Chapter 869: Crystal Heist
Devildom Royal Castle
Apex World Aeturn
Burning Realms Cluster
Hell Universe
March 2nd
Year 749 of the 50th General Calendar
Six couches were arranged in a circle around the lounge’s large centre table, each one occupied by one of the highest-ranking Devils within the universe, both by race breed and power hierarchy.
On the northern end of the room sat the royal family members of the Hell Universe’s Devildom, who were present: Diablo Vaughn and his daughter Cattleya, their distinctive dull silver hairs catching the room light.
Facing them on the southern end were the four Grand Dukes: Inglis, Conrad, Belphegor, and Mammon.
The atmosphere was calm as they discussed matters of importance, when Diablo, who was reaching for a tablet on the side stool beside his couch, froze mid-sentence.
His expression darkened, his eyes narrowing slightly as he activated his Authority as the Universe’s Master to probe what had just entered Hell.
Belphegor’s reaction followed almost immediately, his gaze turning to the side as if drawn by an unseen pull.
"This presence..." he muttered.
’I haven’t sensed it in many years.’
That thought crossed his mind in the second before another voice casually broke the sudden silence.
"Sup, guys."
The figure of a young man appeared out of thin air, materialising on the armrest of the couch where Cattleya sat, and while leaning casually against her, he smiled. "Hello, Mum."
"!"
Cattleya froze, completely stunned by the sudden sound of her son’s voice.
Neither she nor anyone else in the room had detected his arrival until he spoke, not even Diablo or Belphegor.
Arthur then turned toward Diablo, meeting his grandfather’s eyes and speaking with his usual casual tone.
"Hello, Grandpa. Don’t worry about the guy who just came in. He’s not here to cause trouble. He’s here for Larry and Uncle Bel."
He glanced at the other Grand Dukes present, waved at his grandmother, Inglis, before adding, "Well, looks like you guys are in a meeting, so I’ll tell him to go bug Larry first since Uncle Bel’s busy."
Those words alone were enough for Diablo to understand that the presence he had just sensed, the one that made even Belphegor react, had entered the universe because of Arthur.
Naturally, curiosity stirred, and Diablo asked, "Who did you bring here?"
"An Ancient Dragon," Arthur replied. "One of the most Ancient you can possibly find."
His words made Belphegor connect the dots instantly, and before Conrad could speak up, he asked, "Which one of them?"
"Barda. The ’Continuum’ guy."
Belphegor went silent at Arthur’s response, and Arthur, unbothered, continued speaking.
"As I was saying, I’ll tell him to bug Larry since you’re busy, Uncle Bel. You can finish whatever business you have here before meeting him."
Belphegor instantly became curious about the nature of Arthur’s relationship with Barda, because the casual way Arthur mentioned ’telling him to bother Larry’ carried a confidence that the dragon would actually listen.
But Arthur didn’t give anyone any chance to question him as he continued speaking.
"I’m not staying long since I have to head to Valmone to take some weapon trials under the Ancient Dragons who are training me.
Once I’m done with that, along with a few other things, I shouldn’t have anything else holding me up, so I’ll be back for a long while."
Standing up, he swung his left hand at empty space, and it shattered like glass, with cosmic energy swirling to create a cosmic gate.
"See you later, Mum," he said to Cattleya. "I’ll let you know before I leave."
With that, he jumped through it and vanished as the gate sealed behind him.
◇ ◇ ◇
Apex World Noatov
Mankion Star System
Burning Realms Cluster
March 2nd
Year 749
Larry ’the Ubiquitous’ was in his office, surrounded by countless stacks of data from hundreds of universes, his hands moving quickly as he silently sifted through information.
Suddenly, his hand froze mid-motion, and he raised his gaze just in time to see Barda materialise on the chair opposite his desk.
"Barda fucking Levite. You’re still alive!" Larry blurted out, his voice rising in mock shock.
"And you, Larry, are still selling people’s personal information for profit," Barda shot back, reaching across the desk and picking up one of the memory disks among the stacks.
A quick scan revealed private information about an Ancient-Breed Giant from a cluster several hundred universes west of Hell, information Larry clearly shouldn’t possess.
Barda sighed and tossed the disk back onto the desk, shaking his head while Larry simply shrugged, a faint grin appearing as he said, "Information is power. You should know that."
Not bothering to answer that, Barda looked around the office and spoke.
"Who would’ve thought that an old fogey like you would end up behind a desk in an unknown corner of this Multiverse?"
"Well, this ’unknown corner of this Multiverse’ is filled with intervention of Cosmic Powers," Larry responded.
"You’ve got the Eternals’ little Playground in Olympus, and not too far off is the replica of the playground that is Romersk.
