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The first Cephalobidia ancestors crawled into land even before The Fall, but they didn't had much time to specialize in anything, often staying as seashore dwellers until The Fall occurred.
A massive meteor fell over the planet, which was in fact the entire Hivemind being entrapped by the roots of Yggdrasil fused with the twins' clones once created by Veronica and Ervas.
Many of the land dwellers that had specialized in full land live styles ended being completely vaporized by the powerful shockwaves and blazing explosions that The Fall caused.
Although not all life was lost, these seashore dwellers which could still go back to the sea ended being pushed into the seas, although many of its species ended dying as the seas became contaminated by the gases released by the explosion of The Fall, a few small, very small species that were already venomous and had specialized in hiding in crevices and eating small little crustaceans. This little species had its time to shine as it showed it was already pre-adapted to survive in the sulfuric depths of the oceans, and the toxicity of the sea seemed barely to put any issue to it.
This little dweller saw many niches opening up, and ended repopulating a large part of the ocean life as it saw many of these other creatures die down, it even resulted to cannibalism as the same species and its various derivation predated in one another and started a new and incredibly fast arm race.
A group of such vertebrate squids walked into land one day, as this one little dweller would descent into the Cephalobidia…
Pushed into land because of the many predators, the small little squid found a place with almost no predators at all in the seashores, where it could live more peacefully and multiply quickly while catching prey in sea occasionally, or eating these creatures crawling out of the seashores.
This small vertebrate squid quickly grew in massive sizes and multiplied all around the desertic lands, which slowly regained their beautiful greenery over time, making it even easier for them.
A certain clade of its descendants had developed one pair of tentacles into membranes while in sea, and after going to land, it managed to repurpose them into power flight incredibly quickly, filling the bird niche and incidentally generating feather-like growth across its body, which had already previously evolved as spines long ago, which then adapted into feather-like spines that became a way for the parents to protect their eggs in sacks made out of their tentacles where the feathers filled the crevices.
Now, such spines were repurposed, which had already become very much feather-like, into true feathers that aided these creatures into a better power flight, showcasing the true beauty of convergent evolution as a species completely unrelated to birds ended becoming very much like birds. Even their tentacles which now had bones adapted to this and gained sharp claws to grab into the branches where they lived.
They began laying eggs in treetops and built up nests, and many of them began to live in pairs to take care of their eggs, which transformed from many clutches to less, bigger, and healthier eggs, guaranteeing that a young would be born big and strong from the get-go instead of many weak little children that would spawn over the seas with very little chances of survival.
If course, there were still many species that did this nonetheless, certain clades of these land squids turned into bug-like little critters, some even losing their internalized shells incredibly easily and going back to their softer bodies.
However, the ancestors of the Cephalobidia stayed in land and continued growing bigger and stronger, over time they developed more complex intelligence as their brains had been developing ever since billions of years ago.
They became able to complete all sorts of complex tasks and they were in an arm race for intelligence as they battle against their cousin species that had begun to predate on them or their eggs. This arm race for outsmarting the other one with all sorts of strategies ended helping both races to grow sapience, but the predators ended going extinct as the more peaceful bug squid-eaters regained supreme as they managed to simply drive their nemesis into extinction through outsmarting alone.
And sapience.
And since then the Cephalobidia were born, they expanded across the land, lost the ability to fly as they specialized in land-dwelling while using the boneless limbs around their beaks, which were the last tentacles they had which their ancestors used to use tools and grab their eggs. They were able to evolve and gather into tribes, built up villages, nations, and more.
And now the Cephalobidia live in one of their greatest cities ever built around the world tree, the tree their ancestors had once come to live nearby as predators were not so many. They worshiped the tree as their goddess, and even received oracles from her, who tell them to build altars to the twin goddesses that sacrificed themselves in the past.
The power of Singing was discovered as well, as the Cephalobidia were able to develop the ability of utilizing magic, although it was often rather rare, they called it singing as they used incantations that were like songs to conjure the elements of nature.
Singers became widespread and quickly became the "high society" of these species' society, they became privilege and caused a rather large social discrimination against those without the power of Singing.
Now as many nations were built across the planet, the Cephalobidia all heard about the city of wizards and adventurers that was built around the world tree, where the dangerous monster-infested Labyrinth lied, anyone that was seeking adventure, challenges, and to learn magic moved into this city of many wonders and many dangers as well.
Ervas and Veronica learned a bit of what had been explained here, although not everything completely, Yggdrasil had documented their race and how they slowly improved more and more.
It was truly awe inspiring to learn about such relentless race of former snails…
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