Chapter 378: Arthur and Ger II
The section of space in front of him had been frozen in time.
The light allowing him to see the things in that section had also been frozen in time, hence, all he could see was that frozen image.
However, he could not see beyond that space as whatever light was being emitted from things on the other side could not travel through the stopped time.
Before he could even begin to fully compute a proper reaction to this, the monochrome area disappeared, along with his beam attack, and he was now able to see the other end of it.
He could now see the familiar-looking teenage boy, with silver hair and black eyes, who was seated at his desk
"Morning to you, Major Ger."
Arthur casually greeted the man while going through papers from a folder that Ger recognized all too well. They were his most secure files which he had sealed in an alternate subspace.
’How did he get access to them?!’
His question was answered when he turned his gaze to the side and saw a small tear in the fabric of space. It resembled a hole created by a stone being thrown through a glass pane, and around the broken and jagged edges, were wisps of destruction law energy.
Ger’s whole body was screaming out ’DANGER’ to him, even though he could sense that the power of the boy in front of him was at the ’Intermediate Master Realm’.
He slowly stepped back and began sliding his left hand towards the emergency button on the wall, however, his arm’s weight suddenly tripled and he lost his balance and nearly fell.
"I can assure you Major Ger; That if you press that button, I would eviscerate your soul from your body, literally take it to Hell, where you would suffer in the Nine Thousand Circles for Nine Thousand Years, before finally ripping out your soul’s core and ending your pitiful existence."
Arthur said calmly, without even bothering to look up from the files he was going through.
Despite having no basis to believe Arthur’s words, Ger felt his soul trembling in fear, with the ambient energy of the law of death slowly snaking around his legs.
"Wow...just, Wow."
The boy couldn’t help but express his ’admiration’ for what he was seeing, as he actually managed to gain an even deeper understanding of Racial factors by looking at these files.
"The more recent notes were written by you, but the earlier ones—the basis of this research—were by someone else? Anda? Who’s that?"
"..."
Ger remained silent, and Arthur finally looked up at him, sighing softly before speaking.
"If you wish for what happened to your subspace to happen to you, then keep silent."
The man didn’t know how Arthur managed to break through the alternate subspace, and he certainly didn’t want to find out.
"...My Predecessor."
"You Predecessor, huh?
Why did his research suddenly stop?"
"...he died."
Arthur was mildly surprised when he heard this, flipping through until he discovered details of the man. What he saw, however, made him raise a brow in question.
"From what I see here, he was a Lieutenant General. How did someone that high up end up dead?"
Strength was a very big deciding factor in military ranks, and from what he had seen, Lieutenant Generals were all at least Sovereigns, so Arthur was not expecting his cause of death to be something like a disease or old age.
"Researchers usually don’t have the strength of others on their rank...the man was merely an Intermediate Legendary.
He only got that far because his research included universal laws and he needed to be able to control them suitably."
"That doesn’t explain how he died."
"He was murdered."
Though Arthur had an inkling that the Demons were responsible, he still asked just to be sure.
"By who?"
"Demon General Valren."
"Valren...Sigesi?"
Arthur chuckled lightly when he said this, not being too surprised that she was the one responsible for his death. The files in his hand did say the man died of ’Hypothermia’ after all.
Meanwhile, Ger’s mind was working on overdrive, trying to fully grasp the current situation. Though Arthur had stopped using gravity energy on his arm, he didn’t attempt to press the emergency button.
’What’s more, the familiarity in his tone. Is he perhaps...?’
"I’m not a Demon, though."
Arthur suddenly spoke up, as if having read Ger’s mind. Seeing the slightly surprised look on the man’s face, the boy continued.
"I could see the question marks all over your face.
You were wondering if I was a demon and I’m telling you I’m not one.
Dunno if you believe me but I actually have no reason to lie to you; I’m not a Demon, neither do I have any Demon Factors in my body or soul."
Once again, Ger felt compelled to believe Arthur’s words despite having no proof. While his mind went back to thinking up possibilities, Arthur was getting absorbed in what he was reading.
"I see...so that’s why you killed their brains.
To prevent their bodies from taking instinctive actions to protect their souls..."
He flipped the papers and saw some basis for that decision.
"You tried extracting a 2-year-old’s divinity once, however, the child was born with a high existence realm and your attempt made him self-destruct and kill three of your researchers.
...
I don’t know which is more surprising. Your experimentation on a live fully conscious 2-year-old, or the fact that the kid blew his own body to bits..."
Arthur continued reading through the files while muttering things out loud.
"I see, so you use a third group of racial factors as a glue to stick the divine factors on..."
Ger couldn’t help but marvel at how easily Arthur was understanding his research, owning to the boy’s deep Racial Factor understanding.
"This is just like a primitive, inefficient form of my ’Race Conversion’."
’Race Conversion?’
Just as Ger asked himself that, Arthur looked up to him and posed a question.
"When Sigesi killed your Predecessor, how didn’t she kill you?"
Arthur highly doubted that Sigesi would let the successor to the person she was taking out survive, and Ger’s answer allowed him to figure out that she simply didn’t know of the existence of a ’Successor’
"On orders from my teacher, I was at a different location."
"Makes sense.
So, I guess you have a Successor too, right?"
"Yes, and he’s not in the Githal region."
Ger’s reply made Arthur chuckle as he quickly figured out what the man had done.
"No details about him on your files, and not having said successor in the same region. You’re following your master’s footsteps so your research would go on in case you die.
At least I know it’s a ’HE’."
Arthur put down the files on the desk and closed them before looking Ger right in the eye as he spoke.
"For a moment, I was scared you wanted to introduce Rachel into this...messed up ’world’ of yours."
Seeing the darkening expression on Ger’s face, Arthur could tell that the man was very averse to the idea.
"You sure care about her an awful lot, huh?"
"..."
"Don’t worry, I’m not gonna do anything to her."
Arthur leaned back and spun around on the seat, facing the window behind as he spoke.
"I’m curious about the Cassowar family, but I can just Alvey about that."
The boy picked up another folder, one very thick one with a list of all Ger’s ’Successes’ listed inside it.
"So, Major Ger, how long have you worked on this project?"
"...five years."
Ger replied as he saw Arthur looking at him through the window’s reflection, silently stopping his attempt to send a pulse of energy out the door to trigger the emergency alarm on the other side.
"Five years? From what I see here, you personally have over ten thousand successes. That’s a lot of Fake Divine Humans you’ve created in just Five years."
Arthur tossed everything back on the desk before spinning around once more. He held out his hand and pulled Ger towards him, forcefully sitting the man on the chair opposite the desk as he spoke.
"I have one question for you, Major Ger.
Why?
Why all of this?"
But before Ger could even think about how to answer, Arthur continued speaking.
"From what I know, you Aramisians are the ones who first called the Demons into your world—At least that’s what they say.
You Aramisians enslaved them first, summoning so many slaves they eventually banded together and rebelled.
What’s you guys’ side of the story?
Why do you think the Gozonians are after you? Your planet’s resources?
Just what is it you believe the Gozonians are after that would make you resort to this?"
