The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1049

“You say she’s a senior of ours? You need to say something that makes sense,” Lucia Shelman said.

The Dark Forest was an extremely dangerous place, and yet there was someone wandering around it alone. For Fildyr and Lucia Shelman, the entire situation was utterly absurd.

“At the very least, none of the seniors or instructors at Alpha Reinforcements are like her. And that flash just now,” Lucia continued, “Wasn’t that the same holy magic you use?”

“Honestly, even I’m a bit puzzled by that,” Davey admitted.

Even if it was easier for Daphne to descend compared to the other heroes, coming down like that and waiting for Davey was sure to be a tremendous burden, even for her.

Without a word, Daphne silently pressed forward with resolution, as if she knew exactly where she was going.

They were in a place where light shouldn’t spread. Even so, Daphne moved forward effortlessly, illuminating the surroundings as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“T-This is the Dark Forest, right?”

“It is, but then how is the light bursting out so strongly?”

‘Because Daphne wields the authority of light...’

“But who exactly is she? You don’t actually expect us to believe she’s a senior, do you?” Lucia pressed Davey.

“Oh, come on. A saintess of the Church of Freyja should have more faith than that.”

Fildyr and Lucia had clearly become fixated on her identity, but Davey simply insisted that she was a senior, continuing to follow behind her without further explanation.

After walking for quite some time, Daphne finally led the four to an unfamiliar statue standing alone in the dim forest. It depicted an unrecognizable creature, somewhere between a beast and a human. At a glance, it looked intact, but Davey knew there was no way it could be just an ordinary statue.

“Was this always here?”

“No. It just recently appeared,” Daphne replied flatly. “I can’t break it. You do it.”

Noticing that Fildyr and Lucia were too focused on their surroundings to listen, Davey took the chance to ask in a low voice, “Are you out of your mind? You descended and used your power too? Do you have a death wish?”

“Shut that mouth of yours. I’m already exhausted—don’t make me more irritated,” she said in a cold tone.

Davey couldn’t help but chuckle. While she might have been rough with her words, to him she was someone truly invaluable.

“You sure complain a lot,” he teased.

“What did you just say to me, punk?”

“Alright, alright, don’t get so worked up, Daphne.” Illyna cheerfully grabbed her hand, making her turn away with a reluctant expression.

“Well... You look healthy. That’s good.”

“You too, Sister.”

They weren’t exactly close enough to normally call each other sisters, Illyna treated her in a friendly way since they knew each other well.

Daphne turned to Davey. “I came down not just for personal reasons, but also to show this thing to you. If I weren’t here, you would’ve just smashed the beast lair and left it at that.”

She then began explaining the stone statue’s background, “These statues have started appearing in the Pandora Region. They didn’t form naturally, either—they’re a petrified condensation of the power that monster souls possess.”

“So, it really is a beast lair that showed up. Then this statue...”

“Wait a moment. Are you saying this thing is the legendary beast lair disaster recorded in the knightly archives?!” Lucia, who had just caught up, exclaimed in shock.

“That’s right.”

“How do you know that? And you—weren’t you just his senior? Who are you really?”

Her expression was unusually suspicious, and for a moment, Davey worried that Daphne might lose her temper and smack her. But that concern turned out to be unnecessary.

“A senior, huh? Well, does it really matter if I’m his senior or not?”

“What?!” Lucia bristled at her dismissive response. “Davey! Is she really our senior?!”

“She is. How many times do I have to tell you?”

“I’ve never seen anyone like her around before! And as far as I know, there wasn’t supposed to be anyone arriving here before us!” she shouted.

“Hey. Do I really need to waste time explaining myself? The important thing right now is breaking this damn statue,” Daphne replied.

Davey then reached out and placed a hand on the statue, eager to put an end to the argument. He gradually applied force to it before he tried channeling various types of energy into it, including mana.

“Use holy power to break it.”

While they’d had some effect, just as Daphne said, it seemed only holy power would truly work. So, he slowly began infusing pure holy power into the statue.

Crack. Crack!

“Kiaaa!!!”

Suddenly, the statue’s mouth had split wide open, unleashing a horrifying scream.

“Eek?! What the—?!”

“Ugh, my ears!”

Caught off guard by the deafening howl, Fildyr and Lucia instinctively covered their ears, though it didn’t seem to do much to protect them. However, as the wailing intensified, Davey pressed even more holy power into the statue, causing cracks to form all over its surface.

