Chapter 863: ’Cosmic Horror’ Crash Course
Arthur and Elaine returned to Chazat, and as soon as they arrived, Arthur scanned the planet and quickly located his target Levite in Mofil’s workshop.
This was his first time here in more than 16 years of normal time, and over 44 years when accounting for time acceleration, but he ignored the dwarf completely, focusing only on the Levite he had come for.
When Arthur stepped out of the Cosmic Gate, Barda, who had been sitting at a circular table with Wyndella, with the miniature structure of a familiar-looking pyramid rotating slowly in the centre, immediately turned toward him and began to speak. "Hey Arthur, come check this o—"
"I was just attacked by an Ancient Breed Vampire," Arthur interrupted, cutting him off before he could finish.
The entire room fell silent at his words. Even Wyndella froze, stopping the pyramid’s rotation as she raised her gaze toward him.
Barda’s playful smile faded, replaced by a serious look as he asked, "Tell me more."
Arthur quickly recounted everything that had happened during his time on Galacarro, and when he finished, Wyndella spoke, asking about the item the vampires had been after.
"Where is it? You didn’t give the third one to the Planet Lord, did you?"
Arthur shook his head, produced the Cosmic Energy Core, and handed it to her without saying anything. Wyndella took the core, her eyes glowing as she immediately analysed all its components before frowning.
"This is the second universe where vampires are searching for things related to automations and golems."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Second?"
The dragon nodded silently, recalling a scene from one of her recent travels.
"While I was searching for something in another universe, I came across a group of Ancient-Breed Vampires working on automations. I didn’t pay much attention to it back then, but seeing that they’re after something like this in this universe as well, something must be happening."
Arthur nodded, understanding her reasoning, but he immediately dismissed the thought and went on to finish what he came to say.
"Well, it’s your dragon race’s universe, so you handle it. As for me, I’m out of here."
Barda blinked at his words, his eyes moving from the core in Wyndella’s hand to Arthur. "Huh? Out of here? What are you talking about?"
"Whatever the vampires are up to, you guys can deal with it yourselves," Arthur said, expressing his honest desire NOT to be involved in any way.
"I’m going to completely uninvolve myself. In fact, I’m leaving this universe and heading to Valmone tomorrow. So, uh... see ya."
He said that with a wave and was about to turn away, but his words reminded Barda of what he had been about to mention earlier.
"Right! That’s what I wanted to tell you about. Wyndella found Valmone."
Arthur froze, his gaze moving between the two dragons as he repeated, "She found Valmone? I don’t follow?"
His confusion was clear as day, and at that, Wyndella lifted her gaze from the core in her hands and explained.
I was trying to throw Lycaon’s dogs off my trail. So I asked the old—"
Arthur interrupted, "Sorry, um, Lycaon? Who?"
"The Progenitor Werewolf," Barda replied, and Arthur, quickly connecting the dots, asked again, "Okay, cool. So when you say ’his dogs’, I assume you mean Ancient-Breed Werewolves, right?"
"Yeah, those guys," Wyndella answered with a light yawn.
Her small action made Arthur raise an eyebrow, surprise colouring his expression. If Wyndella was actually tired enough to need to yawn, then she must have been extremely busy these past few months.
He couldn’t ask about it, though, as she continued her explanation from earlier.
"I asked the old man about a universe where there was any nearby Cosmic Horror. He pointed me toward a particular place where he had found one some years ago, which turned out to be the Valmone you’ve mentioned so much."
"...the fuck?"
Arthur couldn’t stop himself from cursing aloud after hearing the dangerous-sounding thing Wyndella had just mentioned casually, especially since it was supposedly in Valmone.
"What? I needed one of them to help me cover my tracks, but you don’t find those things just because you want to.
The Outerverse is massive, and there are plenty of them scattered across rogue universes and such. Luckily, the old man knew there was a Dark Young in a nearby universe, and while I was trying to locate it, I heard about a demon called..."
She paused, resting a hand on her chin as she tried to recall the exact name she had heard.
"Was it Sarge? Or Sargen?"
"Sargon?" Arthur asked, and Wyndella’s expression brightened at once.
"Ah, yes! That one. There was some news about a Rule Breaker, and that’s what caught my attention."
If it was truly as she said, then it was most likely the Greater Demon Alvey Sargon she was referring to, as that was the only ’Sargon’ in all of Valmone Arthur knew who wielded a Rule Breaker.
"Anyway, I went to check out the Gozon planet you mentioned, and after seeing how messed up it was, I was sure it was definitely the one you were talking about."
"How ’messed up’, you say?" Arthur asked, his expression puzzled.
"Mhmm. Didn’t you say your grandpa told you it was doomed to forever remain a Prime World? He was right. The planet’s toast."
Wyndella spoke about Gozon’s fate as if there was no hope for it, and that made Barda curious about what exactly had happened.
"What’s wrong with the planet?"
