Heaven, Earth, Me

The journey was initially danger-free. The most difficult part was not to be cooked alive by the constantly increasing heat and pressure around them. They had reached a point where breathing the hot air around them was difficult due to its density. 

While heating air made it thinner, not thicker, they were going down several hundreds of kilometers through complex cave systems. The atmospheric pressure above them was exponentially increasing, therefore counteracting the thinning due to heat and making air dense, hot, and overall, difficult to breathe. 

Evelyn sighed while fanning her face with her hand. "How much longer do we need to go down? This place is enormous!" 

Yasenia was carrying Angel with her tail, the little girl utterly limp as the dragoness's agile limb coiled around her waist. The little girl raised her head and muttered, her tone utterly lazy. "Ah… We've been descending for two days… So hot, so heavy, so tired…"

Yasenia chuckled, moving her tail in front of her to place Angel's droopy head in front of her face. "Baby, do you want to continue being carried by me?"

Angel blinked twice, her large blue round eyes cutely gazing at Yasenia. "Yes."

Yasenia kissed her lips once with a smile and hummed happily. "Okay."

The girls saw Yasenia move back her tail, carrying Angel as she was. Andrea asked, chuckling slightly. "What was the point of the question?"

The dragoness looked sideways and tilted her head. "Hm? I was just checking on Angel." 

Yasenia placed Angel back on the ground and crossed her arms. "It seems that unlike the Mo---Other trial, there will be obstacles to reach the place we need to decode."

Andrea sighed, somewhat worried. "Will we even be able to? The other one we could decode because Cecile was sent to another place, right? She was the one highlighting the formation in the first place. Without that lucky coincidence, we would've failed."

Yasenia rubbed her chin. "I don't think we should worry, love."

Andrea raised her eyebrow. "Oh? What makes you say that?"

"Unlike the other person, who was basically kidnapping people into her trial, the Sun God seems to have spread out figurines all around the universe. As we've been told, those who have come here were unable to participate in the trials, most likely because they lacked a figurine." Yasenia looked at Andrea and smiled. "If he added the condition to have a hidden relationship with himself over being lucky enough to find those random figurines and arriving at this world, he might as well never create this place."

Andrea pondered. "That's… Logical."

Yasenia smirked. "I know~.

Clicking her tone, Andrea patted her head. "Okay, don't be smug about it, eh? I'll spank you otherwise."

Yasenia blinked twice. "A reward for misbehaving? Are you feeling generous lately, Darling?"

"We've arrived, girls."

Tatyana's voice made everyone look over. Looking over the edge of the hole in front of them made them feel like they were looking down into the entrails of the world. The place was full of magma rivers and waterfalls, with less solid rock than liquid rock. The places where there was solid rock weren't really reassuring, as they looked like small floating islands that moved, clearly not attached to anything.

Kali muttered. "Woah… Do we really need to go down there?"

Angel commented. "And after we deal with the formation, we are supposed to run back to the throne room, right?"

The others felt their eyebrows twitching. 'Did the Sun God want their inheritors to run for their lives for days as he looked? Sadist!'

Tatyana pointed to the side and asked Doriel. "Is that what made you think of beast activity?"

Looking over, they managed to spot a section with a parted magma waterfall. On the island floating in front of that magma waterfall, there was a black platform with some kind of marks. The marks looked like claw marks, but they were too blurred to tell anything about them accurately. 

Yasenia sighed and looked around. "This place… How do we even find the place with the formation?"

Andrea blinked and pointed at the same island that Tatyana had spotted. "Isn't it that one? It's the only one with a parted magma waterfall right in front of it, no? That's like… Very unusual."

Evelyn looked at Andrea and coughed. "Andrea… Isn't that too simple?"

Andrea asked back, confused. "Why make it confusing?" She explained her reasoning. "The endurance trial is probably these two days that we endured. Then, reaching the intended location should be straightforward so that the inheritors can do the second part… There must be some kind of obstacle, like a beast, blocking our way. However, other than that, hiding it makes no sense."

While the explanation was logical, Evelyn had her misgivings. "If endurance is part of the trial, wouldn't it make sense to keep the trial takers in the hottest place the longest time?"

Andrea smiled. "Hence, this is where the formation is."n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Oh~?" Evelyn rubbed her chin. "That actually makes sense."

Andrea chuckled. "Yours do too, Evelyn. However, we really don't have any other clues, and that place seems the only one that has had activity of some sort."

