Astoria was an interesting character. Her personality was geared toward playfulness and mischief. However, it didn't take away her ability to get serious.
As someone born and raised as part of a royal clan. She'd of course been schooled in discipline and class, but in her normal life, she tended to ignore these teachings.
The first time she ran away from the palace, she understood the pleasures that life could have. Thus forth, she'd been indulging in such pleasures, playing around to her heart's content without a care for anything else.
It was a mindset she adopted for several years, even putting aside her training for the sake of this joy.
In the past year and a half, she started to see a subtle change in herself.
No matter how she wanted to play, she simply couldn't convince herself to give up everything to do so. No matter how mischievous she wanted to be, she no longer wanted to sacrifice her training for it.
Was Damien the reason for this change?
In part, sure. As a teacher, Damien was strict and relatively indifferent to Astoria's struggles and complaints, however, as an individual, Damien was incredibly amiable and charismatic.
The difference in how he acted during training and outside of it definitely influenced Astoria and changed her attitude, especially since she's been taking his punishment whenever she disobeyed him.
But the change Astoria saw was not completely due to Damien. In fact, his influence was minimal.
The change in Astoria had a simple origin.
It was simply…joy.
The joy she felt in learning with Damien was something she never felt at the palace. Whether it was during noble training or combat training, nothing about the Golden Dragon Clan's techniques sparked her interest.
Space was different.
Space was…
"Fun! This is too fun!"
Astoria laughed joyously as she flashed through the air, never remaining in one place for too long.
Her arms waved through the air with purpose, her mana flaring along with her movements and interacting with the environment.
BOOM!
A massive tentacle exploded forth from below the ocean and slammed through the air with speed that betrayed its size. It was accompanied by three more at different orientations that blocked any route Astoria could take to attack.
But for a spatial mage, when was this ever a problem?
"Hahahaha!" Astoria laughed as she finished her movements.
As the tentacles slammed into her position, her body vanished and appeared opposite to where she once stood. She pushed her hands forward and yelled with fervor.
"Dimensional Cage!"
A much smaller and less stable Dimensional Cage appeared within the one Damien conjured. Despite its flaws, it was more than enough for her current purposes.
'First step: establish control, complete!' She thought to herself as she began to push her mana again.
'Second step: gain an advantage!'
Astoria flew into battle, completely subverting the Kraken's expectations. She pushed closer to its body and shoved her arm forward to strike it.
The Kraken's massive eyes narrowed in fury.
OOOOOOOH!
It bellowed loud enough to shatter eardrums as a light of mana covered it.
"Foolish girl!" A voice boomed into the atmosphere.
"Humph! Only Master is allowed to insult me!"
Astoria's body flashed forward. Her arm extended rapidly, letting out a powerful force that exploded into the Kraken's body!
However…
BANG!
Crack!
"Ack!"
A dull sound rang out. Astoria disappeared, teleporting several hundred kilometers away.
She shook her bloodied hand and winced in pain. She could feel several broken bones rattling around where they shouldn't be rattling at all, but she ignored it.
'Pain is power.'
One of Damien's favorite mottos. The more pain she felt, the stronger she'd grow.
Astoria's eyes narrowed as she peered into the Kraken's skin. With just a quick glance, she was able to see the thick layers of mana protection layering its internals.
'That's a natural protection. I won't be able to break it easily.'
Bang!
The air exploded as a tentacle narrowly missed Astoria's side. Before she could teleport away, three more banging explosions rang out.
Pillars of water rose from the sea below and reached the heavens, entrapping Astoria within.
'Perfect!'
She wasn't panicked at all. In fact…
'Perfect Reversal...'
Astoria flicked the air with her mana. The forceful water pillars around her seemed to respond to her touch, bending far away from their intended trajectories.
'Return!'
BOOOM!
A phenomenon that defied the laws of physics. The water pillars whipped into perfect right angles and acted almost like cannons as they shot with terrifying intensity back at the Kraken's body.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
CRACK!
"Girl, you dare?!" The Kraken roared as its defenses cracked.
Astoria didn't respond at all. She took the opportunity while the Kraken was distracted to teleport directly next to its body and strike her hand against its skin.
'Des—'
Bang!
"Keuk…!"
A blast of mana slammed into her body and pushed her back. Astoria coughed a mouthful of blood as she tried to regain balance, but before she could…!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A tentacle crashed into her side and flung her backward. A water pillar rose up under her and threw her into the air. As if finishing a combo, the Kraken opened its mouth and shot out a blast of compressed air that impacted Astoria straight in her chest, cracking several of her ribs.
"Hak…! Hak…! Hak…!"
Astoria threw up blood with a place face as she teleported away several times, getting as far away as possible from the enemy.
She assessed her injuries while gritting her teeth to avoid screaming out in pain. Her bones were broken in several places, she was bleeding internally, and some of her organs had experienced serious injury. If it wasn't for her dragon body, she would've been dead already.
'I can't…'
She almost gave up at that moment. The battle hadn't gone on for long, but she hadn't been able to do anything but get beat.
Worst of all, it was done in just a few moves by a beast who didn't even take its human form.
It was unacceptable.
Astoria gave up on attacking and changed her approach.
She took several healing and mana-replenishing pills and teleported endlessly, almost ignoring her mana capacity as she took a moment to heal her injuries and think of a way to defeat the enemy.
'Master is right, my space abilities aren't geared towards attacking.'
She could makeshift attacks with Vector Control and exert great power, but it wasn't nearly enough.
Even her Vector Control was meant for support rather than attack.
'Then, I can only improvise.'
Damien had told her several times that her main combat power would still come from her Golden Dragon techniques, but she didn't want to listen to him.
She almost wanted to throw away her old techniques and be completely reborn.
But it was nothing more than delusion.
Reality didn't allow one to simply change in an instant if one wished it.
It was an extremely tedious thing to change oneself.
But in most cases…
'Why should I change?'
Astoria's eyes hardened.
What would it look like if she stopped denying her true self?
This time, she wouldn't stop herself from finding out.
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