The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1172

The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1172

Chapter 1172
Those who had no grasp of the rapidly unfolding situation stood frozen, watching blankly.
The president, despite being shattered into pieces earlier, stood perfectly fine beside Davey.
Davey, who shouldn't have been there at all, stood waiting as if he had been present from the beginning. Still, what shocked Chandra the most was the man who emerged from the rift.
“Damn it! How?!” Finn, no, Leon, moved quickly to escape.
Objectively speaking, it was the best decision he could make. The problem was that there were two people who wouldn’t let him run so easily.
“Where do you think you're going?”
Technically, Davey didn’t make a move. Only Astrea, who had been staring at Leon with a calm expression, stepped forward.
He was the hero who once taught Davey the spear; the King of Conquest of Paladia; and the monarch once hailed as the Great King.
His mastery of the Ultimate Paladia-style Galactic Spear proved he hadn’t become a hero just for his status as an emperor.
Boom!
The ground shook violently as he instantly appeared before Leon, clenching his fist.
“Y-You’re a fake!!” Leon shouted furiously, forming a black energy blast and hurling it at him. “Don’t get in my way!”
Even as a barrage of shots flew in, tightly concentrated and dense with no room to dodge, Astrea didn’t move to evade. Instead, he threw his fist.
Boom!!
A heavy strike tore through the air, shredding the incoming black blasts to dust.
Unfazed by such an overwhelming display of strength, Leon clapped his hands just like Chandra had so many times before. The surrounding space began to distort, and as the void split apart, countless reptiles emerged from the cracks.
Enormous forces began to condense in their gaping maws. They were similar to energy blasts, yet denser and far more powerful. They were destructive beams containing the power of the sun, resembling a dragon’s breath.
“Need a hand?” Davey asked with a smirk.
“No.” After giving a curt rejection, Astrea reached out before a red spear immediately snapped into his hand. The veins on his biceps bulged, and destructive mana began pouring out around him.
The man who seemed like a walking embodiment of chaotic spear techniques unleashed his weapon, creating a catastrophe before their eyes.
[Paladia-style Galactic Spear]
[Tearing the Mantle]
Crunch!!
A tremendous scar was carved into the world, as if a massive beast had clawed across the sky and land.
Leon’s gathered resistance collapsed helplessly under the attack. However, Astrea didn’t stop there, charging in and tearing him apart.
Leon instantly sustained critical wounds as he was smashed to the ground. Astrea crushed him underfoot, driving the spearpoint deep into the area near his heart so that he could no longer resist.
“
Gah!
”
It was over in the blink of an eye.
“What... just happened?” Chandra muttered in a hollow voice. She seemed completely lost about what was going on.
“Do you remember the terms of our contract?”
“The contract...?”
“Yeah, with the right to see your memories,” Davey explained calmly as he stared at her. “While I wasn’t there when it happened, whatever your memories show me pretty much has to be the truth.”
“But...?”
“But there’s something strange. So I asked that guy over there, who’s also from your homeland, about it. Turns out, his story’s a bit different from yours.”
She remembered rescuing Leon after falling in love with him, only to be betrayed and restrained by him. Then, his kingdom’s soldiers and knights stormed in and slaughtered all her followers.
That was the truth she remembered. However, what Astrea had told Davey was different.
“Different... how?”
“Let me get straight to the point—the one who killed your followers...” Davey paused briefly, then smirked. “Was you.”
The air around them instantly turned cold.
“W-What are you talking about?! That’s insane! Complete nonsense...!”
“According to that outsider’s memories, the kingdom you destroyed had asked him for help, claiming you suddenly went mad. Not just that, either. In the forest with the sapling, even your own followers were calling for help, saying something was wrong with you.”
However, at the time, Astrea had been overwhelmed by war and didn’t step in to help her, who was only a nominal ally.
As a result, all of her followers were killed. In the end, driven to madness, she went so far as to attack a neighboring human kingdom.
“No way... That’s a lie... It’s a lie!!” she screamed desperately.
Astrea then spoke, “I still have regrets about what happened back then. Even though I killed countless humans during my conquest wars, you were different. If I had just paid a little more attention, tens or even hundreds of thousands might not have died. My ministers tried to tell me that it wasn’t my fault, that the conquest itself had been a mistake...”
However, Astrea thought the opposite. He had no regrets about the conquest war itself. What he did regret was not helping her, which led to tens or hundreds of thousands dying.
“In the end, the vengeance you harbored was nothing more than a delusion brought on by a human.”
The moment that verdict dropped like a massive blade falling from a guillotine, her whole body trembled violently.
“That bastard’s also insane.”
Davey could only confirm that the guy was far more deranged than expected.
“Still, it wasn’t all for nothing. Tracking down someone who deliberately went into hiding wasn’t easy, but there had been one moment—just one—where that lunatic risked everything and showed himself.”
“How could you know that...?”
“Isn’t it obvious that only a true lunatic can recognize another lunatic? Real recognize real.”
It was just like in the past, when she had lost her mind and slaughtered innocents.
