“Karan? What are you doing here? How did you even find this ce? This should not be present on any map of this ce.”


    Asami sounded surprised to see Karan there. She could not even begin to think about the reason he had somehow ended up in front of her.


    As far as she was concerned, no one should be in that part of the castle. Even the shadow dolls had been sent away by her authority.


    “Yeah, funny thing…Sorry, I’ll be taking the kid now.”


    Asami looked back, only to see the veins closing around the kid and he disappeared into the ground. At the same time, Karan took off as well, making Asami confused about whom to chase.


    In the end, she chases after the veins moving below the earth. She was at a disadvantage with her powers originating from the wind. They were as restrictive as a one-way current.


    But that did not stop Asami from still blowing away the veins inside the ground. In a single second, the three huge veins had been separated into hundreds of smaller ones.


    “Fuck, she’s a fast freak. I don’t want to deal with you.”


    But despite him saying that Karan gave chase after her anyway.


    The current positions for their group had reversed in an instant with Asami chasing the veins and Karan chasing after her.


    Asami shot back with wind des, her power breaking the surroundings apart. But Karan managed to deflect air with the help of water.


    He had to make the water denser to make sure he got away safely. Asami was not holding back against him. The only lucky break he had was that Asami was not paying full attention to him.


    A brand new vein broke the surface and struck the ground in front of Asami. The shock factor caught her off-guard and she stopped her chase.


    But even that show of power was enough to step Asami. Neither were the water des that flew toward Asami.


    The floor was the biggest casualty of their fight. The surface was no longer able to maintain its shape and gave way. Asami managed to keep herself afloat but Karan allowed himself to fall.


    The veins reconnected with him in the meanwhile and he carefully extracted the kid. The kid was knocked unconscious due to the pollen and his eyes zed over.


    Karan intended to leave the kid behind for good and lead Asami away but he still needed to leave a note for someone toe and pick the kid back up.


    “I hope I am not making a mistake by trusting him. But he’s the only person I can ask to look after a kid.”


    The person in question used to be a childhood friend but Karan was not particrly close with him. Still, he had no other choice but to trust this childhood friend.


    ___________________________


    “Who said that you are my clone? In fact, it’s more appropriate to say that it is the other way around. You are the real body who gained consciousness while I am the clone.”


    ‘Am I supposed to believe this bullshit? This is why I never liked my mother. Nothing she says makes sense.’


    Perhaps it was her closed-off expression that caused Lady Dirac to sigh and her amused expression broke off into a silent one.


    “I am sure that you are thinking of my proposal as ridiculous and it might as well be. But there is no doubt that we all share a single set of genes mixed with a human donor. However, your body is different. Unlike those of us who were born into this family artificially, you were born naturally into that body.”


    “Furthermore, your geneposition is the same as the sample we found in the abyss for our gic code. But we never managed to make another perfectbination after you. All our experiments ended up doomed.”


    Lady Dirac’s face didn’t change when she delivered the news. Aurora was sure she knew what her mother, no, the clone in front of her was saying.


    “So you killed them all? You killed off all the other experiments which resulted from your greed.”


    Aurora felt anger but she controlled it for the sake of her safety. There was a need to be cautious in this tower. Especially, even more, when your opponent was this woman.


    “Killing is such an arbitrary term for what we did. We simply threw out the waste we did not want to use. After all, a body without a soul is as good as an item worth throwing away.”


    Aurora agreed and disagreed with the statement at the same time.


    While a body was worthless, it did not mean that the clones deserved to be thrown away just like that.


    ‘No. Why did I even believe what she said in the first ce? I feel like my brain is turning into mush just trying toprehend the situation.’


    Aurora quickly took her seat again as she faced the woman in front of her. How she could sprout this much nonsense with a straight face, Aurora had no idea.


    Not to mention, she didn’t even look ridiculous while doing it. Lady Dirac looked like she was convinced about what she was saying and that very fact made Aurora frown.


    “If you don’t believe my words, then, will a demonstration help you ovee the block in your brain and make you believe me?”


    Lady Dirac gave a bright smile toward Aurora. Seeing her smile for the first time in her life was a shocking scene for Aurora.


    It was so shocking in fact that Aurora almost fell in the process of getting away.


    But one thing was for sure, she didn’t want to stay here any longer. Even with such a strong bait-like ‘evidence’ hanging in front of her, Aurora held her head up high.


    All until she walked out of the door she had entered the room from. And then she felt her breathe out heavier than before.


    For the first time in her life, Aurora had not only managed to talk back to thatdy but walked away from her as well.


    Frankly speaking, Aurora was amazed to think that she even managed to get out of the first while being intact. Lady Dirac was not a forgivingdy and she would have retaliated for sure had she caught sight of what Aurora had been thinking about.


    ‘You can try to run but the evidence will find you soon enough. You cannot get away with looking at the other side anymore.’


    Elysia felt her breath shorten as her mind projected those words back at her. No one had spoken and yet Aurora was shaken.


    “It’s all nonsense. It is a way to shake my will but I will not fall for it. I need to find a way out and also retrieve Karan. I still cannot believe we managed to get separated in such a short amount of time.”


    Aurorained for the sake of keeping herself sane. Her mind was already overwhelming her and it made Aurora want to sink in itsfortable embrace.


    But she held herself back from epting the sweet embrace of sleep. If she fell under now then she would likely only wake up once everything would be over.


    “Now then, where should I head next to? Knowing Karan, he could have ended up anywhere in here. And I am sure mother won’t have made it easier for him to meet me as well.”


    Aurora still found it a little awkward to say the word ‘mother’ out loud. But it was a habit at this point and she found it difficult to quit.


    She walked through the corridors of the ce in rtive quietness before hitting the dead-end. Once again, the corridor ended up leading her to a room she had never seen before.


    She thought she knew this ce inside out but the more she discovered about this ce, the more Aurora ended up realizing that she had never known her birthce anyway.


    Aurora forced the door to open before she felt a bolt of lightninging her way. The light caused her eyes to burn and Aurora unconsciously protected them from harm.


    That turned out to be the right decision as her eyes were sensitive. This light was made specially from the Goddess-suppressing magic and was particrly harmful to them.


    Had she looked at it directly, Aurora would have ended up losing her eyesight.


    Luckily, that did not happen and Aurora safely managed to pass through the trap. Her senses also picked up a familiar type of energy in her surroundings and she moved toward the source.


    A familiar-looking kid was hidden behind the rubble and Aurora hurriedly pulled him out.


    “Joseph? Why in the world are you here?”


    Aurora asked the question but the kid was not awake enough to answer her. Unknown to his surroundings, he was still sleeping under the influence of the spores that Karan had used and he was particrly harmless right now.