Chapter 772: Plan B [Monthly Bonus 1]
The moment Arthur entered BK-789, his initial plan of simply taking out his spaceship and enjoying a leisurely cruise through space while mapping a path to his destination went straight out of the airlock.
He immediately activated his Anti-Divine Gravity Authority, unleashing a burst of gravitational energy that tore apart spacetime in the surrounding area.
Using the force of the blast, he propelled himself out of the area at incredible speed, simultaneously creating a cosmic gate with the Cosmic Teleporter several hundred thousand miles ahead.
By the time the gate fully formed, Arthur had already crossed the distance and shot through it, just a split second before a massive wave of divinity swept through the space he’d just escaped.
On the other side, Arthur crash-landed onto a barren, frozen planet, letting out a deep, relieved sigh.
"Fuck," he cursed.
Arthur had planned to take care of his business quietly. He’d drop into the galaxy, locate the realm where Lucifer had stored the Seed Engine, grab it, and leave.
It was supposed to be simple, something that shouldn’t have taken more than a few days.
But there was already an issue right at the first step.
The moment he arrived via the Cosmic Teleporter, Arthur realized the Galactic Ruler had detected his existence.
’On second thought, it wouldn’t have mattered whether I used the Teleporter or not. Any attempt to enter this galaxy would’ve caused some form of reaction with that barrier.’
There was a divinity barrier enclosing the entire galaxy, and unless someone was at least a High-Tier Deity with a Spatial Authority, it was nearly impossible to cross it without setting off a reaction.
’So much for stealth.’
Now, the Galactic Ruler was probably on high alert, looking for whatever existence had managed to breach that perimeter.
From the barrier’s nature, Arthur guessed the Ruler was either of the god race or a divine breed of another race. After all, one normally wouldn’t construct a galaxy-wide barrier using an energy that wasn’t their strongest.
’Well, there are always exceptions. Let’s hope this isn’t one of them.’
As for why the barrier had been layered over the galaxy’s natural cosmic energy field in the first place, that was a question Arthur didn’t have the information to answer.
In fact, he had next to no information about this galaxy at all. All he knew was that somewhere inside, within a particular realm, was the Seed Engine that Lucifer had left behind.
As for the exact coordinates? Lucifer didn’t remember.
But that wasn’t a huge issue since Arthur had the key to deactivate the Seed Engine, and the closer he got to it, the more it would react when he channelled cosmic energy into it, guiding him toward the target like a compass.
His target realm was in the north-eastern region of this galaxy, the same region he’d directly teleported into.
Still, a galaxy was enormous, so just knowing he was in the right quadrant didn’t narrow things down enough to start randomly scouring realms. That would be a waste of time and energy.
As such, he planned to use the key to narrow down the target region, then explore the nearest planets and gather information on any well-known or restricted realms that were considered inaccessible.
Places like that tended to stand out, and the Seed Engine’s location fell into that category.
He would prioritize planets with strong energy concentrations and signs of advanced civilizations, as they were the most likely to yield the information he needed.
’I also have to prepare for a potential conflict with this galaxy’s ruling powers.’
The barrier that the Cosmic Teleporter had so easily broken through wasn’t a detection net, but a lock meant to keep things out and prevent anything inside from escaping.
In other words, whoever ruled this galaxy clearly didn’t want any uninvited guests, and Arthur had just kicked their front door in.
That meant they were almost certainly already searching for him.
’No way they’d ignore the breach, not after putting in the effort to erect a barrier around the entire galaxy.’
The only real question now was whether they would attempt to initiate dialogue first or attack on sight.
If it was the latter, Arthur would pull out all the stops to defend himself, even though the last thing he wanted was to tangle with a being powerful enough to be a Galactic Ruler.
’Things are even more complicated since, officially, I’m still in Hell.’
Sighing once more, Arthur rose from the icy ground and scanned the barren landscape around him.
The planet he’d landed on was completely lifeless, locked far beyond the warmth of its host star.
His still-active Gravity Authority told him that the planet was nearly a light-year away from the star holding it in orbit.