"Fair enough." Evelyn smiled. 

The dragoness nodded, agreeing with both their perspectives. Still, she favored Andrea's due to it being more straightforward. "Okay, before we jump, does flying work down there? Everything feels so strange with the pressure and temperature surrounding us that I really don't know if we'll be able to fly there comfortably."

Tatyana waved her hand, taking out the powerful Immortal Binding Ropes, and she coiled them around Yasenia's tail. Then, smiling, Tatyana blurted. "Jump."

Everyone deadpanned. Tatyana raised her eyebrow with a smile. "She is the one with doubts, she should be the one resolving those doubts, no?"

Unable to really make a point against that argument, Yasenia decided to jump. Still, before she did so, she took out her wings. 

Whoosh!

The gorgeous pair of wings, with the image of a Sun and Moon on them, glowed with stunning lights, with the light emitting from the superheated surroundings. "Welp, here I go."

Yasenia jumped down and used her energy to manipulate the air around her and solidify it. When her energy seeped into the air, its superheated nature and the high pressure made it significantly more difficult to control than the air on the surface. 

Still, Yasenia's ability to adapt to chaotic situations was extraordinary. As her body began to fall increasingly faster, Yasenia calmly manipulated the surrounding air and found different methods to counteract the forces pushing her energy away. When she was halfway through her fall, Yasenia made a small breakthrough. As the heated winds hit her face and her body accelerated, the dragoness's lips arched in a faint smile. 'Oh? Is this the method?'

Her energy manipulated the air around her, creating a film around her body that trapped some of the air. Then, using that separation, she clashed with both air sources, and her falling speed quickly dropped.

On the top of the hole, Tatyana was looking down with curious eyes. Angel pulled her clothes and asked. "Um… She is going to hit the magma sea below. Isn't it better if you pull her back?"

Tatyana looked at Angel and smiled. "Ah, don't worry." Angel smiled back, but Tatyana commented. "A little bath in that magma should not really hurt her much."

Angel's eyes widened. "Y-You… You betrayed her trust!"

Tatyana's smile arched with an evil glint. "Hehe~."

Evelyn smiled wryly and asked. "What's the point of the rope, then?"

Tatyana answered easily. "Well, if she manages to fly, I have a way to follow her!"

Everyone deadpanned.

Meanwhile, when Yasenia was getting close to the magma sea below, she finally understood everything and her body stopped falling. "Oh?" 

Yasenia looked around her, her lips arching quite widely. "I made it! I didn't even use my wings~. Quite nice. Now…" The dragoness stretched her wings and flapped a few times. After flapping the wings ten times, she got the gist of it, and her body soared upward with the next flap. "Much easier with the wings… Well, not all my dears have wings, so the other method will be useful for them."

The girls looked at the dragoness with surprise in their eyes. She was floating in the middle of the hole, her wings gently flapping behind her. "Well, I figured it out."

Angel was quick to point sideways and snitch. "Mommy Tatyana had no intention of stopping your fall!"

Tatyana looked at her with widened eyes. "Y-You! Betrayal!"

Angel puffed her cheeks. "I won't let anyone bully Yasenia! Not even you!"

Yasenia looked at them and laughed. "Anyway, where was I?"

'Anyway!?'

"Ah, right. The method for it is to create a film that…" Yasenia proceeded to explain the method to use without wings, and then explained how she flew with wings. 

After hearing her, Tatyana looked around and smiled smugly. "So, who is going to grab the rope?"

Kali and a few others coughed and walked behind Tatyana, grabbing onto the ropes. 

The dragoness, who was still tied down on the waist by the ropes, blinked a few times and asked, confused. "What's… happening?"

Tatyana smiled widely and said. "Carry us, Little Treasure!"

The dragoness deadpanned. "So, this was your intention since the beginning?"

Tatyana giggled. "That's right."

"Oh." Yasenia uttered. Then, she yanked the ropes, and everyone holding onto them fell down into the hole. The dragoness snorted. "Learn by yourselves."

"WAHHH!"

Ebirah and a few others screamed as they fell.

Meanwhile, on the top, they looked at the floating dragoness with speechless expressions. Yasenia raised her eyebrow and asked, her tone menacing. "What? Do you want to jump by yourselves, or do you need my help?"

Everyone gulped. Cecile coughed. "Don't worry, we'll jump by ourselves." 

So, everyone jumped and eventually learned to fly. Of course, Yasenia carried Fulo.