Chapter 874: Overmind [Monthly Bonus 1]
Though Wyndella wanted to leave Hell immediately, they ended up having to wait until the next day—not for Nicole, who had returned to Harper County, or Layla, who needed to settle a few affairs, but for Barda, who was busy cracking planets open like eggs in the Crystal Realm.
Yes, you read that right.
It wasn’t like he needed the law crystals from them, so he ended up tossing everything to Arthur, who passed them to his mother with a sigh.
As planned with her mother, Layla was accompanied by Number Two, who was to act as both maid and bodyguard.
Nicole, of course, had the Great Spirit who always stayed by her side come along, though she was far from pleased about Nicole heading to Valmone with Arthur. There had almost been a minor argument with Arthur over it, but he shut it down with a simple statement.
"Nicole is capable of making her own decisions. She said she wants to come with, and the only ones who have the right to speak on that decision are her parents. You definitely do NOT have that right."
He added a few other points that left the Undine no room for further argument, all of which were undeniably true.
Part of the reason the Undine didn’t want Nicole leaving was that while she could easily send her clone into Hell because her real body was in a nearby universe, Valmone was too far for her to project her consciousness, meaning Nicole would be out of reach unless the Undine did something like detach a Soul Fragment and place it in her clone.
Once again, Nicole’s AquaGenesis, along with her natural disposition to attract Spirits of every attribute, were why this particular Undine had stayed close to her and wanted to contract with her once she grew powerful enough.
Such contracts offered benefits to both sides, after all. Undine stood to gain as much as Nicole did.
Arthur had suspected this for a while, and now, being much stronger and more knowledgeable about Existence Realms, he could confirm that the Undine’s clone, which had been staying near Nicole for as long as he’d known her, was a High-Tier Deity.
For a ’clone’ sent across universes to be this strong, the real body had to be at least a level higher and undoubtedly possess some degree of Cosmic Superiority.
Paired with her reluctance to ’go far,’ Arthur guessed she was either bound to her location or was a Main Entity of a universe and couldn’t leave for long.
He didn’t really care about the reason.
"Whatever it is, that’s your problem to deal with. Nicole’s coming with me, and that’s final."
With those words, Arthur ended the matter, and since the Levites planned to leave within a day, the Undine was forced to go the Soul Fragment route.
The group, which had originally just been Arthur, Barda, and Wyndella, now included Nicole, Layla, Esna, Number Two, and Undine.
Granted, the latter two were out of sight, with Number Two turning Layla’s shadow into a pocket realm where she stayed, while Undine miniaturised her body to fit on Nicole’s shoulder.
Apart from Esna, everyone else had left the universe at some point, which was news to Arthur, who had only just learned that Conrad had taken Layla out on a diplomatic mission to a nearby Demon-Ruled universe some years ago.
Esna, the only one who hadn’t yet experienced the sensation of crossing such vast regions of space, had been hoping for an experience like the one Arthur described when he first went to Valmone.
But unfortunately, Barda’s Cosmic Gates were much faster than the Cosmic Teleporter. The man could fold billions of light-years of space in an instant and punch a hole through them to reach the other side, so the trip didn’t even take a day.
As expected of someone with the title of ’Continuum Dragon’.
A little-known fact Arthur learned from Berlal was that the younger Barda occasionally travelled through time by accident, since the interconnection of the fabric of space and the stream of time within the space-time fabric sometimes caused him to jump from one point in space to another, through time.
That kind of accident couldn’t happen now, not even if he were half-asleep, because his control over time and space was nearly unmatched.
Thanks to that control, they arrived in Valmone on June 8, Year 1137 of the 50th General Calendar.
It was also the year the being who would later become known across the Multiverse as the ’Prismatic godslayer’ was born.
◇ ◇ ◇
’The Workshop’
Unknown Galaxy
Valmone Universe
June 8th
Year 1137 of the 50th General Calendar
Monolithic gears rotated in the vast skies, enormous pistons pumped in the distance, and thick streams of dark oil dripped from the network of overhead valves that stretched across the dim space.
Suddenly, a section of the enormous workshop lit up, revealing a single transparent, hollow sphere with 10 empty divisions slowly orbiting.
All the divisions emitted a dim white light, except for one that glowed red.
|Overmind: V.A.L.K.A.L.O.N.E.X ONLINE.|
...
|Aspect Fragment ’L1’ assigned to ’Searches’ has detected traces of Subject designated for elimination by Aspect Fragment ’A1’, assigned to existential records.|
|Accessing Archive...|
|Data Retrieved.|
|Match Identified.|
|Retrieving known Existential Records of Subject Designated for Elimination.|
...
...
[Name: Arthur Vaughn.
Classification: Class 5 Threat.
Existence Realm: Low-Tier Deity (Superior)]
—##ERROR! DATA INCONSISTENCY DETECTED.
|Recalculating Existence Realm Parameters...|
|Recalculation FAILED!!|
—##ERROR 404. DATA NOT FOUND.
|External Interference Detected.|
|Attempting Revision...|
|Existence Realm: INCALCULABLE |
|Threat Classification Escalated to Level 7.|
...
[Aspect Fragment ’X’ REQUESTS Justification for High-Value Threat Reclassification.]
