Chapter 821: The Previous Era’s Survivors
"Yeah, but there’s also the chance they weren’t actually existing. What if they were...I don’t know...in non-existence, with the Void god and the other Cosmic Horrors?"
’The Void-what now?’
Gindry casually said something that sounded downright terrifying, but before Arthur could even ask about it, Gervod spoke up.
"Yeah, that’s actually a very believable conjecture."
Arthur, silently watching the exchange, shifted his focus to the topic at hand before finally offering his own take.
"I don’t know. I feel like it might be a bit simpler."
Berlal turned to him, repeating, "Simpler?"
He nodded. "Yeah. You said all the others have existed since the beginning of the Cosmos. This one suddenly popping up seems off, no?
What if they’ve only just reincarnated into the Current Era or something?
I mean, how did the other existences from the Previous Era we know about even survive into this one?
What if this fourth person used the same method they did, but only appeared now, while the others appeared long ago?"
His reasoning made sense, prompting thoughtful nods from the dragons, though Celestia and Lostvayne both gave Arthur peculiar looks. Lostvayne then turned a suspicious gaze toward Mofil.
"Hmm, you might be onto something," Berlal admitted. "But that still leaves the question of ’why now?’ What’s so special about this point in time?"
Wyndella answered, "What if it’s not that they chose now, but they have no control over how they came into this Era? Like the word he used, reincarnation. What if they couldn’t control it?"
Berlal considered that, then nodded.
"...That actually makes sense."
Arthur, seeing his theory quickly becoming the working consensus, followed up with another question.
"The three existences from the Previous Era are already known, right? What are their identities besides Hyperion?"
Though Arthur had directed the question to Berlal, the one among the six he was closest to, it was Mofil who answered.
"Two are confirmed, but one is still only suspected."
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"Suspected? After all this time, there’s still no confirmation?"
"Yes," Mofil replied. After a brief pause, he continued, "The first confirmed one is known as the Judge of the End."
Arthur looked visibly confused, having never heard of this name before.
Seeing his reaction, Mofil explained, "They act as a mediator between the Eternals and the Aggressors. They also claim they’ll be the one to declare the conclusion of their war when the time comes."
While Arthur silently took note of this, Mofil went on.
"The second is Hyperion, whom you already know. The third, though still unconfirmed, is suspected to be the Eternal of Creation."
Arthur’s brow lifted again. "Gaia?"
The moment he said her name, all six dragons turned to stare at him, and Berlal narrowed her eyes.
"Unspeakable Names are a thing, Arthur. You said you’re some sort of illegal Candidate, right? Don’t say that name carelessly and risk attracting her attention."
Berlal’s warning came from a place of concern, but it was completely unnecessary.
"Don’t worry, she already knows about me, and she doesn’t care."
Arthur’s calm reply drew surprised looks from both Berlal and Barda, the two who were aware of the unusual circumstances surrounding his candidacy.
"She already knows about you?" Berlal asked, her tone tinged with disbelief, and Arthur nodded.
"Yeah. I met her a while before I came here. A random encounter in one of Ranus’ bars."
Just as Arthur said that, Mofil, noticing the conversation was veering in a direction he didn’t want, quickly steered it back on track.
"Anyway, that’s the extent of what’s confirmed and suspected about the Previous Era’s survivors. There’s also a rumour that the Judge of the End may have been involved in the sudden emergence of a fourth existence from the Previous Era."
That was a lie. No such rumour actually existed, but none of those present were aware of the current cosmic stage gossip, so Mofil got away with the lie.
Berlal, unaware she was being lied to, remarked thoughtfully,
"That actually sounds plausible. They could be the ones responsible for bringing back the existences from the Previous Era, since they were the first. And they’re still someone no one truly knows about. They always use that weird hood of theirs, after all."
Gindry, who had earlier suggested they might have been in some sort of ’non-existent’ state, chimed in, "That would make sense. They’re bringing in people from the Previous Era, but maybe they can’t do it all at once, especially since there are only two others... well, now three besides themselves."
They seemed to be agreeing with Gindry’s words when Wyndella offered a different perspective.
"What if it’s not that they can’t do it en masse, but they simply choose not to."
Lostvayne interjected, [All of this assumes they’re capable of reversing the complete existential erasure of the Previous Era.]
Before Wyndella could voice her counterpoint, Gervod cut in.
"You’re all drifting from the main topic."
He then turned to Mofil. "Explain why the Judge of the End is rumoured to be involved? What action sparked that speculation?"
Mofil delivered his prepared answer with a composed expression.
"Well, after millions of years of inactivity, the Judge of the End suddenly appeared and began moving around quite a bit.
From the Dark Multiverse, likely to meet with Hyperion, then to the Origin Multiverse shortly before the Primordial Progenitors convened.
It wasn’t long after that the existence of a fourth survivor from the Previous Era came to light."
