Chapter 212: Third Magic, End
|¬Third Magic: Existence Acceleration.¬|
As soon as Arthur called out the name, the pentagram rune sigil glowed brightly and shot towards his chest.
|¬Guh!¬|
Arthur felt pain as it entered his body and made its way to his heart. Upon touching his heart, the blue sigil glowed even brighter and melded into it.
|¬Arghhhhhhhmpf.!!¬|
Arthur dropped to his knees and screamed in pain. However, he covered his mouth with his hands midway through his scream.
’Can’t let them hear me and think something’s wrong! Everything will end if they interfere now!’
|¬Urghh!¬|
His vision dimmed, but he steeled himself and bit his palm with as much force as he could muster. The pain made from biting his arm made him stay awake but the pain from the inscription made him almost lose consciousness.
Blood dripped to the ground from his palm and entered the magic circle he was on making it glow even brighter.
The blue orb in front of him then started releasing some sort of light blue smoke that was absorbed into Arthur’s body.
This continued for nearly ten minutes as Arthur forced himself to remain conscious despite the pain he was feeling in his soul.
Naturally, it was impossible for him to stop all of his screams, even more so when he was still using his faux true voice.
Hades, who was observing Arthur closely, heard his screams and tried to move, but a gigantic figure suddenly blocked his vision.
He looked up to see the gigantified Lewis blocking his path towards Arthur.
|What is the meaning of this?|
|I was ordered by my lord, no matter the circumstances, no matter what we hear or see, none shall be allowed to enter the circle after his chant.|
Hades frowned and stood still when he heard Lewis’ words, Cattleya, on the other hand, did not have the patience Hades had.
|Get the fuck out of my way!|
She dashed towards Lewis and punched forward with the intent to kill, shattering the space in between her and Lewis, he roused up his energy to protect himself but it was futile.
|Gah!!!!!!|
He screamed in pain as he felt destructive Aether pierce a hole in his stomach, coughing out black blood, he used the last of his strength to push the planet they were on out of its orbit and sent it further from the spell circle.
|Hold on Cattleya.|
Hades grabbed Cattleya immediately and prevented her from blitzing into the spell circle.
|Let go of me!|
Cattleya screamed as her eyes turned a dangerous red colour, and enormous amounts of Aether began pouring out from her body as she attempted to escape Hades’ grip.
|Calm down Cattleya! If you interfere now you’d only make things worse!!|
Hades shouted as he pulled Cattleya in the opposite direction and flung her in the opposite direction.
**BOOM!!!!
|I understand you’re worried for Arthur but your interference would only put him in more danger.|
Hades shouted out before turning to Lute who was staring at him slack-jawed and spoke.
|Go heal the giant’s descendant fast.|
Lute snapped out of his stupor and dashed towards Lewis who had reverted to his normal size but still had a hole in his stomach to heal him.
Hades then turned back to Cattleya, who was gritting her teeth in indignation as she gazed at the spell circle that was flickering blue with a bloodshot gaze.
’As I thought, that incident really affected her more than she let on.’
Instantly deducing the reason for Cattleya’s obviously abnormal reaction, Hades sighed in exasperation before suddenly sensing the cosmic energy concentration in the spell circle decrease.
He turned back and saw that the light of the spell circle was fading slowly as the leftover cosmic energy that wasn’t consumed began dispersing.
’Seems like he’s done.’
◇ ◇ ◇
While Hades was seeing Cattleya send Lewis to a near-death state with a single punch, Arthur was witnessing a different scene.
The moment the orb in front of him stopped emitting the blue smoke, the pain Arthur felt lessened by a large margin.
He then looked up and saw the blue orb slowly retreating into the crack it came from. It released a bright flash of light that made him reflexively close his eyes.
When he opened them, he saw himself floating in a deep darkness, he then saw a giant glowing grey ball something that looked like a pedestal.
On the surface of the grey ball, he could see a blue pentagram with a single character rune sigil inside.
’Is that my soul?’
He turned his head and saw multiple other pedestals that had nothing on top of them, looking back at the grey ball, he tried to move towards it, only to have his vision darken once more.
