Petra skipped down the Grand Market Street, singing to herself while Lilly and Luna chased after her in a panic.
She darted between the stalls like a mischievous child, grabbing snacks, fruits, and sweets from every direction. In one hand, she held a skewer of glowing blue meat, and in the other, a cone full of mushroom flakes. Whenever her arms got too full, she would casually stuff the food into her satchel.
"Petra, slow down!" Lilly shouted, but Petra was already biting into a Redleaf Chip, creamy crumbs scattering down her face.
She gulped down a whole cup of Cloud Milk and gave a satisfied sigh, her cheeks puffed up with food like a chipmunk.
It was a miracle her little belly didn't bulge out like a ball.
Petra's appetite was something beyond human, partly because she wasn't fully human.
Petra was an Emerald Dragon, after all. Though Petra hadn't yet awoken her dragon bloodline, she already showed faint signs… like the small bumps that shimmered faintly with green on her temples, and the faint scales that shimmered on her hips whenever she stretched… and, and… the small green tail on her butt… that didn't yet exist, but soon! Surely! All of that… would be soon…
Her appetite was also one of those signs… probably.
Speaking of awakening her Emerald Dragon bloodline. Petra was technically a Beastmen, only instead of Dragon and Human, she was Dragon and Witch. As for awakening her bloodline, this was something every demi human had to do. It would allow them to inherit traits from their ancestors and transform into their beast forms.
This was something most mixed bloods needed to do.
Take the Deer Maid for example. Petra didn't even know what kind of deer species she was, but once that girl awakened her bloodline, she'd gain the ability to fully transform into her beast form, a true deer.
Of course, that was entirely different from the Beast Clan, who were born as beasts and gained their human forms later. Demi-humans like Petra were the opposite.
As for how to awaken one's bloodline, there were two known methods.
The first was through natural growth, decades of cultivation and meditation until the body simply awakened by itself.
The second method was to use a specialized medicine unique to each race, something crafted using their bloodline's hidden essence.
Petra, being a Witch-Dragon hybrid, was stuck in the worst position possible. She didn't even know the formula for one of those, not to mention both. She didn't even know how to fully awaken the witch bloodline, only that opening her inner library was the beginning. It was still in a strange state, kind of awakened, but also not… Levy explained it to her, but she didn't understand. Petra only remembered that Levy said that she probably wouldn't have to worry about transforming into a monster after a certain age.
Anyways, In short, she was doomed.
But not everyone shared her misfortune!
The Beast Maids, for example, had far more approachable ancestry. Their formulas could be traced, studied, and recreated. That gave Petra an idea, and that was that she could collect and study those awakening medicines, break them down, and maybe… just maybe, teach her alchemists how to replicate the process for herself.
Her mind spun with plans as she bit into another treat, barely noticing that the twins were exhausted behind her.
"Petra, please, enough already!" Lilly gasped, clutching her stomach.
Petra tilted her head, chewing slowly. "But the festival food is limited edition…"
Wind groaned from behind, her arms stacked with boxes. "Limited edition or not, I'm about to collapse!"
Petra swiftly ignored her and moved on to the next stall.
-
Performers juggled orbs of light, dancers spun in glittering veils, and enchanted music rolled through the air like waves, as floating toys drifted above the crowds.
Petra's eyes sparkled.
For her, this wasn't just a street, it was heaven.
Lilly tugged her sleeve. "little master, remember we're supposed to meet the others soon!"
Petra blinked, halfway through a caramel apple. "Ah…."
And before anyone could stop her, she slipped back into the crowd, vanishing among the laughter.
The twins looked at each other, sighed, and ran after her again.
It was going to be a long day.
* * *
There was a small and cute child with the head of a pig. She stood on a stool beside a sign that read: "Eating Contest! Bring food or lose face!"
She challenged anyone who passed by to an eating match.
As long as they brought the food, she would eat it faster than them, bigger bites, and somehow still smile with her chubby cheeks puffed out like balloons.
Petra watched in silence as the little pig girl devoured a table full of dumplings, then roasted meat, then a barrel of noodles. By the time the poor challenger gave up, the child had eaten eight times her body weight, and still burped with pride.
Petra shivered. It was one of the few times she felt actual fear from another glutton.
-
Next came a tall, regal goat girl.
Her horns spiraled, golden bands circling their base. She had light blond hair and a peaceful, almost holy smile.
Petra quickly learned that this race was called Thora, a clan of goat beastmen known for their unbreakable teeth and affinity for light magic.
The Thora girl's show was simple: she bit through anything handed to her.
A sword? Snapped clean.
A shield? Crunched like candy.
Even a bar of enchanted metal shattered between her jaws.
The crowd cheered in disbelief as she gracefully bowed, her smile as kind as ever.
Petra nervously covered her own mouth.
She didn't even want to imagine what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that bite.
