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Chapter 1067

My blade clashed against the sword girl again. She was just as quick as ever, and at first, I was faring no better. However, as we fought, Alysia slowly surrendered control, and I began to trust her instincts. As we danced around the boss room, our movements grew smoother and quicker. We slowly grew more comfortable, and my quick attack style merged with her strength, creating something in between.

The more skilled we grew, the more worried the expression on the little girl became. She started to attack more aggressively, using up skills to try to break through us. She glowed once again and then threw all of her weight at Alysia. I could tell that this attack was similar to the one that had broken Alysia the first time. My instinct was to dodge it.

“No! I can take it! Meet it head-on!” Alysia urged me.

I didn’t hesitate to defend, raising her glowing blade to meet the little girl’s arm blade. A strike erupted between us. I skidded back a few feet, but the little girl was thrown back farther. I quickly checked out Alysia’s blade to find that there wasn’t the least bit of damage on her. She had managed to deflect the other girl’s attack completely.

“Keep going! Attack!”

I activated Quick Attack and then launched at the little girl. She had been stunned that her attack had thrown her back. She hastily raised her sword arm as I drove Alysia down on her. The blades struck again, and the blade arm shattered. The dungeon master was thrown back, hitting a wall. She let out a grunt as she collapsed to the ground.

“H-how are you doing this?” She demanded while backing away.

Her arm was starting to reform. The both of us decided that we couldn’t allow her to do that. I launched another Quick Attack. I didn’t expect it to be a killing blow, but it would be the first major damage we’d deal to the little girl. I leaped off of a pillar, making the trajectory of my attack unpredictable. As I came at her, the blade she was trying to reform was still unable to finish. It was weak and feeble, and if I shattered it again, there was no telling if she could repair it.

“No!” She screamed out, holding the half-formed blade in front of her desperately.

I gave the attack another bit of power by using another skill, Create Step, to push off the air again. I finalized it with the skill, Accelerate. As the attack bore down on her, a sword came up and met it. The sword pushed back against us with incredible force, but it didn’t cut into Alysia. Rather the force seemed directed at me. The pair of us flew back, but our final blow proved to be too much.

I only was able to focus on the ancient sword blade that I had wielded for a moment before it shattered into a dozen pieces. I landed on my feet and stood up, but I didn’t run forward to attack again. Instead, I watched as the blade pieces fell to the floor. The handle struck last, bouncing several times before landing at the guide’s feet.

She looked down at the parts, a dazed expression on her face. At that point, her blade had had finally returned to just a hand. Her body started to shake, and then she started to bawl her eyes out.

“D-d-daddy! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Chapter 1068

As the intimidating dungeon master I had been fighting to the death suddenly turned into a bawling little girl crying for her daddy, I couldn’t help but feel awkward. I towered over her, using a sword twice her size, and had been doing my best to break her. Now, she was in tears, ignoring us and looking inconsolable. The crying lasted for several minutes, and just as I was thinking of stepping away, it stopped as quickly as it started.

“You!” She screeched. “You killed him!”

I turned back to see both of her hands had become blades. “H-hey now…”

“I will destroy you! I will kill you! I’ll make you pay!” She began to take several steps toward me.

I raised Alysia, ready to begin the final part of our battle.

“Hasn’t there been enough death and destruction?” A voice echoed out from the void.

The girl who was gaining momentum to charge me froze.

I looked to the side to see a blurry energy hovering just above the sword. I suddenly had a revelation. I knew what I had to do. I put Alysia down and then equipped White Mage.

“Wh-what are you doing? We need to attack while she’s distracted!”

“No, I have another way.”

“We can end this dungeon!”

“Alysia… do you trust me.”

“Deek…”

“Please, trust in me…”

“I… always…”

She stood down, allowing me to do things my way. It was always her instinct to end the dungeon quickly and violently. To her, defeating the dungeon master was the only way. However, I had to trust my instincts. I just hoped I was right. I began to cast the spell Resurrection. Thankfully, I was powerful enough now, and the energy started to coalesce. The little girl could only watch in disbelief as a form appeared in front of her.

A middle-aged man appeared in between us, right next to the sword blade. He was a fit man, with a beard, and eyes that seemed to hold a calmness to them.

“F-father…” the little girl stepped back.

