The amphitheater had 16 entrances.
Damien and Pandora split up and moved in opposite directions, approaching the walls to begin scouting these tunnels.
They were ancient, that much was for certain.
The rock that made up their walls was weathered extremely, and the signs of ancient writings present on them were so long worn that they looked like nothing more than the scratches of madmen.
But as the duo sent their awarenesses into these tunnels, they only developed more questions.
'The restriction spans as far as my awareness can reach, and it doesn't seem to stop anywhere nearby.'
'The walls are also so thick. It's difficult for my awareness to pass through them.'
Damien ran his fingers along the walls as he moved between the tunnels and investigated each one separately.
'It would be nice if we could just explore every tunnel, but not only is there a bit of a time crunch, we also can't be sure if there are any traps waiting for us.'
Dealing with traps would waste their energy needlessly, and Damien was sure the traps present in a place protected by such a powerful restriction wouldn't be light.
He eventually left the wall and returned to the center of the amphitheater to meet Pandora.
"Any clues?"
"None at all."
Pandora responded sighingly. To say she wasn't used to danger would be a lie, but she'd never really had to explore uncharted territory on her own, so she wasn't aware of the procedures or to-dos of the task. It was annoying, especially since she was trapped with an untrustworthy man like Damien.
"Let's just pick a random tunnel and go for it. It would be much easier to understand how the rest of them work if we've explored one."
Damien glanced around the area while Pandora did the same, and while they tried to make a decision…
Rumble!
The ground rumbled and the walls of the amphitheater began to move. The entire structure rotated around the duo, the 16 tunnels disappearing behind walls of rock as a new set of tunnels revealed themselves.
Damien's eyes sharpened.
"Be careful. This isn't a good thing," he said, provoking a nod from Pandora.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Like the marching of armies, footsteps echoed through the new tunnels. Large shadowy figures appeared in the darkness, moving closer into the light and revealing their forms.
"Golems."
Pandora's eyes narrowed as she held up her weapon, a ribbon-like object that thrashed in the air like it was alive.
She never expected to see golems here, because, in her knowledge, golems were protectors of ancient civilizations.
It was rare to use golems in the recent era due to multiple factors, such as the rise of soul-controlling techniques as well as the threat of the Marionette Lord taking control of them, however, in the eras of civilization before the Forgotten War, golems were an extremely popular method of protection.
And these golems weren't weak.
Their bodies were largely humanoid aside from their size, which was more like Giants. Their exteriors looked wooden, but the sturdy aura they gave off made it obvious they weren't so simple.
Each one had a specific gem in its head. Each gem came in a set, with each golem holding the same gem standing on opposite sides of the amphitheater.
Damien's eyes scanned all 16 of the golems that exited their respective tunnels and stood in front of them like guards.
'Their strength is relatively the same, around the 1st or 2nd revolution…or at least, on the surface.'
The All-Seeing Eyed activated, causing Damien's irises to swirl mystically.
His gaze turned to two specific golems with onyx gems in their heads that stood on opposite sides of the amphitheater.
'They're both strong.'
It wasn't a perfect method to find out where to go, but since their strength was supposed to remain deeply hidden, their presence should've held significance, right?
That was Damien's reasoning, and without hesitating any further, he moved.
"Pandora, take the one on the opposite side with the onyx in its head. If the rest attack, ignore them until you've eliminated your target!"
By the time she made up her mind to respond, he was already gone.
Boom!
An explosion signified his advent into battle, and Pandora could only grit her teeth in frustration.
'I am a Holy Land genius…I am the Prismatic Sun Saintess…stay calm…stay collected…'
The way Damien casually started giving orders as if she was less than him was extremely annoying, but what could she do?
He truly was better than her!
'This rogue…if Master didn't want him…!'
Pandora could only scream her grievances in her head as she begrudgingly followed his order, launching an attack against the Onyx golem.
Bang!
Her ribbon shot out like a whip, cracking in the air as it slapped the golem's torso. The air exploded and the golden was thrown back into its tunnel, but there was no visible damage on its body.
'Strong!' Pandora exclaimed immediately.
Perhaps the hit wasn't too hard, but she still used a portion of her force combined with a God-rank artifact. It was rare to find beings who could survive such an attack unharmed!
Pandora frowned as she watched the golem return to its place in front of the door.
Despite her actions, it didn't attack.
'Hmm…is it perhaps…'
Bang!
Pandora took a quick step back to avoid the extremely fast fist that almost struck her.
However, she faced no second attack after she evaded it.
'I was correct. These golems only respond if the attacker is within a certain range. Perhaps I should tell—'
BOOOOM!
Pandora abruptly shifted her head to the side, narrowly dodging the wooden head that shot past her like a speeding bullet.
BANG!
The head collided with the torso of the golden she was fighting and tore through the wood-like material, revealing its mechanical insides.
Flash!
A shadow appeared behind it. An arm dug into the hole and ripped apart the circuitry within, forcing the golem to fall to the floor, ineffective.
Damien wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and nodded.
"Nice. The confusion is terrible when you use mana, but it's pretty easy to overcome if you rely on physical strength."
He kicked the golem parts on the floor in front of him and looked back up at Pandora.
"I thought this would be a fun all-out brawl, but these guys are individual protectors, not an army. What a shame…"
Pandora's brows furrowed as she watched the man tap his foot against the ground like a city dweller late to work and scan the amphitheater like he was waiting for his dealer to show up.
She suddenly got the feeling that something bad was going to happen.
"What are you—"
"Let's just go for it."
Damien muttered to himself and vanished, leaving a trail of afterimages behind as he used pure physical strength to shoot through the amphitheater.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
One by one, the heads of the golems exploded. There was no specific order in which gems were destroyed, but Damien made sure to destroy each pair before moving on to the next one.
He had figured it out.
The answer to this amphitheater's question wasn't any one of the answers it provided, but all of them together!
