Chapter 439: The Shadow of War
"The man knew that there was a High Tier Deity Celestial—a Celestial King, by your terms—who was after something I had on me and he didn’t tell me. He allowed the Celestial King to send four Epic Realm celestials after me who was just an Intermediate Grandmaster at the time.
Granted that whole situation was partly my fault, but it would have been nice to at least get a warning beforehand."
"You fought four Epics as a grandmaster? That didn’t end well did it?"
"I got shot five times, with Soul Poison. I nearly died.
Thinking about it now, I would not have died but at the time I thought that was the end of the road for me.
But like I said earlier, the whole situation was partly my fault."
As someone who had faced Soul poisoning before during an assassination attempt by spies during a war on a different planet, Alvey knew just how painful the feeling was and he could empathize with Arthur.
He was curious about how the boy said things were partly his fault and when he questioned it, Arthur narrated how he got Lewis’ cousins to hold Luke off while he went to the Nemo Galaxy.
"You ditched your Demigod realm guard? Are you crazy?
No...you ARE crazy."
"Oy! It was only supposed to be a prank! Who could have predicted I’d end up finding an extinction law crystal and there was a Candidate of Time after that same crystal?!"
"You certainly could not have predicted it, that’s why you were given a guard to help deal with such unpredictable situations."
"...why are you of all people hitting me with logic?"
McEnda’s brow twitched upon hearing Arthur’s reply to his words, and the boy quickly took some distance in case the Archdemon wanted to snap. Sigesi silently calmed him down and Alvey spoke up while still engrossed in his files.
"I agree with him. That situation could have been prevented."
"I know. I could have prevented it but I was being mischievous and that didn’t go well. But while I admit I was at fault, if I had the chance to go back in time, I’d let it happen again."
Alvey looked up from his files, his gaze questioning why Arthur would want to experience being Soul Poisoned again and Arthur didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking.
"You see how my energy is much higher than normal. I’d have you know that what you are sensing, is only 50% of my total."
"...you have energy on par with an Intermediate Sovereign and you say that’s just 50%?"
"Indeed."
Arthur explained the former issue of his body not being able to handle the amount of energy his energy core generated, with the end result being that he could only use magic power and aura for a limited time before his body eventually started breaking down.
He then talked about the Divinity vs Anti-Divinity battle that was going on in his body which made the overload issues worse. When he got hit with the Soul Poison, a situation was created where all the energies had to work together to prevent his death, as such, the ’fight’ between the Divinity and the Anti-Divinity was halted as there was now a common enemy.
After that, Cattleya sealed off 50% of his energy, enough that his body could handle what was left and since those two weren’t fighting anymore, his problems were solved.
"Now I can wield all my power without any time limits or fear of my body breaking down."
When Arthur finished speaking, he pulled out a dagger from his inventory and sliced off a finger, letting it fall onto the table.
"...bro, what the fuck?"
"Wait for it."
Right before their very eyes, Arthur’s silver blood formed strands that latched onto the severed finger, before pulling it back and healing it completely.
"This...it’s like a vampire’s regeneration."
"I’d bet this is better.
Anyway, this near-death experience with the Soul poison was what allowed me to awaken this, along with my full Progenitor Authority and the default information about the Cosmos that Progenitors are meant to possess.
Who knows when I would have gained these things if that incident didn’t happen?"
"...wow."
That was all Alvey could say when he heard all this. As for McEnda and Sigesi, they were just as surprised.
"It’s funny how we got here from talking about Strongest Demon Kings..."
Sigesi’s low mutter was what then reminded them about the original topic of conversation.
Arthur just chuckled before picking up the day’s newspaper and pointing at one of the Headlines.
"It’s the Serial Killer headline again."
Alvey and McEnda’s expressions contorted into a frown when they heard this. The last time they saw news about a Serial Killer, it was in Militopolis, and now they were seeing a similar headline all the way on the other half of the continent in Torten.
McEnda grabbed the newspaper and skimmed through it, his frown deepening as he read the contents of the article.
"Sigesi."
"On it."
The woman knew exactly what he wanted so she got up and left to get a report on it from the Military Police which was supposed to handle such crimes.
When she opened the door, there was a High Ranked Demon standing in front of it; one of Alvey’s subordinates who had been called over earlier.
Sigesi bowed to the High Ranked Demon before stepping out while the other Demon walked into the room and greeted the three Generals present.
McEnda acknowledged her with a nod while he flipped through the newspaper and Alvey put down his files before introducing her to Arthur.
"This is Lieutenant General Aravae Magmyar."
"Hello, Sup."
Arthur casually greeted her while holding up a peace sign, before turning to Alvey and posing a question.
"What’s the situation?"
"You know about the losses on the frontlines we incurred recently, right? A lot of Demon Soldiers were captured and we need to rescue them.
She would be leading a Corps of the Army to the Cheigh region to recover these captured soldiers."
Cheigh was a region on the North Eastern side of Gledea, a bit far off from Githal where Duskhand city was located.
"What’s my role to play in this?"
"You’d be going with her as her Second-in-command."
"Oh, so more fun ’General Things’. No problem then."
Arthur nodded as he spoke, not having any particular problems with this arrangement. More battles meant more level-ups for him, after all.
"I’d like to pay more attention to this Serial Killer issue as it’s more than it seems but we have a big battle coming up so I can’t."
McEnda spoke up as he dropped the newspaper back on the table and Arthur asked about this ’big battle’, not hiding his desire to be involved.
"We secured a victory on the frontlines before you and Alvey headed off to the Triton’s Ark. That victory bought us the time to take the Ark and make Landfall on Zefesh but when the news of us securing hold on Zefesh has gotten here, the Aramisians are on their toes."
The reason Alvey was present here in Torten instead of being on Zefesh was because Sylvan and the other of the Four-Star Generals were the ones who were to handle the war on that front.
Alvey was then returned to his original position on Gledea, so he and McEnda could deal with the war here.
"The Aramisians are trying to retaliate for Zefesh and the Demon Kings have sent messages that more Transcendents would be descending as well.
Descendants of the Race Kings of the Aramis’ faction would also be coming to join the Aramisians.
The Demon Kings also warned that we are potential assassination targets and we should be careful."
"Who’s ’We’?"
Sigesi walked in right after Arthur questioned Alvey and the man pointed at her before listing out names.
"Sigesi just made their lists after she took out one of their Fortresses recently.
I, McEnda, you, Barron, Sylvan and that Sovereign godslayer you call Stelan."
"They’re sending Transcendents after all of us?"
"We’re not so sure, but they may do that."
McEnda was the one who answered Arthur’s question and the man collected the report Sigesi brought before continuing.
"According to my old man, a god Lord was planning to descend with the aim of taking us out when they stormed the god Council meeting. Though they killed the god Lord, it does not mean they’ve given up on trying to kill us.
You are an even higher priority than Sylvan and Barron due to your godslayer powers. The Triton Ark showed them how dangerous you can be even if you’re just playing a support role."
"Long story short, I should watch my back."
When Arthur summarised things like that, McEnda shook his head before putting aside the Serial Killer case files and projecting a map of Gledea on the table.
"Yes and No."
"What?"
Arthur was confused by this and Alvey stepped in to clear it up.
"You would not have issues with Inferior Stage Sovereigns on your own, and if you use your powers, Intermediate Stage Divines would suffer.
I’m sending Aravae with you to deal with anything higher than that. Besides, there would be Sovereign Demons in the Corps so I doubt you’d have much of an issue."
"Mind telling me why you’re automatically assuming that there would be no Transcendents?"
