Chapter 777: Compliance Is Overrated
Minutes passed without anyone re-entering the room, and Arthur continued to wait in silence, mentally chatting with Lostvayne and Celestia.
Unbeknownst to him, a wave of strange energy had begun to seep into the room, its intensity gradually increasing with each passing second.
It wasn’t until the energy intensified significantly that Arthur finally sensed that something was amiss.
The airborne legs of his chair touched down on the floor as he blinked in confusion, glancing around.
’...what’s this...?’
Lostvayne, who had been narrating how Lucifer had once gotten his ass beat up by the Progenitor Devil, stopped mid-narration and began scanning the room with cosmic energy.
[Apologies, Master,] the sword spoke, its tone unusually subdued.
[It was so weak that I couldn’t sense it, but there’s some form of psychic energy seeping into the room.]
’Psychic?’
[Yes. That’s the nature of the strange energy you likely picked up on. It’s harmless to you, but no mortal could possibly resist it and would have their minds overtaken in mere seconds.]
Arthur’s eyes widened in momentary shock before narrowing, his expression turning ice-cold.
His head slowly turned toward the one-sided glass, locking eyes with the shocked gods observing from behind it.
"You bastards tried to control my mind?"
His voice was filled with rare fury, and before the Transcendents behind the glass could so much as react, a surge of anti-divinity exploded from his body, ripping through the steel walls and crashing into them with the force of a speeding rocket.
Being gods, the anti-divinity shredded through their defences like paper, and each one coughed up blood as their divine sparks fractured under the impact.
The Stellar Guard and the Cosmic Teleporter floated back into Arthur’s hands, while Celestia, having grown tired of idling, eagerly flew off in the opposite direction, piercing through the walls and impaling the Transcendents stationed beyond.
"Lostvayne, join her."
The Cosmic Sword of Destruction followed without a word, and Arthur took a single step that spanned the distance between him and the downed Transcendents ahead, paying no mind to the screams echoing from behind.
As red lights flashed across the corridor and the wrecked room, Arthur grabbed the head of the god radiating the strongest trace of psychic energy, and before the dazed eyes of the others, he crushed it like a balloon.
Golden blood and brain matter splattered across the floor, and without bothering to wipe his hand, Arthur turned and seized the throat of the one who had been interrogating him earlier.
"Now, it’s my turn to ask the questions."
As he spoke, one of the Transcendents attempted to summon a weapon and attack, but Arthur froze him in time and swung the body of the god he was holding, slamming him into the wall like a club.
With his free hand, he grabbed the attacker’s leg and smashed him into the ground with such force that the entire floor gave way, and with it, the entire building crumbled to the ground.
The collapse triggered a chain reaction, likely damaging critical infrastructure or a nearby power plant, because the facility almost immediately went up in flames.
Unscathed by the explosion, Arthur tossed the unconscious Transcendent aside, then turned back to his former interrogator and asked.
"Do you know where the most important archives are kept? Information about other planets, special realms, and dimensions.
Answer quickly. My patience has run out."
As soon as Arthur finished speaking, his palm was coated in anti-divinity, which burned into the man’s neck and elicited half-muffled screams of agony as golden blood spilt from his orifices.
He struggled, throwing punches and kicks at Arthur, but none of his feeble attacks made it past Arthur’s gravity barrier. Each strike only made him sustain more damage, as the barrier was made of anti-divinity.
"It seems you don’t know, huh? Useless, then."
Arthur’s fingers clenched, crushing the man’s neck and instantly ending his life. He tossed the corpse away, then turned and pulled another Transcendent from the flaming wreckage.
"You. Do you know where the most important archives are kept? Information about other planets, special realms, and dimensions.
Answer in five, four, three—"
"I know!"
The man hurriedly screamed out before Arthur’s grip could tighten any further, prompting Arthur to raise an eyebrow.
"Then why haven’t you started talking yet?"
He didn’t ease his grip, and the god immediately spilt the information Arthur was after.
"The Planet Lord’s residence!! It’s in Sector 1!!"
"I see."
Arthur gave a curt nod, then snapped the man’s neck and tossed the body aside. He then leapt into the air, his hand clamping down across the face of one of the gods who had come rushing over from nearby buildings in response to the explosion.
His sudden appearance drew the attention of all the newcomers, but before they could fully turn towards him, Arthur froze them in time.
"You. Where do you keep your most important archives, containing information about other planets and realms? Answer or die."
"...I’d rat—"
"Die, then."
Arthur didn’t even let him finish before flinging the man’s body aside, just in time for Celestia and Lostvayne to zap back towards him. The two swords pierced the man’s chest and head respectively, then floated to Arthur’s sides as he turned to the other frozen Transcendents.
He pulled one of them towards him with a gravitational attraction force, grabbed his neck, and repeated his earlier question.
"Where do you keep your most important archives, containing information about other planets and realms? Answer or die."
"I know where! The Planet Lord’s estate!"