"Stray Foundation Fragment," Wyndella replied.
"Ah, I see. Tough luck," Barda said, immediately understanding what she meant, leaving Arthur as the only one still confused.
But although Arthur was curious about the cause of Gozon’s doomed fate, his greater curiosity was about the Cosmic Horror she had mentioned earlier.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to ask, as Wyndella returned to that topic on her own.
"I went to this place called the ’Labyrinth’... or maybe it was the Abyss Labyrinth?" She seemed unsure of the name, but didn’t seem to care much as she went on.
"I found the Dark Young the old man told me about, but before I left—"
"Hold on a second, please. What’s a Dark Young? Is that the Cosmic Horror you were talking about?"
Arthur’s question made both Barda and Wyndella blink in surprise, and after a few seconds of silence, Barda spoke.
"You’re kidding, right?"
"What part am I supposed to be kidding about? The Dark Young or the Cosmic Horror talk in general?"
Again, both dragons went silent, as if they couldn’t believe Arthur truly didn’t know what they were referring to.
Eventually, Barda broke the silence, though his words weren’t directed at Arthur.
"Lostvayne, why the hell haven’t you told him all this basic stuff?"
[Because there was no need,] Lostvayne replied, his voice projected outward without physically manifesting.
At that, Wyndella’s expression turned incredulous.
"So he doesn’t know anything about the spawn of the Void god?"
Before Lostvayne could respond, Arthur summoned a chair from his subspace and set it down with a loud slam before speaking.
"How about we start from what the hell the Void god is?"
Arthur had a vague idea, but he wanted a full explanation to confirm whether his assumption was correct.
However, Wyndella wasn’t in the mood for storytelling, so she immediately pushed the responsibility onto Barda and went back to tinkering with the small pyramid on the table in front of her.
Arthur turned his attention to Barda, who also didn’t seem interested in explaining anything, so he just condensed cosmic energy in his palm and created a memory gem containing all the important details.
"Absorb it and you’ll learn everything you need to know," he said, tossing the gem to Arthur.
Catching it, Arthur examined it briefly before infusing cosmic energy into it and activating the transfer of information.
It took him several minutes to process all the knowledge stored within, and from it, he was able to grasp several key facts.
-The Void god was the first spawn of the Cosmic Force of Chaos and was one of the main reasons the Reign of Chaos that took place aeons ago was so successful.
-The Void god birthed the creatures known as ’Cosmic Horrors’, which bled into the Cosmos from the void layer beneath reality, their main purpose being to spread the influence of the Cosmic Force of Chaos.
-Their presence was what caused the first disruption in the balance that set off the Reign of Chaos.
-The existence of the Void god was what led the Cosmic Force of Order to create the entity known as the Immutable One, whose purpose was to oppose the encroaching influence of Chaos.
In conclusion, the Void god and the Immutable One were essentially the Progenitors of the beings known as Cosmic Horrors, though each originated from different Cosmic Forces.
They were, in a sense, the first Envoys of Chaos and Order before the Cosmic Forces began choosing normal existences within the Cosmos to spread their influence.
These two were so powerful that it took the combined effort of all Primordial Progenitors to hold off the Void god and stop it from creating more Cosmic Horrors at the end of the Reign of Chaos.
Granted, they were much weaker back then, but so was the Void god. The Cosmos was wider now, with more hidden corners where Chaos could lurk, and the stronger the Cosmic Force became, the more powerful the entities connected to it grew.
As for the ’Dark Young’ Wyndella mentioned, understanding it required knowledge of the more ’prominent’ spawn of the Void god.
If the spawn of the Void god could be seen as a Pantheon with the Void god as the Master, then these prominent ones were the Main Entities.
Examples included the ’Crawling Chaos,’ an entity that constantly attempted to crawl into the Cosmos to spread Chaos.
The ’Dark Young’ was one of the offspring of the ’Black Goat,’ a creature known to possess hundreds of goat-like legs, tentacles rising from its body, and other strange appendages Arthur didn’t even want to imagine.
This ’Black Goat’ resided in a special dimension in the Outerverse known as ’The Woods,’ a name derived from the fact that the dimension was said to be a vast forest filled with towering black trees and various Void lifeforms.
It was believed to have a Thousand Young, each referred to as a ’Dark Young,’ and one of them was located within the Valmone universe.
"There was something that scary lurking around in the Abyss Labyrinth?"
Arthur couldn’t help but feel a delayed sense of fear at the thought, especially considering he had spent months wandering that place with Evan and Jamie, decimating entire planet surfaces.
"Are you done with your Cosmic Horror crash course? If so, can I get to the reason I brought up Valmone in the first place?"
At Wyndella’s question, Arthur snapped out of his thoughts and turned toward her, and she immediately said something he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to hear.
"I found the place where you’re gonna do your Whip Trials. That Abyss Labyrinth place has the perfect spot."
