Damn it!
Hawkins hurriedly caught Ai Miye, sending his awareness into hers, only to find that her consciousness was uninjured. But then he discovered that the little bead was nowhere to be found in her body either, as if it had never existed.
Humans, in the end, were not gods.
Though Hawkins possessed experiences and abilities beyond what ordinary people could imagine, he was still only human, not a god.
Sometimes, if people had never weathered hardships, they would never know their own helplessness. Like thinking, "I can turn this around and kill them instead"—in the end, it was only an illusion.
Hawkins held Ai Miye as a long-forgotten sense of powerlessness surged through him. Yet there was still nothing he could do but wait for the final outcome.
He had no idea whether what was happening to Ai Miye was good or bad. He could not even determine what that tiny red bead was.
What could not be observed could naturally not be understood.
Hawkins gripped the Eternal Sea Chart tightly and waited in silence.
Half an hour later, Ai Miye's eyelashes trembled faintly, and she gradually awoke from her coma.
"Where am I...?"
Ai Miye was still a little dazed when she woke up, but the moment she saw Hawkins's face, she immediately snapped awake.
She struggled to sit up and asked incoherently, "What happened to me? Are you alright?"
"I should be asking you that. Are you alright?" Hawkins could not help but smile bitterly.
Ai Miye shook her head. "I'm fine. I'm very well. It's just that... I think I know who I am now."
"What do you mean?" Hawkins frowned, somewhat confused.
Ai Miye looked at the corpse beside them and sighed. "He is my ancestor. Just now, I saw my Lineage. I saw many things."
"So that little bead was actually a fragment of memory?" Hawkins guessed.
Ai Miye shook her head. "It was Bloodline Inheritance. Only members of our Lineage can trigger it."
"Alright, then do you know how we can leave this damned place now?" Hawkins asked.
"Then how do we obtain the ancestral inheritance?" Hawkins asked with a frown.
Ai Miye looked ahead and answered, "We only need to pass the trials to obtain the ancestral inheritance."
"Then let's go. The sooner we get the inheritance, the sooner we leave." Hawkins nodded.
Holding Ai Miye's hand, he continued forward. Before long, the way ahead suddenly opened up, revealing an Arena.
Ai Miye introduced it, "This is the first trial. As long as you step onto the Arena and defeat the enemy, the path to the next trial will open."
"Are you going up, or am I?" Hawkins asked as he looked at the Arena.
Ai Miye stared at Hawkins speechlessly. Hawkins could only say helplessly, "Alright, looks like I'm going up. But does this count as cheating?"
"It doesn't. You were allowed to bring someone you trusted to help from the start," Ai Miye answered.
Hawkins nodded and walked straight onto the Arena.
The Arena was broad, roughly half the size of a football field, with many strange patterns around its edges.
Once Hawkins stepped onto it, those patterns began moving one by one. Then, black lines pieced themselves together into a stick figure. It held a long spear and took up a stance opposite Hawkins.
"So my opponent is a stick figure?"
Hawkins asked Ai Miye beneath the Arena, but before she could answer, he felt a fierce gust of wind strike at him. He immediately spun like a drunken old man, dodging the stick figure's life-taking spear thrust.
It was fast!
Its speed in switching from side to side was incredibly swift. In the blink of an eye, the spear in its left hand stabbed toward Hawkins's brow.
Hawkins retreated rapidly. The spear chased after him with only a finger's breadth between its tip and his brow, as though it would never rest until it pierced him.
But Hawkins suddenly turned sideways. Once the spear swept past him, he drove a fist straight into the stick figure's body. The sensation was far from pleasant—it felt soft and mushy, and he could not find any point to exert force against.
The stick figure, on the other hand, had the spot struck by Hawkins's fist cave inward. A moment later, it recovered and attacked Hawkins again with its spear in hand.
At that moment, the Eternal Sea Chart in Hawkins's hand suddenly unfolded.
Though the Eternal Sea Chart was a sea chart, its material was extremely hard, and its edges were as sharp as a paper cutter.
In an instant, the Sea Chart swept across the stick figure's body, severing its lines outright. Yet in the very next second, the two broken lines reconnected.
The attack was ineffective!
In fact, those two attacks had merely been Hawkins's tests.
The first had been an ordinary physical attack. Since Curse Power could not be released outside his body, that punch had carried no additional ability.
The second attack had used the cursed properties of the Cursed Relic, but it had still produced no effect.
Hawkins felt that the stick figure before him probably required special conditions to be killed.
Whoosh!
The stick figure attacked again. One spear thrust missed, and it immediately turned around and launched another.
