七星影视

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I didn\'t understand what exactly was going on… But these three goddesses, which I only remember as acting childish and nice were sacrificing all these people so this magic circle could work properly?! And the worst part was that they were happily sacrificing themselves as well!

"They\'re dying too soon, it is not enough!"

"We\'ll simply have to hurry."

"We can\'t help it, let\'s use our souls as well…!"

The trio quickly decided to use their very souls for the creation of this Divine Artifact after seeing how all the "sacrifices" were perishing very soon and out of the blue. Their souls emerged out of their bodies, resembling shining pieces of ice.

The souls quickly began cracking, and then, three small fragments, from each one of them emerged one after the other, flying into the drop of Essence of Sea, and converging with it. The Mana coming from the magic circle flew into the convergence, and so did their divine powers.

FLAAASH!

And then, the item in question, the very one we have just found… was born. It resembled a beautiful statue of either of the three Nereids, and shone brightly. All three of them suddenly dropped to their knees, gasping for air.

"Hahhh… W-We did it!"

"My soul… it hurts…! Ungh…"

"W-We barely managed to but…"

"Hahhh… My life force… its draining away so rapidly…"

"What is this… a curse? What is… going on?!"

"AAAGGGH!"

The nereids screamed in agony as they felt like a large piece of themselves was lost. We saw this scene almost in horror. And when they finally woke up, they felt… strange. Almost childish, they started laughing more, and being more cheerful. The item they just made was left behind, and a Merman saved it inside a treasure chest in the depths of the castle, guarded by golems.

Is this… the origin of the Nereid\'s mental state? And the Gods never helped them either. What? Maybe they didn\'t knew they did all of this or something? I sure hope that\'s the case, it would be weird they wouldn\'t help them out of just… spite.

When the vision ended, everything went back to normal and we found ourselves in the room. Aquarina quickly dropped the monolith into the ground, feeling afraid of such a strange artifact.

"So this entire Dungeon, or the ruins where the Dungeon showed up… They\'re the ancient castle of the Nereid Goddesses?" Wondered Aquarina, feeling utterly shocked by the news.

"More or less, yeah." I said while nodding, as I analyzed the entire situation. "Now that we know this… I guess that\'s that. Not like we can do anything about it."

"Ah, I prefer them as they are now… To think they were so cold they sacrificed the lives of innocents just to make this thing…" Celeste said. "But even then, that item… It has a lot of power."

"Yeah, we have to be careful with it…" I said while analyzing it from afar. "Maybe giving it to our parents would be better idea."

"I-I don\'t know about that…" Sighed Aquarina. "What if they get attacked by this thing? It\'s a dangerous item…"

"Well, it\'s not like we can give up on it now that we have it, Aquarina." I answered. "The best we can do now  is keep exploring the dungeon and then see what we can do later. We\'ve still got a quest to do."

"Right…" Aquarina sighed, feeling slightly affected.

I felt bad by being harsh with her, so I quickly hugged her back.

"Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah… I was just a bit shocked. It was merely a glimpse, but was this how the gods were really? and how… they just designed us to be their slaves?"

"I… I can\'t really tell you if that\'s how all of them area, but maybe that was how the majority could had been, or still is… It still all a mystery."

"This was a bit horrifying, to be honest." Said Mist. "But that description you gave us, Sylphy… it said something about this monolith being a key or something, right?"

"Yeah, it is some sort of key, to something. And it can also react with other divine artifacts. Those Nereids made it so it could be used as a weapon, most likely referring to the first Demon King, the monster that was created by the World itself to fend off the invading Gods, or so is what I think it might be." I sighed.

"Heh, I guess the argument those cultists often used doesn\'t seem to matter as much, even humans, elves, anima.. Everyone was just made to be slaves. We demons might had been made from the first demon king\'s corpse, but aren\'t we lost children as well? The same as the other races…" Celeste sighed. "The more I think about it, the more pointless the fights, wars, and enmity feels to me."

"A slave race…" I sighed. "I wonder if mom and dad know this truth?"

"Perhaps…" Said Celeste. "I can understand if they didn\'t wanted to tell you this part of history, it is rather irrelevant to our mostly peaceful daily lives."

"Well I\'ll ask mom and dad after we\'re done here… For now, how about we continue? I can sense a large gust of winds coming from afar, probably coming from the staircase to the floor 2!" Said Aquarina.

"Yeah, let\'s go for now." I nodded, quickly wandering back into the caves with everyone else, careful of traps, of course.

I ended storing the artifact inside of the Dimensional Bag. It seemed to react to Mana, whoever grabs it and imbues Mana into it might attain greater water attribute magic power, or something like that.

Nephi seemed rather afraid of the item, as if she didn\'t wanted to touch it for some reason, but I decided to not pursue the issue with her, as I didn\'t knew exactly how she felt about the whole situation.

But still, she worried me a little bit.

Maybe seeing these visions of her ancient masters and creators has given her some sort of PTSD…

"How many floors does this dungeon has?" Wondered Celica.

"Three." I said. "And- Oh, the stairs!"

We quickly ran towards the stairs, which finally showed up at the end of a corridor.

RUMBLE!

However, in the last moment, something began moving, trying to stop our path!

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