches and kicks.
When that seemed to be going on too long, Yue raised an arm and closed her fingers slightly, the construct shrinking to the size of a basketball. It surged forward and latched onto the knight's helmet afterwards, and Yue closed her hand into a fist.
The sound of a beer can being crumpled echoed and the knight fell back into the mist, the latter thinning out in response. In no time, the sight of the hold returned, this time with a magic circle embedded on the floor on its deeper end.
Mentally tired but expectation soaring, I nodded at Yue and Siv and we strode over, standing on the circle at the same time. An explosion of white light subsumed us and faded to reveal a totally different place.
It was a temple with a single altar, no enclosing walls, and a domed ceiling held up by four thick pillars.
Extending from the circular floor engraved with a familiar magic circle were four pathways leading outward in four different directions.
The three of us stood at the very end of one of these pathways, the teleportation circle beneath us making its purpose clear.
With no hesitation and excitement in our steps, we went straight for the temple and stood side by side on the complicated magic formation, red light swallowing us completely.
No one fell this time, and the pain was greatly lessened for me, as if I didn't get much from the formation. I had an idea as to why, and I was quick to confirm it.
Quickly summoning my Status Plate, I read through the skills section and put eyes to the changes.
This labyrinth rewarded Regeneration Magic, and I already possessed the cursed energy equivalent of that ability. So what I found didn't come as a surprise.
[Rick-Updated Skills]
Reverse Cursed Technique, Cursed Tool Creation, Increased Cursed Energy Output, Black Flash, Simple Domain, Domain Amplification, High Speed Cursed Energy Recovery: Cursed energy recovers 100 times faster, Lightning Resistance, Night Vision, Poison Resistance , Paralysis Resistance, Petrification Resistance, Fear Resistance, All Elemental Resistance
[/spoiler]
Smirking and feeling all giddy inside, I stored the plate and looked towards my lovers, feeling a different kind of excitement when I gazed upon them. Perhaps sensing my desire to celebrate our success, the ladies met my gaze with mirrored intent.
The rising tension broke when a voice chirped in and drew all our shocked gazes. I nearly rolled my eyes when I recognized the apparition for what it was.
It was the same thing that appeared in Oscar's mansion, a hologram of Meiru Melusine sitting on the altar in a white dress that went all the way to her feet.
Her message mirrored Oscar's own of seeking our own freedom, though with a slight difference of telling that no matter what problem we encountered, we should forge onwards with the certainty that the answer lay within us.
Right as the message ended, she disappeared with a flash of light and the spot on the altar she occupied a moment ago flashed again, a coin with her crest engraved into it left behind.
I went forward and grabbed it, looking it over before storing it. With this, we could attempt the Haltina labyrinth back in the Sea of Trees. At the thought of the "Sea of Trees," Yue closed her eyes and began to chant.
On cue, the place began to rumble and the water level around the temple began to rise. Before we could even prepare ourselves, the water surged and flooded the temple, sweeping all of us off our feet.
Her concentration ironclad, Yue kept chanting and even extended familiar golden ropes of mana and wind that bound us to her, the strong currents unable to separate us.
After about a minute of chanting, she opened her eyes and swam forward, dashing into an ovoid portal that appeared suddenly with the two of us in tow.
Along with a couple of gallons of water, we emerged in a forest and fell down flat on a carpet of grass, the water splashing on top of us continuously before the portal closed.
Wiping my face and sitting upright, I made sure Siv was okay and looked around for Yue, finding her undressing nearby. I wanted to ask her about what just happened, even though I recognized our current location.
It was the training ground where I whipped the Haulia into shape… in the Sea of Trees, hundreds of miles away from the actual sea.
Yue could teleport, and I wanted to ask her more about it, but it seemed she had other ideas. She strode toward me, flinging her soaked heels away as she conveyed her desire to claim her prize.
She did win the competition after all.
When golden manacles appeared around her and flew towards my wrists and ankles, I fought the urge to swallow, all my trepidation directed inward.
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A/N: Let me know your ideas, thoughts and comments. Thanks for reading.
And please don't forget to leave a like and/or review