Chapter 732: Cosmic Family Tree
[I swear, I’d love to take a peek inside that head of yours—but I’ll restrain myself. I stopped doing that anyway... made things too boring.]
Ranus’ retort aside, he had just casually admitted that he could read Arthur’s mind if he wanted to—but chose not to, simply because it would make things boring.
It was the same with most of these super old, super powerful beings, especially the ones who had been everywhere and seen everything. They craved entertainment, the unknown—things that could still surprise them.
It was for such a reason that Ranus was even having this conversation with Arthur.
[And I thought Lucifer was bad... then along came you.]
Sighing for what felt like the hundredth time today, Ranus looked utterly drained as he asked.
[Can we get back to the reason I called you here?]
Arthur blinked, suddenly remembering that Ranus had brought him here for an entirely different reason.
"Oh, right. You said something about hush money?"
Ranus had indeed said something along those lines, and he gave a silent nod to confirm it.
"So... I’m guessing you’re offering to fulfil one of my demands? Or a certain number of demands?"
Pausing for a moment, Arthur added.
"What’s the limit here? Or is there even a limit? I mean, you can warp reality on a Cosmic scale, so I’m pretty sure I can’t even compute what you consider a limit...but I’m gonna ask anyway."
Ranus was about to respond when he suddenly paused.
[Oh.]
Arthur raised an eyebrow, his expression asking; ’What’s wrong?’
Catching that unspoken question, Ranus responded.
[Well, you see... what you just said to me—those exact words about not being able to compute what I’d consider the limits—Kronos said the exact same thing to me a couple hundred thousand years ago. I just remembered.]
He let out a small chuckle. [Funny coincidence, huh?]
"Is that so..."
Arthur didn’t seem as amused as Ranus did at this.
’Kronos, huh?’
His grandfather. The former King of the then Orthys, now Olympus Universe, and an existence touted as one of the greatest Candidates of Time in history.
Arthur nodded silently, then his gaze snapped up to Ranus as another thought struck him.
"Speaking of Kronos... you just reminded me of something."
[Reminded you of something? What?]
Arthur leaned back in his seat, folding his arms as he explained.
"Your name—it kinda sounds like the name of someone I know. Well... more like someone I know of rather than personally know."
Curious about where Arthur was going with this—though he had a vague idea—Ranus leaned in.
[Oh? And who would that be?]
"Well... technically, he is my great-grandfather. Kronos’ dad.
Your mention of Kronos reminded me of him. Your names are pretty similar. All I’d need to do is slap a ’U’ in front of your name, and I’d have his."
A moment after Arthur spoke, realisation flashed through his eyes and something else clicked.
"Oh... huh. Another funny coincidence."
Ranus raised a brow. [Oh?]
Without much thought, Arthur continued speaking.
"You’re the Eternal of Space... and in the Olympus Universe, he was the Primordial god of Spa...ce..."
Arthur’s words trailed off and silence descended.
Despite the noisy casino around them, the silence between them was LOUD.
Arthur stared at Ranus. Ranus stared at Arthur.
The silence stretched.
Finally, Arthur broke it.
"...No fucking way."
Ranus shot him a grin.
[Oh, yes fucking way.]
Ranus burst into laughter at Arthur’s expression, while Arthur pressed his hands to his temples, feeling an impending headache.
Arthur had never once truly believed he was normal.
Even before he was born, there had been the whole prophecy ordeal. He was a Progenitor. His affinities for the Laws of Time and Destruction were absurd.
Now, he was a 17-year-old Superior Half-Deity, who, just a few hours ago, he had fought and killed a planet. He was, arguably, the youngest Higher Existence in the current Cosmos.
But despite knowing he was far from normal, not once had Arthur ever imagined that his lineage could be traced back to an Eternal!
’No wonder Lucifer moved the Hell Universe there!’
Lucifer had mentioned that when he used The First Magic: Universal Displacement to relocate the Hell Universe, he specifically chose its current position because the Eternals had dealings in the area. It served as perfect camouflage.
Later, when Cattleya uncovered this fact, Lucifer admitted that the place where the Eternals had dealings was Arthur’s father’s home, Olympus.
And now, here was Arthur, just realizing that the Eternal of Space, Ranus, and the Primordial god of Space, Uranus, were essentially the same dude.
[Well, that’s not me, per se.]
Ranus waved a hand dismissively.
[That’s just an avatar I created with 1/♾ of my power back when a̶͕͚͙̲͑̅͆í̶̢̻͈͋́á̷̠̦̇̅͘g̷̤̀́͐, Akasha, Julio, Dulio, and I were running tests in First Multiverse for the blueprints of the other Multiverses.
I left it alone for a while—(hundreds of billions of years)—after our tests. Then, some time ago—(millions of years ago)—we picked up our avatars again to check in and see how things were progressing.
