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

As expected, the kid did not answer her. He was in no condition to open his mouth and speak which was a shame.

His presence here was making Aurora curious about what had happened outside while she had been held captive. Was the Rocx academy ok? Was Joseph the only one who was brought here along with Aurora? Or were there more people here?

All of a sudden, it had become extremely important to take Joseph up and interrogate him about why he was here.

“Oi Joseph, wake up. I need you to tell me how you ended up here.”

Aurora tried to wake the kid up but he kept on sleeping anyway. It did not look like he was going to wake up anytime soon.

The spore used on him was potent but Aurora had no way of knowing that. All she could assume was that the worst had happened and the kid was in a suspended state of unconsciousness.

‘He will die if he doesn’t wake up soon. The human body starts to lose muscle mass once they are in this state for long enough.’

Aurora panicked for no apparent reason seeing the kid in this state. Truth be told, she was underestimating the human body’s tendency for self-recovery and was making a mountain out of a molehill.

The kid was not going to immediately die even if he had been knocked unconscious but Aurora didn’t even want to take the risk.

“I’ve got no other choice. You better be grateful to me, you sleeping beauty.”

Aurora picked up the considerably light kid and began to run. The kid did not even bulge in her arm which told Aurora how deep of a sleep he was in.

She quickly covered the distance of the corridor in a matter of seconds before taking a right turn. Now that she was out of the corridor, she could feel a faint feeling of power coming out the corridor.

Naturally, Aurora decided to follow the trial since it seemed to have been left by Karan and he was someone Aurora had decided to trust.

She quickly hit another dead end but this time she had a feeling about what to do. One of the walls here caved in and Aurora blasted a hold through it. She only remembered because of the familiar marks on the wall.

She had a lot of fun sneaking out of here when she had been young and this wall had to be reinforced again and again. That made its joints incredibly weak to any form of force being used on it.

The opening led into a different part of the castle and this room was covered in sharp blades and a powerful scent of magic.

Aurora barely avoided the attack that was made against her and blocked it with one hand. She was lucky that Joseph was a light child and very easy to carry with one hand.

Otherwise, Aurora would have to take some dangerous measures to secure his safety. And then she would have been killed by Seraphina.

‘Well, looks like I will be killed by her anyway. I can read murder in her eyes.’

Seraphina’s sword clashed with Aurora’s spear right in time for Aurora to defend herself properly. Sparks flew everywhere as metal connected with metal and caused the floor to shake.

“Give him back.”

Seraphina’s voice seemed shaken and not right. It made Aurora winch as she heard it and she quickly took a step back to distance herself from Seraphina.

But the elder goddess followed right back. The weapon that had been aimed at the ready did not lower down the whole time. If Aurora was not careful then she would be making a really powerful enemy right about now.

“Seraphina, calm down. I am here to help you out. Don’t you remember me?”

Aurora tried to calm Seraphina down but it was doing more harm than good. Seraphina looked like she had no idea who Aurora was and her weapon did not move away from Aurora’s neck.

Aurora allowed that to happen, not putting up a fuzz about it. If doing this put Seraphina at ease then Aurora did not mind being the sacrifice for now.

“Here, you can have him. Just be mindful of his skin because he is a human.”

Seraphina’s insulted look made Aurora take a step back. Awareness seemed to be creeping into her expression slowly and Seraphjina’s eyes were clearing up as well. It almost looked like she was waking up from a long suspended dream.

“Looks like Joseph will be alright. Did you manage to save him? What are you doing here anyway?”

Aurora felt relieved once it seemed like Seraphina had gained her wits back. The goddess was extremely alert now, her eyes staring right at Aurora in a questioning manner.

The atmosphere had calmed down all of a sudden and Aurora could not be happier to be in Seraphina’s company.

“I was brought here the same way as Joseph. I did not want to be here, but I was dragged here anyway. I do want to get out but I need to find someone first.”

Aurora replied to the Goddess of Victory who was holding onto her son.

Her young-looking body seemed odd holding her son up. They looked like a pair of siblings more than a mother-son duo. But bringing this up would be a sensitive topic.

“I see. Then, I will leave you on your device while I head out now. I want to get Joseph checked out at a hospital.”

Seraphina started walking once she was done speaking. She seemed to be in a hurry which Aurora understood the reason for. There could be a million things wrong with Joseph and no one would ever know.

Aurora did not follow after the pair since she felt no need to. She had a lot on her plate already and she needed to give the mother-son duo a chance of bonding.

‘Besides, I will be killed if Joseph does not wake up soon. I would like to avoid that confrontation.’

Call Aurora a coward but even she had her limits of what she could and could not face.

Currently, she needed to help Karan out before he was killed off. It was not going to be easy by any means since Karan had left no traces for Aurora to follow but she could feel his magic in the most random of places.

But the breaking of the floor dictated Aurora’s fate. She no longer had any choice but to help Karan out once she fell through the breaking floor and right onto his vein.

She managed to raise the earth in time to block the rain of wind arrows that had been responsible for breaking the floor apart while she raised the earth on the other side to pierce the wind user.

Of course, Asami easily managed to dodge the clumsy attack and retaliate back. But Karan’s veins and water spell caused her wind attacks to deviate.

“Wow. Out of all places I could have landed in, this one was the least likely. How did I end up here anyway?”

Aurora asked but no one gave her any answer. No one as much opened their mouth as they continues attacking each other. Especially Asami seemed to be getting more and more pissed off.

The more time they spend parrying off Asami’s attacks, the more her firepower increases. But the accuracy also decreased.

She was not used to using this much magic power and it showed as her attacks gained more speed. Aurora could not tell you how lucky this was for her.

“Darn you both. You managed to foil all of our plans in a matter of minutes. But I will take care of you before the tower enters this building. Your corps will make for a fine gift. It is not like we need to keep you alive.”

Asami seemed to have taken the insult of them managing to escape personally. From Karan’s expression, this seemed to be something unusual for him to see.

Aurora did not know what kind of person Asami was but she had a feeling that she was not usually like this. She was being too aggressive and angry for no reason.

“I don’t like it. There is a sour smell in the air that is making e agitated. I feel like I want to be violent but it was difficult to control.”

Aurora could not feel this ‘sour scent’ in the air but Karan’s forehead had broken out into a cold sweat. His face looked pained, almost as if he was resisting something and that made Aurora more than certain that he was smelling something repulsive.

‘Is it because of their cores that they can smell this smell? Since the core inside me is not my own, I guess this smell isn’t affecting me.’

It was a **ed-up logic that did not make any sense but this was the only thing Aurora had to go off on.