This one immediately gave Arthur the answer he wanted, having just witnessed how quickly loyalty had led his colleague to death.
"You will show me where said residence is. Lostvayne, have the rest."
With those words, Arthur flew into the sky with Celestia hovering alongside him, leaving behind Lostvayne, who immediately began dashing through the air and slicing the time-frozen gods to pieces.
[You’re killing them all?]
Celestia asked, a bit surprised, having assumed Arthur would let them go since he had already gotten what he wanted.
’I killed the one who tried to control my mind out of annoyance. The others saw it happen, and it would be troublesome if they retained that information, so I decided to leave no witnesses.’
[Is that so? Give me a second then.]
With that, Celestia turned into a streak of light and shot back down, finishing off the Transcendents she had previously only incapacitated, while Arthur had the one he’d taken along lead him to the Planet Lord’s residence.
After a few spatial gates, he arrived in Sector 1, located on another continent, immediately descending directly into the Planet Lord’s estate.
He landed directly in front of the largest mansion within the estate, forming a sizable crater in the ground upon impact.
Naturally, his abrupt arrival was met with immediate resistance, as the guards, already on high alert due to the sudden news of a Sector 2 bombing, immediately turned their weapons on him.
Shouts of "Attack!" and "Intruder!" rang out, quickly drowned by the roar of gunfire aimed at the cloud of dust stirred up by his landing.
To their credit, they didn’t make the foolish mistake of encircling the cloud, fully aware that stray fire from those in front could strike their comrades on the other side.
Even so, it was all in vain, as Arthur snapped his fingers, freezing time and casually walking past the motionless guards.
He manipulated gravity to alter the trajectories of the bullets, turning them back on their senders. As for the plasma cannons, he simply shifted the positions of the ones who fired them, placing them directly in the path of their own attacks.
He stepped into the mansion and let time resume, the sound of gunfire erupting behind him, now joined by agonized screams and explosions as the guards were struck by their own redirected attacks.
Inside the building, Arthur encountered another group of guards and froze them all with a single thought.
However, one of them was unaffected.
That one charged at him, conjuring a flaming spear and thrusting it straight toward Arthur.
’I could stop it, but my clothes would get burned.’
With that thought, he teleported, reappearing behind the attacker, seizing them by the collar, and hurling them into the line of temporarily frozen guards.
Simultaneously, he released the time stop, and the man’s body collided with his guards, the flames on his spear erupting uncontrollably and consuming them.
Hoisting his very unwilling guide into the air, Arthur asked,
"Is that your Planet Lord?"
"Yes! It’s him!"
The god answered in haste, desperate to save his own life, but unfortunately, it was not in his fate to live another day beyond today.
Anti-divinity flowed into Arthur’s palm and he crushed the man’s neck with gravitational pressure, letting the corpse fall to the floor before striding toward the Planet Lord, who was now struggling to rise.
"Greetings. I’d like you to understand that your subordinates, who thought it wise to detain me on this planet, are the ones responsible for what’s happening now."
The man glared at Arthur, tightening his grip on his spear. The screams of his guards, now consumed by fire, echoed in his ears, but upon remembering how Arthur had effortlessly stopped time and moved with impossible speed (he didn’t realise Arthur had simply teleported), he didn’t dare take his eyes off the young man.
"Still, there’s a way for you to secure your survival."
Arthur approached as he spoke, hands tucked in his pockets, his demeanour relaxed, yet the Planet Lord didn’t dare attack.
’...what is this...person...?
The instinctive fear that he, a god, felt when confronted with the anti-divinity radiating from Arthur sent chills down his spine.
And just as that dread settled in, the roof burst open and two streaks of light shot down, halting at Arthur’s sides and revealing themselves as a pair of swords.
[Master, there are no witnesses!]
Celestia announced cheerfully, a line that made the Planet Lord’s face drain of colour.
’A Sentient Weapon!?’
A weapon capable of independent thought and action was exponentially more dangerous than even a normal weapon of a higher grade.
The man instinctively stepped back, biting his lip as his mind scrambled to think of ways to stall until reinforcements could arrive.
Fortunately for the Planet Lord, the sudden arrival of Celestia and Lostvayne drew Arthur’s attention to them.
"You’ve got blood on your blade, Celestia."
[Haha, it’s not mine! It’s the blood of my enemies!]
"Of course, it’s not yours. You don’t have blood."
Arthur flatly shut down Celestia’s attempt to quote a movie she had once watched, earning a disappointed whine from her.
The exchange didn’t just shock the Planet Lord, it infuriated him. It was painfully obvious that Arthur didn’t even consider him a threat.
Then again, could Arthur really be blamed? He was an entire Existence Realm above the man and fully confident in his victory if it came down to blows.
’Assuming nothing unexpected happens.’
And just as that thought crossed his mind, as though to slap him for his optimism, Lostvayne, who had remained silent until now, suddenly spoke.
[Master. Incoming from below.]