“Like right now. If that bastard really was the madman I suspected, then the real one had to be hiding somewhere nearby. So, I let you loose and used you to draw him out. That’s all there is to it.”
Leaving the confused Chandra behind, Davey turned to Leon. “Got any more questions for me, pal?”
From the beginning, none of it would’ve made sense without Astrea’s account of past events. In fact, all of it unfolded because of the gap that still existed because of his existence.
“Damn it!! How is a human who died long ago still here?!”
“Curious?”
Crunch!
Astrea drove the spear in even deeper, and Leon’s face twisted in agony.
“This world is full of variables you don’t know about. You really thought you wouldn’t get caught?”
Davey had gone far more off the rails than Leon had ever imagined. He had more variables at his disposal than Leon could have ever expected.
“Idiot,” Davey murmured to himself.
The atmosphere turned heavy.
“Damn it... Damn it! It’s not over yet!” Leon shouted in fury.
At the same time, a connection began to form between him and Chandra.
“If I die, she dies too! She and I are bound by a soul contract!”
He was absolutely right about that. Due to their contract, she couldn’t do anything to him. She had fallen victim to his illusion powers.
She had loved humans, trusted them, and then gotten burned by them.
His power completely brainwashed her, down to her roots. It eventually drove her to total madness.
Leon the lunatic had driven Chandra insane. She tore her own followers to shreds. Then, under the illusion that humans had betrayed her, she had slaughtered them too.
Desperate to find a way out, Leon screamed and shouted obscenities at the top of his lungs.
Davey simply shrugged. “You think I sat back and watched all this just to lure out your true body?”
‘This place is already a prison. There’s nothing you can do to escape.’
Squelch!!
The moment Astrea withdrew his spear and stepped back, Davey casually waved his hand and created an opening. Within it appeared a small girl with teary eyes.
It was none other than Nightmare, from the Dream World. They were the very same being who created the nightmare that both Leon and Chandra formed. The one who had lent them massive power.
“
Uuuh... Uuuuuu!!
”
The moment it saw Leon, it let out a furious growl and reached out its hand.
“N-No!!”
Realizing he was exposed to the only being capable of erasing him without a trace, Leon desperately tried to escape.
However, as soon as the mist spread out from its hand and enveloped him, his soul began to be pulled from his body.
“You should’ve watched how much power you were using. You really thought Nightmare would just let what you did slide, even when you used its power so recklessly?”
Nightmare had borne the full weight of the consequences of everything Leon had done. As a result, it was enraged.
Even though Davey could devour him using the authority of his Predatory Assimilation, he wasn't the only one who held a grudge against the man.
Nightmare had been a crucial ally of his, and deserved consideration.
“No!! No! I can’t go out like this! This is just the beginning!!” Leon struggled desperately, flailing like someone drowning in a violent current, trying to escape.
Even while being dragged in by Nightmare, his mental strength was so formidable that the surrounding area began to darken under his influence.
Just as his lingering power was about to touch the others, Davey drew a brightly flashing sword from the air.
Slash!!
He severed his soul-like form in an instant.
The resistance in Leon’s body vanished, and the mist completely wrapped around him. That power made it clear that it held total authority over Leon. Even the contract thread that had bound Leon and Chandra was torn apart, as if bitten clean through.
They had never been truly reincarnated or resurrected. They were constructs created by Nightmare, to begin with. As such, all authority over them rested with it. Once they came face-to-face, it was only natural that Leon was left with no way to resist.
At the same time, his physical form, along with the crow mask and black robe, crumbled away and vanished as if they had never existed in the first place.
Nightmare finally seemed satisfied as it reclaimed a massive amount of its power. It nodded slightly in satisfaction, then immediately reached toward Chandra.
It intended to erase her as well, but then Davey grabbed it by the hand to stop it.
“Wait a second. At least let her say a few words first.”
Nightmare thrashed in protest. Not that Davey cared. He just had to silently pull out the bright red flash orb before it recoiled in terror and began trembling.
“
Eek!
”
The memory of those endlessly exploding flashes sent it reeling. It shook its head violently, overwhelmed by a fear etched deep into its instincts.
“
Ummm.
Prince Davey, I’m not sure what’s going on, but... is it over now?”
“Yes. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. President.”
“No, it’s nothing. I... heard it was a tragic matter. If I could help, then I’m glad I did.”
There had been a reason the President of Korea had accepted his proposal and installed a proxy in the office with Verdandi’s power.
With a tired expression, the President sighed and withdrew.
Chandra stared blankly at her hands.
“I was... the one who killed them,” she muttered in a daze, then slowly looked up.
Standing before her, Astrea let out a brief sigh. “I’m not holding onto any other regrets, and I’d honestly like to set my heart at ease too, Butterfly Empress.”
“Emperor Astrea...”
“I’m sorry. If I hadn’t ignored your followers’ pleas back then, maybe none of this would’ve happened. I wouldn’t have had to kill you with my own hands after you went mad.”