Once we were done, Dulio decided to give them souls, effectively making them independent existences.
The next time I checked back in, my avatar had kids—and one of them castrated him. Even funnier was that I made his castrator a Candidate without even knowing.]
Ranus chuckled as he spoke, seemingly remembering when he initially discovered this.
[When I checked back a couple of years—(a few hundred thousand)—later, that guy had already been beaten and sealed away by his sons—one of whom was your dad—and for some reason, they’d started going around sealing all of our avatars.]
He shrugged when he got to this part, seemingly still in the dark about what prompted that to happen.
[a̶͕͚͙̲͑̅͆í̶̢̻͈͋́á̷̠̦̇̅͘g̷̤̀́͐ was the last to log out of ̶̺̌͌̓ĥ̸̫͕e̴̝̽̓r̵̝̣͒̂́ avatar because Hyperion stayed until almost the end of that war...what did they call it again?]
The man took a moment to jog his memory before responding.
[Ah, right. Titanomachy.]
"..."
To say Arthur was dumbfounded would be an understatement. Ranus had just casually dropped a revelation so absurd that Arthur struggled to process it.
Put simply, everything Arthur knew about the history of Olympus and the origins of the Primordial gods was just the result of the Eternals leaving their avatars on autopilot.
That was essentially what Ranus was saying.
If the Primordial god of Space, Uranus, was merely an avatar of Ranus, then it didn’t take much to realize that other Primordial gods were likely avatars of the Eternals as well.
Take the ’Julio’ that Ranus mentioned for example. Arthur knew that name—it belonged to the Eternal of Death and Darkness.
In Olympus, there was a Primordial goddess of Darkness, Nyx, and her child, Thanatos, was the god of Death. The connection was obvious.
Then there was the other name Ranus had mentioned, the one that was distorted with static—the last Eternal to "log out" of their avatar. Arthur thought back to the final Primordial defeated by Hades and his brothers... but just as he reached that point, another name Ranus mentioned stood out in his mind.
Hyperion.
’Wait—Hyperion?!’
There was a Hyperion in Olympus’ history. The Titan of Fire. One of the Twelve Titans, alongside Kronos.
And now Ranus was saying that Hyperion was actually the Progenitor Titan, the Aggressor of Creation.
Arthur just stared at Ranus, his expression frozen in shock and Ranus laughed at the sight.
Pressing his fingers to his temple, Arthur thought back to his meeting with Hyperion and sighed.
’Now those words make sense...’
When he had met Hyperion after obtaining Lostvayne, the Titan had said something cryptic: Kids these days don’t brush up on their history.
Arthur hadn’t understood it at the time. But now, it was painfully clear.
Hyperion was part of Arthur’s history. Arthur had simply never realized it because it had never once occurred to him that the Primordial gods of Olympus were, in reality, avatars of the Eternals and Aggressors.
However, if Arthur had been even slightly less shocked, he would have noticed something off.
Why was the avatar of Hyperion—the Aggressor of Creation—present in Olympus, where the Eternals were conducting their experiments? And why was Hyperion’s avatar posing as one of the children of Ranus’ avatar?
Arthur completely overlooked that detail.
Looking up at Ranus, he asked.
"Are all the Primordial gods just avatars of you guys?"
Ranus shook his head.
[Oh no, just a few. The others were automatically generated.]
He paused, then corrected himself. [They came into existence naturally as a result of the universe needing personifications of those fundamental aspects.]
"I see... That makes sense."
It was still baffling. But it made sense.
What was also baffling was how they had once again strayed completely off-topic.
Realising they’d gone off tangent again, Ranus clapped his hands loudly, snapping Arthur out of his thoughts.
[Let’s get down to business now. No more distractions...hopefully.]
Even he didn’t sound too confident about staying on topic.
[So, today, you guys created a very entertaining scene for me.]
Ranus tapped the table as he spoke, and it transformed into a screen, displaying scenes from the battle against Bewússtsein like football match highlights.
Arthur barely spared it a glance before looking back at Ranus, who continued speaking.
[First off, you managed to ruin Akasha’s experiment—which, in my book, is a pretty big deal.
I can’t wait to see the pissed-off look on his face when he realizes his test subject is dead and the Aspects he gave it are missing.]
Ranus grinned wickedly, and Arthur silently wondered—what exactly was this guy’s opinion of Akasha?
Did he actually hate him, or did he just enjoy annoying him for entertainment?
That was a question Arthur didn’t get the chance to ask, as Ranus carried on.
[I’ve got to say, I was genuinely surprised by the fight you put up given the circumstances. That Cosmic Artifact Replica you pulled out was far out of my expectations.
I figured you’d rely on Lostvayne or something.]
He leaned back slightly, his grin widening.
[But hey, I thought your efforts were worth rewarding. So... here you are.]
