Chapter 515: Staff of Authority
"...w-wa-what?"
The Chief Priest was completely dumbfounded. He didn’t think Arthur would actually survive a point-blank-range hit!
"...what just happened?"
Evan, who was also confused, asked and Arthur clenched the crystal in his hands before replying.
"My Dad’s Power helped me, that’s what."
Arthur clutched the crystal and dashed towards the stunned Chief Priest, swiftly stabbing his hand with Lostvayne and pinning it to the ground. He stomped on the priest’s face to stifle any screams of pain and then wrenched the staff from his grasp.
The moment he touched it, the three jewels flared brightly and the powerful Authority within them lashed out at him.
From the Sky-Blue jewel, a torrent of lightning surged forth, incinerating all the flesh on his arm in an instant, leaving only charred and cracked bones.
The Sea Green jewel began to glow, preparing to lash out when the Obsidian Black jewel suddenly released a flash of dark light.
While Artemisia watched in shock at the destruction of his arm, Arthur remained unperturbed, his gaze fixed on Hades’ crystal in his left hand, which was glowing in response.
After a few moments, the light faded.
The Authority of the Sky-Blue and Sea Green jewels calmed down and they stopped glowing, while the Obsidian Black jewel just gave a low hum, resonating with Arthur via Hades’ Crystal.
Arthur raised his bony arm and pointed the staff in the direction of Beatrix whose vitality was slowly dying down and spoke.
|¬The son of the King of the Underworld Commands you, Retract the Curse of the Styx. ¬|
The jewel flashed brilliantly, and before their eyes, the black energy that had been devouring Beatrix’s life force began to retreat. Her fair skin regained its natural colour as the dark energy was drawn out of her body and into the Obsidian jewel.
Directing the staff at Evan, the same thing happened.
Arthur turned to Artemisia and wanted to speak, but seeing her already meticulously scanning Beatrix’s body, he chose to remain silent.
Though she acted calm, Arthur could see from her bleeding palms which her nails had pierced into that Artemisia was anything but calm.
If Arthur wasn’t Hades’ son and didn’t have his Authority Crystal, then Beatrix would have died from the Curse of the Styx within the next hour.
Understandably, she was frantic.
After all, Artemisia was just as attached to Beatrix as Beatrix was to her. She was just better at controlling her emotions and expressions.
Leaving her to handle the unconscious Beatrix, Arthur stabbed the staff into the ground and held up his bony arm.
The power of the Authority inside the Jewel that wounded him was so great that his Time Reversal could not rewind the damage.
He could only remove the Cosmic Teleporter and wait for his cosmic energy regeneration to slowly recreate his flesh.
Turning to the Chief Priest on the ground, he asked.
|¬How do you have this staff? ¬|
"..."
The man did not answer, simply staring at Arthur with blank eyes. He wasn’t dead, but his ’mind’ didn’t seem to be present anymore.
It was as if he had mentally broken from despair.
Despair at the thought of having attacked the descendant of his god.
He was not blind to see that Arthur had just controlled the Staff, and he was not deaf to hear the words the boy had spoken.
"That thing...is your father’s power?"
Hearing Evan’s question, Arthur twisted his lips before replying.
"Yes, and No. Mostly Yes.
It’s a ’Replenishable Charge’ of the Authority owned by the ’King of the Underworld’. A ’Ruler’s Authority’."
Looking at Artemisia who was more knowledgeable about Deity-related matters, he continued.
"It’s probably what your father has and why he’s considered a ’god King’. Except that the ’Ruler’s Authority’ he possesses is many times weaker than my Dad’s.
Ruler Authorities are things that Pantheon Members who lord over Important ’Territories’ and controlled Vital Realms and Dimensions in a Universe possess.
If my guess is correct, the Authorities of ’Race Kings’ in this Universe are this same Ruler’s Authority, but modified and split into countless fragments.
Each Race King possesses a fragment of the True Ruler’s Authority."
Arthur’s analysis was spot on.
Each Race King of Valmone indeed held a fragment of the True Ruler’s Authority, but with ’Racial Modifiers’.
Artemisia looked up at him when she heard his voice, but she remained silent and turned her gaze to the other Jewels on the staff which were in a dormant state.
Arthur also turned his gaze towards them, trying to rouse them with his divinity, but they did not respond to him—as he expected.
"These Jewels are all Charges of Olympian Ruler Authorities.
The Sky-Blue Jewel is the ’Authority of the Sky’, the Sea Green Jewel is the ’Authority of the Sea’, and the Obsidian Black Jewel is the ’Authority of the Underworld’."
Evan quickly skimmed through his knowledge of Olympian myths and mentioned the three gods who wielded these Authorities.
"The Three Brothers Who Rule Olympus: Zeus, Poseidon and Hades...your father."
"Indeed. But it makes no sense that their Authorities are here."
When Arthur said this, Artemisia looked at him strangely and asked.
"Why do you think so? According to my father, you are the descendant of an Ancient Devil King who came to this Universe once."
Artemisia glanced at Lostvayne as she spoke, before posing another question.
"Couldn’t your father and his brothers have come to this Universe as well?"
