Chapter 925: The Ember Reign’s Legacy [Monthly Bonus 1]
The 78th ’Ember’ Reign Alpha Sirus Grand Festival.
It was a festival held to commemorate the anniversary of the ’Ember Reign’ of the Draco Sirus Universe, where notable individuals and major factions from across the universe were invited to take part in a series of organised events spread across selected planets within the Alpha Sirus galaxy cluster.
The festival was divided into several phases, with most of those events being held on Alpha Sirius’s Apex Worlds.
The events ranged from Interstellar tournaments to grand exhibitions that displayed the latest technological advancements, as well as ceremonial duels between younger generation members of the strongest factions, meant to showcase their abilities and help them build influence.
There were also special dimensional realms created exclusively for the festival, each filled with rare artifacts, Cosmic Relics, and various challenges.
This particular festival featured Treasure Hunting as one of its highlights, with several factions sponsoring hunts across these specially constructed dimensional realms, where participants had to navigate them in order to uncover rewards hidden by the festival’s overseers.
While it’s a celebration, it also serves as a stage for displaying strength, wit, and ambition alike, with particular focus placed on the talents of the younger generation of dragons.
That was what Arthur knew of the festival, courtesy of Moighor, the Master of Draco Sirus, whom he and Barda had gone to ask about it some months earlier. (Chapter 854)
Arthur had an invitation to take part in the festival’s events if he chose to, and it was a VIP invitation that granted him unrestricted access to many of the festival’s areas and facilities, along with several other special treatments.
That invitation had come from the now deceased ’Demonic Dragon Baruuk, a Candidate of Destruction who had crossed paths with Arthur and lost his life, ultimately becoming fodder that empowered Arthur’s Selective Destruction.
"Thinking about that guy makes me realise that my Aspect has about 5 times the average amount of energy of one Destruction Aspect, since I absorbed his, which had 4x.
Each one gives roughly a 50% law damage bonus, which is crazy when you think about it."
Those words escaped Arthur’s lips as he watched dragons fighting one another in the arena before him, slowly swirling a glass of wine in his hand.
[Exactly, Master. You’re broken, so stop worrying about not gaining power fast enough. You’re so fast that it should be illegal.]
That response came from Celestia, who was in her humanoid form and seated beside him on the couch in the VIP viewing area, her head resting on his shoulder as she flipped through a fashion magazine that had been kept in the room.
They were watching one of the tournaments Moighor had spoken of, passing time while they waited for Aleksas to return from his meeting with the Primordial Progenitors, so Arthur could tell him about the Dragon-godslayers.
’Come to think of it, just what kind of event would require a meeting between all of them?’
There were nine Primordial Progenitors, all of immensely famous and powerful races that had existed since the earliest days of this Era.
Hyperion, Aleksas, Adam, Quinn, Zane, Syndra, Astrel, Nash, and Luka, the Progenitors of Titans, Dragons, Humans, Devils, Celestials, Angels, Demons, Drifters, and gods.
Arthur didn’t know it, but they held periodic meetings every Cosmic Cycle or so, and it was simply time for one of those gatherings.
They had held one some decades earlier, but that had been an emergency meeting rather than a regularly scheduled one.
As for how long such meetings usually lasted, that depended on the topics being discussed, with the regularly scheduled meetings lasting anywhere from days to weeks, especially since they had an entire Cosmic Cycle’s worth of matters to go over.
Quick reminder, a Cosmic Cycle was a million 365-Day years.
To put it bluntly, Arthur was going to be waiting for Aleksas until further notice.
’If he takes too long, I’ll just go back to Valmone. I’ve got a lot of work to do anyway.’
Those thoughts passed through his mind as he rose from his seat at the end of the match, leaving Celestia behind to continue reading her magazine as he left the arena itself.
Perhaps because he’d become far stronger, or because she’d recovered more of her fragments, but the distance Celestia could remain away from him had increased, along with the speed at which she returned to him when summoned.
Now, Arthur could even leave the planet he was on, Athion, and head to another star system, and Celestia wouldn’t be automatically pulled toward him.
Then again, she didn’t really have any need or desire to be that far away from Arthur, so that capability didn’t see much use.
Anyway, Arthur decided to properly explore Athion, the planet where he’d found Celestia’s second fragment in this universe, making full use of the VIP invitation he had, which allowed him to explore every nook and cranny.
It was the 2nd Day of the Twelfth Month of the 9440th Draconic Year, and Arthur chose to spend the entire day exploring as much of Athion as he could.
Close to the evening, when the day’s tournament matches were close to wrapping up, and Arthur had decided to bring his exploration to a close, he found a nice and cosy bar on a random street corner he’d just turned into while walking around aimlessly.
The ambience was pleasant, smooth jazz music played softly in the background, and several couples occupied the dance floor at the centre of the bar.
Arthur ordered a drink using his VIP invitation, then chose a corner seat and slowly sipped it while thinking over his life and the decisions he planned to make from here on out.
’I’ve gotten tacit permission from Gaia to use her avatar’s blood in Olympus for the Ancestral Regression spell, and since I already have Lucifer’s original blood, I’ve got everything I need to get as much out of it as I can.
The problem now is getting Dad to let me come to Olympus. I’d have to explain Gaia’s existence to him and show him my memories, if I can, so he understands and takes me to where she’s sealed in Olympus.’
He sipped some of his wine, setting the glass down on the table as he thought about the one reason his father had never allowed him to visit Olympus and had always chosen to come to Hell instead when seeing Arthur.
’Zeus, huh? He’s really a pain in the behind.’
According to Hades, the last time he checked, Zeus was involved in some serious, shady dealings that weren’t going well for him and were putting him at odds with several of his strongest allies, though it still wasn’t to the point where the man would ignore what was happening within his own universe.
’Dad said Zeus’s intelligence network is insanely vast, and there are probably spies even in the Underworld, subordinates of Zeus who have the same transformation abilities as the god King.’
Olympian history contained many records of Zeus transforming into all sorts of creatures, and according to Hades, that was due to an ability Zeus had gained in his younger years while he was in hiding from Kronos.
’Sky god’s Trickery’.
