"It's a long story, my lord," Andria replied. "But as it happens, we're just about to show you something."
As she spoke, she walked forward. A path suddenly opened between the War Goddess—two girls dressed much like Andria carried something over to the two of them.
At Andria's signal, they placed the object at Brando's feet.
Brando saw that it was a dark, heavy-looking crystal, roughly one cubic meter in size. Yet when the two War Goddesses set it down, they seemed not to have exerted much effort at all. Brando certainly wasn't stupid enough to assume that the thing was actually light. He had already seen it when fighting Leviathan: every one of these girls possessed combat strength no weaker than Vonder's Law Peak experts, even before counting the bonuses from their strange equipment and abilities.
Besides, as part of the Earth Legion that had once opposed the Twilight, how weak could their true strength be, even after losing most of their legacy?
"What is this?" Brando asked.
"This was found inside the corpse of Leshaprak's projection. More precisely, it was found inside its stomach, my lord."
Brando raised his eyebrows in surprise. He had not expected a crystal cluster to have a stomach. These crystalline lifeforms were completely different from carbon-based organisms. He had assumed that they replenished their energy directly by devouring mana, in which case they naturally would not need a digestive system.
Andria seemed to see what he was thinking and replied, "Crystal clusters need to eat as well. Although they do indeed devour mana, what they consume even more of is the foundation of various worlds, including elements, matter, and energy. Their stomachs are different from what we understand. They're actually independent spaces. I was only speaking figuratively."
Brando nodded, understanding.
Only then did