Azi Dhaka’s pet terrorises Egito every universal cycle, there are a bunch of Rule Breakers hiding in plain sight in Erin, two of your race’s Four Great Sinners sealed in the Nine Realms Cluster, there’s a small cluster ruled by Dwarves who proclaim neutrality and has a confirmed sighting of Indifferent Creation, and there’s the Hell universe removed from its original position in the Multiverse by an Archdevil who also hoards over a hundred Rule Breakers, and within it is Belphegor, the Progenitor Devil’s former advisor.
The place is rife with gossip, so it’s only natural I’d end up here, no?"
Hearing Larry’s explanation, Barda turned his gaze and scanned the region, spotting the giant dragon god Apophis in Egito, shaking his head as he felt Azi Dhaka’s familiar Authority lingering over the serpentine existence.
"I thought Arthur was exaggerating, but you’re even worse these days," Barda muttered.
At this, Larry raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side.
"Arthur? Ah, you’re familiar with this universe’s Prince? I suppose that’s another mutual acquaintance we should add to the list."
Just as he said that, Arthur’s voice echoed in the room.
|Get me off that list.|
A cosmic gate opened, and he stepped out, and at this, Larry smiled brightly.
"Welcome back, your Highness. You seem to have grown stronger, but..."
Larry’s bright expression faded into a frown as he realised he couldn’t see through Arthur’s power.
Given that Lucifer’s concealment ring was useless to Ultimate Realm Existences like him, the only possibility was that another existence of similar power was masking Arthur’s strength.
He silently turned his gaze to Barda, but the dragon didn’t meet it, only scanning across space-time and marvelling in surprise upon detecting the dormant Avatars of Eternals in Olympus.
"Then you must have grown much stronger than my estimations," Larry muttered, rubbing his chin.
Ignoring him, Arthur turned to Barda and spoke. "Uncle Bel is busy, so you’re gonna have to deal with Mr. loose lips over here until he’s done."
"Loose lips? You insult me, Arthur. After everything I’ve done for you all these years," Larry interjected, his voice dripping with mock sadness, prompting Arthur to roll his eyes.
He didn’t bother dignifying Larry’s words with a response, instead bringing out his own half of the Linked Echoes he had given Layla to find her general direction, then spoke to Barda.
"Lemme know when you wanna leave."
With that, he activated the Cosmic Teleporter and conjured another gate leading to his destination.
◇ ◇ ◇
Duke Conrad Eryrth of Hell’s Devildom was a High-Tier Deity who’d lived tens of thousands of years, and like most beings from races with extreme longevity, his desire to procreate and leave behind descendants was minimal.
It was kind of hardwired into races like his for the sake of cosmic balance.
With their long lives, if they reproduced at the same rate as humans, who had shorter lifespans by default, there would be far too many of them in the Cosmos, which would create a host of problems.
Even with that limitation, they were still numerous, and many had caused so much harm to the Cosmos and its inhabitants that Slayer Races had been generated to reduce their numbers.
Anyway, back to Conrad.
The man was the holder of the special Deadly Sin Authority of Pride.
Conrad didn’t plan to abdicate his position anytime soon. And ’Soon’ meant at least a few hundred thousand years.
So, his only daughter, Layla, wasn’t going to succeed him for a long time.
But that didn’t mean he’d let her be incapable of handling his duties all that while.
He planned to make her his second-in-command when she was old and competent enough, as in his eyes the 48-year-old was still a ’child’, and this decision was one that no one within the Grand Duchy had the right to veto.
So, Conrad decided to train his daughter in handling a wide range of situations and had been doing so for the past dozen years.
He’d placed her on remote planets in corners of the universe where she was to conceal her status, not that anyone there even knew what the Grand Duke’s daughter looked like.
She was to govern these planets, root out corruption, execute criminals, and deal with other threats to those regions of the Grand Duchy’s vast territories.
Her latest assignment was to arrest the criminals responsible for the theft of several high-value items in the Crystal Realm.
The Crystal Realm was a special realm in the Hell Universe where planets could develop with law energy crystals at their cores, and information on this was tightly controlled, as one would expect.
Even Layla didn’t know what had been stolen or what she was meant to retrieve.
When spatially compressed, the law crystal cores were kept in boxes no larger than 30cm and emitted only faint magic and law energy signatures.
She’d spent months during her investigation with the forces assigned to her both by the Grand Duchy and, in secret, the Royal Family, and had come to confront the leader of the Pirates who had stolen this law crystal core.
These Pirates didn’t know what it was and had only attacked the transport ship while it was recovering from an attack by space-dwelling monsters, taking whatever looked valuable to sell to Nobles on black markets.
During her trials, Layla had been accompanied by her best friend, Nicole, the daughter of Count Harper, along with other close friends from her days at the Devildom’s Royal Academy.
After some planning and using a similar item as bait, they managed to lure the Pirate Leader and his high command into a trap set on a planet on a collision course with its host star.
