“Where are you going?”

It was early morning. The sun hadn’t come up yet so only the night sky was visible if one looked upwards. Every breath I drew was followed by cold air.

Edna was next to me in her mature human form instead of her dragon form. It'd be bad if others saw me with a dragon.

Damian was the one who called out to me. He stood at the kingdom gate. Meanwhile, Edna and I were in common attire while we carried bags on our shoulders.

“Are you stalking me or something…”

“Are you leaving right after finishing the exams?”

I nodded to Damian's question.

“Doesn’t it seem pretty cowardly of you? You can still live on as a wizard…”

“You’re misunderstanding something.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen, I received an invitation to join the Student Council.”

Damian’s eyes opened wide.

“Sorry for not telling you and the others. I only told Arielle in the letter I wrote to her.”

He snickered.

“Congratulations. Well, I knew they’d scout you anyway. So, where are you going?”

“Well,” I looked toward Edna. “I’m going to the Elca Kingdom. Edna and I will part ways. She’ll head to the Draconic Empire.”

Edna spoke after I said my bit.

“I want to head there to ask the Elder Dragon if he knows the whereabouts of my mother.”

Damian then wondered, “You’re going to find your mother?”

“Yes. I have no idea how big this planet is so I might take a while. I want to find my mother… if she’s still alive.”

I smiled. It’s not good for Edna to stay with me while her mother could be out there. Her best bet would be visiting the Dragon Mountains in the Draconic Empire where the oldest dragon resides.

He’s a dragon that had lived for close to 10000 years and was the first of his kind to witness the battle between the Immortals and Spirit King. He might have come into contact with Sapphire.

Regrettably, the two of us have to part ways for now. We promised to meet again in the near future.

‘She doesn’t belong in a human nation anyway.’

She’s part of a species that are close to gods. Their alpha was a literal god as well.

“What are you going to do in the Elca Kingdom?”

“The Elven Queen might have a method for me to restore my core. She mentioned that they can help me get stronger.”

Damian’s eyes met mine. He walked towards me and gazed down at me.

“Clyde… Do you want revenge?”

My fists tightened.

“Of course I do…”

I gritted my teeth and nodded.

Even if I couldn’t restore my arcane core, I might be able to learn how to use my spirit core alone.

Damian smiled.

“Breaking into our manor is one of the most difficult things to do on the continent. Not only are there strong guards, but the servants themselves are also strong. The first obstacles would be the monsters and then the traps.”

I knew that already. No one comes out of that manor alive. People are killed on sight. It doesn’t matter what status they carry. Even the king should be wary of them.

“But… I know how you can get inside.”

“Huh? How?”

“That’s also a difficult decision to make.”

“Just tell me!”

He sighed.

“A life for a life.”

“Huh?”

He put his finger against my chest.

“if you lose then it’s your life in exchange for Zelda’s. We have made such rules for outsiders. If they want revenge on the one who killed their loved ones or destroyed their life… then they must kill that person.”

“…”

“The head, my father will personally kill you if you fail to kill her. They believe that every person must handle their own problems. If you request a duel then you won’t be denied. But if you lose… well, just like I said. You’ll be killed.”

The sun came up over the mountains, basking the horizon in light.

I gulped hard.

If I don’t fail to kill her then I’ll die. Is it normal for a 14-year-old to feel this much hate for a person to the extend of killing them?

I remembered the smirk on her face as she kicked my face. Erica was able to heal the hole in my stomach but the fragments of my mana core could still puncture my organs if I wasn’t careful. She wasn’t able to remove the fragments with her power.

“I have a grudge against Aubrey as well so we’re even.”

Damian put his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

“When you get back, I’ll be waiting for your decision. Come by our residence in the capital.”

After he spoke, he walked past me.

I looked up at the sky and sighed.

Damian’s footsteps faded away the moment he walked past me. It was the skilled footwork of someone with the main assassin class.

“Shall we go?”

I took the worried Edna’s hand.

The carriage I bought was parked right outside the stables.

◇◇◇

“Thanks for bringing me this far.”

“W-Well, it was a request from my human.”

Edna scratched her cheek with a blush on her face. It looked weird seeing a dragon blush.

She was in her dragon form. I leaped down from her back and looked at the Elca Kingdom. The world tree was so massive even from where we stood.

“Be safe and don’t anger the other dragons. And another thing, don’t casually throw around the fact that you’re a child of a Dragon Lord. Only let the Elder know, okay?”

I patted her head. Her wings fluttered and her tail wagged like a dog’s.

