Chapter 219: Lucifer Morningstar
Devil King of Hell.
Candidate of Destruction.
Annihilation Arch Devil.
Devil King of Destruction.
Ancient Arch Devil of time.
Most Powerful Devil King in history.
Most Powerful Candidate of Destruction ever.
In the various parts of the multiverse, if one was to ask who any of these titles referred to, then there was only one answer.
Lucifer Morningstar.
His full name was unknown up until his death but ever since he popped up millions of years ago and took the life of a universal master who was a candidate of destruction, he had been known by the name of ’Lucifer Morningstar’.
The young Lucifer reached the monarch realm in only a thousand years and ousted his father from the throne of King of Hell.
After this, he proceeded to subjugate the surrounding universes and put them under his rule as his vassals.
He then set out to explore the multiverse and encountered many other great beings of power, some were friendly while others were hostile.
To the friendly ones, he reciprocated their friendship.
To the hostile ones, he killed them and erased them from existence.
His ’Annihilation’ granted him the power to destroy the souls of his opponents, ending their existences for good.
Breaking this down, he did this by destroying his target’s bodies and souls with the power of the laws of Annihilation, destruction, and extinction, while using the power of time to accelerate the process so it happened faster than it was supposed to.
Depending on how strong his opponent was, it could take minutes, and sometimes, it took seconds.
That was exactly the same way-
"-that my ’extreme Nothingness’ works!"
Arthur exclaimed in surprise upon this discovery.
Lucifer, who was seated atop the throne, suddenly appeared in front of him and placed his black-gloved hands on the young progenitor’s head.
He was stunned at the amount of information that suddenly poured in, however, the moment it reached the description of Lucifer’s annihilation, he snapped back to reality and screamed out.
*KON!
Lucifer knocked his head as he shouted before replying.
"I know it is. Who do you think helped you to create that technique?"
Hearing Lucifer’s question, Arthur forgot about the pain he felt in his head and stared at the silver-haired devil with a confused expression on his face.
"...how?"
"The answer is simple, I burned a piece of my already fading existence to enable me to scour the outsides of this realm.
I just so happened to encounter a certain eleven-year-old descendant of mine, trying to activate his dormant annihilation without knowing it.
All I did was put a suggestion in his head.
That was all I could do, my consciousness was sent back here immediately afterwards."
Lucifer’s explanation, gave Arthur the answer to the question he had on his mind ever since he created ’Extreme Nothingness’.
The owner of the voice he heard then, right before everything clicked.
This then led Arthur to ask the original question he wanted to ask ever since he entered the throne room and saw Lucifer.
"How are you alive?"
Exactly!
Lucifer was supposed to have died due to unknown circumstances over twelve thousand years ago.
Yet, here he was, right in front of Arthur.
"Hmm...thought you’d never ask.
Oh well, I might as well just show you everything as a projection instead of just installing the information into your brain."
Lucifer flicked his fingers and the cosmic energy swirled around the two of them and created a giant filmstrip that circled around them.
"Lucifer Morningstar is indeed dead.
What you see in front of you, is no more than a piece of his soul he left behind right before he went to the battle that led to his death.
In the few moments, before he died, he came here and inputted the last of his memories into this piece of his soul.
After doing that, the original Lucifer faded out of existence, leaving behind this piece talking to you right now."
Various scenes played out on the circular filmstrip screen around the two as he spoke. Lucifer then flicked his fingers once more and Arthur’s eyes widened in surprise.
He had originally concealed it from Arthur but now he revealed it, Arthur couldn’t help but marvel at his skill in cosmic energy manipulation.
What he thought was lucifer’s physical body, was actually just a humanoid-shaped mass of concentrated cosmic energy.
"How did you know about this place?"
"...from a woman named Alexia."
"Alexia, huh? The young girl should have grown a lot by now."
Lucifer took off his blazer before seating on the floor. Turning to Arthur, he spoke with a wry smile.
