Chapter 541: Protagonists [Crossover Bonus]
"""YOU TOO?!"""
Silence reigned for a moment after the three voices echoed in the quiet hall.
The man standing at the Throne Platform’s base, wearing a Uniform with Five Stars on his chest denoting his rank, who was the head of the Merits Department of the Interstellar Citadel and was about to have Alvey begin his report alternated his gazes between the two boys and the Demon King dumbfoundedly.
Other Demon Kings also looked at Westley, confused at why the man who had been silent since the first presentation suddenly had such a reaction.
Alvey and McEnda III also gave Evan and Arthur confused glances, wondering if their reaction was due to their nature as Singularities or something.
But only the three of them understood what they had just realised. This resonance between them transcended being Singularities, as well as space and time.
Each one had just realised they were pretty much the same, focal points holding the most important roles in the story that was all of existence.
"""We...the three...?"""
They echoed those words while alternating their gazes, and suddenly, Arthur’s eyes went wide as he posed a question.
"The Fourth Wall?"
"I broke that thing long ago."
"Me too."
Evan and Westley responded one after the other and Arthur nodded in affirmation before speaking.
"It seems we’d get along just perfectly."
While he had a look of understanding on his face, everyone else was utterly confused about what they had just witnessed.
"Dude, you okay?
McEnda II tapped Westley on the shoulder and questioned him, and Westley raised a hand to his chin as he pondered how to explain the situation to McEnda II, who would never understand what had just happened.
Then he remembered an excuse he could use.
"Well, they’re Grade 7 Singularities. The first I’ve seen hundreds of millions of years."
"Pfft...Grade what?!"
One of the Demon Kings who was taking a sip of his wine spat the drink out when his ears caught Westley’s words and simultaneously, 70 other pairs of eyes turned towards him, and then to Arthur and Evan.
Everyone casually ignored the part of his statement where he just pretty much revealed he was the oldest Demon King here by a VAST margin, and focused more on the Grade 7 part.
"You’re joking, right?"
"Nope."
"Nahh, you’re definitely tripping."
Demon King Xagthor Valren, Sigesi’s grandfather waved Jamie off, clearly not believing that there could be not one or two but three Grade 7s in the same place at the same time.
The rest of the people in the Hall went silent as the Demon Kings began talking with each other.
As for Westley, he didn’t bother trying to convince Xagthor and called out to one of the other Demon Kings present.
"Yo, Gazer. Mind checking them out with your Third Eye?"
All the other Demon Rulers quickly looked towards the ’Demon King of Truth’ who Westley had nicknamed ’Gazer’ and the man just sighed and activated his Authority.
|Veridical Knowledge Authority. |
Law energy poured out from his Origin core and shot straight to his head, where the slit on his forehead opened up to reveal a pupil-less eye.
He glanced at McEnda II with it, and he saw a perfectly normal humanoid being, except this humanoid was exuding a deep corrosive darkness that ate the space around him.
Then he turned to Westley and saw...a black hole.
He didn’t see a humanoid being like with McEnda II, but a literal singularity. Turning towards Alvey, he saw a similar sight, though it was a lot smaller, far smaller than the two ginormous things beside him occupying the spots where his normal eyes saw Arthur and Evan.
"What do you see?"
"What do I see? I see 3 Black holes trying to devour the laws around them, that’s what I see."
Imagine the fabric of existence as a pristine white canvas, where energies and universal laws flow and intertwine to create the reality people live in. Singularities were like inky black spots on this canvas.
The otherwise smooth flow of laws bends around them, avoiding them as if they were a plague. Fate, Destiny, Causality, and Equilibrium were among those laws that steer clear.
However, the laws and attributes to which the Singularity was attuned were drawn to the centre of these Black Holes, sinking deeply into them before flowing out to re-join the interwoven laws that had bent around them.
This phenomenon of laws ’sinking into’ Singularities explained why their affinities with those laws, already extraordinary by normal standards, become even more pronounced.
Take Arthur for example; he had a good affinity for Time and Destruction due to his grandfather, Kronos and his mother, Cattleya.
But even though his affinity was good, Arthur had comprehended 80% of basic time laws and 70% of basic destruction laws...in less than 5 years.