-
Further down the road, they found a festival of feathers.
Hundreds of bird Beastmen were dancing in unison, twirling and leaping to the rhythm of drums and enchanted flutes.
Petra stood frozen, her little black eyes amazed.
Apparently, birdfolk were natural dancers, using their wings to balance and glide midair. The way their feathers shimmered under the lights, the way they spun like gusts of wind, it almost made her want to dance too.
Almost…
Petra made a mental note to ask the bird maid back home to perform something similar next time.
-
The next performance was part circus, part nightmare.
A tall, fit, and ridiculously flexible cat girl balanced on a single tightrope, wearing a shining black suit that hugged her curves like liquid slime. She danced, flipped, and twisted through hoops of arcane fire while juggling knives with her three tails.
The crowd screamed in excitement.
So did the perverts.
Petra clapped innocently, already preparing to train the red cat back home.
Somewhere far away…
Rose sneezed, then she shivered, then sneezed, and continued shivering while her eyelids started twitching violently. She looked up from her desk with an unknown sense of dread. Something told her she should not step into any spotlight any time soon.
-
The next stop was a bit darker.
A small stage, dim lights, and the faint scent of dust. A thin woman with pale skin stood behind a curtain. She wasn't fully human, with six long legs spread out from her back like a cloak.
Through delicate puppets, she retold the story of the first Demon King and their 'tragic defeat'.
The way she moved the strings made the dolls feel alive.
Petra watched silently to the end.
It was rare for her to stand still that long.
When the crowd clapped, Petra did too. She didn't even realize her eyes had softened a bit.
-
Moving on.
A few stalls later, Petra found a trio of octopus girls. They had smooth, blue skin and eyes that shimmered like white pearls.
Each of them worked on a puzzle while talking at the same time, their tentacles moving in perfect coordination. They claimed that they could solve any puzzle given to them, and if they couldn't, they'd buy it on the spot just to study it later.
Their table was full of strange mechanical cubes, locked boxes, and shifting runes.
Petra tried one herself and failed completely.
The three girls laughed kindly and offered her a candy instead.
Petra took it, unsure if she'd just been tricked or comforted.
-
Finally, the last group.
A choir of parrots, but not just normal parrots. Each one had a different color, different size, and could mimic any song that they heard.
Their performance was a game, If you could tell which parrot was singing the real song and which ones were mimicking, you'd win a prize.
The problem was, they were too good, and while they were all flying around like a storm, it was difficult to keep track of them, a little bit like the cup game.
By the end of it, no one had guessed right, and Petra was laughing so hard she nearly fell into a fruit cart.
-
After watching a dozen street performers and eating half the market, Petra finally sighed and stretched.
Lilly and Luna looked ready to collapse.
"Next stall," Petra laughed, her cheeks puffed with more candy.
* * *
While Petra was eating for the fourth or fifth time, Elena continued to spend her free time with Rotell.
Although Rotell would never ascend to the throne, she was still an extremely powerful ally to have.
Rotell was the future 'Silver Swordsmen', one of the few people she could reach right now that would eventually reach the eighth order of the cultivation pathway, the 'Form Cycle' realm.
Unfortunately, the current her was just a normal person.
Elena had a hard time entering the royal palace, so this was a good time to exchange pointers with Rotell.
As the two girls talked, Arthur followed closely from behind.
The entire time, his eyes continued to flicker with golden light
He noticed that the more Elena talked to Rotell, the further Rotell could go on the path of swordsmanship.
Arthur was unique in the sense that he existed in the future. That was just another way of saying he was future focused. He was terrible at discovering the past, whether through books or rumors, but he was good at figuring out things in advance, even without his ability.
He didn't know what made the other Heavens Chosen special, only that Dorthy seemed to have a big mana pool. As he listened and observed Elena's interactions with Rotell, he watched 'real time' as her future became more and more powerful. Arthur's ability didn't work on the other Heros, so he had to use his brain when understanding them. He had a few guesses as to what Elena's ability was, but she was undoubtably pushing Rotell forward.
Suddenly, his eyes flickered and stopped.
He paused.
Arthur suddenly found that Rotell's constantly evolving futures started to slow down, almost like she had passed some sort of threshold.
His brows furrowed.
That wasn't a good sign… It was usually an indication of an impending and unavoidable death.
As she approached the ninth realm, her future possibilities started to narrow down.
Soon, it went from hundreds, to dozens, then dozens to three, two, one…
Rotell's only future path was presented to Arthur from above.
* * *
Rotell stood atop a small hill.
Around her stretched an endless black desert, silent and hollow.
The sky above was pitch black, swallowing even the faintest trace of light. The air itself seemed dead, neither hot nor cold, just still, static.
Her boots sank slightly into the cracked sand as she walked forward.
Each step echoed softly, heavy and deliberate.
This was not the Rotell of now.
