Chapter 705: An ‘Impossible’ Foe
The man withdrew his hand and prepared to unleash another attack, but Arthur struck first, releasing a point-blank Extreme Nothingness that blasted him away.
Panting heavily, Arthur staggered, planting Lostvayne into the ground to support himself like a crutch.
The others got back to their feet—except for Evan, who hadn’t fallen in the first place and had recovered his balance mid-air.
His grimoire’s pages fluttered as he searched for another spell, trying to find the perfect one to bank the last of his magic power on.
Artemisia grabbed the last of the Divinity fragments Arthur had given to her a week ago, absorbing its energy to maintain the buffs she had cast on Evan and Arthur—especially Arthur.
His Transcendent-level stats consumed far more energy to enhance, and the strain was rapidly depleting her reserves of divinity and magic power.
Beatrix beside her, wanted to be optimistic and hoped that this body they faced was the last their opponent had, seeing as he hadn’t abandoned it even as it was beaten, battered and bruised.
Yet she couldn’t bring herself to trust that their ordeal was nearing its end.
The four teenagers turned their eyes to the man now hovering in the air. Arthur’s grip on Lostvayne tightened, and Evan’s grimoire glowed as its pages fluttered.
But before they could launch an attack, a sudden surge of cosmic energy erupted from the man’s body, its intensity far higher than ever before.
’Does he have some kind of ability that makes him stronger the more damage he takes?!’
Evan screamed internally as he raised an arm to shield his face from the barrage of broken rocks and swirling dust.
Law energies erupted from the ground and converged, swirling into a dense, vortex around the man as he floated above them, glaring down with his one remaining eye.
Arthur’s gaze locked onto the vortex, but just as he raised Lostvayne, Celestia’s voice echoed, projected outward and into their ears.
[Don’t bother. Master, you don’t have the necessary energy output to cleave through that thing in one go.
If you don’t destroy it completely in a single strike, it’ll keep regenerating—or so Lostvayne says.]
Arthur frowned at Celestia’s warning, but just then, something caught his attention—something he hadn’t noticed before.
"He’s... absorbing cosmic energy... from the planet?"
As Arthur further studied the man within the swirling vortex, his eyes widened in disbelief. A cold chill ran down his spine, and the hairs on his neck stood on end.
"...why is his energy signature... the same as the ambient cosmic energy of this planet...? How didn’t I notice this until now?"
Arthur’s mutter reached the ears of the other three, and Two of them snapped their gazes towards him in shock.
As for the third—Artemisia—her expression simply darkened and she turned to Evan instead.
"Evan. Appraise him."
"What?"
Evan blinked at her in confusion, confused by the sudden request.
"I already tried before. All I saw were question marks."
It was true—Evan had attempted to appraise the man the moment he’d incapacitated Artemisia back on Aramis.
But all the results had been incomprehensible: question marks and garbled text.
Yet, even after he told her this, Artemisia simply repeated her earlier words.
"Evan. Appraise him."
"..."
Evan was momentarily silent, but since Appraisal only required a minuscule amount of magic power, he turned back to the man hovering within the swirling vortex of cosmic and universal law energies, activating his Appraisal.
"...eh?"
The results left him utterly speechless.
Arthur’s expression darkened further—he didn’t need to see Evan’s appraisal to guess what it revealed.
His lips twisted into a frown as he spoke in a grave voice.
"This bastard... he’s not just absorbing cosmic energy from the planet. He IS the planet."
His words correlated with exactly what Evan had seen with his Full Appraisal.
|Name- "Bewússtsein"
Race- Inapplicable
Gender- Inapplicable (Male?)
Age- 1 (45,719,593,286)
?Level- Uncalculated??
Existence Level- Undefined??