It should not be forgotten that Arthur once lost his comprehension of the laws when he cast the Third Magic.
Even with the boosts from the Third Magic, he was able to do what people who had good affinity took at least a decade to do, in less than half the time.
And mind you, he was dabbling in other laws as well!
People could spend a decade on just 1 law, and Arthur took half that time to take 3 to the Pseudo-Authority level.
Well, he hadn’t gained the third Pseudo-Authority yet, but he was 99% of the way.
The reason for his extra ridiculousness, layered on top of the one he already had from birth, was because of this ’sinking’ phenomenon.
"So, one wants to devour the law of Time, another wants to eat up all the Fire in the world, this fool beside me has been stealing Space itself for millennia and all three of them are buddies with destruction."
Gazer’s words referred to Arthur, Evan and Westley respectively, then he looked towards Alvey with a raised brow and asked.
"This one has more Light than even Angels."
The man shook his head and facepalmed, before closing his third eye.
"He’s right, they’re all as cracked as he is."
When Gazer said this, the faces of both McEnda II and Xagthor rapidly paled as they remembered the words a certain planet’s consciousness told them thousands of years ago.
"Shit...she’s definitely pissed at us."
McEnda II muttered this under his breath and a reply rang out directly in his ears in the next moment.
[Are you now just realising this?]
’Gozon’ didn’t have the most amiable personality, but ’she’ was usually very calm and rarely got angry...until Prime Worlds and Singularities were involved.
’She’ had warned him about Singularities attracting each other due to some invisible magnet-like force and he hadn’t listened, but now he was beginning to see what ’she’ had been talking about.
"Now that we’ve confirmed Jamie was right, can we get on with why we’re actually here? Don’t forget we have a schedule to follow."
Malorum—the Demon King of Destruction, spoke up to draw everyone’s attention back to the main goal of this gathering and from his words, Arthur inferred that Demon King Westley’s first name was ’Jamie’.
"True, we still got like 25 groups set for today."
McEnda II, deciding to put the matter of the pissed-off planet’s consciousness at the back of his mind for now, concurred with Malorum and at this, Jamie turned to his fellow protagonists and spoke.
"We three need to talk after this."
"We definitely do. I need to understand where this Crossover is going."
Arthur responded in such a manner and Evan gave him an incredulous stare.
"Dude, aren’t you usually not meant to say that out loud?"
Jamie just laughed at this interaction, however, the smile on his face vanished in the next second and he turned to Alvey.
|Representative of Aramis Prime, begin your report. |
"Yes, your Excellency."
The atmosphere in the Hall shifted dramatically from its earlier light-heartedness as Alvey stepped forward to deliver his report on the Aramis War over the past year.
McEnda contributed when they reported on Gledea and Plomux, while Barron addressed the Triton’s Ark, Plomux, and Zefesh. Sigesi occasionally supplemented additional details to ensure the report was thorough.
Each of their Aides also had an opportunity to speak. While Alvey and McEnda focused on the continental scale, their Aides delved deep into the Regional level.
Arthur wasn’t silent as he had his piece to say regarding the Fake Divine Humans of Aramis. He explained how truly fucked up the experiments were and how bad it’d be for the recipients of the power.
However, he did not say this to try and have the Demons empathize with them; he didn’t expect that.
He simply explained all of this to lay out the harsh reality, that although the Divines created on Aramis were Fakes; artificial products who lessened their soul lifespans with each use of their powers, the powers they had and the threat they posed were very real.
Arthur also raised the very real possibility of having to war with not just Aramis, but the god Kings of the Aramis faction. In his words, they "almost certainly have all the knowledge needed to create these Fake Divines, except for the brains behind it, and are likely planning on perfecting the process."
It wasn’t that the Demon Rulers could not think of this, but most didn’t even know the full specifics of the Fake Divine issue.
Not all the Demon Rulers paid attention to Aramis. Gozon’s colonies reached other Galaxies, so most of them were too busy with the crises on the battlefront worlds there.
That Seven Demon Rulers were paying attention to Aramis was highly unusual.
Typically, that number of Demon Rulers would be overseeing entire realms with thousands of planets, so having that many focusing on one planet was unprecedented.