The stick figure flew backward, but quickly flipped over and landed. With a kick of its toes against the ground, it charged Hawkins again.
"Even electricity doesn't work?"
As Hawkins watched the stick figure return, he muttered to himself.
The stick figure's nature was extremely peculiar. Its body was incomparably soft, yet when it attacked, it became hard as iron. Especially the long spear in its hand—under its control, it could be hard or soft, extend or retract, grow or shrink. It was exceptionally troublesome.
As Hawkins fought it, he felt that its weapon became a whip at times, a staff at others, and only finally a long spear.
Because of this highly flexible ability, Hawkins found it difficult to find an opening to attack. Even when he found one, he could not inflict effective damage.
After fifteen minutes, Hawkins had no choice but to consider ending the battle.
In those fifteen minutes, the amount of exertion he had gone through was almost equivalent to a marathon runner completing three marathons.
Because of the curse, his metabolism was already much faster than an ordinary person's. Under such intense expenditure, some of his stored energy had already been depleted.
That's enough. Looks like I can only end the research!
Hawkins sighed inwardly. He had actually discovered the stick figure's weakness long ago, but he had been curious about what exactly it was made of. That was why he had spent so much time circling around it, observing it.
At that moment, the stick figure attacked again. He dodged the spear strike, moved straight in close, and rammed his shoulder into its body.
The stick figure was very light. The impact immediately sent it stumbling.
In that instant, Hawkins seized the opportunity. He bent down, grabbed the stick figure by the foot, spun his body as though throwing a frisbee, and hurled it straight out of the Arena.
"Bye-bye!"
Hawkins chuckled, then lightly tossed aside the long spear.
Just as he had expected, once the stick figure landed outside the Arena, its body instantly disintegrated into countless lines. In the end, they flowed back into the Arena like ink and became those strange symbols again.
Being alive was truly wonderful.
It was precisely because he could encounter new things he had never seen or experienced before that Hawkins did not want to die.
He jumped down from the Arena and smiled at Ai Miye. "Alright, let's go see the next trial."
The passage leading to the next trial had already opened. The two entered it and walked forward. After about ten minutes, the next trial appeared before them.
"Your ancestor wasn't very creative. Another Arena?"
Hawkins looked at the even larger Arena before them and spoke softly to Ai Miye.
Ai Miye remained calm. "What need is there for creativity? As long as it can test people, that is enough. I'll have to trouble you again this time."
"Alright. Who told me I've always respected the old and cherished the young?" Hawkins smacked his lips and stepped onto the Arena.
On the Arena, countless patterns gathered together. Gradually, a giant formed from blue energy appeared.
The giant was at least five meters tall and extremely bloated. Yet it floated in midair, its feet never touching the ground. So despite its bulky appearance, it likely possessed remarkable agility.
Hawkins held the chart and did not attack first.
Seeing this, Hawkins smiled at Ai Miye beneath the Arena. "Alright, looks like it wants me to make the first move. Pretty polite!"
"Focus. Don't lose to it," Ai Miye said with a dissatisfied frown.
Hawkins made an OK gesture, then looked toward the Blue Giant.
Since the Blue Giant would not attack first, he would make the first move. But to be safe, he would test it first.
There were too many strange and bizarre abilities in this world. Sometimes, they truly could not be guarded against.
He extended a finger, and an electric sphere the size of a marble shot from it. But when it struck the Blue Giant, it had absolutely no effect.
Its defense was not bad.
Though the electric sphere just now had been small, it was not something an ordinary person could withstand. Its power was roughly comparable to a handgun, and if it struck a vital point, it could still be fatal.
Seeing that the Blue Giant remained motionless, Hawkins raised his hand. The next moment, Ball Lightning blasted forth.
Boom!
With an explosive blast, the Blue Giant's cheek caved in. At the same time, Hawkins felt as though someone had punched his own cheek, which immediately reddened and swelled.
Damage reflection?
Hawkins felt a burning pain on his cheek and thought to himself.
If he had truly attacked with full force just now, the reflected damage might have caused his body to collapse instantly.
This enemy was rather troublesome.
He could not kill it, and it would not be easy to throw it out of the Arena like the stick figure. After all, it was so huge that it would be difficult to move even while it stood still. If it suddenly attacked, that would be far too dangerous.
As for stalling for time, Hawkins had not considered it at all.
The Arena's victory conditions were simple and straightforward: either drive the opponent out of the Arena or kill it. There was no third method.
Hawkins's metabolism was already relatively fast. Dragging things out would only put him in an even more disadvantageous position.