She was taller, stronger, and scarred from countless battles. Her eyes were colder, yet her will burned brighter than anything Arthur had seen before.
She walked with the steadiness of a warrior who had lost everything, yet still refused to fall.
In her hand was a plain stone sword.
It looked ordinary, but the blade faintly shimmered, bending the void around it, and even space seemed afraid of its edge.
In her other hand, she held something small and worn, a pair of old goggles, Arthur's goggles. The leather was cracked, the glass faintly tinted, and the scent of ash clung to them, perceptible even through the divination.
She stopped walking.
Rotell slowly lifted her blade.
Her eyes scanned the darkness above.
"You're here."
A whisper came from the void, thin and mocking. "Hehehe… you surely don't intend to go to her, do you?"
The shadows shifted, forming the faint outline of something enormous, neither physical nor intangible.
"After Mithmill is done, the calamities will end. Hehe… don't tell me you want to fight the Dragon of Destruction, do you?"
Rotell's expression didn't change.
"Move," she said coldly. "You won't fool me again."
The ground trembled.
From the blackness emerged a monstrous figure, the empty shell of a spider, its hollow body moving like liquid shadow, twisting, spinning, and intertwining in unfathomable ways. Its mere existence caused one's mind to shake. It was in existence that transcended form, shredding sanity at a mere glance.
It didn't have eyes, but its presence alone warped the horizon.
Reality bent around it, like the world itself refused to acknowledge whatever it was.
"You should have left like the others," it hissed in a whisper.
"This human sentiment… she won't remember it. She won't even look at you."
Boom!
Their clash split the desert apart.
Each strike cracked the ground, flung waves of sand skyward, and carved open the darkness itself.
Rotell swung again and again, her silver sword cutting through black limbs, but the shadow mended instantly, its laughter filling the void.
Her body was breaking.
Her blood stained the sand.
But she didn't stop.
Even if she couldn't win, she refused to kneel, she refused to stop. "Even if I die…" she roared, "I won't—!"
HOOOOOONG!
The world shook. The entire desert trembled like it was alive. Winds rose from nothing, tearing mountains of sand into dust.
The shadow's laughter grew deeper, echoing like thunder.
"Hahahahaha! It's too late!"
Rotell's sword shone brighter, her teeth clenched, her knees shaking.
The sand beneath her melted from the heat of her will alone.
"We won!" the shadow screamed. "We finally won! Hahahaha!"
Rotell didn't answer.
Her breath slowed.
The sky above began to crack, like glass fracturing under too much weight.
'Something' was approaching.
Something in the unseen world.
"..."
Silence fell.
Then—
"...hehehehe…"
A low, cold chuckle stretched across everything.
Crack!
The desert split open.
The sky shattered.
From the breaking world, nine colossal shadows emerged, covering heaven and earth.
Crack!
The future ended there.
The last thing Arthur saw was…
The reflection of those nine black shadows devouring the sky.
* * *
Present time.
Arthur jerked, slightly reeling back, yet he continued following the girls as if nothing happened.
He didn't understand that future at all.
That was the furthest he had seen into the future.
What was that sea of sand and… that black sky? Then Eight Calamity…? Will it be that bad…?
And… Rotell.
For some reason, his heart hurt.
* * *
The day had flown past.
Petra and the girls finish the night with a massive shopping spree. They bought books and scrolls, with a few boxes of luxury talismans. In addition, Petra bought a ridiculously large amount of bookmaking supplies. Petra filled a cart with new clothes for all the girls, then pulled out a ready made list by Lilly and bought everything on it.
The stacks of boxes in all the maids' arms had reached an uncountable number.
After confirming that everything was accounted for, Petra and the girls began their return journey home.
As they departed, Petra suddenly felt Luna nudged her from the side. The little green haired girl looked over, only to discover that Luna suddenly looked anxious.
When Petra followed Luna's gaze and peered through the crowd, her eyebrows raised at the appearance of two figures behind the crowd.
Petra looked between Lilly and Luna, realizing what they were worried about
In the moment of her consideration, the two men in the distance were already pushing their way through the crowd.
Petra asked in a soft voice, "How do you want to handle them? Your family I mean. They seem to recognise you."
Luna pursed her lips.
Lilly started sweating. She didn't know about the fate that the twins should have suffered, so she still had a soft spot for her family. Unlike Lilly, Luna had seen a few flashes of the future that was meant to be. Although her gaze was getting colder by the second, she didn't interrupt her sister. Luna would let Lilly decide how to deal with them.
After what felt like a long period of thinking, Lilly suddenly shook her head
"I don't want to go back."
Petra nodded.
She took their hands and began to leave in the opposite direction.
Seeing this, the two Azurefell family members that had been quickly approached started to yell. Their voices were drowned out by the crowd.
Just like that, Petra slipped away and disappeared into the night.