Chapter 364: And off he goes...
"Exploring is your mission, then you can do whatever you want after exploring."
"..."
The boy remained silent as he looked at Alvey, his curiosity about this place higher than ever.
He knew that there was something there that Alvey wanted him to see, and said thing might influence his final decision on which side to take, presumably making him choose the side of the Demons.
Arthur remained silent for no less than five seconds before closing the folder and getting up from his seat.
"Alright, I’m on my way."
"Huh?"
Now, it was Alvey’s turn to be surprised as though he told Arthur to pick a day, he didn’t expect the boy to go right that instant.
"Coordinates...there they are. Greater Teleportation."
The boy’s body was wreathed in spatial light and he teleported right out of the building, past all the anti-teleportation magic barriers and right out of Militopolis before they could recover from their shock.
"...how is he even able to teleport?"
The barriers put up specialised in stopping teleportations via skills and magic, not cosmic energy, so Arthur had zero issues bypassing them.
He had used cosmic energy, precisely because he noticed this feature about the barriers.
Sigesi silently looked at the place where Arthur sat for a moment, before turning her gaze to Alvey and speaking.
"General. The way I see it, you seem to be banking on the ’humanity’ within him to be enraged at the atrocities those fake divines are carrying out in Duskhand, however, I’m not sure if what the boy is going to see there is going to faze him."
"...and why do you think so?"
In response to Alvey’s query, Sigesi recounted bits of her little conversation with Arthur yesterday, citing words the boy had spoken about his experiences.
"He alleged to have been witnessing things on the scale of planetary destructions since the tender age of seven."
"Wait, WHAT?!"
McEnda’s shocked voice cut her off, his eyes blinking repeatedly in surprise as if he had just heard something absurd. Even he hadn’t witnessed such until he was in his 30s.
And that was simply because he happened to be talking with his father when two Demon Kings started fighting so the man just carried him along when he went to watch the fight.
"He also mentioned something about ordering the destruction of two planets during our fight.
With those two things considered, then I highly doubt he’d be affected greatly by whatever he sees there."
Also on her mind was Arthur’s phrasing when he was speaking. The boy usually said ’This Universe’ when speaking about Valmone, making it very clear he wasn’t from here but another.
She considered that there may be differences in values between people in both universes, such that the things in Duskhand might be relatively ’common’ over there but she didn’t say that.
"He mentioned that he was the only non-deity realm existence in his family.
Mind If I ask just how much you know about him, General?"
"...
According to him, he’s the grandson of a Devil King who’s the Master of his home universe, and his mother is that universe’s Archdevil of Destruction; comparable to our Demon King of Destruction that governs over that Aspect.
His father is apparently a god-king."
Sigesi remained silent for a few seconds before once again repeating her earlier statement.
"Indeed, I doubt he’d be fazed."
Alvey understood where she was coming from, but however, the man had a different take on Arthur’s predicted reaction.
"I know the kid’s type. He’s basically a more entitled version of this idiot beside me."
"Dude, what the hell?!"
Ignoring McEnda’s protest, he continued speaking.
"Whatever actions he takes there, would not be out of any sense of justice or some sort of ’humanity’; but simply out of pure disgust."
The man proceeded to call in one of his subordinates and have them order all of the Demon Army’s agents inside Duskhand to retreat with immediate effect.
"My prediction is that by the time Arthur Vaughn is done in Duskhand...the Bastille would probably not exist anymore."
◇ ◇ ◇
"Sing it with me, if it’s just for today!
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away!"
Meanwhile, the boy who was being discussed by the three Demon Generals was busy having a little concert with himself...20,000 feet above sea level.
He was riding on the back of a wyvern that clearly wanted to be anywhere else in the world but be here right now, serving as Arthur’s mount.
Unfortunately, if it wanted to survive, it had no choice but to obey the young godslayer.
"Oh, that mountain over there looks nice, land there."
Arthur gave a command and the wyvern began its descent to the mountaintop. In the meantime, the boy skimmed through the map of Githal, the region of North Eastern Gledea where Duskhand was.
Apparently, the city was named after a famous Divine Human general; one of the first of his kind on Aramis.
"Who the fuck names their kid ’Duskhand’? There’re a million other names they could have used."
The boy shook his head as he tossed the map back into his subspace and jumped off the wyvern’s back.
"I should blend in like a normal person to enter the city. Seeing as it’s a Military Outpost, should I steal a soldier’s identity?"
He thought out loud as he stretched his back, ignoring the wyvern that was slowly backing away from him. It was then that he muttered a line that made the creature change its mind.
"Guess I’d have to use the ring, and I’d have to deactivate the barrier as well."
The moment he said that, he released the magic power barrier that he had surrounded himself with during his little journey here, simultaneously activating his concealment ring and reducing his perceivable existence realm to the Grandmaster Realm.
However, to the wyvern behind him, it sounded like he spoke about deactivating a ’barrier’, and suddenly, his power reduced considerably.
The threat the creature perceived from him also disappeared, showing that his concealment was working perfectly.
But this wyvern was one that had been unceremoniously dethroned from its position as the leader of its nest and transformed into a mount for Arthur. Upon seeing that the threat it perceived from Arthur had reduced, its suppressed indignation bubbled to the top.
This caused the wyvern to make a decision that could be called its last.
Faster than the eye could see, the creature widened its maw, revealing its razor-sharp teeth which it attempted to use and bite Arthur’s upper body off.
"?"
Naturally, Arthur sensed this action, even though the creature had concealed its hostile intent. He turned around with a raised brow, and simultaneously, the world around him slowed to a crawl.
The boy heaved a light sigh before opening his mouth and condensing his silver aura in front of it. Within a second, it was a concentrated beam of silver light that was tearing through the wyvern’s body, from the insides of its mouth.
Blood, brain matter, broken bones and organ fragments splashed all over, but none of them reached the young godslayer who blasted the wyvern’s body to bits.
Arthur waved his hands to blow away the smoke escaping his lips, before turning around and walking away.
It was then that the time slow he had applied on the area was released and all the shattered pieces of the wyvern’s body splattered onto the empty ground.
"Now then, where was I?"
Arthur wreathed himself with cosmic energy and teleported himself to the bottom of the small mountain, leaving behind the blood and guts spilt on the floor.
According to the Intel that Alvey had given him, the allied races’ army—the Coalition force of the Elves, Humans and Flugels who were resisting the invading Demons of Gozon—were conducting conscription of forces to bolster their ranks from towns and villages in Githal.
This was convenient for Arthur as he planned to sneak into the Duskhand—the military city where these recruits were to be taken using these conscriptions as a cover.
In times like these, Arthur doubted that every single person who was conscripted was going to willingly enter the army.
Especially in a rural area like this.
’I’m sure that at least, 20-30% of those eligible for recruitment would somehow try to abscond. Either by running away from their original hometowns and hiding out elsewhere until the recruitment is over or something else.’
For the Aramisians, being in the army meant ’honour’ and ’glory’ for them as they would be the ’brave soldiers’ fighting against the invading demons.
Even more so, when their gods were involved.
The religious ones would say it was a ’dream to fight under the banners of their gods’.
However, this was war.
"A story, whose end is unknown.
Even with the Demons’ current momentum, anything can happen and they might lose. That’s very unlikely though.
But besides that, with war comes death.
Even the victors have casualties in the tens to hundreds of thousands; even millions.
Not many people still have the gall to enter the army despite knowing that they could be written off as one of these ’numbers’."
Arthur monologued as he sent out omnidirectional waves of cosmic energy, using it in tandem with the law of space’s power to get a feel for everything within the nearest few kilometres of him.
