After approaching the gates while ignoring everyone else, Yasenia's group opened them and crossed them. The room they entered was a dark room with a single circular formation in the middle, around 100 meters wide.
First of all, Yasenia used the aura ripple to check the nature of the formation while also observing the lines. Without Angel or Tatyana, they had to check via what Mirrory and the other seniors taught them back in the Secret Realm's library trial.
A pulse of energy rippled from all of them as they analyzed the formation. Yasenia nodded. "Nothing wrong with it."
The girls looked at Yasenia strangely, but they followed her words. Andrea commented with an unsure expression. "I felt a bit of danger."
Yasenia nodded. "Well, it's a trial, so it must be dangerous… Right?"
Kali asked with a smile. "What kind of trial do you think it is?"
Yasenia shrugged. "We'll see once we go over."
Cecile blinked twice, but she didn't say anything and followed her.
Without delay, they stepped forward, and once they reached the center, a pillar of light shot upward, connecting with the ceiling, and their bodies disappeared.
Right after they left, a shadow appeared from the corner of the room. This person took out a communication device and whispered. "They've entered the first trial. What do we do now, boss?"
The other side answered, and the beast human that appeared from the shadows stepped into the circle as well, disappearing from there.
Meanwhile, once they reopened their eyes, they looked around at the vast landscape filled with red rocks with wonder. Andrea asked once she made sure that nobody was around. "Love, why didn't we kill that person?"
Yasenia smiled. "They'll underestimate our detecting capabilities that way."
Andrea's eyes widened. "Oh! I know what you are aiming for. If we let that person go after we have released our detecting spells, it will appear as if we were unaware of his existence, so their group will take more risks when approaching us if they do so stealthily, giving us plenty of time to prepare."
Yasenia nodded. "Plus, if they have a connection with other groups, they'll share it as well. It's a good way to allow enemies to think they are hiding when they are not."
Kali blinked and looked to their left. "Love, I felt a Life Energy pulse that way."
They all looked over and extended their spiritual sense in that direction. The eyesight metaphorically stretched across the land, finally landing on a mass of creatures heading their way quite quickly.
Andrea tilted her head. "Rock beings?"
Cecile answered. "Golems. They are similar to spirits, but their level is much lower, and they are artificial. They don't have conscious thoughts other than the orders they received from whatever created them. The complexity of these orders varies depending on the level of the skill and the caster."
Yasenia asked, looking around. "Should we destroy them? There is nothing written around."
Valeria chuckled. "Not always is the challenge explained. Sometimes you need to discover it."
The girls nodded and pondered. Eira reminded them. "15 seconds until they arrive."
Yasenia commented. "They are quite slow, but I can feel that their level is quite high, around the 3rd or 4th level of the Dantian Spiritualization Realm."
Kali hummed. "Weaker than a mid-level Epoch Core but stronger than a low-level Epoch Core, right?"
Yasenia nodded and chuckled. "It's quite funny that, as spiritual cultivators, we've gotten accustomed to measuring things with Body Cultivation."
Andrea asked. "So, do we face them?"
The dragoness shook her head. "Let's circle around them. They are not that big. [Empyrean Cosmos Dragon Transformation]."
The girls jumped backward as a hurricane of energies surrounded their dragoness, quickly revealing the majestic, small-mountain-sized dragon. They had to twist their heads completely to look upward at Yasenia's lowering head. "Hop on."
Andrea and the rest jumped up for around 30 meters, landing between Yasenia's golden horns. Then, the dragoness extended her wings, creating a massive shadow, and flapped while jumping.
The body that should not be able to lift from the ground quickly flew upward. Kali felt her hair and tails being blown by the wind and smiled, squinting her eyes. "I never get tired of this."
Yasenia's ethereal and gorgeous dragon voice reached them. "Is it fun, honey?"
Kali nodded, sitting down and caressing the hard scales below her. "Very. I wish I could fly with you every day for hours to no end."
Cecile nodded. "Agreed."
Yasenia commented, tilting her body slightly so that they could look down at a sharper angle. "Look over there."
The girls looked over where Yasenia commented and saw a massive volcano-like structure. From the mouth of that volcano-like thing, rocks were spewed out occasionally. After hitting the ground and rolling down a long slope, the rocks opened like a puzzle and transformed into humanoid rock beings.
Yasenia was about to comment when her pupils shrunk, feeling something coming her way at tremendous speed. She flapped one of her wings with ridiculous reflexes, doing a barrel roll and dodging to the right.
The girls weren't prepared and flew off Yasenia's head. They were momentarily confused, feeling the weightlessness as they fell, and then they saw a massive rock fly through the place where Yasenia had just flown.
Yasenia shouted. "I'll fly by. Grab yourselves to me!"
Using [Heavenly Constellation Steps]'s base form, her body accelerated and quickly passed by their side.
Without much complications, all the girls used their own abilities to latch onto the giant dragon flying by.
Yasenia felt the five people landing on her, so she quickly began to fly in confusing patterns.
She would dip down, then wildly turn to the right and extend her wings to decelerate. After that, using one of her charge skills, she would abruptly accelerate in a completely different direction.
Her giant dragon body left a twisting trail behind her, with rocks often piercing through it.
Looking down, Yasenia and the girls could see the now hundreds of rock beings transforming the rock below them and then flinging it at them. "Dears, how good can you attack while I'm moving as I am?"
The girls who were seeing the sky flip around felt their lips twitching. Andrea, her fingers piercing through one of Yasenia's scales to have a better grip and not be flung, commented. "We can try."