In truth, it was an apology born only of personal guilt. It wasn’t needed, and his doing so wouldn’t change anything. Yet even so, Astrea seemed to want to shake off the lingering weight he had carried his whole life.
“This all happened by chance, but even so... it’d be foolish not to take this opportunity.” With that, he turned his back.
“That’s it?”
“I’ve nothing more to say, Davey. I didn’t expect any of this, but I feel like my heart’s a little lighter now.” With that, Astrea returned to where he truly belonged.
All that remained were Chandra, dazed by the truth; Davey watching her; and behind her stood Verdandi and Nightmare, who had slipped into the hollow space secretly and created a new unreality.
“Is that... really what happened?”
“Your memories weren’t complete, so I had to go dig through the records etched into the world’s laws. You have no idea how much of a headache that was.”
Within the world’s laws, everything was recorded. Normally, it was impossible for anyone but the person themselves to access that information.
“Since I had the right to see your memories, I could read them even from the slightest traces.” He poked her forehead lightly. “So don’t go giving people access to your memories so carelessly.”
She gave a hollow laugh, “
Ahaha... Hahahahaha!
”
She then finally broke down in sobs. It wasn’t from rage or hatred—she was wailing from guilt and sorrow.
She had lived solely driven by her rage toward the humans who had killed her followers. Once she was told that she had killed them all with her own hands, there was no way she could bear to go on.
Even if Leon had clouded her mind with illusions and taken control of her, it didn’t change what had happened and what she’d done.
“Please kill me. I can’t go on living like this,” she said as she looked at Nightmare. “You can erase me completely, can’t you? I... I still can’t accept that I stained my hands with their blood.”
She pleaded and begged for mercy. Nightmare hesitated, but eventually raised its hands.
Just as it was about to erase her existence for food, Davey interrupted, “You’ve got a guest.”
A crack suddenly opened behind Davey, and someone stepped out from it. It was Jeo-Seung, the keeper of souls who served beneath the Sorcerer Woochi.
He walked slowly toward Chandra, reached out his hand, and spoke gently, “Here we go. It might sting a bit.”
Without a moment of hesitation, he pulled something out of her.
“
Kyah?!
” Chandra screamed as she was thrown aside. She looked around with a completely stunned expression.
Jeo-Seung had a small orb in his hand. “This is Chandra’s soul, and the souls of around two hundred of her followers who protected her. All have been retrieved. They’re pretty worn out, so they’ll need time to recover in the River of Souls before they can reincarnate.”
“Handle it however you want. You’re doing good work,” Davey complimented with a nod.
“If you know it’s tough, then hire some more help. I’m dying here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get going already.”
“I’m seriously going to quit one of these days!” Jeo-Seung threw a fit, but it was a pointless resistance in front of Davey.
“You promised, remember? On your own.”
“Damn it!!”
Chandra was in a daze. Her soul was no longer attached to her physical form. Yet she just blinked in confusion, unable to grasp the situation.
“I had no plans to reincarnate Leon properly, so I let Nightmare eat his soul. But Chandra’s different.”
She had been a fake from the start, created by Nightmare. No matter how much she might’ve accessed memories, she never had the right to control Chandra’s true memories or identity.
The one who had granted that access wasn't the fake Chandra. It was a fragment of the real Chandra’s soul, nestled deep inside her body.
There was no need to wonder how her soul had ended up there after disappearing long ago. Her followers, who had remained at her side like guardians, had protected her as she wandered. That alone allowed her to survive.
It was nearly a miracle that she had crossed dimensions. She had coincidentally slipped through when the dimensional barrier weakened.
Her soul, which should’ve vanished or reincarnated under the soul contract, accidentally merged with a chunk of energy Nightmare had dropped on Earth.
A soul had taken residence inside a false body and false identity.
She had been so broken that she needed her followers to shield her. Her incomplete soul fused with the body to become Chandra. Meanwhile, Leon’s soul, still linked to her through a thread, formed his own separate construct.
Due to that thread, Leon’s soul remained. But now that Nightmare had devoured it, the rest were simply fated to return to the cycle of reincarnation.
She now realized she had merely been something fused with Chandra’s soul. Her face twisted in disbelief.
Now that Chandra’s soul had been extracted, no one could call her Chandra anymore.
At that moment, Davey pushed a piece of paper at her, smirking.
“You violated your contract. That means you owe a penalty, ma’am.”
“Wha—?! That’s ridiculous! According to your own logic, the one who signed the contract wasn’t me! It was the real Chandra!”
“She bailed without paying the penalty, so you’ll have to cover it.”
He knew he was being absurd. But he couldn’t care less.
“Welcome, slave. First, I need to give you a new name. Since Chandra’s soul is gone, you’re just something else now that mimics her powers.”
“...”
“I’ll name you myself. You’re not Chandra anymore. I’m the one who named my lady’s angelcat too, you know. Ever heard of its name? It’s called Bluefin.”
“Your name will be... Marky.”
“No way!!”
She reacted more violently to that horrific name than she ever had to the idea of dying.

Chapter 1172