Chapter 818: A Billion Years of Slumber
The Levites, the oldest and most powerful dragons in the cosmos, were six pillars of their race’s cosmic power and influence.
They have been the deterrent that kept other races of similar power and cosmic powers from waging reckless wars or trespassing into dragon territory. They have also been the greatest of teachers, raising and mentoring millions of Ancient and Elder-Breed dragons.
Their fame and accomplishments were so vast that even after a billion years of total inactivity, they had not faded into obscurity, remaining well-known and highly regarded across the cosmic stage.
It’s little wonder, then, that the few Progenitors who knew that the Progenitor Dragon, Aleksas, had no idea where they were, react with pure shock, unable to believe he could lose track of such powerful members of his race.
But then they hear the full story and realise Aleksas never truly lost track of them at all. Rather, the Levites themselves had chosen to vanish.
They came together and created an entirely new form of cosmic magic designed specifically to sever their link to the Progenitor, ensuring that Aleksas, who had always been able to sense their whereabouts anywhere in the cosmos, could no longer find them.
After accomplishing this, they left him a message saying they were going to ’sleep for a bit’, a message that made Aleksas’ face pale when he finally received it.
For dragons who had lived for over a trillion years, ’a bit’ was NOT a bit.
Unfortunately, by the time Aleksas received the message, it was already too late. The dragons had secluded themselves in some unknown corner of the cosmos and entered a deep slumber.
Aleksas searched for them, but eventually, after countless failed attempts, even he was forced to give up. Whenever a need arose, he would try again, only to meet with the same lack of success.
This cycle repeated time and again.
Now, however, there was another reason, one he considered the most important of all, for finding them.
This time, Aleksas would pull out all the stops. He would leave no stone unturned.
He had already managed to narrow their location to a specific segment of the Second Multiverse, a massive improvement over the last attempt, when he hadn’t even known which multiverse they were in.
And so, the Levites had no idea that their Progenitor...
Their fuming Progenitor was very, very close.
◇ ◇ ◇
"Wait, seriously? You all went and created an entirely new Cosmic Magic... just so you could sleep?"
"What? Sleep is important!"
That was the ’Continuum Dragon’ Barda’s blunt response to Arthur’s question after Lostvayne had explained the story behind the Levites’ disappearance from the Cosmic Stage, a tale he knew of courtesy of Hyperion.
They were now standing on the plains outside the mountain range where the dragons had been sleeping, a stretch of land that, in mere seconds, had been reshaped into a massive hexagonal compound. Each corner now held a house with a different architectural style, the entire layout a chaotic blend of design styles and cultural influences.
That was Wyndella, the ’Creation Dragon,’ indulging her urge to build after taking a quick tour of the Draco Sirus universe to sample the cultures that had sprung up during their long slumber.
Arthur had wisely kept his distance while she was at work, as she had been tossing around far more creation law energy than he was comfortable being near.
When he asked how they’d ended up here, Lostvayne was nearly finished with the explanation when Barda wandered over, leading directly to that exchange.
Arthur stared at the man, incredulous, then silently made a wish to whatever Cosmic System oversaw Ancient Breeds.
’Please, don’t give me Ancient Breeds that would ghost me for a billion years.’
Just as he made that earnest plea, Barda raised an eyebrow and said,
"I can see what you’re thinking, you know?"
"Huh?"
Arthur was sure he’d kept his face neutral, but before he could say anything, Barda added,
"I’m not talking about your expression. I can quite literally see your thoughts."
"..."
Arthur fell silent, meeting the dragon’s gaze.
"You can see my thoughts?" he asked. "That sounds a lot like an invasion of privacy."
"You’re in the presence of six higher-dimensional beings," Barda replied. "You should not have any expectations of something called privacy."
Arthur recalled what Lostvayne had told him before about Dimensionality, and while Barda’s words lined up with that knowledge, simply knowing how it worked wasn’t the same as understanding how it worked.
And of course, he didn’t. He wasn’t higher-dimensional, after all.
"Sure, I can give you a demonstration," Barda said suddenly.
"Huh?"
"Hmm?"
They stared at each other for a moment before Barda lightly tapped the side of his head, as if something had just occurred to him.
"My bad. You haven’t asked for the demonstration yet."
Arthur blinked at him in confusion, barely following what he meant, until Barda sighed and reached out, "Come here."
But the moment Barda moved to grab his shoulder, Arthur sprang back in a single massive leap that carried him nearly fifty meters away.
He hurriedly raised his hands, waving them in front of his face as he said, "Don’t worry, I don’t want a demonstration anymore."
The realisation of the reason Barda had said he hadn’t asked for a demonstration yet struck him in a moment.
In other words, Arthur had been about to make the request, and Barda, who bore the title of ’Continuum Dragon’, which quite literally spelt out his ability to manipulate the space-time continuum, had likely misread Arthur’s future as his present and assumed the request had already been made.
Then, upon realising Arthur had not yet asked, Barda had corrected himself.
That subtle yet unnerving display of how he could passively perceive the future in such a way that he mistook it for the present made Arthur certain that if he allowed Barda to touch him with the intention of giving any kind of demonstration, he would come to regret it.
Barda didn’t appear the slightest bit bothered that Arthur no longer wanted a demonstration. He merely shrugged and lowered his hand.