“Daughter… it’s good to be able to speak to you, once again.”

“Y-you…” She looked confused for a second, but then her expression turned angry. “You should have remained a sword! You took everything from me. You ruined my soul. You killed. You’re a monster!”

“You’re right.” The man’s expression didn’t change. “I failed. I failed myself, and I failed you, yet still, you cried over me.”

“D-don’t flatter yourself!” She looked away. “I just was upset that I wouldn’t be able to torture you some more.”

“Is that so, why?”

“Wh-why? Y-you killed me! You killed me over and over! It hurt. It hurt so much! Every moment of my life was agony.” She screamed. “And you used me. You used me to kill those people. I killed the people I cared about, and I killed everyone else! All so you could claim more power.”

For the first time, a look of shock appeared on his face. “Are you sure you’re not remembering things wrong?”

She took a step back, shaking her head. “What are you saying? I remember… I remember you… sacrificing everyone. You… baptized me in blood! The dungeon only wanted to spare me, but you wouldn’t have it!”

“The dungeon was using you.” He declared, his voice breaking with emotion. “Daughter, the dungeon had possessed your body!”

Chapter 1069

“I… what…” The little girl grabbed her head. “What happened to me?”

“I’d never seen anything like it before or since.” The man explained. “This dungeon… it seemed to want to escape the boundaries of its cursed prison. It lured you into its depths and then tried to possess you. It trapped you, starved you, weakened you until it could infect your soul. It wanted to take over your soul while it was still bound to your body. It would have been impossible for an adult, but a child might be weak enough.”

“He promised… he promised I’d see daddy again if I let… if I let him in.” She shuddered in a whisper.

Usually, when a monster created by a dungeon left, it would slowly lose its miasmic infection. The dungeon’s influence on the monster would ebb away until it became free of the dungeon’s will. However, it seemed this dungeon wanted to create an avatar, someone that could leave the dungeon, perhaps to lure people into it or some other nefarious purpose. The man continued his story.

“By the time I found you, you were half dead, and the dungeon master was in the process of trying to possess you. I defeated him, but somehow he had partial control of you. I had to… I had to make a pact with him. If I helped him leave the dungeon, then he would release you.”

“I… became a magic blacksmith after years of being an adventurer, so I thought up the idea of putting him in a blade. It required his dungeon as the power source. He betrayed me though and dragged your soul into the blade with him. I never thought he would go so far. Then again, he also didn’t realize I had prepared the blade to capture and destroy him. We had both betrayed the other, and you, you were permanently trapped within the blade, never to be freed. It was the perfect prison I created.

“I destroyed him, but he clung to your soul. The only way I could save you was to cut away, over and over again, destroying every piece of him. I left the dungeon with you, hoping to find a way one day to restore you to your body. When I was done, I thought I had succeeded. However, it was a failure. It might have been impossible from the start.

“I was never able to hear my daughter like you can hear your woman. I was never able to know that the corruption was slowly breaking her mind and body. She became a cursed blade, and me, the wielder, I also became cursed. For a time, I was known as the Cursed Hero. However, my methods grew more erratic, my sword thirsted for too much blood. I could understand her desires. I could fulfill her desires.

“In the end, we were both monsters, endlessly sacrificing any who got in our wars to satisfy our thirst for blood. Then one day, you took my blood as well.” He ended his story there, but I already knew the rest of it.

Blaming her father for everything, the little girl turned on him. The mural I saw of him stabbing himself was her impaling him. He was trying to stop her, grabbing the blade with his bloodied hands. She then turned her father into a blade, using her cursed nature to torture and punish him for all the wrongs he had done. She pulled his soul into her sword body, and then the curse manifested, creating a dungeon where she could torture him for all time.

The blade likely remained exactly where the father had fallen, except he decayed away with time and only the sword remained. Eventually, she got bored of torturing her father and started to pull more souls into her blade. Anyone who died was turned into a sword or forced to endure her trials, where she forced others to relive the pain that she had to experience.

“I only have one question.” The little girl insisted, her face unreadable.

“Yes, my daughter?”

“After everything I did… why did you save me?” She demanded. “Why did you give your life to block that blow?”

A small, sad smile came onto the man’s lips, and he gave a simple shrug. “Because… you’re my daughter.”

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