“Kuaaa!!!”

Then, as if sensing its impending destruction, the strange creature—the one that had fled after being struck by Daphne earlier—came rushing toward them at full speed.

“I’ll handle it. You focus on that.”

Just as Illyna was about to summon Caldeiras, Daphne grabbed her hand. “Wait. Leave it.”

“What?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

An overwhelming surge of holy power then erupted from her body.

Crack!!

At the same time, the grotesque creature—having grown even larger than before—charged forward, its tentacle-like mane flailing wildly.

“You’re as disgusting as ever,” Daphne said in a flat tone.

She then raised one hand before clenching it into a fist.

The light that had gathered in her palm vanished into her hand, and when she opened it again, it had morphed into a bracelet-like shape.

Whummm.

She then said an incantation.

[The gods have spoken.]

Crack!!

[Go eat shit.]

If anyone were to say something like that, it had to be Daphne.

Boom!!

Following the indescribable incantation, the bracelet in her hand began to spin at an incredible speed. It rapidly expanded in size and then, with a noise like the tearing of space itself, condensed before launching straight at the creature.

Swoosh!!

The massive ring of light struck the creature dead-on. The moment the force made contact, its body started disintegrating from the point of impact, pulverized and disintegrated until nothing of it remained.

“What the... What was that?” Lucia stared in shock, her curiosity about Daphne’s identity only growing.

As individuals highly attuned to holy power, both Lucia and Fildyr could tell that what she had just used was far beyond ordinary holy magic. They were suspicious, but at the same time, it was impossible to believe that someone wielding such immense divine power could be an evil beast. That only made their confusion worse.

“You. Just who—”

“Hey, kid,” Daphne interrupted her midway with a bored tone.

“Huh?”

“Things are already noisy enough. Can you shut up for a bit?” With that, she reached out and pulled Lucia toward her.

[Get lost.]

With another baffling incantation, a radiant barrier of light suddenly materialized, blocking something that had been hurtling toward Lucia.

“Eek! What was—?!”

“Stay behind me, or else you’ll get hurt.”

Despite her blunt words, Daphne had instinctively moved to protect her.

Lucia blinked in surprise, staring at her before finally falling silent. “I couldn’t see anything. What was that?”

“They’re creatures meant to protect the statue. They can only be seen by those who use holy power,” Daphne explained.

Illyna activated Caldeiras’s transformation. As soon as she did, her eyes widened slightly in surprise. “You’re right.”

Now that Davey was continuously pouring holy power into the statue, he could see the creatures as well.

There was a swarm of them; they looked like massive bees, crashing endlessly against Daphne’s barrier.

“How much longer, you dumbass?”

“Almost done.”

Crack!!

The statue finally shattered. At that moment, a massive explosion rang out, followed by a powerful clash of forces not too far away from them.

“I-Is it over?” Lucia asked in a tense voice, seeing the strange creatures that had been attacking them suddenly vanish.

“There are twelve beast lairs in this damned forest. Each of these statues serves as a medium for one of them, and they’re all spread throughout the entire area,” Daphne explained.

Lucia finally seemed to acknowledge her presence, falling silent. Whether she was really a senior or not was beside the point—what mattered was that she wielded overwhelming holy magic and had undeniably helped them.

“But did you really come all this way just for this? You could’ve just told us separately.”

“I already said—I had something I wanted to investigate personally. And since I was here anyway, I figured I’d lend a hand.”

Davey wanted to ask what exactly she was investigating, but in the end, he didn’t.

Daphne then warned them that breaking the statues in quick succession would have severe repercussions, instructing them to destroy one every thirty minutes at the most.

Whether using his authority or other means, crushing a beast lair through sheer force wasn’t particularly difficult. However, the lairs were still a part of the world’s system. Even though they harmed humans, they were still a foundational aspect of the world’s operation, meaning they couldn’t simply be erased by divine power alone.

As a result, they were left waiting idly for thirty minutes between each destruction. Unable to handle the silence, Lucia soon started bombarding Daphne with questions. The moment she learned that Daphne was also from the Church of Freyja, her display of fanatical devotion began.

“So, Saintess Daphne once said, ‘Stop fighting!’ That’s what she declared.”

“I don’t know about that. Something tells me she wouldn’t have phrased it so nicely in that kind of situation.”