The goddess was still surprised to find out about Arthur’s father being a god with a Ruler Authority in his Universe.
’His mother is Lucifer’s descendant and his father is a god King with a Complete Ruler’s Authority? This is much more than what I was told...’
"You don’t know this Artemisia, but my father and his brothers DO NOT get along.
There are tens of thousands of years in Olympus’ history that record nothing but Wars between three of them.
Moreover, there’s me being the son of my father, and his brother Zeus seeks my demise. As for Poseidon’s stance on me, I have little reason to believe it would differ much from Zeus’s.
Anyway, what’s important is that the odds of the three of them coming to this Universe, and creating such an artifact together, are abysmally low."
Artemisa did not know how things were on Olympus, but Evan understood Arthur and nodded in agreement.
"Can’t there have been some great threat that’d make them put aside their differences and Unite for a common goal?"
"Put aside their differences because of a Threat? Pfft...Bwahahahahaha!!!"
Watching as the Progenitor burst into laughter, Artemisia had an incredulous expression on her face. Evan, on the other hand, just looked on with a wry smile.
"Artemisia...a Beast of the End called Typhoon once destroyed nearly Half of the Olympus Universe. When it decimated the North—Zeus’ Territory—my father sat in the South and laughed while watching his brother’s subordinate gods die like flies, even when Zeus was defeated eventually.
He told me he had once considered releasing Typhoon from his Galactic Prison so the Beast could beat the living daylights out of Zeus again."
"?!"
Beasts of the END were creatures that possessed the powers to bring the END.
A very simple but deadly explanation. Each one of them possessed powers of Existence Erasure, enough to delete entire Galaxies and kill Deities without much effort.
To think that one would consider releasing such a thing and sending it against his brother; showed how deep the bad blood between them was.
"The last time the three of them united was over 200,000 years ago when they defeated their Fathe--!"
Arthur’s words cut short and he abruptly got to his feet. Evan was startled when he reacted like this, but a second later, realisation dawned on him as he processed Arthur’s words.
""Their Father!"?"
The reason why a Staff with Three of Olympus’ Ruler Authorities existed in Valmone, why the people of Iklaque spoke Olympian, and why there was Olympian fire from the Seat of the Pantheon here.
"Kronos! It was Kronos!"
Arthur had been told that Kronos had once come to this Universe to kill some Titan Kings, but he didn’t consider it something that concerned him much so he had forgotten about it until just now.
"Kronos once wielded all three Ruler Authorities when he was the ’King’ of Olympus. He was also in this Universe in the past.
This Priest man was also able to rewind the damage I caused him with this staff...it makes sense as Kronos is the ’Titan King of Time’."
While Arthur was rationalizing things, Artemisia was barely keeping in her shock...and fear.
’Arthur’s grandfather...is Kronos? That Kronos?!’
Kronos was a nightmarish existence for the gods of the Orithyia Galaxy and the Supercluster that it belonged to.
The man had once waged war on them when he was trying to find a ’Time Candidate’ who was also a Titan god, and he had killed numerous other gods in the process.
Although they buried this dark history as much as they could, god Lineages like Artemisia’s Delgasso Family still kept records and passed this information down to their descendants.
What’s more, her father was one of those who suffered at Kronos’ hands hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Arthur did not know this, as he had not taken any interest in what Kronos had done here besides the matter of killing another ’Titan King’.
He looked into the distance, at the giant ’Veil’ that stretched to the skies, from which he could sense a Divinity Source.
The same source of Divinity that Idrilla, the Holy Knights and this Chief Priest were channelling power from.
’But how were they able to channel it, and how was he able to use the staff without the Authorities lashing out at him when they obliterated my hand just for touching it?’
This was a mystery that Arthur wanted to solve, but his only clue was to go to the Divinity Source. He had a much higher chance of getting answers there than from this mind-broken Priest.
But still—
|¬ Time Sealing Magic: Eternal Prison. ¬|
—Arthur sealed him just to be sure, tossing the Cube Crystal into his Subspace while searching for any healing artifacts from the boxes Cattleya gave him.
"Found one. I wonder how many things mum put inside here..."
It was a question Arthur had pondered often, but the last time he tried counting, he grew tired and fell asleep.
He activated the artifact, releasing the life energy stored within it. A bright flame surged forth, wrapping around his arm and mending the flesh that the Sky-Blue Jewel had destroyed.
As the flame healed his wounds, Arthur muttered to himself.
"This is Uncle Creusery’s energy. So, he added some stuff...or did Mum force him into it?"
Remembering the relationship between his mother and her brother, Arthur felt the latter was more likely.
♧ ♧ ♧
Hey y’all, it’s your friendly neighbourhood author, _michael here. 👋🏽
THIS NOTICE IS VERY IMPORTANT
With Volume 2 fast approaching its final arc, some changes have been made to the story, as such, previous Chapters have been edited.
One of such Chapters is Chapter 180, the Volume 2 Teaser.
Please, endeavour to check it out again to see the new content.
Thanks for your understanding and I look forward to you continuing on our Godslayer’s Legend.
This has been _michael.
Over and Out!✌🏽
