Chapter 375: Unravelling the Divine Humans’ Nature
"...If this lot were to be unleashed upon the demons..."
Arthur’s thoughts came to a stop there when he recalled how many Divinity Wielders had attacked him and Alvey in Embermaw.
They didn’t make up to 1% of the total number of soldiers that attacked. It was just the commanders that were divinity wielders, while the most the foot soldiers used was holy magic.
’Perhaps...this is a hidden force the Aramisians are preparing?’
Arthur calmed down and thought about things carefully, and with his calm, he was also able to notice something strange about these soldiers.
"They have divine factors...but they are very minute.
Just barely enough for their energy cores to generate divinity."
For some reason, their presences unnerved him when he realised this fact, and he couldn’t help but recall Alvey’s description of the Divine Humans who attacked Embermaw.
’Fake Divine Humans.’
"Fakes..."
Arthur muttered that word as he jumped down from the car and landed on the ground, but before he could move any further, he sensed a massive surge of energy coming from the city centre, and the number of divinity users he could sense increased by over 100.
"Did some extras just teleport in or something?"
If that was the case, then the surrounding space should have reacted a bit, however, Arthur did not sense anything wrong.
"Wait...that’s not important.
I need to study one of these guys closely."
He looked around and spotted a lone soldier who just bought a cigarette lighting it up and taking a puff, noting there was no one within 5 metres of the man.
"Good."
With that word, Arthur vanished from his position and appeared behind the man, hitting him in the back of the neck with the edge of his palm and knocking him out instantly.
Before the man’s body fell to the ground, Arthur caught him and swung him over his shoulder, concealing both of them as he walked into a nearby alley and emerged on the other side of the street.
He entered the nearest building and entered its restroom while using magic to wet the floor. He then turned over the cleaning sign and placed it in front of the door before locking it and extending the range of his concealment to the entire room.
|¬Authority of the Progenitor Godslayer¬|
Arthur activated his authority with cosmic energy and dropped the man’s body on the floor, before drawing in wisps of the laws of knowledge and life.
He placed his palm on the man’s chest and infused the energies into his body, scanning his entire existence from head to toe without leaving any cell or Soul fragment untouched.
It was a time-consuming process and this was Arthur’s first time using this on a live subject. So he used his Pseudo Authority to deal with the ’time’ aspect, accelerating it so he ended up spending only half the total time.
"This guy indeed has Divine factors; however, his racial factors are messed up as a whole.
It’s like he has more racial factors than he needs to have."
An existence’s total Racial Factors amounted to 100%.
Over 90% constituted of factors of what race they actually were, and depending on one’s ancestry—if they had mixed-bloods amongst their ancestors—they usually had 1 or 2% of other racial factors within them.
Leviathan Devils were a good example of this.
The reason for the ’Leviathan’ in their name, was because each one of them possessed 10% Leviathan and 90% Devil racial factors.
’Purebloods’ on the other hand, had 100% Devil Race factors. This is where people like Layla and Nicole fell under.
Their families had preserved their bloodlines to make sure there were no ’impurities’ in the form of other Racial Factors.
Even someone like Esna didn’t possess 100% godslayer racial factors. Her parents’ Human Racial Factors didn’t just disappear into thin air, after all.
They were there, just that they only amounted to 1% of her existence.
Anyhow, in the case of the person Arthur was scanning, the man had more racial factors than necessary.
"An existence’s Racial Factors should amount to 100%, but this man, it’s as if he has 120%.
This doesn’t make any sense."
Having more Racial Factors than necessary was naturally detrimental to the existence. It was an excess burden on their soul, with a major drawback.
"His soul’s lifespan is reduced..."
It was kind of like a Phone battery.
If when purchased, the battery capacity is at 5000 mAh, then when charged up to 100%, it was 5000 mAh of charge.
After continuous usage over an extended period of time, the amount of charge the phone had when displaying 100% would not be 5000 mAh anymore.
It would reduce to 4900, 4800, 4500 and so on.
That was basically what was happening with this guy’s Soul Lifespan every time he used his divinity.
He was a Grandmaster Realm existence with a longer lifespan than the base Human Lifespan, but even that was reducing each time he used his divinity.
"Just...what in tarnation..."
Arthur muttered as he got up to his feet and took the guy outside, dropping him in the same spot he took him from and walking away while trying to scan the entirety of the inner city.
However, he quickly noticed that there were some blind spots in his perception.
"Concealment Magic Formations... high-level ones."
He had the thought of going towards those areas, but he decided against it because when he checked the time, he saw it was getting close to the time for their evening parade.
With a sigh, Arthur turned around and returned towards the gates, waiting for a few minutes until someone was leaving and then sticking close so he could escape the barrier and return to the Outer City.
He got back in time for the parade, and no one noticed anything strange, after all, he was only gone for an hour.
After the Parade, he went for dinner and then teleported to the clocktower where he usually comprehended his law of summoning.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t comprehend a damn thing as different conjectures on how the soldiers of Duskhand could have possibly gained their extra Divine Factors popped up in his head and distracted him.
In the end, he simply went to bed and slept like everyone else—something he had not done in over a week.
◇ ◇ ◇
Outer City Training Grounds
Duskhand Military City
Githal
November 13th
530th Divine Year
"Friday, the Thirteenth."
"What’s up with that?"
Rachel posed that question to Arthur when he suddenly blurted it out during the Lieutenant’s briefing in their Morning Parade, and the boy’s answer was the strangest she had gotten from him yet.
"A day for murder?"
"...what?"
She was barely able to prevent her voice from sounding too loud, but even so, from the look the Second Lieutenant gave her, she knew that he had heard her.
The culprit for her surprise, Arthur, acted like he didn’t even know her, and she barely resisted the urge to smack the back of his head.
She did do that after they had been dismissed from the parade.
Their training drills and the other elements of their everyday military boring life continued like usual.
Luckily, this was a bit of a ’free’ day, so Arthur was freed from the monotone activities for a day and spent it together with Rachel, exploring more parts of the Outer City.
During the day, Rachel couldn’t help but notice that Arthur’s mood was a bit different, and when they returned to their dorm areas, the girl finally couldn’t hold back and asked about it.
"Different? Well...today’s a day for murder, you know? I just have this feeling I might have to kill someone today."
"I’m serious, Arthur."
Rachel deadpanned him as she spoke and Arthur only chuckled lightly before replying.
"So am I."
Silence pervaded the area between the two of them for a few moments before Arthur sighed and spoke up.
"I just had a bit of a bad dream, nothing too serious."
"A bad dream?"
The girl clearly had more questions, but Arthur didn’t let her ask said questions in the first place.
"Look, your big brother is here."
Hearing his words, she immediately turned around and locked gazes with Ger who was coming over to where the two of them were.
Seeing that he had been noticed, the man stopped suppressing his presence and waved, while Rachel happily ran over to him with smiles all over.
As he talked with Rachel, Ger noticed that Arthur’s demeanour was a bit...different from usual.
However, he didn’t have much time to study the boy as Arthur just saluted him from afar before walking away.
’Something feels...off.’
Ger narrowed his eyes in Arthur’s direction until the boy went out of sight before turning his attention back to Rachel whom he had promised to spend time with today.
