Chapter 785: The Approach
Flying through a sea of cosmic creation energy is quite easy—is not the kind of statement Arthur would make, even as a joke.
Right now, Arthur had set aside his usual playfulness entirely and was in full serious mode, because if he wasn’t careful, the high density of creation energy in this region could very well kill him.
As he flew across the great distance at a constant speed, he began to notice the gravity around him was gradually decreasing.
At first, he assumed it was another effect of the Seed Engine’s presence, but when he activated his Anti-Divine Gravity Authority in preparation for a further decrease, he quickly realized that the decreases in gravity weren’t coming from the Seed Engine at all.
They were coming from the planet itself.
It wasn’t just reducing the gravitational pull on him, it was trying to invert it all together, forcing him off its surface.
However, Arthur’s Authority granted him automatic adaptation to unfamiliar gravitational environments. Because of that, the gravity reduction didn’t have its intended effect. Instead of making him weightless, Arthur’s body automatically adjusted to compensate.
Identifying the planet’s intent, Arthur understood that he had another threat to contend with besides the Seed Engine’s defences.
That didn’t halt his advance, though.
He continued moving, maintaining his constant speed as he navigated past diamond-like mountain ranges. Space around him distorted, but his dome of destruction simply bulldozed through everything, vaporizing any distortion that tried to bend the space in his path.
He zipped across the planet’s surface, and after a few minutes of travel, finally reached the Seed Engine’s range.
The moment it came into view, the intensity of the cosmic energy radiating from the kite-shaped structure suddenly spiked.
Arthur immediately realized he’d been detected, but he didn’t stop.
Naturally, ignoring what was likely the Seed Engine’s version of a WARNING meant there was no chance it would simply stay silent.
Roughly a hundred meters deeper into its range, the Seed Engine responded.
The top section of the kite-shaped structure split open like mechanical hatches, and turrets emerged, all locking onto his position. Simultaneously, the centre of the Seed Engine folded inward like a window being pulled open, and from that gap, a large cannon extended outward.
A split second later, it fired, sending a massive beam of cosmic energy tearing through the space between them, heading straight toward Arthur.
Just as Arthur crossed his arms in front of his body and generated a gravity shield layered over his dome, he caught sight of a crystallized skeleton partially buried in the ground just a few meters away.
’Wait... what?’
In that moment of distraction, the cosmic energy beam struck his shield. The impact’s force knocked Arthur backwards, his feet scraping along the crystallized surface as he skidded to a halt.
He immediately poured more energy into his Origin Core, reinforcing the shield. The intense gravitational energy bent the fabric of space and distorted the path of the beam, causing it to split and veer around him in two separate arcs.
But even as he held the defence, part of his mind drifted back to the skeleton he had glimpsed.
’Others have tried to reach this place... and that thing killed them.
This realm only permits Cosmic Superiors to enter.
So, if that skeleton isn’t from an inhabitant of the realm but an outsider... then they had to be a Cosmic Superior.’
Arthur didn’t want to believe that that skeleton belonged to a full Cosmic Being, because if it did, then it meant the Seed Engine’s defence mechanisms were strong enough to kill one.
And that... was very bad news.
Lostvayne, perhaps guessing Arthur’s thoughts as he glanced once more in the direction of the crystallized skeleton, quickly spoke up.
[Master, don’t forget that this is a World-type Seed Engine. It definitely doesn’t have the power to kill a full Cosmic Being.]
And Arthur immediately countered.
’And don’t forget that this thing has been active long enough to terraform an entire realm. We definitely shouldn’t judge it by normal standards.’
Right after he gave that reply, the turrets positioned along the Seed Engine’s sides began firing. Their beams curved mid-air, locking onto Arthur’s flanks as they attempted to strike him from both sides.
Arthur immediately shrunk the size of his dome by half, taking the energy that had maintained its original three-meter radius and redirecting it to reinforce the dome’s sides, making it strong enough to block the homing beams fired by the side-mounted turrets.
With his arms still crossed over his chest to maintain the gravity shield, Arthur began to advance, pushing against the immense wave of cosmic energy that surged towards him from the front, crashing against his gravity barrier and dome.
The Seed Engine actively emitted more cosmic energy, increasing the intensity to pressure him, as if it were trying to drown him where he stood. But he fought back against it, moving forward step by step, steadily forcing himself through the rising tide of energy, like someone trying to walk through a raging sea, each step straining against a current that only grew stronger the closer he got.
The power of the central cannon’s beam gradually increased as Arthur stepped closer, but he steadily fed more anti-divinity into his Origin Core in order to maintain his gravity shield. The shield kept distorting space in front of him, warping the trajectory of the focused beam and keeping it split around his frame as he moved.