He paused, rubbing his chin before adding in a thoughtful murmur,
"Now that I think about it, that was also not long before the whole chaos with the Prophecies erupted."
The mention of ’Prophecies’ made Berlal tilt her head and ask curiously, "Prophecies? What prophecies?"
Mofil glanced at Arthur, who was now eyeing him with blatant suspicion, and replied,
"The prophecies of his birth, which spread across the entire Cosmos."
At first, the dragons looked bewildered, their gazes shifting between Arthur and Mofil.
Then Berlal asked, "What do you mean, prophecies of his birth spread across the Cosmos? Where could they have come from to reach that far?"
Mofil answered calmly. "The Cosmos itself."
A heavy silence fell over the group.
Then Berlal turned to Arthur and said, "Explain."
Arthur exhaled a weary sigh before obliging.
"Shortly before I was born, the Main Entities responsible for foresight, fate, destiny, and related aspects of every universe received a message from their universe itself, foretelling the birth of someone who can bring an end to the gods.
Also, on the day I was born, though I obviously don’t remember it, every single habitable planet apparently experienced an eclipse simultaneously."
The moment Arthur finished speaking, his gaze snapped back to Mofil, more suspicious than before.
’I haven’t said a word about the Prophecy since arriving here. Sure, word spread that I was the one it spoke of, but the Cosmos is vast.
Only certain universes in specific regions of the First Multiverse even know that ’Arthur Vaughn’ is the one in question.
And by Mofil’s own claim, he hasn’t left this place in over a century. That means the only way he could know is if someone carried that news all the way here to the Second Multiverse.
But... something tells me that’s not the case. It doesn’t add up. He’s either lying about never leaving, or he’s deliberately bringing up the Prophecies now to lead into something.’
Arthur hadn’t forgotten Mofil’s earlier attempts to steer him toward this continent and into an encounter with the Levites.
The man was plotting something, Arthur just didn’t know what.
While he was mulling this over, Berlal started questioning the sanity of Arthur’s earlier words.
"What do you mean every habitable planet had an eclipse? That’s impossible. Not all planets orbit their stars at the same speed. Not all of them even have moons, let alone ones big enough to block their stars from the surface’s point of view."
"That’s exactly why it was called the ’chaos with the prophecies,’" Arthur replied. "Because every habitable planet experienced an eclipse on that same day."
Hearing this, Raikis turned to Mofil with a frown.
"Why the hell didn’t you include that in the information you gave us?"
All the dragons agreed that something of this magnitude was the kind of event Mofil should have informed them of first.
But despite Raikis’ displeased gaze, Mofil responded calmly.
"I decided not to include it because you can get first-hand information from the person the prophecies spoke about."
Wyndella, clearly able to sense, just like her siblings, that there was more to it, shook her head and turned to Arthur.
"Looks like you’re a lot more special than we thought.
I already found it absurd when Barda claimed an Aspect of a Concept literally jumped at you, and I thought he was just making excuses to Gindry to justify dragging you into his problems.
But this takes it a step higher. I’ve never heard of a Progenitor whose birth was foretold by a prophecy spanning the entire Cosmos."
"Prophecies," Arthur corrected.
Wyndella blinked, then her eyes widened. "There was more than one?"
"Just two."
Even with the word ’just,’ the absence of any precedent didn’t lessen the weight of the revelation.
"You intrigue me more with each passing day, Progenitor godslayer," Berlal muttered, her eyes almost shining with delight as she fixed her gaze on Arthur.
Feeling that heavy gaze, as though it were trying to see straight through him, Arthur forced a half-smile.
"Judging by how your siblings react, I’m honestly a little scared of intriguing you any further."
The other dragons laughed at that, and Barda remarked, "If you agreed to be groomed as the next Eternal of Time, I’d protect you from her curiosity."
Raikis immediately shot him a disbelieving look. "You? You can’t even protect yourself!"
Wyndella and Gervod chuckled while Gindry discreetly kicked Raikis in the leg, but the moment that happened, Mofil shifted the focus back to the prophecies.
"Of the two prophecies, one was...rather unusual."
Barda, his interest piqued, raised an eyebrow.
"How so?"
Before Mofil could respond, Arthur took the reins and explained, "Because it’s less a foretelling of future events and more a recounting of things that have already happened.
Many believe the second prophecy was originally intended to be the first, but for unknown reasons, it was delayed. Only after the second was delivered was whatever had been blocking the first finally removed.
Since the event it was meant to predict had already taken place, it was altered into a narration of the past."
After hearing it put that way, Berlal asked about the prophecies’ actual contents, and once Arthur shared them, the dragons all nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, that theory checks out," Barda said, studying the floating tablet containing the prophecies that Arthur had handed over.
Just then, Mofil spoke up.
"I’m part of a group that believes the Judge of the End was behind this..."
