Chapter 891: A Year of Grind
While Yujin was fighting for his life against the giant snake, Crim turned to Arthur and spoke.
"Now then. You’ve got some explaining to do."
"Huh? Explaining? About what?"
Arthur looked genuinely confused, but Crim didn’t buy it for a second, her eyes narrowing and glowing as she pressed him.
"You did something to me back on Taemia, didn’t you? Explain yourself."
For a split second, Arthur still looked lost, then a look of realisation dawned in his eyes, something Crim didn’t miss.
"Ah, that..." Arthur seemed like he’d only just recalled what she meant, replying, "It’s nothing serious. I’m honestly more surprised you noticed."
"Are you forgetting I’m a Deity now? I’ve gone through Exuviation, so did you really think I wouldn’t notice something that wasn’t ’mine’ inside my own body? Explain."
Her voice rose at the end, her irritation plain to hear, and even so, Arthur remained as casual as ever.
"Again, it’s nothing serious. It’s just a small mark, a message stamp, if you want to call it that."
"Mark? What kind of mark?"
"One that says ’Back Off!’," Arthur replied, earning a confused look from the vampiress.
"What the hell do you mean?"
At her question, Arthur sighed, muttering about how much of a pain explaining things was, and how that was exactly why he hadn’t bothered doing it 83 years ago.
But Crim’s pointed stare wasn’t going anywhere, so he heaved another tired sigh and spoke.
"Normally, this is where I’d act all mysterious, but that’s a pain, so I’ll get straight to the point.
I know you’re a ’Tepes’. And before you start freaking out, remember that I’m also a ’Progenitor’ of a Race, just like the guy whose ’Tepes’ name you’re carrying."
Crim’s frown deepened at Arthur’s words, which revealed he knew she was a descendant of the Progenitor of Vampires, something her family kept carefully concealed.
"I’ve said it plenty of times. Progenitors can identify other Race Breeds with a glance, and in a similar way, we can identify other Progenitors, since Progenitors are still a Breed of their own race."
Pointing at her, Arthur continued.
"If any Progenitor saw you, they’d probably think, ’Primordial Vampire? No, it’s diluted, so most likely a descendant’."
Before Arthur could continue his explanation, Lostvayne, who’d been silent for a long while, spoke up.
[That’s incorrect.]
"Huh?" Arthur made a confused sound, and at that, Lostvayne spoke again.
[You’re mistaken, Master. Vlad is the ’Origin Vampire’. There’s no ’Primordial Vampire’ by Breed. You Progenitors are the ’Origin Breeds’ of your races, aren’t you?]
"..."
Arthur blinked in silence at Lostvayne’s words, which made it sound like this was something he should’ve known, then opened his status and read the line on his race tab just to make sure he wasn’t tweaking.
’Then why am I not looking at ’Origin godslayer’ here?’
He asked himself this, not his Ego weapon, but before he could question Lostvayne about the Breed difference, Crim called out to him.
"Arthur?"
"Hmm? Ah, right, you."
Arthur decided he’d ask Lostvayne about it later as he returned to explaining her situation.
"Where was I again?"
"You were saying something about how other Progenitors would see me," Crim replied, and Arthur nodded at that.
"Yes, yes. Basically, any Progenitor can identify another Progenitor’s descendant, as long as no measures are taken to hide it.
Whatever measures your family thinks they’ve taken are useless to the eyes of another Progenitor, which is why when I appraise you, I can clearly see the ’Tepes’ name you bear because of your ancestry."
Crim stayed silent for a moment, taking time to process the fact that her family’s fool proof concealment methods weren’t so fool proof.
"That... that still doesn’t explain what you did," she finally said.
"Well, I used my Progenitor Authority to mark you for a simple but long reason.
In short, I wanna build an Inter-Universal army, and I’m not gonna be picky since my race is still new. I mean, 83 years in and the population on Nienope is barely in the millions.
And I’m pretty damn sure this is the biggest concentration of godslayers across the Cosmos."
Arthur was completely certain of this only because he didn’t know that someone, somewhere else, had been gathering godslayers from various universes for even longer than that.
"I’d like to recruit superior breeds from other races if I can, and a Progenitor’s descendant is basically prime real estate.
But I was barely getting my foundations set back then, and I was about to leave Valmone for a long time, so I just left that mark so that if another Progenitor ever came to this universe and noticed you, they’d see the ’Back Off!’ and not try to recruit you or anything, since they’d think another Progenitor already had.
That said, it only works on the civil ones, not the kind who don’t really care."