But then, without warning, the Seed Engine abruptly poured more energy into the main beam, far more than Arthur could compensate for in that instant, and before he could inject enough anti-divinity to match it, the surge of power overwhelmed his gravity shield.
The space-warping shield broke apart under the pressure, cracking and then collapsing completely as the full force of the beam crashed through.
The instant that happened, the beam, previously just raw cosmic energy, was immediately attributed with Creation Law energy.
That newly attributed energy slammed directly into the dome of destruction surrounding Arthur, shattering it under pressure. The rebound hit him hard, forcing him backwards, and as he staggered, the beam shrank in width, its energy no longer spread but concentrated to a single point.
The narrowed beam pierced through the cracked opening in his dome, striking him directly with a heavy impact. Arthur’s skin burned as if doused in acid, and he dropped to one knee, his muscles quaking from the pressure, silver blood dripping slowly from his nose.
Without hesitation, Arthur summoned Lostvayne and gripped it with both hands, holding the sword up directly in front of him to block the incoming beam. Simultaneously, he reactivated his Aspect Manifestation, borrowing Lostvayne’s power to recreate the dome stronger than before.
As the dome reformed, it immediately pushed back the creation-based cosmic energy that had been seeping into his body and attempting to erode his durability from the inside out.
He staggered again, but immediately stabbed Lostvayne into the ground, using it as a crutch to rise back to his feet.
Taking a deep breath, he reduced the size of his dome even further, shrinking it down to about a metre in diameter, if it could even still be called a dome at that point.
Anti-Divinity surged through his body as he reactivated his Gravity Authority, recreating the gravity shield in front of the dome once more, positioned to intercept the focused energy beam before it could strike the dome directly.
Arthur concentrated the gravitational law energy into a narrow focal point, matching the Seed Engine’s focused output and countering the beam’s enhanced piercing force with his own increased gravity compression.
He kept moving forward, step by step, still holding Lostvayne in front of him and using the sword as an amplifier for his destruction energy. The side turrets on the Seed Engine continued firing, launching energy bullets from the flanks, but those posed little threat and failed to cause any noticeable damage to his dome.
Then, suddenly, the Seed Engine retracted the turrets, and in their place, deployed two side-mounted cannons, which immediately charged and fired. Just like before, the beams curved mid-air, but this time, they crashed into his dome from behind.
Arthur immediately turned his upper body, raising his right palm behind him and condensing more destruction energy into the space at his back, forming a dense barrier to intercept the incoming rear attacks.
The opposing forces, one bearing down from the front, the other from behind, met simultaneously, and for a moment, Arthur was unable to move. The pressure from both directions locked him in place, holding him still under the weight of converging energy.
He hadn’t even finished figuring out how to deal with this new development when Celestia’s voice echoed in his mind.
[Master, I’ll handle this. Focus on the front.]
Celestia manifested physically, releasing a surge of her stored cosmic energy as she swung downward, splitting the rear beam in two and scattering the energy off to the sides.
The Seed Engine fired again, and Celestia flew forward, intercepting and striking down the new blasts, giving Arthur the chance to refocus.
Arthur returned his full attention to the front and resumed moving, advancing through the wave of pressure, continuing forward into the beam that still fired from the Seed Engine’s central cannon.
But then, the Seed Engine’s energy output spiked again, and Arthur instinctively drew upon Lostvayne’s cosmic energy to respond.
Only this time, rather than concentrating the energy into a focused beam like before, the Seed Engine instead manipulated the ambient creation-based cosmic energy already saturating the area around Arthur, causing it to surge toward him from every direction at once.
Previously, it had felt like a wave flowing against him from a single direction, Arthur pushing forward through it as it pressed back, but now, it was as if waves were crashing in from every side at once, with creation energy converging from all directions, trying to crush him completely.
The dome began to crack under the overwhelming pressure, but just before it could fully shatter, Arthur immediately activated Lostvayne’s Weapon Authority, Soul Devouring Oblivion.
The stored power within the sword, the energy of the countless souls it had consumed over the past few years, which Arthur had never once drawn upon because he hadn’t been in a situation that required it, was finally called upon.
He began consuming and burning through that vast reserve of power, and with it, he shrank the destruction dome down to a skin-tight layer of energy, concentrating it fully around his body as he continued pushing forward through the collapsing storm of creation energy hammering him from every possible direction.
But despite increasing the intensity of his destruction energy by drawing from Lostvayne’s power to sustain the Aspect Manifestation, and with Lostvayne’s Weapon Authority activated, the creation energy assaulting him from all directions remained overwhelming.
Celestia, on the other hand, was still managing to hold out, striking down the continuous blasts aimed at Arthur from behind and deflecting them, keeping his rear protected for the time being.
