Chapter 854: The Power of Names
As for the only other dragon who recognised Barda, that one was rather special.
He was known as the ’Memoria Dragon’, a title that referenced an Ancient Dragon from the Origin Multiverse, much like the titles carried by the other Main Entities.
His domain was ’Knowledge’, so recognising Barda even without ever meeting him before was instantaneous for him.
After Moighor, the Master, offered his apology, Barda merely waved his hand to dismiss the temporal stop and immediately got to the point.
"What’s this all about?"
He tossed the invitation to Moighor, who quickly assumed a humanoid form and caught it, his eyes widening as he scanned through its contents.
"Ah, this. It’s the festival held to commemorate the anniversary of this Ember Reign, Lord Levite."
"Oh, so it’s just an anniversary party?"
"Yes, my Lord. We invite notable individuals and major factions across the universe for a series of organised events taking place on selected planets within Alpha Sirus."
Arthur silently listened to the explanation, his gaze focused on what seemed to be a star map of Alpha Sirus’ Apex Worlds, which appeared to mark the locations where the festival’s events were being held.
That much was clear, as most of those planets had ’Festival Phase 1’ written beneath their icons and names.
"What kind of events do you hold during this festival?"
Barda’s interest in the matter made Moighor’s expression brighten slightly as he responded.
"There are many, my Lord.
Interstellar tournaments, grand exhibitions displaying the latest technological advancements, and ceremonial duels between the younger generation members of the strongest factions to showcase their abilities and help them build their influence.
There are also special dimensional realms created exclusively for the festival, each filled with rare artifacts, Cosmic Relics, and challenges. Treasure Hunting is one of the upcoming festival’s highlights, with several factions sponsoring hunts across these specially constructed dimensional realms, where participants must navigate through them to uncover rewards hidden by the festival’s overseers.
While it’s a celebration, it also serves as a stage to display strength, wit, and ambition alike, with particular attention placed on the younger generation’s talents."
Moighor made no effort to hide his emphasis on the ’younger generation’ and their ’talents’, clearly hoping Barda would take an interest in one of them and perhaps wish to train them personally.
"Do you wish to attend, my Lord? If so, I can make arrangements for the highest possible level of treatment," Moighor offered, his gaze falling to the invitation he held as he continued.
"This invitation merely grants VIP treatment. Such treatment is too far beneath one such as yourself."
Barda simply chuckled at the red dragon’s actions, warping the invitation back into his hand as he replied, "I’ll think about it. This invitation’s not mine anyway."
He tossed it back to Arthur, who caught it without even looking, his eyes still moving over the map in search of any worlds marked with the ’Dungeon’ or ’Dimensional Realm’ tag.
From Moighor’s earlier words, artifacts and Cosmic Relics had been gathered within those dungeons in preparation for the Grand Festival, and from what he remembered, Celestia’s fragments emitted a distinct cosmic energy signature so strong that no one in their right mind would mistake them for simple pieces of metal, instead concluding they had secrets hidden within.
’There’s a possibility that her fragment may have been mixed in with those ’Cosmic Relics’ he mentioned.’
As that thought crossed his mind, Moighor turned his attention to Arthur, raising an eyebrow as he considered how to address him.
’For Lord Levite to bring him along, he must be someone of importance to him. He also seems to be the owner of that invitation, but...’
Moighor glanced toward the Memoria Dragon, who was also studying Arthur closely, and the other dragon silently shook his head, indicating that he, too, had no knowledge of who Arthur was.
The Memoria Dragon did, after all, possess a record of every individual to whom the invitations had been sent, even though he wasn’t personally responsible for distributing them and had delegated that task to his subordinates.
"May I ask how you came to possess this invitation, um...?"
"The name’s Arthur. As for how I got it, I met a dragon, we talked, and he left it behind for me afterwards."
Arthur replied without looking away, giving a VERY simplified account of his meeting with Baruuk.
Barda, who was fully aware of the real circumstances surrounding that encounter, couldn’t help but laugh at Arthur’s brief retelling, which conveniently omitted the part where he had fought and killed that very same dragon.
Arthur, knowing the reason behind Barda’s laughter, chuckled as well, and just as he did, Celestia’s voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
[Athion!]
"Huh? You’ve found it?"
[Yes, Master. I’m sure it’s in Athion!]
She spoke with complete confidence that her missing fragment was located on the planet known as Athion.
For context, Arthur had been reviewing the list of names to determine which of them might contain Celestia’s fragments.
How that helped was actually quite simple.
In Lostvayne and Celestia’s Words, there was power within ’Names’ and ’Words’. It was similar to the concept of ’Unspeakable Names’ and ’Restricted Words’.
Because of Celestia’s loose connection to the fragments of her existence, speaking the ’Name’ of a place where they were located was enough for her to recognise whether her fragments existed there or not.
