Chapter 771: Parting Ways
While Lucifer was busy scamming a certain goddess out of far too many golden apples, his great-grandson, Arthur, was in the middle of robbing a Planet Lord of his treasures.
Looks like it ran in the family.
As for how they ended up here, it was quite a series of circumstances.
After Lucifer had left for Muspelheim, Arthur and Nicole had navigated their spaceship to the nearest inhabitable star system, deciding to touch down there for some rest after their week-long journey to Kriwon.
They also needed a change of scenery, as the constant sight of stars and the beauty of space had long since lost its novelty.
When they descended onto a deserted area, Arthur detected a strong source of energy in some nearby ruins, and, curious, he decided to check it out.
In the ruins, Arthur and Nicole stumbled upon the hideout of a band of thieves, who, unbeknownst to them, were quite notorious on this planet, whose name they didn’t know.
Naturally, the thieves immediately tried to silence them, but Arthur effortlessly killed them all, taking all their loot as spoils of war, including a relic they had stolen from the Planet Lord.
When he had satisfied his curiosity about that energy source, he then suggested they do some sightseeing in the planet’s largest city, which was also the seat of the Planet Lord.
Arthur teleported them there, but as soon as they arrived, the city guards saw the stolen relic on Arthur, who was casually holding it while trying to decipher its functions.
Accused of theft, Arthur and Nicole were confronted by the guards, who attempted to apprehend them by force.
What followed was yet another fight, with Arthur quickly overwhelming the guards, leaving them unconscious. But before they could leave, a second wave of guards arrived, this time attacking with lethal intent.
Arthur defeated them too, and was about to pay back their lethal intent with some of his own when the guard vice-captain arrived after receiving the report that the Planet Lord’s treasure had been found.
Seeing Arthur about to kill his men, the vice-captain attacked Arthur, only to be beaten just as quickly as they were.
Now annoyed by the constant arrival of reinforcements, Arthur decided to end the problem at its root.
He stormed the Planet Lord’s palace, confronting and beating the guard captain who was about to leave after sensing the vice-captain’s aura fade.
Even the Planet Lord’s hidden elite guards were no match for Arthur. Kinda expected since they were all just Transcendents.
During the fight—correction, beatdown, one guard shouted something about avenging his father, who had been killed when the relic was stolen a month ago.
When he heard this, Arthur, holding the guard up by the neck, blinked in confusion and muttered a line that caught the attention of the frightened Planet Lord.
"I haven’t even been on this planet for a full day, so how could I have stolen something a month ago?"
This question of his had the Planet Lord’s eyes widening, and he quickly pieced things together and realised the misunderstanding. With this information, he barely managed to make Arthur stop, before his fist, capable of turning Transcendents to meat paste with one hit, came down.
After exchanging explanations and stories, Arthur finally understood the situation and proceeded to demand compensation for the wrongful accusation.
A bit too much compensation, in fact.
When the Planet Lord tried to protest, Arthur raised his fist, coating it in destructive energy, and spoke with a grin.
"Look here. Destruction power. Sparkle, sparkle."
Fearing for his life, the Planet Lord obediently offered up his hidden treasure stash to save himself.
Thus, the current situation of Arthur browsing through the man’s treasure trove like he was at a supermarket.
Watching the Planet Lord silently lament in the corner, Nicole walked over to Arthur, gently grabbing his arm as she said,
"Let it go, Arthur. Just leave them be."
At her words, the Planet Lord looked at her as if salvation itself had graced him. In his panicked eyes, she appeared as a merciful angel.
If only he knew Nicole wasn’t an angel, but a devil.
A pure-blooded one at that.
Just as Arthur was about to respond, he leaned against the wall, only to hear a faint click beneath his hand. Raising an eyebrow, he turned to see a section of the wall slide open, revealing a hidden compartment.
Inside was a single object resting on a pedestal, a brown crystal radiating dense elemental magic power.
"?!"
Nicole’s eyes widened the moment she saw it. Her calm expression instantly turned cold, and her eyes narrowed into a glare fixed on the Planet Lord.
"Where did you get this?" she asked.
