Chapter 341: The Ever-Changing yet Never-Changing Cosmos
Unnamed Galactic Ruins
Hell Universe Outskirts
October 23rd
Year 717
While Arthur was traversing the fabric of space, crossing through heaven knows how many universes, back in the Hell Universe, a great many things were happening.
A man looked at the vast, desolate expanse of dark matter and scattered celestial body debris floating around in the void of space, sighing softly as he was once again reminded of the ridiculousness of people with the power over the law of Destruction.
"Cattleya ’Leviathan’ Vaughn, huh? She certainly has the potential to become even greater than this."
He muttered to himself with a hint of pity in his tone, for those who had somehow managed to anger this Arch Devil of Destruction.
But he quickly snapped out of it the instant the word ’Destruction’ rang out in his mind once more, remembering the real reason he came to this Hell Universe in the first place.
"It has been confirmed. Cattleya Vaughn’s son is the new progenitor, the one ’Lady Chandra’ is after.
The progenitor of the new ’slayer’ race."
The man then proceeded to wrap himself in an energy type that no Hell Universe devil could mistake—divinity.
His seamless use of the energy without letting any fluctuations out, and his silent teleportation past the Universal Barrier and out of Hell showed this man’s high level of skill and power.
And the fact that he did all this with divinity, was enough to inform any onlooker what race he was from.
The god race.
And this man was not just a random member, but an Elder Breed variant.
"Time to go report to Lady Chandra."
The Elder god spoke as he prepared to vanish deep into the darkness of space, using his energy to propel himself forward at a speed that dwarfed light.
It did not take him long to get over a hundred lightyears of distance from Hell, but at precisely the 101st light-year mark, an unexpected event transpired.
Faster than he could perceive, someone appeared behind him and with their palm formed into a knife hand, swung it down towards the back of the Elder god’s head.
He attempted to react and turn around, whilst also unleashing a burst of divinity to knock the person back, but it was all futile in the end.
**BOOOM—!!
The impact of the palm against the Elder God’s head triggered a sudden explosion of energy, tearing through the fabric of space-time. The ruptured space was rapidly drawn towards a central point, imploding with tremendous force, obliterating the god’s head in the process.
Dense golden blood splattered across the void, the liquid shimmering silently amidst the remnants of the Elder God’s body. Astonishingly, even this powerful explosion was not enough to destroy his whole body and just blasted his head off.
His assailant, a man with short white hair, wrinkles on his face and a gentle appearance, locked his sharp eyes onto the god’s body and placed a palm on his chest.
With a touch of universal law energy, he extracted the god’s soul, holding a pulsating sphere of golden light surrounded by more than half a dozen layers of energy.
From this, one could estimate the Elder god’s existence realm.
Each Realm from the demigod realm gave one an extra barrier around their soul; to have six, one needed to be a Primogenial Realm, meaning this Elder god was of a higher realm.
More notably, it was impossible to become a Primogenial without the aid of cosmic energy, as such, this Elder god who was now technically ’deceased’, could perceive cosmic energy.
Thus, when his soul was held by the white-haired man, he felt an overwhelming sense of dread due to the man’s formidable power.
|Who the hell are you?!|
The Elder god could not even condense an astral body to use when his soul was captured, and the one who captured him simply stared at him in silence before speaking.
|Dictum of Karma|
The man’s ’worldview’ changed and he now ’saw’ the countless lines of karma connecting various existences across the universes nearby with each other and other beings far beyond.
Ignoring all the unnecessary things, he scrutinized the karmic lines tied to the Elder God’s soul and identified two particularly troublesome links.
|These two would be annoying to have. |
With illusory scissors made of energy, he snipped the lines shut, cutting off the link between the Elder god and his ’Mistress’, preventing her from finding out he was the one responsible for what happened next.
Spinning the scissors around, he reforged it into a dagger, one brimming with so much dense cosmic energy that the spacetime around them distorted.
Doing this inevitably caused some of his own power to seep out of his body, power that the Elder Breed god recognized.
|An Ancient Br-!|
Too bad the Elder god never got to finish that statement as the dagger stabbed into his soul, piercing all the cosmic energy layers around it and stabbing right into the core.
But since that was not enough to kill him, the man then ignited the cosmic energy, triggering a cataclysmic explosion that surged outward and devoured the Elder god’s body, about to do the same to ’everything’ else in the area.
|Aspect of Space: Disaster Containment| + |Authority of Creation |
With the authority combination, the volatile exploding energy was contained within a pure white sphere of light, after which waves of creation law energy surged inside and mixed with it.
Holding this sphere of unimaginable energy that was about to devour the void, causing brilliant streaks of incandescent light to converge around it, the man gazed at a space between some universes nearby and muttered.