To begin with, that was how she had immediately realised she possessed fragments within ’Draco Sirus’ the first time Arthur mentioned the universe’s name to her.
Having already recovered two fragments, this ’sense’ of hers had become far more precise, allowing her to locate a fragment as specifically as the planet itself, provided she was close enough and knew its ’Name’.
This was the reason Arthur had been going through the Star Map, and now, he had found his target.
He turned to Barda, pointing at the holographic icon of the planet in question as he spoke.
"Celestia’s found it."
"How so?" Barda raised an eyebrow, prompting Arthur to simply shrug as he replied.
"It’s apparently the power of a ’Name’? That’s how I even knew to come to Draco Sirus in the first place."
Arthur had inadvertently revealed that he wasn’t from this universe, but he didn’t concern himself with the reactions of the Main Entities around him, all of whom were now silently wondering how he had obtained a Grand Festival invitation as he spoke.
"Can you give us a lift to that planet? Let’s see if it’s really there."
Barda was about to nod in agreement when his senses suddenly caught several presences entering Draco Sirus, and he froze, his eyes snapping upward.
Moighor and the other Main Entities sensed them at the same time, which wasn’t surprising since the newcomers made no attempt to conceal themselves.
"This..."
Moighor’s expression immediately contorted, and he turned to Barda, about to excuse himself to deal with the arrivals, but Barda raised a hand to stop him.
"Just wait."
Without moving an inch, Barda focused his gaze through the layers of space, locking directly onto specific figures inside the newcomers’ spacecraft.
◇ ◇ ◇
At the same time, in a distant corner of the Draco Sirus universe, within a massive star-sized spacecraft that had just crossed the universal barrier, several men and women sat around a rectangular table, engaged in what seemed to be an important discussion.
They all had pale, almost white skin, slightly pointed ear tips, blood-red irises, and were dressed in formal suits and gowns.
Suddenly, the man seated at the head of the table froze mid-speech, his eyes widening as his gaze shot toward the Alpha Sirus cluster, meeting Barda’s across space and time.
The moment he realised who he was looking at, he stood up abruptly, his voice filled with surprise as he muttered.
"Barda Levite...! So this is where you were!"
"Huh?" "What?!" "A Levite? In this universe?!"
The others around the table turned in the same direction, and upon confirming Barda’s presence, their expressions simultaneously darkened.
"Not good."
"To think a direct subordinate of Progenitor Wiess is here..."
At that, the man at the head of the table shook his head, his gaze drifting away from Barda as he scanned the rest of the Draco Sirus universe.
"Barda and Gindry Levite always come as a set. If he’s here, then there’s a 99% chance she is too."
He couldn’t detect the other four Levites, since Gervod, Berlal, and Wyndella were masking their presences, and Raikis simply wasn’t within the universe.
Still, not sensing them did nothing to ease his expression.
"The presence of even one Ancient Dragon is enough to complicate things. We have to move carefully."
Slowly, he clenched his fist, refusing to look in Barda’s direction again until the Continuum Dragon finally withdrew his gaze.
◇ ◇ ◇
"What just happened?" Arthur asked, confused by Barda’s sudden silence, and the man replied calmly without turning his head.
"A group of Ancient Vampires just entered this universe. There was a rather radical one among them, so I gave them a warning."
Hearing his response, Arthur blinked, replaying the last minute in his head before speaking again.
"But you didn’t say anything?"
At this, Barda finally turned to meet his gaze and replied. "Exactly. I don’t need to."
That single response was enough for Arthur to understand a little better why Aleksas had been so irritated with the Levites.
Barda’s mere presence was enough to make those Ancient Vampires, who had likely planned to disregard the dragons of this universe, instantly change their approach.
This was the ’deterrent’ Aleksas had spoken about, and one of the main reasons he found their absence so troublesome.
’Well, that’s not my place to comment.’
Arthur turned his attention back to the star map and asked, "So? About that planet?"
"Right. That."
Barda stepped forward, accessed the star map’s database, and retrieved the exact coordinates before turning to Moighor and speaking.
"I just thought of something about that festival of yours. I’ll talk to my sister about it, and if she agrees, we’d like to make a few changes to make your treasure hunts more interesting."
"! Your input would be most appreciated, Lord Levite!"
Moighor bowed at a perfect ninety degrees, and Barda simply chuckled at his enthusiasm before warping him, Arthur, and Elaine to Apex World Athion.
The journey happened almost instantly, with Arthur’s vision fading to black for only a few seconds.
When light returned to his eyes, he found himself staring at the night sky stretched above a sandy desert as the wind drifted across the landscape. There were no signs of civilisation visible even on the horizon, which was probably because Barda had chosen to warp them to an isolated location on purpose.
"Celestia."
[On it.]
Celestia materialised her humanoid body and descended to the ground, placing her palm on the sand and channelling her cosmic energy into the earth.
