I landed back on the ground. With a wave of my hand, I sent out a gust of wind to blow aside the dust that had been gathered. Astria was standing there, taking deep, strained breaths. Her mana body was bruised and battered; her clothing ripped. I knew enough to know that this was all circumstantial. She could restore her appearance instantly, but she wanted to lure me into a false sense of victory. I remained dutifully cautious about what she would do next.
“I’ll recognize that you’re powerful. You might even be one of those so-called heroes. However, you’d never hold a candle to that man, and you will fail today.”
“That man?” I raised an amused eyebrow, as I was pretty sure she was talking about me.
“If you think I will allow you to take the mana spring, you have another thing coming.”
“Take it? It’s already mine.”
“Hehe…” She chuckled. “So, you’re just like him. You want to steal my fairy fountain too, just like Karr. Then again, Karr burned my home to the ground when he was done. I won’t give you the chance!”
I jerked upright when she said those words. I had absorbed Karr’s blessing in a dungeon created by him, but I had never heard anything about her home being burned by him. I knew about the situation more than most, which was why her words didn’t match with the story I knew.
“You abandoned your colony.” I frowned. “It failed because you gave Karr too much.”
“I had once believed that as well.” She grimaced. “However, the truth was… Karr burned my fairy spring to the ground!”
“That… why would he do that?”
I knew more than anyone else that the lore in dungeons was fragmented and inaccurate. As it degraded, facts became more and more scrambled. Osterians turned into lumbering giants, and innocent parties turned into malevolent beasts. For example, what was Karr’s first name? Even Astria only ever called him Lord Karr. Of course, I knew his first name was Charles because those in Chalm knew of him, but the dungeon seemed to have lost such a simple piece of information.
The truth was in the eye of the beholder, and what Astria believed to be the truth would have made up the most of Karr’s dungeon. As for Karr himself, she had kept his soul alive and turned it into a boss to punish him.
This had kept his soul intact. Had the dungeon digested his soul, and took his memories, then he would have been a boss more like Xin had been. He might have had a mind, but he wouldn’t have been able to discuss things with me using personal knowledge. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to resurrect him. In other words, Karr’s dungeon didn’t know what Karr knew. Perhaps, Karr had wanted it that way. He had wanted to bury the truth.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. The only thing I do know is that this world is my enemy, and I will conquer it or destroy it! You are after the fairy fountain, so I will destroy you too! I won’t allow you to hurt her! It’s the last thing I can do for him.”
Astria’s already fragile mind was quickly shattering, and I could barely follow her thought process now. Just what had Astria found out while I was away? I almost wished that she had created another dungeon. Then, I’d have the ability to glance at murals to figure out what happened these last two months. Unfortunately, Astria’s tale wasn’t finished, and she probably wasn’t willing to tell me much more than this either.
“Astria, it’s time we end this.”
“I agree…” She chuckled.
Although she said this, she spun around and fled. I frowned, moving to follow her, but she didn’t move far. She stopped directly next to the spout where mana was being released. Then, she shoved her hand in the mana. Her wounds finally disappeared, but that wasn’t the terrifying part. There was a growing surge of power.
“She’s using the mana to power up!”
She was a mana creature, after all. If she absorbed mana directly from the source, she could exude a great deal of power.
“You’ve forced my hand, hero! It’s time for you to die!”
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