“That’s impossible! Saintess Daphne is a noble and divine—”

“I guarantee you, what she actually said was, ‘Drop your weapons unless you wanna die.’”

Lucia’s face twisted in displeasure. “That’s blasphemy! Saintess Daphne was a paragon of virtue! She would never talk like some back-alley thug—”

“But you don’t know that for sure, do you?” Daphne countered.

“You’re the one who doesn’t know anything about Saintess Daphne!!”

Lucia then launched into a passionate lecture about Daphne’s achievements and life story—details that even Davey hadn’t heard before.

Her extreme devotion to Daphne was almost terrifying. If she had to, she could probably write multiple books on the subject.

‘Please stop. The person you’re talking about is standing right in front of you.’

Knowing the truth, Davey felt an odd sense of amusement and exasperation.

Meanwhile, Daphne, having fully grasped what kind of person Lucia Shelman was, seemed to be toying with her—casually dropping bits of shocking truth just to watch her react and argue back. She was clearly enjoying herself.

‘Ugh. I can’t bear to ever tell her the truth after all this...’

“Hey, Lucia. That’s enough. I get how you feel, but if you keep running your mouth here, we’re gonna attract more unwanted attention.”

“Stay out of this, Fildyr! Today, I’m going to make sure this senior fully understands who Saintess Daphne truly was!”

“Pfft!” Hearing her determined declaration, Illyna finally couldn’t hold back her laughter.

It seemed she was thinking the same thing as Davey.

“They’re total opposites... completely incompatible.”

Fildyr muttered to herself before suddenly remembering something. “Oh, right. I should’ve asked earlier, but senior, what’s your name?”

Daphne silently looked at him before answering, “Daphne.”

Lucia immediately made a face twisted in disbelief. “Don’t make jokes right now...”

“I’m not joking. My name is Daphne. Why would I lie about that?”

Lucia opened her mouth to argue, but no suitable words came to mind. “Well, that makes sense. My apologies.”

“No need to apologize. You must be hungry—here.”

Daphne casually pulled a small snack from her bag and handed it to Lucia.

Lucia thanked her as she took it. She then nibbled on it like a squirrel eating an acorn, all while staring at Daphne.

“You sure have jokes, senior. You have the same name as the saintess, yet you insult her so much. Even though we’re from the same church, I don’t think we get along very well.”

“It really is a shame,” Daphne agreed.

“Listen carefully, senior. Saintess Daphne’s achievements are revered by all saints of the order. Her Genesis Prayer is considered one of the greatest prayers ever written. In fact, it is said that during the creation era—”

But then, Daphne suddenly widened her eyes and shot to her feet. The rest of them instinctively turned to follow her gaze. Davey looked at the forest, feeling the sudden presence of an unfamiliar figure wrapped in holy power.

“Huh?”

The moment he laid eyes on the source, his expression hardened. What he and Daphne were looking at wasn’t an evil beast, a statue, or even a rift—it was an illusion. But what made it so unsettling was who that illusion resembled.

A woman—one who looked exactly like the First Saintess Daphne.

She held a copy of the Code of Laws in her arms, dressed in the kind of formal priestly robes that Daphne herself always found to be unbearably stiff and refused to wear.

If the Daphne they knew was brash and unrestrained, the illusionary figure was the complete opposite—elegant, divine, and impossibly pure.

Humans were wired to process familiar information first. Davey knew two Daphnes were nothing short of a disaster for their group. He felt a headache coming on. Clearly, the forest was hiding something that Daphne hadn’t told him about.

He took a step forward, intending to approach the illusion. But just as suddenly as it had appeared, it faded away.

“You owe me an explanation,” Davey firmly said, turning to Daphne.

She bit her lip hard, hesitating before muttering under her breath, “When you told me you’d found it... I had a feeling this might happen. And sure enough... it’s still here.”

‘What is still here?’

As if she could read his thoughts, she whispered, “Persephone.”

Persephone was the name of the Monster Queen with grotesque features he’d once encountered on Earth.

Which meant the illusion he had just seen—the one that looked exactly like Daphne—was instead Persephone. But there was something deeply unsettling. The resemblance between Daphne and Persephone was too uncanny.

He briefly considered the possibility that they were twins, but ultimately dismissed it.

The woman called Persephone didn’t just look like Daphne. It seemed like she truly was Daphne.

“They’re like clones,” Davey muttered without thinking.

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