Even though it was brief I was able to feel a trail of mana. A strong one came from nearby but a subtle one came from far, very far. Did that bitch flee the continent? Too bad for her. I’m a master in mana. If it has mana, it will be able to be located by me! it just might take a while.

I decided to ignore the thin mana trail for now. I followed the thicker one. How unbelievably sloppy. I would have expected Verruka to become somewhat skilled after millennia. But that’s fine, this works out for me.

The sand didn't do me any favors. I kept my [Fire Wisps] around me. Some got pushed away. More blurs?! The fire clones appeared and they saw it for a brief moment. I kept track of its location with the fire wisps and had the clones close their eyes for 15 seconds.

I kept up the same method to smoke out this Blur. this Blur seemed to have way less mana than the other one. It only took 12 minutes for it to be unable to pull its obnoxious stunt. Luckily, they’re quite slow.

I didn’t send my clone at it this time. I kept it around. There might be more Blurs around. I will gather them and have them all suck up clones and make portals simultaneously. It will make the mana trail more pronounced. This bitch is going down.

The thick mana trail continued for 14 more minutes and brought me to a small village in the sand. I had 4 Blurs following me. how many did this bitch make? One thing is clear. She commands an insane amount of mana. But nothing I can’t do. I could theoretically make the same now, and even better. I will have to crack open the magic circles.

Most magic can be easily read but not easily copied. One has to crack the magic circles first to be able to slightly change it and use oneself. Magic theft is a real problem and this was the solution. Unfortunately, Verruka got around this with her obscure magic by killing Misha and eating their hearts.

A real magic thief has to crack these magic circles and for that knowledge about them is needed. This is a piece of cake for me but it will take time.

The mana signature was quite strong now. The humans in this village were terrified of the Blurs following me. I sent clones at them to make them get sucked up in the portals.

The magic trail leading into this bar became very thick and I could trace the magic trail, which was weak before, better. It went south beyond the ocean. The real Verruka was on another continent indeed. What was in this bar was probably a very convincing clone.

The bar was nothing special but something annoyed me. A woman was sitting on a stool flirting with the bartender.

“Huh? Verruka, you had a sister?” The bartender looked at me confused and looked back at Verruka.

“What is this! Why do you look like me!? But I do have to say black hair suits me quite well. Too bad I look way hotter than I did before I got sealed away. Time’s up bitch. It's time to die!”

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“Oh so you didn’t kick the bucket. I guess this appearance will get quite confusing now but I like it, so suck it.” She flipped me off, finished her drink and got up. “You are indeed prettier than I remember. But you have been gone for too long. You won’t be able to stop me now. Be a nice Misha and give me your heart.”

I canceled her blast of mana with mine. The bartender dove behind the counter and the bar cleared out.

“What are you doing in this desert anyway? If you want to pretend to be me, at least put in some more effort. This dry air is terrible for your skin!”

“I’m just doing what I’ve always done. Gathering useful skills and abilities. It seems you’ve already encountered my [Curse of Greed: Collector].”

“Huh? Those ugly inefficient things? You sound like that human assassin I dropped a [meteor] on.”

She pointed at me. “Hah, I can’t expect you to understand. That head of yours is only filled with flowers and pretty nonsense. The world isn’t as flowery and pretty as you think!”

“What has that to do with anything?!”

“But it seems my collectors don’t work against you which is a shame. I guess there is no point in hiding this as you probably know my approximate location already. Those collectors locate individuals with useful skills and abilities and suck them up and bring them to my real body, where I will extract them and assimilate them. I don’t think this [Blood Sacrifice Clone] can beat you so be a dear and come visit my real body so I can personally kick your ass and snack on your heart.”

A [Blood Sacrifice Clone] is seen as taboo. It requires the user to kill someone else and then inject mana into the corpse and turn the corpse into a [Blood Sacrifice Clone] it does make sense for her to have it as she needs to kill her targets to steal skills. She might as well put the corpses to use.

“How about you strive for knowledge and power like anyone else!”

“Takes too long and it won't make me able to use skills that I normally am incompatible with. So, are you going to continue blabbering or are we going to fight?”

I smiled. “So, you really haven’t noticed? The battle had started the moment I stepped into this bar.”

The heat and dry air makes it difficult to use water magic but I had enough water on me to mimic a natural phenomenon that goes by the name, [Fata Morgana].

The bar seemed to turn upside down and distorted. I had evacuated the bar the moment I stepped in and afterward blasted Verruka with [Flare]. My water-based illusions had improved. I had also thrown in my own version of ‘Perception Slip’ in.

“Ugh, I hate tricksters!” Verruka hadn’t taken as much damage as I’d hoped but she was bleeding and burning.

Black tar seeped out of her wounds and extinguished the flames on her.

“Eww! Don’t do that with my appearance! First yellow goop and now black tar?! Give me a break!”

“This isn’t tar it’s one of my many curses. You must have heard about them right? The seven deadly sin curses?”

I cocked my head. “The what?”

Verruka stopped and looked at me wide eyed. “Have you been living under a rock?! The seven deadly sin curses! The strongest curses in existence! The curses I created!”

I scratched my nose. “Uhh sorry, never heard of them I might have been living under a rock yeah.”

It seemed to have hurt her ego.

“Unbelievable! Then you must not have heard of what the humans called me!”

“Called? They don’t call you that anymore?”

Verruka hung her head. “They forgot… but this is also my fault for moving to another continent…” She recovered and patted her chest, which was a poor imitation of mine. “They called me the Mother of Curses!” She seemed to be proud of that name.

I got creeped out. “Sounds creepy. Don’t get called that when you’re wearing my old face!”

“Shut up bitch! This is my face now!”

I readied my catalyst. “Fine! The old me has died anyways! And so will you soon!”