“You know my name?” Astria’s eyebrow quirked. “Yet you still dare to trespass on my property.”

“Your property?” I asked, a bemused expression on my face. “Isn’t this Deek’s lands?”

“You dare to speak that man’s name in my presence?” She spat, her face turning red with anger.

“That man? Did you forget your Master so soon?” I responded.

“Hehe… good… I might have considered sparing your life, but you’re making it easy for me to kill you.” She started laughing a hard laugh.

“I admit, I am a bit curious how strong I’ve gotten. It will be interesting to see how I compare to the pair of you.”

“A-are you sure about this, Master?” Alysia asked nervously. “I’m not sure I can control myself in a fight. We might end up hurting her.”

I chuckled softly. Alysia was certainly still herself. It never even occurred to her it might be Astria hurting me. Our victory was inevitable in her eyes. Actually, I felt the same. I couldn’t exactly explain what it was. The second I looked at someone, I got a feeling about whether they would be a challenge or not. Was it a culmination of all of the other skills? I couldn’t say. However, since coming out of that soul dungeon, I hadn’t met anyone who made me feel danger.

That wasn’t to say I didn’t feel any pressure from Astria. Compared to anyone else I had fought; she was the strongest. It was just a feeling like everything would work out.

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“If things go too far, I’ll just remove my mask,” I reassured her before summoning her out from my hand.

“You’re a fool who craves death.” Astria frowned. “I’ve never seen someone who showed so little fear when facing me. It’s time you learned your place.”

I grinned back. “I’ll be showing you yours soon enough.”

“Die!” Astria didn’t pull her punch.

She sent out a beam of black light. It struck the ground where I was standing, sending out a wave of destruction. The ground erupted in an explosion, and a black bubble grew around the area, obliterating anything that touched it. When the light faded, I was no longer there. Astria’s eyes darted to see me racing down the street.

“Running already?” She called out.

I realized as soon as she threw the first punch that this fight would destroy the town. I was racing to the edge of town where we could fight more properly. I realized I had reached a point where any real fight I had would cause collateral damage. Dungeons, although they appeared like normal places, were a lot sturdier, but a town or city was likely to be destroyed.

Astria began to chase me, flying in the air. Compared to the quickness of most fairies, Astria was quite slow. The wings beat in big waves, much different from the fluttery way the other fairies moved. She threw out her left arm, and then her right arm, each one creating a beam of dark light aimed at me. I dodged them but cursed at her. She was creating pockmarks in the street. All of this damage was something we’d have to fix later. Terra wasn’t around to make these kinds of fixes easy, and I didn’t even know where she was.

I curse Astria’s destructive personality in my head as I tried to leave the village in a rush. As we left the city, Alysia let out a gasp.

“What’s that?”

I had come into town from the other side and hadn’t noticed it before, but in the distance was a large shoot of white light.

“Just what is happening to Chalm?” I muttered.