Creating A Succubus Army In A Fantasy World!-Chapter 137: Sigils Of Authority.

With the carrier now docked and the group having barely recovered from Ryan’s usual chaotic "pep talk," the youths were marched across the gleaming white stone yard into a new section of the examination grounds.

No one spoke much. Most were stiff from determination or fidgeting nervously. But one thing was clear; every single one of them had fire in their eyes.

They had made it this far, survived beasts and horrors that disqualified hundreds, and now they were only one step away from reaching the gates of the Ambassador’s Academy—the most prestigious academy in the world!

Becoming a student there was like being handed a golden ticket to success.

Fame, wealth, resources, ancient techniques, and endless paths of growth... all within reach. And only one phase remained between them and that glory.

Before long, the ground in front of them began to shimmer.

A soft humming filled the air, like the ringing of a massive bell in the distance, and the wind shifted ever so slightly.

The pressure changed. Space seemed to ripple. And then it appeared—a crack in the air, jagged and glowing, like someone had sliced open reality with a knife of pure energy.

The dimensional rift. But this time, no one gasped in confusion or backed away in fright. They had already experienced this for their first exam.

Now, they stood taller, jaws clenched, eyes sharp. Their hearts still beat wildly, but they had changed.

But of course, the place wasn’t empty.

Just like before, standing beside it with arms folded and a cloak as black as night was him—the silent, brooding man with the empty aura.

He didn’t need to say much. No warm-up. No explanations. No emotional speech to encourage them.

He merely turned his head, stared at them like they were all insects who had five seconds left to live, and growled two words in a tone that felt like a knife scraping against steel:

"Get inside."

That was it. No more, no less.

The reaction was immediate. Not a single soul hesitated. Their bodies moved as if trained, fueled by instinct and survival and ambition.

One after the other, they surged forward, stepping into the swirling vortex of the dimensional rift with grim determination.

Some clenched their fists. Some whispered silent prayers. Others grinned, eager for a fight. But all knew what was at stake.

This was the final phase. The last trial. Fail here, and all their struggles were for nothing.

Then came the ones who weren’t so ordinary.

Lilith and Tierra floated gently forward, carrying Creed’s glowing body between them like he was some divine statue being transported through a holy temple.

But as they passed the cloaked examiner, something strange happened.

His body tensed slightly, and for the first time in what felt like forever, his expression changed. It was subtle—barely a twitch of his brow—but it spoke volumes.

His sharp eyes followed the two women as they moved past, and deep inside, a strange tremor passed through his heart.

It was faint. Fleeting. But unmistakable.

A presence. No—two presences. Ancient, lingering, and impossibly heavy. Like the echo of a dragon’s breath from ten thousand years ago, buried in the blood of mortals.

As if time itself had brushed past him and whispered a warning. The man’s heartbeat sped up, not in fear, but in alertness.

He narrowed his eyes, eyes that had seen countless battles, and he muttered under his breath, "...what the death was that?"

Snapping his fingers, a tall, younger man wearing a silver insignia hurried over. The assistant bowed respectfully, not daring to speak first.

"Who is that boy?" the cloaked man asked, not looking away from Creed’s unconscious body.

The assistant blinked, already pulling out a sleek tablet and scrolling through glowing information.

"His name is Creed Walden. Ranked Genius Tier 1. Peak Stage 2 cultivation, but his estimated combat strength is Peak Stage 5. He passed the first trial with top 0.3 percentile results. He’s been unconscious since he arrived. Those two women are his summoned beings."

The man’s gaze flickered slightly. "Summons?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hmph."

The rest of the data meant nothing to him—rankings, stage levels, percentile stats—those were all numbers that he had heard too often.

But two things stood out. That those two goddesses were his summons, and that they weren’t just powerful, but terrifyingly ancient.

"...Interesting," the man muttered, and for the first time since the start of the second phase, he made a mental note: Watch that boy. Closely.

Meanwhile, inside the rift—

Lilith and Tierra’s bodies rippled through the space-time fold like droplets through water.

The pressure twisted and pulled, and the energy screamed all around them, but they held firm, their arms tightly cradling Creed’s form. Then, with a final push, they burst through the other side and into the sky.

The air was hot. Dry. Painted in deep orange hues, like they had emerged into the dying breath of a great sun.

The clouds were thick and slow-moving, but below them? There was no ground. No mountains. No forests. No buildings.

Only mist.

A vast, endless ocean of brown mist stretched beneath them in all directions, thick and choking like fog mixed with ash.

It swirled like a living thing, hiding whatever secrets or monsters lay beneath. And they weren’t alone.

All around them, thousands of youths were also falling from the sky—some screaming, some laughing, some focused—each desperately trying to find ways to land without breaking all their bones!

Some pulled out talismans. Others conjured wind techniques to slow their descent.

A few turned into glowing comets, diving straight down with reckless speed. But most were just panicking, flailing around like balloons that had lost air.

Tierra’s expression remained calm, though. "Hmph. What a primitive design."

Lilith giggled beside her. "They really dropped us all out of the sky like ingredients in a boiling soup pot."

Together, they shifted, wings of purple and grey blooming from their backs as they slowed themselves midair, still cradling Creed like a sacred treasure.

"What do you think is beneath the mist?" Lilith asked, tilting her head.

