—–

“So you defeated a whole Orichalcum Golem with a single punch, Nepheline?”

Shade’s eyebrows twitched in disbelief at what his wife said. He was pretty sure the last time she fought one, it took her at least a dozen punches before the thing were sent flying into pieces.

“Yeah, I mean, aren’t we still growing stronger? Even when we finished our duties as heroes, our power has only increased more the more we train.”

“I guess we never truly stepped out of the battlefield, it followed us…”

“Hah, don’t be like that, you also like training, you do it every day at night. And you’re always cultivating religiously while cleaning all your assassination tools.”

“It’s more of a ritual at this point… But I don’t intend to use them against people anymore…”

“Well, luckily there’s more than just people out there, like giant monsters and true demons for example.”

“You’re not wrong… But you… you’ve indeed become so much stronger, I’m amazed.”

Shade admired Nepheline’s physique, she looked like a beautifully sculpted statue of ancient times, showing the beauty of a woman physique brought to the limits of strength.

Her muscles were big and her body bulky, but she still held the beautiful feminine grace of an Amazonian Woman, the stronger they became, the more beautiful they looked too.

Back then Shade had no interest on muscular women, but Nepheline quickly made him change his mind…

“Hah, are you? Well, you’re pretty strong yourself dear. Let’s go downstairs now, we shouldn’t be wasting our time in here when there’s another floor to explore. One Aquarina didn’t visit.”

“Ah yeah, wait, before that…”

As the two walked downstairs and reached the third floor, they stopped talking, looking at their surroundings in utter disbelief.

Shade realized the stair was in the middle of a large area, an incredibly big, underground city made out of colorful corals and beautifully decorated.

It was almost exactly like the ruined city above, but it wasn’t ruined, the city looked beautiful and well maintained, there were beautiful, paved roads made out of colorful stones, paintings through white walls, beautiful statues, and more.

And above all…

“W-What in the world is this?!” Nepheline screamed.

“A-Are we really in a dungeon anymore?” Shade looked into the city.

More than its infrastructure, there was also something tremendously shocking, that left both heroes flabbergasted.

“Huh? Outsiders! Do you come from the surface? It has been ages since we’ve had visits!”

There were people in this city.

Sea snail-like people, with humanoid forms, but with colorful and slimy bodies, and giant shells attached to their backs.

They had long, colorful antenna on top of their heads, and bright rainbow-colored eyes, they mostly wore clothes made of green algae fiber, some wore white and blue clothes too.

Most of these snail people moved by sliding through the floor, and they could do it surprisingly quickly, while also easily climbing through walls and ceiling, the entire city was so strangely shaped to facilitate their movement.

And above all, the person that spoke to them was a child, with yellow, purple, and blue colored skin, and rainbow eyes, she or he had a big shell as well, with spikes and colorful spirit crystals growing on them.

In fact, everyone in here had these crystals naturally growing from their shells, naturally giving them an immense quantity of Mana and Spiritual Energy by default the more they grew older!

“T-This is…!” Shade muttered. “Is this an illusion? Could these people be monsters?”

“I don’t… know…” Nepheline said. “I really have no idea…”

“Umm… Are you going to keep ignoring me?! Outsiders sure are rude nowadays!” The child said angrily, as they quickly left.

“A-Ah! Wait, we are sorry! We are just confused!” Shade said.

“Please can you forgive us? We were too amazed by the view…” Nepheline said. “It’s such a big city!”

The two heroes decided to just engage in a conversation first and see if they were truly monsters pretending to be people, or actual people that had lived down here for millions of years.

“Oh! Really?” The child quickly moved back to them, they had long purple hair, which was actually not hair but several little tentacles around their head. “That’s a relief! I really thought you were big emanies! I was about to call the City Guard!”

“Please don’t’ do that… whoever they are,” Shade said. “We were exploring the Dungeon upstairs and then we landed here.”

“I am just as surprised as he is, there’s a whole ruined city up there and more, but this city… It’s almost the same, and everyone’s alive too? We thought the ruins… that you had…” Nepheline muttered.

“Hehehe! Yeah, there was once some big cataclysm or something… Can’t remember well,” said the child. “But our King helped us out! He used the power of the Rainbow Shell, the Artifact of Prime Magic, to protect his people by sending us to the future! And here we are.”

“T-The future?!” Shade asked. “S-So you really came from the past… Are you aware of the Dungeon that has been sitting over your city all this time?”

“First time I hear about it; we aren’t allowed to leave…” Said the child. “But maybe mom and dad know something? Shall we go ask them?”

“I-Is it okay for you to bring us along?” Nepheline wondered.

“It’s fine!” the child said. “Ah right, my name is Ephiatta!”

“I see, thank you Ephiatta, that is a lovely name for a girl,” smiled Nepheline.

“Girl? Well I haven’t decided yet…” Ephiatta said.

“What… do you mean?” Shade wondered, confused.

“Our tribe’s called the Sea People, or the Molluskians. Mommy said we are not born with defined traits… Until we grow old and decide what we want, sometimes people choose both, or one of the other!” Said Ephiatta. “It doesn’t matter much anyway. But so far I like being more boy than girl!”

“I-I see…” Nepheline nodded. “You are indeed quite different than our kind. Usually it is defined in our bodies what we are…”

“Though I suppose people can sometimes identify with a different gender I guess,” Shade commented. “Well, I think what the Molluskians go through is more biological, right?”

“Yeah!” Ephiatta nodded. “Maybe if I become a full girl, I’ll one day lay eggs, it sounds kind of scary!”

“U-Uh-huh…”

The two heroes followed the boy through the streets, the Molluskian people glaring at them with weirded out eyes.

—–

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