Titles- Incarnation of Cruotis Prime, Rogue Planetary Consciousness, Irregular, Marked by the Eternal of Wisdom and Knowledge, Marked by the Eternal of Causality, Marked by the Eternal of Space and Reality, Candidate for the Eternal Seat of Time, Candidate for the Eternal Seat of Destruction, Dual Candidate, The One Who Desires ’Freedoe̴̗̽m̵͚͝i̶͍̪͋̀r̶̦͂p̵̼͘ ̸̪͍͌s̵̢̲͋ǐ̶̯̓t̸̪̏͝ö̶̰̫́̀u̶͖͒̅r̵̮͐ ̷̯́ȩ̷̞̈́͠s̴̳̻̓p̶͙̆y̵͎̆͋l̷͙̓͜a̶̹̿̑c̷̭̾͝ȏ̸͚̣p̵̳͈̕ặ̸͔
ERROR!~# DáTA n0T F0UNðs̷̳̹̱̼̠̅͒̓̀d̵̰̈́͜͝ǎ̵̡̯̯̭̰̀͐̀͝s̴͇͈͕̄͐̋ |
... ... ... ...
The text seemed to glitch and warp, as if the appraisal itself couldn’t handle the enormity of what it had uncovered.
A suffocating silence followed as the four of them processed the impossible.
Eventually, Evan barely managed a word.
"...this..."
Then, he found his voice once more.
"DOESN’T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE!!
He came to Aramis, didn’t he?! Planetary Consciousnesses Incarnations shouldn’t be able to leave their gravitational fields. HOW THE HELL DID HE GET TO US ON ARAMIS?!"
The same question burned in the minds of the other three, but they weren’t about to get any answers. Bewússtsein wasn’t about to explain himself to them either.
Meanwhile, the vortex of cosmic energy swirling around him continued to intensify, its density and concentration increasing with each passing second.
Arthur frowned deeply, shifting his gaze from Bewússtsein back to the baffling results of Evan’s appraisal.
’The Eternals... To think they’re involved. But Lucifer said it’s impossible to gain Dual Candidacy until Phase 2... So how does he have it now?
And he’s been marked by three Eternals? If we somehow manage to kill him, what would they do? Would they retaliate?’
The involvement of the Eternals made the situation far more complex. Especially because of the weapon in his hands.
Lostvayne.
The Rule Breaker lost after Lucifer’s death at the machinations of the Eternal of Wisdom and Knowledge, Akasha.
’Akasha is likely searching for Lostvayne. No, he’s definitely after it.’
If Akasha discovered Arthur had it through Bewússtsein and decided to come for the sword, there was nothing the current Arthur could do to stop him.
"...Arthur!!"
"?! Huh?"
Evan’s loud voice yanked Arthur out of his thoughts. Turning, he saw the Rogue Hero channelling ambient magic power into his grimoire.
"Why are you zoning out?! That guy’s healing in there! We’ve gotta stop him!
Can you cut the Vortex with that ’Chaos Slash’? Or maybe target his past—anything that’ll give me an opening?"
Arthur shifted his focus back to the swirling vortex of Cosmic Energy after Evan’s words, his grip tightening on Lostvayne.
’If I burn through the power I’ve got left, I can deliver consecutive attacks fast enough to cut it open.
But that would end Lostvayne’s ’Release’... and we don’t know if this guy has more bodies beyond this one.
And even if it works—can we even kill him like this? This guy is the planet itself. Do we need to destroy the planet to kill him?’
"...I don’t know, Evan. I also don’t know if taking out this body would kill him. He’s the planet’s incarnation, you know? He could have more bodies elsewhere.
Worst case scenario, only destroying the planet would kill him..."
Evan clicked his tongue in frustration, his scowl deepening.
"Destroying the planet? Fantastic! No pressure or anything. Not like we even have a way to do that."
The Rogue Hero rolled his eyes, his voice laced with dry sarcasm.
"We don’t have time to overthink this, Arthur. We barely managed to injure him this much. If he heals, we’re screwed. Don’t you get that?!
