Alauna carefully scanned Theron's face for a long moment. She didn't seem to be in a rush to speak, and she could only sigh when she saw that Theron had no intention of lowering his guard. But maybe that was the smart decision.

She had spent a lot of her life listening to her father's stories, hearing about how much he hated certain people and the things they did. Maybe if Theron managed to make it to that height in the future, she would just become one of those villains in his story.

Everything should have been easy. She had so much talent, so much pedigree, so much preparation, so many backers, such a large tsunami of advantages on her side.

But now it felt like she was weighing becoming the exact thing her father had always hated so much, and watching the world be destroyed right before her eyes because she was too soft.

As powerful as Theron seemed now, he was just an Arcane Talent. He was no Celestial, certainly no Primal. And yet even a Primal would be insignificant before her.

Could he beat the odds and become like her father had all those years ago? Like all those men she had learned about while dancing through the lines of time?

Could he become one of them?

Or was she betting the life of Existence on her own guilt?

Was it selfish to kill Theron now?

Or was it selfish to let him live because she couldn't bring herself to do it?

She had lived for so long by now, and yet she still felt so unwise. She had no idea how to answer any of these questions.

However, slowly, that gentleness in her eyes faded, becoming hard. Her aura became more distant, more difficult to track, more impossible to touch for the likes of a mere mortal like Theron.

"This is your true face, isn't it?"

These were the first words Theron had spoken. It was like he was a skeptic that finally found the slightest hint of thread to pull on.

"I won't kill you," Goddess Sacharro said again, but before Theron could sneer in response, she continued, "because you have passed the first test. Because you've killed my Dark Mana Incarnation, my plan is now flawed. It's impossible for me to start again at this point. All of the Karmic Luck that should have been my Incarnation's has now been concentrated onto you.

"The only way for me to reclaim it is through your death, but if I personally act to kill you, Existence will see it as a circular path. It would be using my superior Karma to try and create more Karma for myself, by claiming Karma that was already my own, in which case the result will be a loss of everything I've built in this corner of Existence.

"I would be able to rebuild it once again with time… but time is the one thing I do not have. Or, rather, the margins I work with now are so thin that the risk of restarting isn't worth it right now.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Goddess Sacharro looked down at Theron, her body radiating an icy chill.

"… You want me to replace the function of Sadie to you."

"That's right."

"I'm no Dark Mancer," Theron replied.

"Now, that is a problem. Isn't it?" Goddess Sacharro said with an indifferent tone. "And it's one you're going to have to fix yourself. I do not know how my Heart Demon of a Dark Mancer Incarnation became a Water Mancer, but maybe it's the point of a Heart Demon to become what you cannot control.

"However, it is precisely because I cannot control you that I must.

"Every time I communicate with you, I will give you a new mission. Use these missions to grow stronger, to accomplish the goals I would have with my Incarnation, to get closer to your revenge.

"I killed your lover. I killed your parents. I killed your little sister. I turned the world you knew into a house of cards and then told you they were all fake, did I not?"

The Dark Mana in the surroundings churned and solidified, forming a rope of darkness that tied Theron's limbs and his neck, lifting him up from the ground and pulling him forward until their eyes were level and their noses practically touched.

He had been through a lot in his life… but never had he ever felt more weak than in this very moment.

"Then I will give you an opportunity to grow stronger. If you ever fail, if you ever deny, if you ever turn to run—I will kill you.

"You are intelligent. You understand the gap between our power, you know that the only way for you to live is for you to continue being useful to me.

"The moment you stop being so, there will no longer be a reason for you to exist."

After Goddess Sacharro finished saying these words, the Dark Spirit trembled and then became tendrils of fog.

Theron's head tilted back and he screamed as the Dark Spirit drilled into his flesh, into his body, not even sparing his brain itself.

He could feel his body warping and changing, the Water Mana he had known for so long becoming tainted by something else.

As his feel and touch for Water Mana faded away, it felt like Dark Mana was being rooted in its place until he had them both…

But at the cost of his Water Mana affinity being cut in half.

It felt like he had just lost another piece of himself. The affinity his parents had passed down to him, the pride of his Galethunder Clan, had been so easily erased by this woman.

Theron collapsed to the ground, his nails digging into the soil and scraping against rock.

"Your first mission is to destroy the Hall of Ice and Heart. You have three years."

The voice echoed through his skull, rebounding and reverberating again and again as though to ensure he had no choice but to think of it until it was etched into his very soul.

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