“This is goodbye for now. We might see each other in the future.”

“Yes… if you don’t find a way to fix your core then I can have mother give you a new one.”

“Do you mean…”

“Yes. It’s a bit different from you humans. We don’t have a name for it so we only call it dragon cores. We can cast destruction magic which is also different from arcane magic. But the thing is that you’ll lose your spiritual core. The other thing is that you will turn into a dragon-human breed...”

Destruction magic was the magic dragons can use. They could use all the elements in the world and could even fuse two or more natures to create a new one.

Take Firestorm for example. It was a mixture of fire and lightning.

“Your body is familiar with my mana so it could–“

I held up my hand to stop Edna.

“Thanks for your consideration, Edna. But I want to continue my path as a spirit magic-user.”

She nodded.

“Well… I’ll see you.”

Edna flapped her wings after she spoke.

She propelled herself into the air and roared.

The entire forest shook from her roar.

She then gazed back at me and smiled.

Then she flew off to the Draconic Kingdom after giving another roar.

I stayed there and looked at her figure flying away.

◇◇◇

In the monster infested waters of the danger zone...

The impossible dungeon known as the Red Abyss released boiling hot mana through the entrance.

Going further down to the fifth world.

“Lady Eredhel.”

A muscular man wielding an axe called out to a woman calmly sipping on her tea.

She was the sub leader of the White Order, Eredhel Regulus.

“What is it, Jasfer?”

Her voice carried her annoyance. The brute demihuman wolf interrupted her break time. They already had to take down a monster which was forcing its way through the crust of the planet.

Jasfer was the team member assigned with her on their training program.

He bowed to his superior.

“I apologize for my interruption of your relaxation time. I have found more traces of energy similar to Zero’s mana.”

Eredhel stopped drinking the tea. Her eyed narrowed.

“That guy again...”

Jasfer smiled bitterly.

“He seems to slip through our fingers each time. It’s similar because we can’t determine its source.”

Eredhel sighed.

“So there’s a chance there could be more people like him closer than we think...”

“He said something about his clan searching for something called the star core.”

“If only we knew where they reside then we’ll be able to attack them right on their own lands.”

“I believe that would be too dangerous. Considering the fact that Zero didn’t kill people blindly, we can assume that there’s a higher being that ordered him to go to our kingdom.”

Eredhel nodded as if accepting his hypothesis.

“Right... it took six of us to push him back. But that other man...”

Eredhel’s face scrunched up when she thought about Zero and that other man’s power. It was a kind of power none of them had seen before. Usually when they take down disasters, one or two of them were enough but it took literally four people to injure Zero. Not to mention the fact that the second immortal managed to take them out in seconds.

All of the members of the White Order agreed that all of them need training. Even if all of them are classified as master class swordsmen and 8th class mages, they couldn’t stop a disaster like the Divide incident from happening.

Iris ordered them all to take turns visiting the Red Abyss and travel through its worlds. The Red Abyss wasn’t just a single dungeon. If you were to enter it, then you’d see teleportation portals numbering in the millions. This is only a rough estimation since they can’t see where the portals end.

And each and every one of them is a different world. Many call this abomination of a dungeon the [Labyrinth of Worlds] as well.

It’s rare but sometimes there are creatures which can enter this world through one of those portals. This was why the Sky Fortress was built right above the Red Abyss, roughly 1km in the sky.

About 98% of the Red Abyss remained undiscovered. Many of the worlds inside it weren’t classified as danger zones full of monsters. They even sent teams there to gather the resources of the Abyss’ worlds. Many resources had been exhausted on their continent so they chose to enter one of the Red Abyss’ worlds to salvage more.

“Monsters are also reacting to the energy for some reason. We always do the clean-up after those damn immortals.”

Eredhel couldn’t tell how many times she had sighed already.

As she was born as a half elf, the natural spirit mana elves are born with wasn’t the case for her. She was born with arcane magic seeing as how her father was a human mage.

‘Immortal Clan...’

Why do they seek this strange thing called the star core? What are their goals once they locate it? And also why have we only detected one immortal when Zero said there’s a clan of them?

Eredhel kept asking herself these questions. Even though she was the brightest when it comes to magical knowledge, she had never heard of a Star Core before.

“We’ll have to enter the worlds with national rank disasters. Fighting S rank monsters isn’t going to be enough.”

Jasfer shook his head when he saw Eredhel smile. She never smiles or makes any other kind of expressions unless she’s excited.

‘Good grief. If she were to fight full power then no S rank monster can survive against her.’

The two entered a dungeon world filled with Lava.