The Planet Lord flinched as his ’angel’ had suddenly turned ’demonic’, and the sudden shift sent a chill running down his spine.
But when Arthur’s hand lit up with destruction energy, glowing a menacing red, he instantly spilt everything.
He’d purchased the crystal from a black-market merchant who came from another planet. That world’s primary power structure revolved around the numerous spirit race inhabitants and the contracts formed with them.
There, spirit contractors held high status, and their societal privileges were determined by both the number and strength of the spirits they had contracted with.
Nicole’s frown deepened as she listened, and Arthur, noticing her expression, asked,
"What’s wrong?"
Taking a deep breath to quell the anger rising within her, Nicole lifted the crystal and replied,
"This... is a crystallised corpse of an earth spirit."
And the Planet Lord turned an even paler shade of white.
He didn’t need to be a genius to realise Nicole clearly had a connection to spirits, and that him possessing the corpse of one was very, very bad news.
At that moment, his skin felt pricked by dozens of gazes, but he couldn’t see or sense the source of those gazes.
Only when he saw the bluish cat that had suddenly appeared on Nicole’s shoulder did he realise.
’Spirits!!’
◇ ◇ ◇
After wringing the details out of the pale-faced Planet Lord, Nicole pulled Arthur aside and said,
"I’m going to that planet. If my guess is right, that spirit was crystallized while it was still alive. I need to find out exactly how they managed it, and how to make sure it never happens to any of my contracted spirits."
Said contracted spirits were visibly touched by her words. Arthur could see the little critters bouncing around in the air, clearly happy to see her so concerned.
But just as he opened his mouth to respond, Nicole’s words replayed in his mind, and he blinked in confusion.
"Wait...I...??"
"Yes. I. Not we."
Before Arthur could get a word of protest in, Nicole went on, "You’ll head to your original destination, and I’ll be on that planet while you’re there."
Seeing Arthur’s expression slowly turn into a frown, Nicole added,
"I can handle myself, Arthur. And besides, it’s better if you get there as soon as possible."
Arthur clearly didn’t like the idea, but her final point was hard to argue with. After a moment, he let out a resigned sigh.
"Alright. But you’d better stay in touch."
As for why they were splitting up, there were three reasons, though Arthur would’ve preferred if there were none.
Reason number three: the spirit issue.
As Nicole had mentioned, the spirit might have been crystallised while it was still alive. She didn’t yet know what conditions allowed that to happen, and she intended to uncover the details and come up with a way to prevent it from happening to any of her own contracted spirits.
Reason number two: Kriwon’s officials.
Lucifer hadn’t exactly made a quiet entrance, and the missive they’d sent out clearly stated their destination as Galaxy BK-759.
There was no way the Universe’s Master wouldn’t dispatch people to monitor their movements. So, before those people reached BK-759, Arthur needed to split off and head to his real destination, which was another galaxy, over a billion light-years away from BK-759.
BK-789.
Nicole’s presence here would keep the officials’ focus on her, giving Arthur the space to move ahead and take care of his business.
And finally, reason number one: she couldn’t go with him even if she wanted to.
Arthur only found that out when he brought Nicole along to depart. Lucifer had kept the Seed Engine in a small realm and had modified it to restrict access.
Non-Cosmic Superiors were unable to enter it.
Nicole, lacking that distinction, would be rejected the moment she tried to cross through.
In hindsight, Arthur had to admit he should’ve expected this.
There was no way Lucifer would leave something as volatile and valuable as an active Seed Engine in a place just anyone could waltz into.
So, Arthur had to go alone.
They obtained the coordinates of the target planet from the Planet Lord, and with a single jump through the Cosmic Teleporter, Arthur and Nicole travelled there.
When Kriwon’s officials eventually came knocking, the Planet Lord, unaware that the two had split up, would no doubt tell them both Arthur and Nicole had gone to that planet.
As for Arthur, after dropping Nicole off and leaving her with the spaceship, he activated the Cosmic Teleporter again and jumped straight to BK-789.
And as a side note, he had another spaceship in his subspace.
Actually, he had about half a dozen. All different models.
Because, well, why not?