"Should I use the star’s energy to recharge the Cosmic Teleporter?" Arthur muttered, lifting his right hand to check the artifact’s energy levels.
As a reminder, the Cosmic Teleporter was a black-coloured bracelet with red lining at the edges, roughly 15 centimetres in width, making it more of a small arm guard than a bracelet.
It had six gems embedded in its surface, three of which currently glowed with the multicoloured light of stored cosmic energy.
Each of these cosmic energy batteries held enough power for a round trip to a universe in the Second Multiverse and back. When he’d first received it, there had been four charged gems, but after using one to travel to Valmone, only three remained.
Well, more like 2.9, considering all the jumps he had made across different planets and galaxies in Hell over the past dozen years.
The artifact could charge by absorbing ambient cosmic energy, but even after all that time, he hadn’t come close to replenishing even a tenth of one depleted gem.
’Oh well, I still have enough for a round trip to Draco Sirus and back. That universe supposedly has a higher cosmic energy density, which would be good for recharging.
Worst case scenario, I’ll just stay there long enough to top up the batteries for another round trip.’
With such thoughts, Arthur reached into his subspace and pulled out a massive spaceship. It had a streamlined, race car-like design, if said car had been scaled up thirtyfold and swapped its wheels with enormous jet boosters.
He stepped into the AI-controlled ship and gave it the order to head toward the host star of this system, but to stop at a safe distance, far enough that the ship wouldn’t start to melt.
[Master, did you forget that this thing has shields?]
’I did not. But why waste the shields when I can simply stay out of the range where they need to be depleted?’
Arthur responded to Celestia as he watched the Cosmic Teleporter absorb ambient cosmic energy, then dropped into a chair in the main control room.
The onboard AI sent a robot over with a drink, and he took it, settling in as he decided to stay here for at least a day to let the initial shock of his arrival wear off.
If the Galactic Ruler or their agents were actively looking for him, it was better to let them waste time scanning where he no longer was.
Once the dust settled, he’d begin moving again.
◇ ◇ ◇
Just as Arthur had expected, the region he’d arrived in was now swarming with gods.
All of them were Half-Deities, and while individually powerful, they were no match for him. Even if their numbers had doubled, Arthur could have easily taken them down had they tried to capture him by force.
But doing so might have kept him in the area long enough for someone stronger, or even the Galactic Ruler themselves, to appear, which would only complicate things further.
In any case, the ones dispatched to investigate his entry point were gods, and Arthur was the Progenitor godslayer.
His Gravity Authority, mutated by his Anti-Divinity, the exact inverse of the divinity gods naturally possessed, had completely contaminated the region.
For them, just getting close to the region where Arthur had fractured space was like walking into a miasma of toxic fumes.
Worse for them, any attempt to use Knowledge or Temporal Authorities to peer into the proved utterly useless.
Not only had Arthur’s Singularity nature caused distortions in the galactic records of that location, but he’d also taken extra care to distort spacetime, erasing his temporal signature and rendering retrocognitive abilities useless.
Whatever remnants might have lingered were completely indecipherable. Even if the gods had been able to resist the energy long enough to conduct a proper search, it wouldn’t have mattered since they would have found nothing of use.
As a result, they were forced to fall back on brute-force tactics, sweeping the surrounding systems like officials responding to a state of emergency, storming homes and rifling through them, except in this case, they were storming planets.
But Arthur hadn’t approached any of the nearby habitable planets, so their planetary barriers remained untouched, with no logs of any entries or departures.
To the gods, it was as if they were chasing a ghost.
And because none of them were Cosmic Superiors, they completely missed the lingering residue of cosmic energy left behind at the point where Arthur had opened his gate.
They passed through the area multiple times without realizing that the only clue to Arthur’s current location had been right in front of them.
Their search dragged on for more than a day, ultimately amounting to nothing.
Left with no other option, they eventually chose to return and report to their superiors that they had found nothing.
By that time, Arthur had fully recovered the energy he’d spent reaching the icy planet and had long since left the system, already en route in the direction indicated by the Seed Engine’s key.