Tierra’s grey eyes narrowed. "Trouble."

Lilith grinned. "Spicy."

And with that, the two dove together toward the misty abyss, twin streaks of violet and silver cutting through the orange sky like stars falling from heaven and racing toward the unknown.

The scene was almost beautiful—if not for the terrifying ocean of brown mist that swallowed the land below like a bottomless pit of doom.

And this mist—oh, it wasn’t just some fancy visual effect to make things look spooky. No, this brown mist was more than that.

It clung to everything, choking out light, swallowing sound, and warping perception like a cruel joke.

Even from high in the sky, Tierra and Lilith could already tell something was wrong. Their eyes, blessed with inhuman sight, tried to pierce through the fog, but it was like staring into dirty water.

No depth. No definition. Just a swirling mess of unknowns.

You couldn’t see five meters ahead without losing detail, and even spiritual perception felt like it was being strangled.

It was like trying to detect something while blindfolded with your ears stuffed and your senses muted.

Just existing inside this mist would make any objective—scouting, locating enemies, hunting, survival—infinitely more difficult.

If this was a survival trial, the organizers had basically just thrown all the kids into a meat grinder and said, "Good luck!"

And yet, even as they carried the still-unconscious Creed, neither Lilith nor Tierra showed any sign of worry.

Their majestic wings sliced through the heavy air with a steady rhythm, making it look effortless—though that hadn’t always been the case.

Before the sigil baptism, even flapping their wings with full power while carrying Creed had been a struggle, like trying to fly while holding a refrigerator.

Their wings simply hadn’t been strong enough to lift both themselves and him for long periods. But now?

Now it was easy.

The sigil baptism had transformed them from powerful summons into walking calamities.

Still, long-distance flight wasn’t limitless. Even with their enhanced stamina, they couldn’t stay airborne forever.

So, slowly, they began to descend; gliding gently like goddesses returning to the mortal plane.

Then it happened.

Just as their feet were mere meters from touching the cracked desert floor—a floor that looked deceptively still, like the surface of an old pancake left too long in the pan—the ground exploded.

Roar!

With a thunderous roar that shook the air, the sandy terrain split apart like a zipper being torn open by a furious toddler.

And from it rose a nightmare: a massive, grotesque worm with a body like rotting leather stretched over bones, its mouth opening vertically like a flower made of death and lined with spinning rows of dagger-like teeth.

It let out a screech so loud and high-pitched it rattled their bones and made even the mist ripple in fear.

The damn thing was huge!

At least ten meters wide, and only the gods knew how long. Its entire body seemed to pulse with a sickly glow, like it was radioactive.

And worst of all, its power level? Peak of Stage 5.

"Annoying," Lilith said flatly, already frowning, her long purple hair fluttering behind her like a silk banner in a storm.

"Hideous," Tierra muttered with the elegance of a librarian criticizing a sloppy book cover.

Without hesitation, Lilith’s red scythe snapped into her hand like it had always been there, humming with murderous energy.

Tierra’s dual daggers gleamed in both her palms, silent and cold like winter moons. And then—

Their eyes changed.

A faint glow sparked in Lilith’s violet eyes, shaped like a mysterious archaic symbol, ancient and unrecognizable, burning deep purple like a star being born.

Tierra’s silver eyes followed, a grey sigil forming in both irises with a calm, ruthless chill. In that very instant, everything went still.

The world hushed.

The wind held its breath. Even the brown mist paused in its twisting, almost as if the universe itself knew not to make a sound.

Then, like a silent flash of destiny, a burst of brilliant violet light pulsed from Lilith for a single second—too fast for most to even blink.

Simultaneously, a ripple passed through space near Tierra, like reality itself had just... glitched. One second the worm was mid-roar, launching toward them like a torpedo, and the next second...

It froze.

Just like that.

Frozen mid-motion, mid-air, mid-attack. Time seemed to forget it existed. A split second passed... and then, like an overripe fruit split with a blade, the worm exploded from head to tail.

A violent, clean slash split it in half from top to bottom, and the two pieces sizzled into crisp black ash in the air before ever hitting the ground.

Gone. Instantly. Not even a corpse to remember it by.

Meanwhile, outside the rift, in the control chamber bathed in silver-blue light, the hooded examiner was watching the live feed with a screen flickering before him.

The scene had just played out before his eyes; the glowing sigils, the flash of light, the spatial ripple, the instant kill.

He stared for a few seconds, saying nothing.

Then he leaned back in his chair, his shadowed face unreadable.

"As expected," he murmured, nodding to himself, "They’ve acquired a sigil of authority."

He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he reached for a cup of tea that had gone cold hours ago and took a slow sip like a man watching weather patterns instead of walking calamities descend from the heavens.

Back inside the trial zone, Lilith and Tierra didn’t even glance back at the worm ashes.

They landed gracefully, placed Creed gently on a piece of solid rock, and began scanning the misty surroundings again with calm, deadly precision.

They weren’t here to show off. They weren’t here to gloat.

They were Creed’s guardians, his warriors, and in this trial filled with blood, confusion, and brown fog, they were going to carve a path for him with dagger and scythe—no matter what monster came next.

[Just wanted to beg you all to consider leaving a review for my story. It motivates me to write better and boosts my ego. Actually, forget the last part. Hehe...]