When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the middle of the spell circle that had dimmed considerably.
’Shit! How much do I have left?!’
He got up from his knees and looked around, the blue orb was gone alongside the crack in space it came from, he then realized that the piece of the law crystal core that he was standing on, had begun turning to dust.
The moment the spell circle’s light finally went out, the piece turned to dust completely.
|Is it done?|
Hades’ voice suddenly rang out beside him, Arthur looked at his arm that he had bitten all over while trying to keep himself conscious despite the pain.
Silver blood still seeped through the bite marks, however right before his very eyes, the blood dried up and the wounds closed.
He then turned to Hades and spoke.
|¬Yes¬|
|Good.|
The moment Hades spoke, cosmic energy wrapped around the both of them and carried them through space to the planet where Cattleya was.
As soon as they appeared, Arthur was suddenly grabbed out of nowhere by Cattleya, she looked his body all over, ignoring the small stains of silver on his clothes (she doesn’t know his blood turned silver).
After confirming he had no visible injuries, she then hugged him tightly, as if she never wanted to let go.
|You aren’t pulling anything like this again.|
Hearing Hades’ voice, it did not take him long to arrive at a conclusion.
’Mum must have heard my screams and was worried huh? Well, I don’t plan on casting any spells with a chance of death anytime soon.’
He wrapped his arms around his mother and hugged her back in silence.
And just like so, Arthur acquired another perk that would greatly increase his strength in preparation for the unknown future.
◇ ◇ ◇
In a certain dark space within the nine thousand circles galaxy supercluster, Diablo sat atop a throne as he watched the events that just transpired through a giant screen in front of him.
Behind that one screen, were countless others displaying different events that were happening across the hell universe in real time.
On both sides, were two women, one was standing on his left while the other was seated on the right armrest of his throne.
[The spell was a success.]
The one standing on his left, a black-haired and eyed woman, the avatar of the Hell universe’s consciousness, spoke as she looked at the scene of Cattleya hugging Arthur.
Diablo nodded before turning to the red-haired woman on his right and asking.
"Can I count on you to heal the giant’s descendant, Lute can only prevent him from dying, but can’t heal a wound caused by Cattleya’s attack."
The red-haired woman, Aurora sighed in exasperation and flicked Diablo’s forehead before erupting into a pillar of flames and disappearing.
Diablo smiled before turning his gaze back to the screen.
"Singularity, huh?"
[Definitely]
Hearing Hell’s reply, Diablo couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
"This grandson of mine continues to amuse me every day."
He tapped his finger on the left armrest of his throne and the large screen shrunk in size until it was the same as the others. Diablo then showed a wry smile as he thought about the location of ’Null’.
"Let’s see how his trip to Varona will turn out."
◇ ◇ ◇
Thanks to Aurora’s timely interference, Lewis was able to escape from the jaws of death. Arthur apologized for Cattleya’s attitude before dismissing Lewis to go and rest alongside his three cousins and Phil.
A talk with Hades after they returned to Aeturn revealed the real reason for Cattleya’s overreaction.
Due to the event where she almost lost her only son, Arthur, in the Nemo galaxy a year ago, Cattleya had become very sensitive to anything remotely dangerous around Arthur.
Arthur did not know this but Cattleya had been paying serious attention to almost Arthur’s every move that he made since he woke up from the cocoon.
Hearing his screams during the spell ritual caused images of Arthur’s unconscious body dropping to the ground during the Nemo Galaxy incident to flash through her mind.
The fear of losing her only son made her lose her cool and she tried to pull him out of what she perceived as a danger to his life, in that case, was the spell.
Upon hearing what happened from his father, Arthur felt a chill down his spine as her actions would have resulted in his 100% death, thankfully Hades was there to force her back to normal, allowing her to realize her action would have done more harm than good.
Nevertheless, Hades warned Arthur to not undertake any dangerous adventures, at least until his realm expedition, and to let Cattleya know if he was leaving Aeturn or the burning realms.
Arthur understood that his mother had become very insecure about his safety and did not want to trouble her more than necessary and agreed to Hades’ instructions.
As such, the Chapter of the ’Third Magic’, was closed... for real this time.