He said the last part with a shrug, then slipped his hands into his pockets as he finished.
"So there it is. That’s why I placed that mark on you. It doesn’t do anything else besides basically telling other Progenitors to ’Back Off!’. Want me to remove it?"
"Yes, remove it," Crim replied instantly, and at that, Arthur raised his left hand as a wisp of silver energy radiated from her arm, flowing through the air like water and coiling around his index finger before dispersing into the surroundings in a dull burst.
Right after that, he pointed in Yujin’s direction and spoke.
"Your ward’s done."
He then jumped off the cliff they were standing on, landing below and walking over to Elaine, who’d finally finished absorbing as much energy as she could from the divine spark of the dead solar dragon.
Her body and soul had been strengthened by several levels from the massive inflow, pushing her into the Intermediate Stage of the Grandmaster Realm, but the gap in Existence Realms between them meant she couldn’t absorb it all.
"You’ve advanced a stage, so your next fights are about getting your new power under control.
Once you’ve reached a level of control I’m satisfied with, the next objective will be pushing you to the Superior Stage, and so on."
Arthur said this as he took the cracked crystal from Elaine’s hands, tossing it into his subspace before meeting her eyes and continuing.
"We’re doing this until you become a Superior Sovereign."
Elaine’s eyes widened as she mentally ran through the list of Existence Realms along with the requirements and traits tied to each one, and when Arthur saw the realisation dawn, he added,
"You’re not leaving this place until you’re a Superior Sovereign, no matter how many years it takes."
He then ruffled her hair and walked toward the remaining three restrained monsters, and Crim flashed in beside him and spoke.
"We’re leaving once Yujin reaches the Legendary Realm. That’s his target."
"I know," Arthur replied, then added with a playful smile, "but she doesn’t need to know that, does she?"
Crim rolled her eyes silently as she realised Arthur was just messing with Elaine to push her harder, then turned her attention back to Yujin, who was wounded and poisoned.
She raised her hand, extracting all the poisoned blood from his body while healing his wounds at the same time, then spoke.
"There’s been a change of plans. You won’t just be hanging back for last hits anymore. You’ll fight every opponent we run into after I’ve weakened them to a point where you can barely handle it.
You’ll build both control and power that way, and we can leave this place sooner."
Hearing that, Yujin glanced toward Elaine, instantly understanding this change was influenced by how Arthur was handling her advancement.
He swallowed whatever complaints he might’ve had and nodded in agreement as he felt Crim’s gaze on him, and at that, the blonde vampiress turned her eyes away toward the sky, conjuring a blood whip she lashed upward and used to drag down another unfortunate creature that happened to be flying past.
When it crashed into the ground with a deafening impact, she drained a third of the blood from its body into an orb floating above its head, then turned to Yujin without a word.
Taking that as his cue, the young man picked up his sword and, after a deep breath, charged at the grounded creature.
◇ ◇ ◇
Days turned into weeks, months followed, and before long, a year had passed.
True to Arthur’s words, he didn’t let Elaine leave the Secret Realm even once, though he did take occasional trips out to deal with matters elsewhere, leaving Lostvayne on watch duty.
Berlal came over at some point alongside Wyndella, who, suspiciously enough, didn’t seem angry with him anymore.
The Creation Dragon simply picked up Layla and Nicole and vanished to another planet, while Esna had more or less become Stelan’s assistant with how much she helped him manage godslayer-related affairs on Nienope.
The experience she’d gained from administrative work on her home planet while Arthur was in Draco Sirus showed clearly here, and she brought ideas that, when combined with Stelan’s, made everything far more efficient.
Nothing major happened on the Intergalactic Stage during this period, and Arthur genuinely appreciated the peace and quiet, even though he knew schemes and conspiracies were still unfolding behind closed doors.
As long as nothing affected him directly, he didn’t mind.
Elaine always grumbled about Arthur being strict when he put her up against various kinds of monsters and made her fight with and against Yujin on multiple occasions, but during one stretch when Arthur was away from the Secret Realm for up to a month, and Berlal took charge in his stead, the young godslayer was once again reminded what strictness truly meant.
When Arthur returned, she practically ran to him, begging him to resume supervising her and promising she’d never complain again.
Of course, Arthur just laughed about it and didn’t miss a chance to tease her, or playfully threaten her with Berlal whenever she got lazy.
The months passed on the calendar, and like all things, the Advancement Mentorship sessions eventually came to an end after more than a year and a half, just as a messenger from the Infernal Dimension’s Ruler, Miacav, arrived with an invitation for Arthur.