Naturally, Arthur’s sudden fifty-meter retreat hadn’t gone unnoticed. One of the other dragons nearby, the ’Twilight Dragon’ Gindry, turned at once, her eyes narrowing as she instantly closed the distance to Barda.
"What did you just do?" she asked.
"I didn’t do anything yet," Barda replied. "He was going to ask for a demonstration, but then decided he didn’t want one anymore."
"A demonstration of what?" Gindry tilted her head.
"My perception," Barda said calmly.
Arthur couldn’t help but notice how quickly Gindry reacted to Barda, almost like she had already been paying attention to him.
He recalled how the two had seemed closest over the past few hours, and even earlier, right after they’d awoken, Barda had spent an absurd amount of time half-asleep on Gindry’s shoulder without her seeming to mind in the slightest.
Gradually, Arthur was starting to get a clearer picture of the dynamic between these six dragons.
’Barda and Gindry are definitely the closest. She treats him like a younger brother she’s looking after, which is strange, because according to Lostvayne, Barda’s actually the older one.
He’s got the lazy vibe, and she’s the serious one.’
His gaze drifted toward the ’Destruction Dragon’ Raikis and Lostvayne, who were arguing over something that had been resolved more than a billion years ago.
Well... Raikis was arguing. Lostvayne was simply, calmly, correcting him with indisputable facts.
’Raikis is the loud, playful, hyperactive, flashy type,’ Arthur mused.
He then glanced at the ’Verdant Dragon’ Gervod, who had transformed part of the massive hexagonal compound into a garden overflowing with flowers of every possible colour and shape. And somehow, despite the variety, it all blended harmoniously.
’If it wasn’t obvious, he’s the gardener—I mean, Life Dragon.’
Shifting his gaze a bit, Arthur spotted the ’Eclipse Dragon’ Berlal, tucking a few black lilies from Gervod’s garden into her hair.
’She’s calm and serious most of the time, but the moment her curiosity takes over, she’ll throw everything else out the window.’
And as for Wyndella, who was currently over on Mofil’s Mountain on an entirely different continent...
’She’s the handsy type. I’ve yet to see her speak to any of the others without grabbing them in some way. Her personality’s a bit playful too.’
While Arthur was mentally compiling his personality profile for each dragon, Gindry finished turning over every possible meaning behind Barda’s "my perception" comment.
Her expression went completely flat as she asked,
"Do you want to liquefy the boy’s brain?"
Arthur froze at the words. If he wasn’t mistaken, ’boy’ clearly referred to him, which only confirmed that his decision to refuse Barda’s demonstration had been the correct one.
"Huh? I want to make him the next Eternal of Time. Why would I kill him?" Barda replied to Gindry, sounding genuinely baffled by the premise of the question.
Gindry shot him a deadpan glare, "You’re still on about that?"
"I’m completely serious," Barda said. "If Ranus finds out I’m awake, he’s going to try to dump the Concept of Time on me again, and he gets really annoying when he’s persistent. I’d rather avoid that, so why not work with the perfect material right in front of me?
I mean, look at him. His soul might as well have been forged by the Concept of Destruction instead of Life and Death, he’s connected to the Nothingness beyond Existence and can actually channel some of its power, granted, at a limited output. He’s got affinity for every element, and his attunement to time is so high that the Aspect of Time practically threw itself at him when they crossed paths.
He’s the most ’Candidate’ Candidate I’ve ever seen!"
Barda’s explanation went on, but Gindry had tuned out halfway through. She opened her mouth to say something to Arthur, but fell silent when Berlal suddenly appeared behind him and took him by the hand.
"Come with me. I want to see your sword’s fusion process."
Without waiting for a response, she began pulling him toward where Lostvayne and Raikis were having their... spat, if you could call it that, dragging Lostvayne along with her.
"Hey, what gives?!"
[Berlal? What’s wrong?]
Berlal calmly ignored Raikis’ protest and responded to Lostvayne.
"It’s time to give your ’Lady’ Celestia her fragment."
[Oh, I see. The fragment fusion process might take a while, so it’s best if w—? Master, what’s wrong?]
Lostvayne’s sudden shift to a concerned tone caught Berlal’s attention, prompting her to turn toward Arthur, who remained strangely silent given the situation.
His brows were slightly furrowed, and he appeared deep in thought. But when Lostvayne called out to him, he simply shook his head and looked away.
"Nothing serious."
He extended his right hand as he spoke, summoning Celestia with a burst of cosmic energy. With a bit more infusion, changes began to manifest in her blade.
Normally, Celestia’s blade was semi-transparent, often giving the illusion of glass.
Its opacity was consistently even throughout. But now, the middle section of the blade became noticeably opaquer, while the base and tip remained lighter.
It truly looked like a glass blade now.
Berlal stopped moving, and when she snapped her fingers, Celestia’s fragment, which had been in her mountain of gold—something Arthur later learned was actually a gathering of items infused with cosmic energy to create a six-layered formation that infused the mountain with cosmic energy to conceal their existence from the Cosmos, only ending up as a pile of gold because dragons liked shiny things—appeared in her hand, and she held it up before Celestia.
She released the fragment, and it immediately shot toward the blade. But just before it could collide, a hand reached out and caught it.
Arthur’s hand.
