Chapter 443: The ‘Real’ Danger.
Arthur took deep breaths to stabilize himself, whilst pulling in ambient cosmic energy into the forearm guard on his left arm—the Rule Breaker, ’Stellar Guard’.
The boy activated the Cosmic Treasure and covered himself with an imperceptible barrier of cosmic energy.
Now then, one would probably wonder why Arthur was activating the Stellar Guard ’AFTER’ and not ’BEFORE’ the supermassive explosion that killed hundreds of Sovereigns with its power.
He did this because he knew that the real danger to him, was coming ’AFTER’ the formation had exploded.
Taking a deep breath, Arthur sharpened his perception, spreading out spatial law energy so he could sense even the slightest rustling of the wind.
But even with all of that, even with his ridiculous thought and perception speed which had been enhanced by the ’Third Magic’ and boosted even further with his Time Magic, he was just barely able to sense it.
Aravae, who was a Transcendent Realm existence noticed it first.
Her eyes widened in shock and her pupils darted to the side, instantly figuring out the target and rushing towards him.
"ARTHUR! WATC-"
**BZZZZZZTTTT!!!!!
"-H OUT!!"
"?!"
The sound of her words hadn’t even reached Arthur completely when something tore through the air, ripping through Arthur’s spatial perception and heading straight for the boy.
At the last moment, Aravae reached out to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him out of harm’s way while she roused her demonic energy to shield them.
However, her hastily constructed defence was easily ripped apart like paper.
***KAABOOOMMMM!!!!!
Then, with a deafening roar, the second earth-shattering explosion of the day erupted, unleashing shockwaves that sent thousands of demons hurtling through the air like discarded rags.
A surge of powerful divinity rippled outwards, obliterating the unlucky low-ranked demons who just so happened to be nearby, and even some Legendary Mid-Ranks were instantly killed by the burst of divinity and lightning law energy.
Crimson streams of blood painted the air as the lightning energy crackled and surged once more, sending both Aravae and Arthur tumbling through the sky.
They crashed on the ground with a bone-jarring impact, Arthur’s body awash with searing pain that coursed through his being.
’Fuck...how many bones did I break?’
Even as Arthur asked himself this, ambient cosmic energy was drawn into his body and his broken bones were instantly mended.
He struggled to his feet and looked around, quickly spotting Aravae’s body on the ground not too far from him.
Hurrying to her side, Arthur’s expression twisted into a grimace at the sight before him.
Her Demon army uniform had been torn apart, a gaping wound marring the left side of her stomach.
The acrid smell of burnt flesh reached his nostrils and he noticed that her left hand was barely hanging onto her elbow, held only by a tenuous thread of flesh that hadn’t been completely charred black.
"This is bad..."
Arthur stated the obvious as he got down on one knee, placing his hand on the barely conscious Aravae and sending a pulse of life law energy through her body.
He noticed her hand had pressed the emergency beacon that Alvey had given her and he silently admired her tenacity as he tried to discern the full extent of the damage she had taken.
"...Ar...r..r..un..."
She could barely string together a coherent sentence in her current state.
Arthur completed his analysis of her wounds, frowning as he noted the amount of time and energy he needed if he was to attempt to heal her—by rewinding her time.
’She’s a Transcendent. Plus, there’s powerful divinity and lightning law energy in her wounds. I can handle the divinity but that law energy is going to be difficult.
There’s also the fact that the scale of the damage she had taken is far too great.’
It was not an exaggeration to say that the strike that had hit Aravae was more than five times as powerful as the earlier explosion triggered by the Divine Magic Formation.
The fact she could survive this was due to her durability and vitality as a Transcendent, but even so, due to the residual divine lightning in her wounds, her life was bound to slowly slip away.
’I’d need over 30 minutes to deal with the wound on her torso, and that’s assuming I don’t run out of energy first.’
As Arthur thought this, he looked up in front of him, right at the humanoid silhouette behind the clouds of smoke billowing towards the skies as he continued.
’There’s no way that guy’s just going to stand there and let me heal her.’
|¬Pseudo-Authority of Time: Stasis. ¬|
The teenage progenitor chose the most optimal solution, to stop Aravae’s wounds in time. Her situation would not get worse, but it also would not get better.
After doing this, he silently grabbed the emergency beacon Alvey gave him and pressed the button on it multiple times in quick succession, before getting to his feet and looking at the figure standing no less than fifteen metres away from him.
"You...you’re the one they called the ’Silver Demon Summoner’, aren’t you?
