“Human, come and face me,” Tinemouth said. “Defeat me, and this world will be yours, and you will obtain the power to rule and save your race from extinction.”

“Not again… I don’t want to rule anything, I’m not a savior, and I don’t to save anyone. I fight for myself, and I don’t care if others die or not.”

“I can feel the determination in your words…” Tinemouth sounded interested. “But you can’t fool yourself, much less me. Every individual of an intelligent species hold someone dear; the only exception is those who never met anyone in their entire lives… those who are the first of their species or those who are the last…”

I had never expected to hear that kind thing from a monster, much less from one who wanted to take over the earth just to become stronger. It was even weirder because he was right, to some extent. One month has passed since I left my hometown, and I rarely remembered about the others, but once in a while, Claire’s face would suddenly appear in my mind. The excitement of the battles only made things more visible. It was really pathetic… I couldn’t forget the woman who slept with me, even though she probably did that out of pity.

“… Anyways, do you want to get stronger and be the ruler of the earth, right? What are you going to do after that?”

“I will devour all the energy on your planet, and then…” Tinemouth answered with a sharp voice. “I will do the same to other planets who are being assimilated by the system.”

“And after that?”

“I will keep doing this forever,” Tinemouth’s voice trembled. “Until I find those who invaded and doomed my planet.”

“Doomed? This planet seems fine, even though it is a bit too cold for my taste.”

“Human…” Tinemouth explained. “When all the mana on a planet is devoured, the planet is destined to die. This planet will explode in a few years, with the sole exception of this island, this whole planet is just a big fireball.”

That was kind of scary, if what he said was true, then probably many aliens are already devouring earth’s mana. It was impossible that was the only portal in the entire world, after all. No wonder normal monsters were weak; our new enemies weren’t monsters; it was alien invaders with magic powers. Although those aliens looked more like monsters of a videogame…

“I see… so you want revenge. But you are doing to us, the same thing your enemies did to your race. Are you fine in becoming the thing you hate the most?”

“…It is the natural order of things,” Tinemouth answered after a few seconds of silence. “Your race barely survived the assimilation; your race is already doomed. I won’t let your planet become a meal for those who destroyed my planet; the energy of your planet will become my meal instead.”

Something was off, if he really was thinking about that, then he should be angrier. After all, I’m holding him down while the other invaders are already attacking us. Or perhaps just like him, they can’t just suddenly invade and are just doing some preparations. Another weird thing was the fact that he was literally helping me by regularly sending his trolls. He stopped creating them near me and my copy, the trolls were just appearing five hundred meters away from us. Since he didn’t seem reluctant to answer my questions, I decided to ask that.

“You say that you wanted to absorb the mana from earth… but here you are sending your minions and strengthening me. You are just granting me the means to stop you and the other invaders. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want a good fight,” Tinemouth answered as if that was a matter of fact. “I’m from a warrior race, and I’m not a coward. I’m not going to defeat your race using cowardly tactics, maybe I’m invading planets like those who I hate, but I’m not going to attack my targets from all sides like them. Besides, the more strength you have, the more mana I will receive when I kill you.”

“I don’t think energy works like that…”

“What do you know about energy?” Tinemouth retorted. “You and your race still didn’t cross the face barrier. You can’t even see mana and understand that you can find it everywhere. Your race has such big and abundant mana source nearby, and you can’t even understand the magnitude of its power, much less use it to your favor…”

The first barrier… it seemed that was something important Tinemouth had experienced. And a significant source of mana nearby us… I wondered if he was talking about the sun. If that was the case, then we probably misunderstood how spiritual plants work. Come to think of it; the sun is, in essence, a big ball of concentrated energy. Even before the assimilation, humankind never succeed in using efficiently the energy sun always sent to us. But if the sun also sends mana to earth with its light… why don’t we get strong just by absorbing its energy like the other monsters?

“You are talking about the sun, right? What is the first barrier? Can you explain what are and how those things work?”

“Defeat me, and I shall answer your questions,” Tinemouth answered.

“But you know that I can’t defeat you inside this castle, isn’t that exactly why you don’t leave the place you are? You can’t use your full power outside cold regions, right? That is why you are trying to freeze that city.”

“So, you noticed.” Tinemouth chuckled. “The basic intelligence level of your race is pretty high…”

“It wasn’t that hard to notice and understand it. And I don’t think you should measure the intelligence of humankind using me as a basis.”

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I was getting more mature thanks to all those battles, and my cognitive skills were getting better because I broke my mental limit a few times. But I was leagues behind of some people like Rose and Sarah.

“I see…” Tinemouth sounded interested. “So your race has a weak body but a strong mind… the exact opposite of my race. Your race suffered too many losses because of your weak body, but perhaps you can survive the invaders using your brains…”

“Well, there is a chance… but I wouldn’t bet anything on it. I don’t think all the idiots already died… anyway, can you explain what the first barrier is? I also would like to know how I can use the sun’s energy.”

“Defeat me, and I shall answer your questions,” Tinemouth answered.

It seemed Tinemouth wanted to use information as bait to lure me. But I wouldn’t fall that easily, much less knowing that he had been fighting and getting stronger for centuries. The trolls couldn’t talk, only grunt. So, Tinemouth broke his limits so much that he obtained the ability to speak. And his race was already strong, to begin with. His strength in battle wasn’t something that I could even imagine, but his power had limitations, and for the time being, I was safe.