"That should be fine."
He ’tossed’ the volatile sphere in that direction, and the instant it reached the spot he wanted, the barrier of white energy around it vanished, allowing the mixture of ignited cosmic and creation law energies to surge out.
The nearby space shuddered as the chaotic energies swirled around each other, before bursting radiantly, like a cosmic firework display.
This silent colossal detonation triggered a Big Bang, and a newborn universe unfurled in its initial moments resembling a canvas of swirling colours, energies and matter.
Every single universal law in existence had its energy surge into this baby universe, mixing with the ambient cosmic energy within it and aiding in the automatic construction of its laws.
The universal barrier formed to filter the dense cosmic energy of space out, reducing the concentration to a level where sentient life could ’possibly’ survive.
With the excess energy as a power source, stars and galaxies twinkled into existence and the essences of the governing laws of the Cosmos from which the universal laws were sourced latched onto it.
As he watched a new universe come into existence, the man responsible, Ancient Breed Devil Belphegor, adjusted his tie before turning around and flying back into Hell before the nearby universal masters could show up to inspect the new universe that just suddenly appeared.
◇ ◇ ◇
The Cosmos was ever-changing yet never changing at the same time.
Quite a contradictory statement.
A few moments before Belphegor’s actions had caused the birth of a new universe in one part of the Cosmos, one universe somewhere else in the cosmos, Quintillions of parsecs (1 parsec= 3.26 light-years) away from him had ’died’.
In the wake of this ’deceased’ universe, all that endured was an eerie void, devoid of stars, galaxies and life; a desolation where the energy of the law of entropy reigned supreme.
There was no trace of the once vibrant universe left, a blank space in the ’grid’ of universes of this multiverse.
"It has only been a few years since I sent this avatar into this universe, and now, it does not exist anymore."
[Refer to Chapter 75 for when this happened.]
A man dressed in black, seated atop a floating throne made from the bones of various beings of various races stared at the ruins of this universe as he muttered this to himself.
In front of him was an avatar that had the exact same looks as the man; it had clothes this time, though.
"Slaughtering all Living Beings before accelerating entropy...at least it helped me with my Dictums in those laws."
He condensed the energies of the two laws into two orbs that hovered on his palm, orbiting each other as he spoke.
"I think there was a universe that had a legend about a three-headed evil dragon, wasn’t there?"
The two orbs on his palm fused into the avatar in front of him, and while humming happily to himself, he began waving his hands like an orchestra conductor would and reforged the Avatar from a humanoid one to that of a ginormous three-headed dragon.
"You shall be mine—the "Aggressor of Darkness’s" Avatar."
Cosmic energy wrapped around his body and distorted space, generating a singularity which he disappeared into, along with this newly created dragon.
He reappeared an innumerable amount of lightyears away, in front of another universe before reading the lines of fate and nodding to himself.
"This is where the strongest Eternal Candidate after that Devil brat Lucifer is going to appear. There seems to be some link to Lucifer but everything goes blank after a while.
For me to not be able to read it at first glance, guess the person is probably at least a Grade 5 Singularity and can fuck with causality, fate and destiny on a Multi-Universal Scale."
The energies of the laws of fate and destiny, as well as the energy of the Dictum of Providence, danced around him as the actions he was about to take would influence these three concepts greatly.
He wrapped the Dragon in a ball of cosmic energy and sent it into this universe, with a very ominous parting message.
"Go forth. ’Evil Dragon: Azi Dhaka’.
That has quite a nice ring to it..."
The man was busy talking to himself when suddenly, another voice rang out, followed by the appearance of someone that Arthur would definitely recognize.
"What are you doing, Azi Dhaka?"
Turning his head to look at the projection of a golden-haired and-eyed man that had suddenly appeared, this dark-haired man—the real ’Azi Dhaka’, spoke with a tinge of surprise in his voice.
"Huh? Hyperion?
I’m not doing anything much. Just laying the groundwork for a little...’play’, to mess with one of the Eternal’s Time and Destruction Candidates."
Hyperion remained silent for a while, casting a sideways glance at the three-headed dragon before his projection vanished silently.
"I suddenly feel hungry."
Azi Dhaka sent his avatar into the universe like he originally intended, and after watching it settle where he wanted, he returned his focus to his sudden desire to consume food.
"Come to think about it, the Original Earth had this popular fried chicken restaurant last time I went there. Something FC?
I should go over to the Origin Multiverse and look for it again."
As he spoke about travelling to the territory of Progenitors, his body slowly faded away from the area, wrapped by the folds of space.
"Would Adam even let me into his universe?"
That question was the last thing he asked before he completely vanished from the area.