Who was the fool who thought of that title... when there’s nothing ’Demonic’ about you?"
The man stepped through the smoke, revealing his full appearance for Arthur to see.
He had tousled dirty blonde hair and eyes the colour of murky gold. Standing at a fairly tall height, his figure was adorned in a crisp military uniform.
The man’s gaze, intense and piercing, seemed to flicker with the same dark gold hue as the lightning crackling around his clenched fists.
Each bolt danced with pure divinity, and just merely standing there, he emanated a formidable presence from his being.
Arthur gave a strained smile as he replied to the man’s question.
"I wondered the same thing, who thought of that title? I’d like to have a word with them too."
Seeing as the man intended to ’talk’, Arthur took up the offer and used it to buy time, whilst considering his chances of escaping.
’Space is fucked—I can’t teleport.
Distance between us is so short he can cross it in less than a second.
Although I can still use the Cosmic Teleporter, I’d need a few seconds to create a spatial gate to leave—about 30 seconds to a minute.
Right now, that’s "too much time".
I can have the ’Stellar Guard’ block some hits but with his speed, he might make me use up all the available charges I have on this thing before the portal can even finish forming...’
Just as Arthur’s brain considered using the cosmic teleporter, his emotional side made him glance at Aravae who was lying not too far from him, and the sight of her caused his lips to twist into a frown.
’If I get a chance, I’d use some of Mum’s artifacts to create an opening for me to use the Cosmic Teleporter.
But first, let’s see if Alvey would send help...’
He looked back at the man in front of him and he couldn’t help but sigh.
’Though I say that...would I even last long enough for Alvey to send help?’
Arthur’s thought process could not be blamed as he had accurately sensed the existence realm of the man standing in front of him.
To be able to injure Aravae so much, it was pretty obvious what realm this man was in.
’Transcendent. He’s an Intermediate Stage...around Level 940.’
Following the normal convention, the Intermediate Stage spanned Levels 933-966, which put this man at the lower end of the Intermediate Stage.
However, that didn’t matter right now as he was not an opponent Arthur could hope to defeat. In fact, hoping to ’survive’ was a chore right now.
"You, you are a being from another planet, are you not?
Why is it that you interfere in this war that does not concern you? Is it because you were summoned to this World by the Demons?
What did they offer you in return for summoning you? I’m curious as to what would make a ’Singularity’ like yourself side with them."
"..."
Arthur narrowed his eyes when he heard the man’s last statement.
He wondered how the man was able to tell that he was a ’Singularity’—a point of uncontrollable growth that made universal laws responsible for balancing the powers existences held to catastrophically break down around them.
They all had ridiculous growth potentials, with abnormal powers and abilities that allowed them to potentially rise to the peak of Existence Realms.
This wasn’t all, as their nature that made Universal Laws break down around them, allowed them to evade certain restrictive laws like Causality.
It was why despite casting such a ridiculous spell like the ’Third Magic’, the law of Causality had not done anything to Arthur and it instead avoided him. (Refer to Chapter 211)
However, their ridiculously high growth potentials are directly proportional to their potential to bring unforeseeable consequences to whatever Universe they were in.
Arthur had been aware of his Singularity nature for quite some time now, and he knew it was part of the reason why he was pretty much invincible in his Existence Realm and had affinities for almost all elements and laws out there.
"You’ve been asking so many questions so why don’t I throw out some of mine?
The amount of power you put into your attack just now was enough to take a Transcendent down for the count, and you used that to target me, a mere Legendary.
What gives?"
This was the reason why Arthur’s first action was not to instantly try and escape but to look for Aravae and try to help her.
The attack from this man which had hit her, was actually meant for him.
He was the target, and Aravae had taken the hit for him—completely oblivious of the fact that he had the ’Stellar Guard’ which would have protected him from Instant Death.
It was because of this that Arthur was even considering stalling for time for Alvey to respond to their distress signal; he didn’t just want someone who took a hit for him to die like that.
"Do you have it out for me or something?"
Hearing Arthur’s words, the man let out a sardonic laugh before replying.
"You destroyed my ’house’ while I was away and brutally killed all of my servants and subordinates, and yet you ask why I have it out for you."
The man’s reply left Arthur confused to the core.
’Destroyed his house? You gotta be more specific, I wrecked so many houses in the past two months.
On Zefesh, the Triton’s Ark, in Du-?!’
It was then that the man’s words finally clicked in Arthur’s brain. The Progenitor looked up at the Divine Human standing before him, his expression darkening as he called out his name.
"You...you’re Duskhand!"