If we don’t act now, we’re dead the second he decides to step out of that thing. And if he comes out fully healed, none of us are walking away from this!"
Evan was right. They didn’t have many options in this situation. No clear way out. And Bewússtsein wasn’t about to stand by and give them time to figure things out.
Suddenly, Beatrix’s voice rang out in their ears.
"...what about sealing him?"
Arthur blinked, momentarily thrown off by the suggestion. His gaze snapped to her, confusion flickering across his face—then his eyes widened as realization hit him like a bolt of lightning.
’Come to think of it, he’s only ever used one body at a time. He’s never attacked us with two bodies simultaneously.
Maybe... maybe he can only load his consciousness into one at a time. If that’s true, then his consciousness is inside that body right now. If we seal it—trap him inside that damaged body—he might not be able to escape.
But can we even pull off a seal strong enough that his Destruction Sigil wouldn’t break it? My Eternal Prison won’t work because of his Time Sigil...
No, we’ll have to try. Classic strategy—one of us draws his attention while the other executes the main plan.’
Arthur’s thoughts only took a second with his accelerated thought speed. He immediately turned to Evan and spoke.
"Prepare the strongest sealing spell you’ve got in that grimoire of yours. I’m going to cut that bastard open!"
As he spoke, the cosmic energy surrounding Lostvayne surged violently. Time laws mixed in with the Destruction, Divinity and Anti-Divinity followed and everything was enveloped with Null, giving the sword a silvery glow.
Within the vortex, Bewússtsein frowned. His leg had just finished regenerating, but his arms and torso were still incomplete.
He couldn’t afford to let them disrupt his healing process now.
The Destruction Sigil on the back of his palm flashed, and a fissure tore through the ground from the vortex, splitting the earth as it raced toward Arthur.
The crack spewed destruction-infused magma, but the four teenagers immediately jumped to the sides, easily avoiding the threat.
Arthur kicked off the ground without hesitation, dashing forward in a blur. As he advanced, chunks of earth shattered and broke loose, coated with destruction energy before flying toward him like missiles.
Summoning Celestia in his left hand, Arthur slashed at the projectiles, cutting the first two to reach him.
But just as he raised Celestia to slice the third, a massive torrent of spatial energy tore through the space ahead of him, carving away every fragment in his path.
Behind him, Beatrix dropped to her knees, panting heavily. Her divinity had been drained significantly from using such a high-output ability, but her actions had cleared Arthur’s way.
Arthur lightened his body with gravity laws and charged forward with renewed speed, his focus locked on Bewússtsein. Evan, in his Humanoid Dragon form, moved above him, his wings flapping as he tried to keep up with Arthur’s speed.
Bewússtsein threw out more attacks, aiming to halt their advance, but Arthur and Evan dodged all his efforts to stop them.
’He doesn’t want us getting close. Makes sense. Even if my output can’t cut through the vortex in one strike, I can just strike again, faster than it can regenerate.’
Arthur’s thoughts churned as he pressed forward, infusing Celestia with cosmic energy and tearing apart the energy shields Bewússtsein deployed around the Vortex.
Finally, Arthur closed the gap. Celestia vanished and he grabbed Lostvayne’s hilt with both hands, raising it high.
Above him, Evan’s spell circle began to manifest, guzzling up the ambient magic power to fill itself with runes.
But just as Arthur moved to swing down his sword and Evan’s spell prepared to lock Bewússtsein in place, the entire world suddenly trembled.
The earth shook violently, the ground beneath them cracking open in jagged fissures. The sky above darkened, and Bewússtsein, within the vortex of Cosmic energy, clutched his chest in apparent pain.
The vortex spiralled outward, releasing an explosive burst of power that slammed into Arthur and Evan with immense force, sending them flying. They tumbled through the air, hitting the ground hard but managing to land on their feet, their legs skidding through the earth.
Arthur’s heart pounded as he struggled to maintain the concentrated energies in Lostvayne.
"What the hell is happening now?!"