Anyway, he would end up saying more critical information, so I just have to wait. Meanwhile, I decided to analyze his words. Since he stopped talking, I remembered one very important thing, the dragon’s heart. The description of the item said that it could be used in rituals. In rituals, something tend to be sacrificed. And since dragons weren’t exactly easy to find, it probably was an essential item to evolve skills. But I didn’t think a single one be enough to evolve skills.

The other important thing he mentioned was the first barrier… skills could evolve after reaching level ten, but after breaking a single limit ten times we didn’t evolve, we only obtained new skills.

‘I wonder if this first barrier is connected to the number of times we broke our limits using orbs… or if it is connected to the number of times, we break a single limit… either way, this isn’t an easy thing to be achieved.’

After that, I tried to make Tinemouth tell me more about the things he experienced when the assimilation occurred on his planet. That would probably give me a good insight into the situations which would happen on earth, but he always avoided the subject. Instead, he always talked about useless things about himself.

“I was one of the weakest of my race…” Tinemouth’s voice sounded weak and sad. “Many brothers and sisters sacrificed themselves to give me the chance to get stronger. But I only obtained strength when it was already too late…”

“Why don’t you revive them?”

“I revived them; I revived thousands of my brothers and sister…” Tinemouth’s voice sounded melancholic. “But eventually they died, the invaders were too strong, and we couldn’t raise our strength since the invaders exterminated us and absorbed the mana of our planet.”

Thousands of times… he spent billions of evolution coins… I finally could understand why he didn’t revive them anymore because it was pointless. He also probably ran out of coins to revive them; he couldn’t obtain more coins since he was the only living creature of this planet. But since I was from another world, I could obtain orbs and coins by killing the trolls he created.

I didn’t look carefully at the troll’s face, but after he said that, I noticed the trolls were pretty much identical. Those trolls were probably a copy of him when he was weak; that was why he didn’t feel anything as I killed them. He probably could obtain coins and orbs by killing my copy, but since the difference in power was too big, it was meaningless.

After one week, I didn’t have more lemonade to drink. The food I created using the statue also was over, so, I only ate the monster’s meat that I collected from the past month. Despite that, the days passed rather quickly. Listening to his stories, I learned a lot about the creature he was.

“I realized that my race was doomed ten years after the invaders began their invasion.” Tinemouth sounded pretty angry. “After ten years of constant war, I was the only one who managed to survive. At that moment, I obtained the strength that I have now, but also at that moment, I realized that we were only ‘food’ to strengthen them.”

“How did you realize that?”

“I became stronger… and smarter.” Tinemouth answered. “And then I finally noticed, they did the same I’m doing to you.”

“Did they use weak copies of themselves?”

“Yes…” Tinemouth sounded even angrier. “We were a race of warriors, but in their eyes, we were frail as leaves. They didn’t even came themselves… such humiliation…”

The castle trembled for a few minutes after that. Just the rage of a creature who fought for centuries could make an entire mountain tremble. And those who invaded his planet considered him weak; it was pretty much evident since they didn’t return to kill him. The orbs and coins he would obtain by killing him weren't worth the trouble.

But why did they sent only copies to invade Tinemouth’s planet? Why decimate and absorb the energy of an entire world? If all life forms need a sun near their planets to exist, then the best thing they could do was just to absorb the mana periodically. Why the rush? Many questions appeared again, and even though Tinemouth was almost one thousand years old, he didn’t know why.

I wrote a few notes and made a copy return to my hometown and deliver my news to Harry. But since he was noisy and my copy couldn’t use his skills and just made my copy deliver the message to whoever was protecting the statue. Although I was pretty sure we couldn’t do much to prevent that unless we inform other survivor’s camp across the planet or divide our forces. But that was a bit dangerous if not crazy.

For weeks, Tinemouth and I talked about his life experiences and my own life experiences. But since he lived much more than me, almost always he was talking, and I was listening. But he still kept the importation information hidden. At some point, he stopped sending his trolls every five minutes and gave me the chance to sleep a few hours every day… he even made his trolls bring me warm food. He had a statue in his possession, even though he probably didn’t have much evolution coins… after six weeks, I concluded one thing.

“You don’t really want to invade earth, do you?”

“… What are you talking about?” Tinemouth sounded confused.

“You are only trying to invade earth because you want someone to kill you at your full power. You are only sending your trolls to kill me, because you want to give me the chance to stop those who destroyed your planet, right?”

Tinemouth didn’t say a thing; it seemed that I was right. He told me a lot of things, but he kept hidden the important stuff because if he says what I wanted, he thought that I wouldn’t be able to see him as an enemy. He probably really hated those who destroyed his planet and his race, but he couldn’t see much meaning in revenge when he was the last of his race and lived alone for probably hundreds of years. He wanted to join his brothers and sisters, but he couldn’t commit suicide, he was from a warrior race, after all.

I waited for a few minutes, but he didn’t say anything more. Then I decided to grant his wish; I would obtain a lot by doing so, after all.

“Just wait one week, in one week I will end your torment.”