Chapter 1002: The Long Wait
"So Roseborn is on his way, huh?"
Arthur said this as he sat down on the ground with an exhausted sigh, accepting the towel Lostvayne handed him and using it to wipe off all his sweat.
"Yes, but he’ll take some time to get here," Kelly replied, her hands moving to check all the spell formations on the capsule where Alexia’s body lay, making sure there was nothing wrong with any of them.
"The Vladi Supercluster you mentioned is in a different Multiverse, right? How much time do you think it’ll take him to get here?"
That question came from Artemisia, who had been briefly briefed on Alexia’s history by Arthur while they were preparing for what they had just completed, and upon hearing it, Arthur couldn’t immediately come up with an answer.
"Assuming he doesn’t have any Ultimate Realm existences willing to move him across Multiverses, I’d estimate his travel time based on my experience with my Cosmic Teleporter, but—"
"Don’t assume artifacts like that Teleportation Device you have are common," Kelly interrupted him.
Tapping the capsule to adjust a spell circle formation, she continued, "How did that Lucifer even get his hands on something like that?"
"It’s apparently a relic from the Third Multiverse. Some multi-universal empire called ’Xelvan’ that got destroyed by Jamie."
Hearing Arthur’s response, Kelly turned toward him with a raised eyebrow.
"Jamie? When you say ’Jamie’, do you mean the Crazy Immortal created by the Witch of Chaos?"
"Yep," Arthur nodded. "That one."
"Xelvan, huh?" Kelly muttered, returning her gaze to the capsule. She made a mental note to look into the Empire after they returned to the Third Multiverse before speaking.
"Roseborn Vladi has the technology to transport himself and his armies across Multiverses, but it’s impossible for him to match the speed of that artifact you have.
That thing is ridiculously fast, even by my standards."
Arthur wasn’t surprised by Kelly’s words, since even Barda had commented on the Cosmic Teleporter’s extreme spatial traversal speed before.
"He needs time to pinpoint Alexia’s exact location, gather the required forces without his enemies noticing, and even after accounting for the long travel time between Multiverses, he still has to locate this universe’s current position within this vast Multiverse.
Universes move through the Multiverse just like planets and galaxies move, so by the time he gets here, this universe might have already shifted position."
Arthur nodded in understanding at her words. Whenever he used the Cosmic Teleporter to connect to Valmone, Draco Sirus, or any other universe, it usually took a significant amount of time to generate the gate since it needed to calculate new spatial coordinates for the universe and link both points.
"By the time he’s done with all that, it could already be years by this universe’s time flow."
"Years? Isn’t there a high chance that Alexia would be long gone by then? Or is he going to keep using the spies Alexia didn’t root out this time to keep tracking her?"
Kelly shook her head at Arthur’s questions, casting several defensive barriers over the unconscious Alexia before turning toward him.
"You saw the extent of her soul damage, didn’t you?
Roseborn Vladi is confident. He knows the depth and viciousness of the curse he placed on her, and he knows the damage she’d suffer removing it would leave her grievously wounded for years, maybe even decades. So he knows that by the time he gets here, she wouldn’t be too far off."
Pointing upward, she continued, "That’s why this entire system’s time is being accelerated, and why there are even more temporal acceleration spell formations nested within the one in the sky."
Arthur looked toward Alexia’s capsule, his eyes seeing the enormous amount of temporal law energy it was absorbing to accelerate both the time experienced inside the capsule and the speed of Alexia’s recovery.
"Years, huh?" he muttered, getting up to his feet.
"My work here is done, so it’s left for Alexia to recover. In the meantime, I’ll be governing my planets and expanding my influence in this universe."
Stretching, he summoned Lostvayne in sword form and added, "But first, I have to feed this guy with enough souls."
He placed the sword on his shoulder, gesturing toward Artemisia with his other hand as he concluded, "Don’t forget to pay her for her work. Her power is cutting down the time by at least a third, after all."
After saying his piece, he created a cosmic gate and used it to leave the star system.
◇ ◇ ◇
Arthur did exactly as he said he would, nothing more and nothing less.
He helped the Gozonian demons expand their territories beyond the Orithyia Galaxy, mainly targeting planets and galaxies within the domain of the elves who served Falael.
He had put his concealment ring back on after leaving the Abyss Labyrinth, and he was still holding off on promoting his Race Ruler Authority, so it wasn’t common knowledge that he was a High-Tier Deity.
Only McEnda II, Malorum, and a few other Demon Kings he directly interacted with knew this, and he made sure they all swore binding oaths not to speak of it until he promoted his Race Ruler Authority.
The reason he even bothered revealing it to them was simple: He needed souls to feed Lostvayne, whose soul storage had greatly expanded, and he wanted higher-quality souls. During battles against the elves in the far galactic regions, High-Tier Deity Galactic Rulers had to be defeated, and he revealed his power to the Demon Kings to give them a reason to allow him to defeat them and take their souls.
Arthur killed dozens of High-Tier Deity elves, and even more gods and celestials allied with them who came to assist in battle.
The Demon Kings who knew of his power pooled their Authorities together to create a special combined Domain to conceal the fights, so no one outside ever discovered how those Deities truly died.
And since Lostvayne devoured their souls, there was nothing left for their masters to use in determining who had killed them.
Of course, Arthur didn’t help the demons eliminate several god Kings, including servants of top factions like the Kyrexi, for free.
He gained several star systems and planets within the conquered territories for himself, expanding the number of worlds under the umbrella of his godslayer King Authority.
In that manner, a year passed, and then some.
Even after nearly two years, a period that was even longer due to the temporal acceleration on the planet Alexia was on, she still wasn’t fully recovered.
One fateful day, somewhere around the middle of October, Year 1153, Arthur, having just left the Abyss Labyrinth alongside Artemisia, who had gone there to reapply her Authority on Alexia to continue boosting her soul and recovery speed, returned to Nienope after dropping her off on Aidos.
He was slightly mentally exhausted from all the constant planet-hopping over the past few months, along with the continuous battlefields.
"But it’s good. The godslayers have battlefields to fight on and grow their power. What’s more, the more I join in helping the demons expand, the greater my universal influence becomes, and the more young godslayers we find.
A lot are First Gens who don’t have anti-divinity, but there are a few Second Gens too."
But none of that made Arthur as happy as the discovery he made shortly after he began taking Layla, Esna, and Nicole with him during interplanetary wars.
"Beatrix’s personality really helped. She brought Artemisia along when she intruded into a Gozonian battleship because she wanted to see Alvey, and Artemisia using her power on Esna, while I used my Blessing of Anti-Divinity, which I created on Aramis all those years ago to give the demons an edge against gods, on her as well, caused Esna to acquire anti-divinity on her own."
Arthur couldn’t help but laugh when he remembered how dumbfounded he had been when Esna, in the process of becoming an Intermediate-Stage Mid-Tier Deity, gained a second energy core and acquired anti-divinity.
’It’s been decades, and I still don’t know everything about godslayers...’
He leaned back in his chair and sighed softly, closing his eyes and drifting into a slumber that lasted several hours.
When he awakened, it was close to evening, the sky glowing orange, and he looked toward his door just in time for Stelan to step in.
"Arthur. Sorry to disturb, but I came to inform you that the Gate Hall design is complete."
Hearing Stelan’s words, Arthur wiped his eyes and stood up, picking up a lollipop from the small bucket on his desk, whose presence was courtesy of Elaine, and as he unwrapped it, he spoke.
"Let’s go check it out."