Hearing her strained voice, Yasenia chuckled. "They are all clumped together. Just throw attacks at random."
Kali threw seeds in their direction while asking. "Love, shouldn't we be quick? If we delay too much, we'll be unable to classify in the top 1024."
The dragoness summoned her [Empyrean Cosmos Galaxy Domain], [Starry Sky], and [Dance In The Firmament].
With the first two skills, the sky changed, becoming a night sky with a colossal Sun and Moon orbiting a massive galaxy of thousands of building-sized stars.
Her battle dance skills made her movements smoother and more fluid, helping her dears not feel as dizzy as she flew around.
Following that, Andrea used [Star Born Searing Flame Explosion] and [Molten Sun], her two most powerful ranged attacks, and rained molten magma on them.
Cecile had frozen her legs to Yasenia's body, using her masterful archery to rain silver meteors from above.
Meanwhile, Kali had pierced a few of Yasenia's scales with her roots, tying herself to the giant dragon while dropping down seeds.
Once these seeds hit the ground, they all exploded with uncontrolled flora. Roots, flowers, trees, and much more sprouted continuously, devouring the stone giants.
Finally, Yasenia herself bombarded the strange volcano with all her ranged attack skills.
Phantom Stars, Suns, Moons, and multicolored beams rained from above like a cataclysm.
Andrea laughed and shouted through all the thundering sounds. "No wonder dragons are feared! Hahaha, if the thing below were a city, she would've already razed it to the ground!"
Yasenia smiled and commented. "Dears, stop attacking for a second and focus on not being flung away."
They all reinforced their way of attaching themselves to her without a single second of hesitation.
Yasenia suddenly made a reverse loop after angling her wigs, and when coming down, she folded them while tucking her legs in and straightening her body.
BOOM!
The air around Yasenia continuously exploded as her speed increased several times over. Andrea gulped. "Love, you don't intend to ram it over, right?"
Yasenia didn't answer but opened her maw. "[Celestial Dragon Breath]."
WHOOOM!
The powerful recoil from the attack hit our girls like a hammer, making their heads buzz for a second. This was the first time Yasenia used that attack while they were on her back.
Andrea almost cursed. 'If I didn't use molten metal to attach myself to her, the shockwave would've blasted me flying.'
While she thought as such, the attack landed on the volcano, releasing blinding light as if an enormous Sun had appeared in the middle of nothing.
Yasenia quickly extended her wings and angled them to curve her descending trajectory into an upward motion. However, her momentum was big enough that she couldn't completely dodge the explosion created by her dragon breath. Yasenia squinted as she felt her scales burning for a second.
However, it was just a moment before she flew to the sky.
Worried, the dragoness asked. "Is everyone okay?"
She knew that they were on her back because her spiritual sense had been constantly monitoring them. Still, she couldn't tell if they were unscathed.
Andrea coughed once. "I am okay. The shockwave was quite something."
Cecile said coldly. "A few burns here, nothing serious."
Kali hissed. "A bit serious burns, but I can heal them without problems."
Eira spoke. "Perfectly fine here."
Valeria chuckled. "I'm also perfectly fine as well."
Yasenia smiled. "Good." Then, she finally focused on the disaster caused by her.
The girls looked over and sucked in a deep breath. Where a 2000-meter-tall volcano stood, now there was a massive bubbling crater. The Dragon's breath attack had annihilated the entire thing, leaving nothing but molten rocks behind.
Andrea laughed. "I really don't want to be on the other side of this attack of yours, love."
Yasenia smiled and said tenderly, her dragon voice echoing with gentleness. "You won't. Ever."
Not expecting the sudden sweetness, Andrea blushed. "Cough. I know."
Cecile commented. "Look at the Golems."
The girls looked over and saw that the golems fighting with the plants Kali summoned slowly lost strength and began crumbling.
The dragoness blinked as she flew above them. "Did I destroy their source or something?"
Valeria muttered. "I think you killed someone or something, Yasenia."
The dragoness's eyebrow twitched. "Did I?"
Valeria nodded, making our girls feel a bit guilty. Yasenia muttered. "Will the trial not work for others from now on? Now, I feel bad…"
Andrea smiled wryly. "Love, that's the wrong thing to feel bad over."
Yasenia turned her head to look at her shoulder, where Andrea was at the time. "Wrong thing?"
Andrea sighed with a helpless smile. "At least feel a bit bad for the life you just took, love."
The dragoness realized. "Oh! Right… But didn't they attack us?"
Andrea was the one who paused this time. "Hm… Well… It was their job… I don't think they would attack us until we died… no?"
Yasenia smiled. "We'll never know~."
Valeria reassured them. "It wasn't the thing controlling the beings."
The girls looked at the tall green woman with deadpan expressions. Yasenia asked. "Didn't you just say…?"
Valeria blinked. "Hm? I said that you killed someone. These rock spirits were created by a formation engraved in the volcano."
Seeing a large white circle appearing in the distance, Yasenia flew over, guessing that it was the exit to the trial. Kali asked. "Were they the person stalking us in the room before entering here? Maybe they entered after us, and they moved toward the volcano."
Andrea asked. "Why would they do that?"
Yasenia titled her head. "Tamper with it?"
Cecile commented indifferently. "We'll never know."
The girls all agreed, placing the matter to the back of their heads and entering the second floor.
Meanwhile, outside, the people of that person's group became confused when they lost contact with the other person.