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Arthur had a bad feeling about this. The emperor was cunning, so he would have foreseen that Arthur would strike where it hurt. Thus, the most obvious choice was hiding what he treasures, which made his plans see-through.

The cunning move was to set up a trap in this prison and wait for Arthur to enter this place to entrap him here. The possibilities to win were endless, and Arthur was sure this was a trap.

"We need to leave now," said Arthur to the man, who seemed surprised. However, Arthur was already walking out of the front door to where the witch of hearts stood. "Aurora, how can we leave this place?"

"There is a single exit, the same one that you came from," said Aurora with confusion. "Is there something wrong?"

"Tell me, did you hear about anything from the guards recently?" asked Arthur while running toward the gate he came through. Although he didn\'t remember the exact location, he knew it was close to the first mountain.

Zonas Mantra wouldn\'t betray him, so he must have been fooled too. The emperor must have made some sort of deal with him, making Zonas think he was trusted while being used as a pawn.

Arthur ran toward the gate, and while he did, he heard an explosion coming from its side. He reached the window after a minute, but that seemed enough to see the last scene before the gate closed.

Cassius was standing inside the abyss, as white as the sun, with a man strangled in his hand. It was no other than Zonas Mantra, whose body was covered in wounds, and his arm was broken in several places.

"CASSIUS!" roared Arthur in the abyss, trying to buy himself some time. However, the calamity seemed to know his role in this place. He threw Zonas Mantra toward Arthur, who caught him in time before slipping away through the gate.

"Stay here until we are done, Outsider. Once you leave, it would have been too late. Enjoy your time here."

After that, Cassius jumped into the gate and disappeared. Arthur placed Zonas on the ground before rushing toward the gate, which started breaking down and exploded to smithereens. As he reached toward it, Arthur grabbed nothing but the black soil.

CLANK!

The window shattered, exploding into a million pieces. Some flew to impale themselves into Arthur, but he didn\'t care about them. Instead, his hand clenched the shards and turned them to nothingness.

"Seika!" shouted Aurora as she rushed forward and stopped beside the bleeding Zonas Mantra. "This wrath is…."

"I am fine," said Arthur as he exhaled through his nose and stopped his anger from controlling him. He rose to his feet and stared at the place the gate had been, his face dark. "This is the second time he outsmarts me."

"His name is… Joseph the Strategist," said Zonas Mantra as he tried to stand. "I have been fooled, too, and am the reason you have been entrapped here."

The old commander seemed riddled with shame, but Arthur was in no mind to console him. After all, if he couldn\'t leave this place in time, he would miss the execution, and the revolution will fail.

"This is the same as last time," said Arthur while gritting his teeth. "I am again entrapped somewhere while my men fight for me. However, I won\'t let anyone die this time. Zonas Mantra!"

"…what is it, Arthur Silvera?" asked Zonas Mantra with a battered breath, his state a mess. "Whatever I must do, I will. I am to blame for this failure."

"Spare us the self-pity, and tell me if there is another exit to this place," asked Arthur while walking toward him and using his healing rune on the old man. After all, he would be more useful alive. "You guarded this place. Is there another exit?"

"…none," said Zonas Mantra while grabbing his arm. "There is no use healing me. I am a dead man. I agreed to a spiritual contract to guard this place but broke it when I let you enter."

"…you planned to sacrifice your life for me to find the mana producer," said Arthur as he calmed down. The old man breathed in and out as his eyes stared at the sky. "Is this your final wish?"

"It was," said the emperor. "I wanted you to find the most treasured asset the emperor had, but I never knew that he would use me like this. I… have been naïve."

"There are no right moves for this," said Arthur as he grabbed the man and started healing him. "If I knew that the emperor took his mana from this place, I would have come without you inviting me in, even if I knew it was a trap."

"What are we… to do?" asked Aurora while standing to the side. "I glimpsed that man\'s heart when he was here," she said. "I have seen countless hearts but never one like his. There was nothing but a single emotion: pride."

"He is the Sin of Pride, after all," said Arthur while carrying the old man and walking toward the hut. We should ask about the other anomaly in this place. He might know something."

Arthur carried the old man toward the last mountain, where the hut had its door flung open. Inside, the three found the bald man rushing around the house and packing his things. He stopped as soon as the three entered the house.

"What… what is wrong with him?" asked the man as soon as he saw how wounded Zonas was and his bones mending themselves under Arthur\'s rune. He placed the man on the table after Aurora cleared it. "Is he dying?"

"He might be if we do nothing," Arthur sighed as he stood. "As I feared, the emperor knew I would come to get you out, and he entrapped all of us here until the end of the executions."

"…what executions?" asked the man.

"You are so clueless," Arthur sighed before turning toward Aurora. "Can you do something about the spiritual backlash? He might end up losing all of his memories at this rate."

"If you asked me of anything else, then I would have said no," said Aurora before stepping toward Zonas Mantra. "I can preserve his heart until the backlash ends and then reinfuse it into his sea of consciousness."

"There is… no need…" said Zonas Mantra, his face full of shame. "I have burdened the one man who could take revenge for us in my selfish attempt to redeem myself."

"You can wish death after we save you, old man. But, from what I gathered, you are pretty strong. We can use you later on when we fight against the whole empire. Stop asking for a quick death because we don\'t have that privilege."

Zonas Mantra was silent before nodding and letting Aurora start her magic. As for Arthur, he turned toward the bald man and grabbed him to leave the hut.

"There is no time to waste," said Arthur, pausing as he didn\'t know this man\'s name. "We need to leave this place and stop the emperor. I need to hear an answer now of whether you would trust me or trust the man who entrapped you here."

"…I cannot leave," said the man with a shake of his head. "If I leave this place and a second release occurs, no one can stop me. Even if the emperor wants to use this energy for selfish gains, it would be better than losing this whole continent!"

"…you are exaggerating."

"I am not," said the man with a shake of his head before he sat on the chair. "I never stopped my research. I found new ways to measure my mana and the amount I produce. I wanted to estimate when the next release would be."

"…and?"

"I managed to suppress it for ten years by living in this abyss, alone without a ray of sunlight. Finally, however, my body started adapting as if trying to reach new limits. Tell me, have you studied biology in school?"

"Just enough to graduate."

"Then, that\'s fine too. You should know about the Negative Feedback Mechanism, right? If something is below normal in our body, it stimulates us to produce more hormones that increase that amount to its normal levels."

"Can this be…?"

"It applies here too, Seika," said the man with a sigh, using the name Aurora used to address Arthur. "Once I started giving away my mana, my body produced more. Therefore, once I leave this place, a single second might be enough for the second release!"

"What have you done to deserve such a broken body?" asked Arthur with a speechless face.