"Wait. You can fight it to a standstill?"
Astaroth looked at Aberon incredulously. He knew he was powerful, but wasn't he overestimating himself?
Aberon could see the question marks in Astaroth eyes, and he clicked his tongue.
"Kid. Did you just think I'm talking a bigger game than I play? When have you ever seen me use my full power?"
Astaroth gulped at Aberon's words, wondering if he had suddenly learned how to read minds.
"Far from me that thought, sir. It's just… Aren't you a rare grade? Even if you are the same level as the guardian, you won't be as strong as it."
Aberon sighed angrily.
"What you saw was what I let you see, young man. But rejoice. Today you get to see me exert all my effort into saving the people I care about."
Astaroth almost wanted to laugh at the grand words, but before he could take even a single breath to do so, a crushing pressure slammed into his body, sending him directly to his knees, hardly capable of breathing.
When he lifted his head, with great difficulty, Aberon suddenly looked forty years younger, and his body was pulsing with mana. Astaroth didn't even dare activate his mana vision, as he could already see mana particles manifesting, visible to the naked eye.
'So powerful!'
He dared scan the old man, even though Aberon had told him more than once how rude he thought the act to be. He simply had to know what his true power was like.
*Aberon, The Omni-Mage*
Level: 100
ραΠdαsΝοvεl ƈοm Grade: Legendary
Race: Ash Elf
Class: Archmage
Health: 2,024,000
Mana: 10,311,810
**
'Holy Fuck!'
Astaroth had many times before tried speculating how powerful Aberon was, judging by the occasional mana mishaps he did when casting spells. But even when releasing mana for spells, the control the old man exerted was practically flawless.
Seeing him now, full-powered, and looking almost the same age as him, set a contradicting image in his mind, which would take a while to consolidate.
Aberon felt the scan wash over him and didn't even try to stop it. He instead smirked.
"Satisfied now, little peeper? More inclined to believe me now?"
Astaroth nodded his head vigorously, any doubt about the old man's capabilities gone from his mind. But he noticed something else, too.
Aberon's attitude differed slightly from usual. Instead of being angry and impatient, he sounded more cocky and sarcastic.
The personality change was strange, but he remembered one time when Aberon had acted this way before. When they were stopped by a guard at Tel'narel's gates.
This couldn't be a coincidence.
But now was no time to ask the old man if he had a personality disorder. Teraria was now a few hundred meters from them, already at the bottom of the valley, and he was glaring at them.
Astaroth only glanced at him before swivelling his head in search of Arborea.
Since Lady Anulo wasn't responding to his call, he had no other choice than to battle Teraria with every able-body available to him here. And that meant the guardian twin as well.
Spotting her further away, her body slumped against the stone barrier, Astaroth ran toward her.
"Arborea! Are you alright?"
He inspected every visible inch of the stag's body, trying to find wounds, but there were none to see. Which made him wonder why she collapsed like this.
"I am alright, child of the stars. Only weak, not dying. But this could rapidly change if my brother is not stopped."
Astaroth figured he could help the guardian if he channelled some of his Aether into her, so he tried. After converting half his mana into Aether, he slowly pushed it into the stag's body.
Arborea sighed in relief, the energy supplementing her body's natural recovery, but it was far from enough to get her on her feet.
"Thank you for the Aether, young one. But it will shortly go to Teraria. Our bodies are interconnected, and he is the one sapping my strength."
"Dammit! How did this happen? I would have thought beings of your power wouldn't be susceptible to corruption as weak as this. What affected Teraria?"
A flash of hatred passed in Arborea's eyes as she recalled something unpleasant, but she rapidly went back to her normal self.
"A creature dressed in a black cloak that masked its presence attacked us while we were holding the barrier around your shelter up. It did something to Teraria, and he started changing.
"The corruption in the land slowly leaked into him through means unknown until he became like this. I tried holding him back, at the cost of no longer maintaining the barrier, but it was in vain. Teraria siphoned away most of my strength."
Astaroth immediately knew who the person she was talking about was. The demon court mage.
He had most likely tried killing the guardians, to speed up the corruption of the forest. But something didn't add up for him.
"Wait. If Teraria overpowered you, why didn't he kill you? The corrupted monsters I fought all lost their sense of reason. Is he different?"
A small nod from the stag was his response.
"But why didn't he kill you? Certainly, it wasn't because you are siblings. What held him back?"
"Teraria can't kill me. If he does, he also dies."
"Huh? How so?"
"I said earlier, our bodies are interconnected. They are so, in the deepest of ways. If one of us dies, both of us shall perish. So is the way our creator formed us to be. Teraria did not kill me because he didn't want to die. Instead, he drains all my power from me constantly, rendering me weak and useless."
This was also a problem for Astaroth and his allies. He didn't want to kill Arborea, but what if they had to kill Teraria?
What if there was no other way? Could he resolve himself to kill both of them for the survival of his brethren, Ash Elves?
Was he mentally ready to doom the forest to corruption, for the lives of a few dozen of people? To possibly doom thousands, to save a few?
'Shit. What are we supposed to do, then?'
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