"Care to let this old man entertain you with some stories?"
Arthur, who wanted to know exactly what the connection between Alexia and Lucifer was, nodded and took a seat. The two then stared at the images on the changing filmstrip screens, as a tale began playing.
The tale of the meeting, between two beings.
The Most Powerful Candidate Of Destruction and the Most Dangerous Candidate Of Time.
◇ ◇ ◇
Unbeknownst to Arthur, there was currently an uproar in the academy as the directors were trying to find Arthur’s location.
They placed importance on Arthur’s safety so they made sure to monitor him and his team, however, when they suddenly detected Arthur on a totally different planet from where Layla and the others were sent, they realized something was wrong.
They also noticed that Layla and the others were not even in the academy outpost that they were supposed to be sent to. They were not even in the same Galaxy!
The daughters of a count and the Grand Duke of Eryrth going missing after entering a realm gate managed by the academy was no small issue.
To make matters worse, Arthur’s marker on their radars suddenly disappeared and the signal of his tracker was cut.
Without wasting time, the ’big ten’ ordered for instructors to be sent to the two areas where Arthur and Layla’s group were detected.
The information was also kept under tight wraps as all the directors feared the reaction of the Arch Devil of destruction if she found out that her son’s whereabouts were unknown.
They hoped for Cattleya to not randomly come over just to know where Arthur was.
Unfortunately, it was already too late to hope for that.
They were not aware that there was a tracker on Arthur that was placed there by Cattleya.
Even if she could not track him if he left the galaxy, she could at least view his vitals through it. However, she was currently not seeing anything as the signal had been cut off just like that of the tracker in his academy-issued watch.
The paranoid mother, was already on her way to Kreiz, to find out the reason why she suddenly could not sense her son’s vitals, minutes after he walked into a realm gate managed by the academy.
◇ ◇ ◇
Unknown Planet
Unknown Galaxy
Varona Realm
First of October
Year 717 of the 50th General Calendar.
Layla, Edward, Esna, and Nicole, found themselves in a random forest on an unknown planet in the Varona realm.
Looking around, Layla realized that Arthur was not with them. She remembered his words before they entered the realm gate and heaved a sigh.
"...Arthur got separated, and we are definitely not supposed to be here."
Esna voiced out the current situation as she crouched before placing her palms on the ground and casting a wide-ranged spell.
A pulse of red mana spread out from underneath her palms, passing through everything in the forest.
"There’s nothing poisonous to us here besides a few snake-like monsters. There’s also no academy base in this entire forest, this means that we’re in the wrong location."
"How did this happen?"
Edward asked as he stabbed his longsword into the ground and rested his elbow on the hilt. He gazed at the forest around him and narrowed his eyes while staring at the trees that surrounded the quartet.
"I’m guessing whatever pulled Arthur away from us, also pulled us alongside, but dropped us somewhere along the way since we weren’t its target."
Esna’s assumption actually turned out to be the complete truth. There were spells cast on the various realm gates that led to the realm with Lucifer’s ruin: Varona, and the backup realms.
If any of his descendants were to attempt to enter the realm with the ruin, it would pull them toward the ruin’s current location.
If they entered with others, it would pull only the descendant and leave the others. However, perhaps the pulling force was a bit too much, it dragged the other four alongside Arthur.
Unfortunately, they were dropped off along the way and only Arthur was taken to the location of the ruin.
This was what led to the current situation where the four were stuck in a random forest they had no idea how to navigate.
"And to make matters worse, it seems the original inhabitants of this forest, don’t exactly want us here."
Edward pulled his sword out of the ground and glared at the trees. Moments later, a swarm of one-meter-tall monkey-like monsters with glowing red eyes appeared from within the trees.
"GYYYYYAAAAAA!!!"
The monster that seemed to be their leader, beat its chest as it let out a loud cry.
A cry, that signified the start of the battle.