[Aspect Fragment ’L2’ REQUESTS Justification for High-Value Threat Reclassification.]
[Aspect Fragment ’A2’ REQUESTS Justification for High-Value Threat Reclassification.]
|Accessing Logs of Aspect Fragment ’A1’...|
|Verification Complete.|
|Subject Designated for Elimination confirmed responsible for permanent destruction of Aspect Fragment ’K’, Codename ’Kalon’.|
|Date of Destruction: August 6, Year 1054, 50th Valmone General Calendar.|
...
[Aspect Fragment ’X’ ACKNOWLEDGES High-Value Threat Reclassification.]
[Aspect Fragment ’L2’ ACKNOWLEDGES High-Value Threat Reclassification.]
[Aspect Fragment ’A2’ ACKNOWLEDGES High-Value Threat Reclassification.]
|Aspect Fragment ’A1’ REQUESTS Activation Permission for Aspect Fragment ’E’, assigned to ’Eliminations’.|
...
|Aspect Fragment ’V’ AUTHORIZES Permission.|
|Aspect Fragment ’V’ AUTHORIZES Aspect Fragment ’E’ to UTILIZE ’Machine god Authority’.|
...
|Aspect Fragment ’E’ ONLINE |
|Aspect Fragment ’L1’ INITIATING Precise Target Location Tracking.|
...
|Overmind: V.A.L.K.A.L.O.N.E.X OFFLINE.|
◇ ◇ ◇
The moment the group stepped out of the Cosmic Gate Barda had created, Arthur immediately frowned.
"This is the Abyss Labyrinth," he said, instantly recognising the dimension they were in.
Wyndella raised an eyebrow in surprise. "How’d you figure?"
Pointing at the ruined landscape stretching to the horizon, Arthur replied, "I know because I’m one of the three who wrecked this planet."
It happened to be one of the planets he, Evan, and Jamie had destroyed while training their new powers after Cruotis Prime’s Apocalypse, and even after nearly a century, it still hadn’t fully recovered.
Turning to Wyndella, Arthur said, "Look, I’m going to take your Whip Trials for sure, but there are certain affairs I need to get in order before I can vanish for 30 days or more."
Right as he spoke, Barda raised an eyebrow, glanced to the side, and muttered, "Oh, Berlal’s here. She’s with Elaine."
Arthur responded, "Then she must be on Nienope. Can you send us there?"
Arthur and Berlal had spoken before he left for Asgard, and the agreement was that when Berlal arrived in Valmone, she would take Elaine to Nienope, whose coordinates Arthur had provided.
"I’m going to meet Harlamagne. You guys do whatever you want before then," Wyndella said, turning to Barda and adding, "Let’s go. I want to get the old man’s tasks done."
Barda nodded silently, snapping his fingers to mass teleport them. He and Wyndella warped to where the Ancient Dragon waited, while Arthur and the others were beamed to Nienope.
They appeared in the middle of a large square in front of a set of enormous buildings over 100 floors high.
Eight glass skyscrapers stood there, six 50-storey ones encircling the two central towers that exceeded 100 floors. The area was minimalistically designed, with hundreds of people walking around, mostly in uniform.
The moment Arthur’s group appeared, the patrolling guards went on alert, drawing their weapons on the trio.
Security systems activated, and even what initially seemed to be a statue of a battleship atop the fountain in the centre of the square moved and spun toward them, its guns deploying and aimed at Arthur and his group.
This was an area where teleportation was restricted, so Arthur’s sudden appearance naturally put all the guards on high alert.
Alarms echoed through the buildings as more soldiers rushed out, and some of the tower windows slid open to reveal turrets aimed at the group.
The eight towers were protected by domes of concentrated magical energy, drawn from the planet itself to guard against Low-Tier Deity-Level attacks. Some of the turrets also drew on ambient law and magic power to charge.
All of this happened within seconds, and once everything was in place, a loud voice boomed from the battleship.
[THIS IS A RESTRICTED AREA! STATE YOUR NAME AND AFFILIATION!]
At the demand, Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"Name and affiliation? Well, the name’s Arthur."
He stepped forward, and some of the guards who had only had their hands on their weapons drew them fully, but at the same time, traces of recognition flashed in the eyes of a few.
[DON’T TAKE ANOTHER STEP FORWARD!]
Arthur ignored the warning and continued walking forward as he spoke.
"And I am your Planet Lord."
He snapped his fingers, and all the weapon systems in both the battleship and the towers shut down as the power they were drawing directly from the planet was instantly cut off.
The dome protecting the towers collapsed, and the backup power systems didn’t even activate.
The guards who had drawn their weapons were stunned, especially those manning the turrets and the battleship’s guns, because they could tell their systems hadn’t been disabled by interference or hacking but by a superior Authority operating within the same hierarchy they belonged to.
♧ ♧ ♧
Hey y’all, it’s your friendly neighbourhood author, _michael here. 👋🏽
I was planning to revamp Esna’s kit, and I was looking for suggestions on what powers or abilities to give her. I intend for her to remain an elemental mage type, but with a special ability or two added in.
I’ll be taking any suggestions you may have in the comments.
Thanks for your understanding, and I look forward to you continuing on our Godslayer’s Legend.
This has been _michael.
Over and Out! ✌🏽
