Chapter 956: A Bargain with the Progenitor [Bonus 20]
Upon waking, Arthur had no sense of how long he had slept.
When he stepped out of his room in his residence on the planetoid within Barda’s training pocket universe, the sound of rushing footsteps reached him and the door to the building was thrown open, and in a flash, someone tackled him to the ground in a hug.
A wry smile formed on his face as he reached out, running his fingers through the hair of the young woman holding him tightly, and said, "Seeing how much you’ve grown really makes the reality of how long has passed hit hard, huh?"
There was no immediate response, but after a few seconds, as he continued to run his hands through her lustrous black hair, a small voice finally spoke, "I missed you."
At this, Arthur smiled wryly, returning her hug fully, and said, "Missed you too, Elaine."
Indeed, the one who had rushed to him the moment he woke was Elaine, the Ancient-Breed godslayer he had rescued from the planet Solymus, who was the closest person to a daughter to him.
In the three years Arthur had been stuck in Barda’s Tower, Elaine had been under Berlal’s tutelage and had grown in numerous ways beyond the physical.
For starters, she was now a twenty-year-old young adult. She had reached the Superior Stage of the Transcendent Realm and had already attained a Pseudo-Authority in the law of death, achieving it in record speed, just as Arthur had decades ago with the law of time.
When Arthur finally got off the ground after being tackled by Elaine, he blinked lightly and chuckled as he noticed the height difference between them was much smaller than he remembered.
Before, she had been short enough that he could see over her head, and lifting her onto his shoulder and carrying her like a child had not seemed strange.
Now, he only had a few centimetres on her, and carrying her like before would look odd to anyone.
But was Arthur the kind to care about that? Elaine was once again reminded that he wasn’t when he began spinning her around while laughing.
Their playful moment was interrupted when the door opened, and to Arthur’s surprise, Layla stepped in.
"Oh wow, you’re here? Good to see you again, Layla."
He hugged her lightly before recalling the last time he had seen her was in the Valmone universe and sighed.
"I feel like I’m the worst possible host for you guys. I brought you somewhere and then left you there for an extended period without proper notice of how long I would be away."
There was a time speed difference between Draco Sirus and Valmone, as was the case between any primary and secondary universe.
Draco Sirus experienced time at a speed similar to the Hell universe, so the three years Arthur spent in Draco Sirus equated to nearly 10 years in Valmone.
"Don’t worry about it," Layla said casually. "We heard that you were trapped in some sort of tower?"
Layla’s words made Arthur heave a tired sigh.
"Yeah, I was stuck in that hellhole."
His dark expression brightened immediately as he spun around and added, "But now I’m out, and I can see Elaine again, so I’m happy!"
He hugged Elaine again, lifting her lightly into the air and catching her while laughing, much to the younger woman’s dismay.
Layla shook her head with a wry smile, pleased to see Arthur still being himself, but the happy moment came to an end when the door opened once more, with Aleksas stepping in this time.
"Ah, you’re done," Arthur said, putting Elaine down and lightly rubbing her hair. "Now then, while I’d love to spend more time with you, I have a little official business to handle. It shouldn’t take long, so I’ll be back in a jiff."
After saying that, he turned to Aleksas, tapping his shirt and using a lifestyle magic spell to swap his clothes.
"Now then, Mr Progenitor Dragon, are you interested in dragons that have built-in godslayer powers?"
Arthur’s first question made Aleksas’s eyes narrow slightly, and he spoke a single word. "Elaborate."
Sliding his hands into his pockets, Arthur responded, "Won’t it be better if I show you instead of just telling you? How about a trip to the Valmone universe? You’ve been there before, so you know the coordinates, don’t you?"
Aleksas did not respond verbally, but cosmic energy wrapped around him and Arthur, and in a flash of light, they warped through space-time.
When they appeared, they were on the familiar planet Arthur had wrecked over a century ago in Valmone universe time, during training with Evan and Jamie shortly after Cruotis Prime’s Apocalypse.
"It’s been a while, this place," he muttered lightly.
He pushed his nostalgia aside and activated his Spatial Authority, calling out a set of coordinates he recorded for Aleksas.
When Aleksas warped them once more, they appeared above a planet cloaked in a veil of cosmic energy. Arthur extended his hand, deactivating his barrier, and he and Aleksas descended toward the surface.
"So, what do you think?" Arthur asked as he touched down on the ground.
Aleksas didn’t answer, silently walking into the village he and Arthur had appeared in front of. He picked up a small child running by the collar, studying them with his slit-pupiled eyes, ignoring the child’s fear at being grabbed by an unfamiliar man.
This child was one of the dragon-godslayers Arthur had discovered on his last visit to Valmone, the reason he had come to Draco Sirus to speak with Aleksas.
It was a small step toward building a relationship with Aleksas, one that would make Aleksas view him as an ally and someone to aid if he was ever in a situation that Aleksas could help him out of, and also ensure Aleksas wouldn’t reveal his location to the Progenitor goddess currently looking for him.
In short, Arthur wanted Aleksas to have a vested interest in his survival and location security.
After a few seconds of analysis, Aleksas set the child down, and as they ran to go find their parents, he muttered, "This can be useful if given time."
"That’s what I thought too," Arthur said. "And barring unnatural deaths, time is something both of us have in abundance, isn’t it?"
Progenitors like them had no set lifespan. They lived until they were killed, so they literally had all the time in the Cosmos.
"Their existence came about as a coincidence, but coincidences can be quite handy if you put them to good use.
While I have no doubt that at some point in the future, dragons and godslayers would have interacted and there would be children scattered here and there, this is the first of the lot we’ve actually found, so I think it’s best if we nurture them properly."
Walking closer to Aleksas, hands still in his pockets, Arthur asked, "So, what do you say?"
The Progenitor Dragon was silent for a moment, scanning the entire planet and counting how many of these dragon-godslayer hybrids existed.
Just as he was about to respond, he paused, immediately turning his gaze in a seemingly random direction and narrowing his eyes.
Arthur noticed this and turned toward that direction as well, but he neither saw nor sensed anything.
"What’s wrong?" he asked, curious.
Aleksas didn’t respond, silently thinking to himself, ’What the hell is he doing here?’
Eventually, he chose to ignore the person waving at him across several billion light-years and returned his gaze to Arthur and said, "It’s just a drifter. Pay no mind to him."
Then, he glanced at the dragon-godslayers around them.
"What exactly do you want?" Aleksas asked, wanting to know Arthur’s true intentions for showing him this.
"What do I want, huh?" Arthur repeated, tapping his right foot on the ground. "That’s fairly simple. We can call it a racial alliance, or we can say it’s making sure you don’t suddenly stop caring and, I don’t know, slip my location to Luka.
The list goes on, but let’s start with those two for now.
Any more would be biting off more than I can chew, and I really don’t want my jaw hurting."
"You say that despite the actions you took in Draco Sirus."
At Aleksas’ words, Arthur froze, immediately turning toward the other Progenitor with a confused expression.
"Actions? Exactly what actions are you talking about?" Arthur asked, making a mental list of every big move he’d made in Draco Sirus. "I’m pretty sure I’ve done quite a fair bit while in Draco Sirus."
Aleksas, however, did not give him a straight answer.
"Find out yourself when you get back there."
With that, the man turned and added, "I’ll send some people over."
"Very well then. Until they arrive, I guess I’ll have my demon allies here watch this place till your people come over," Arthur replied.
Aleksas silently nodded, disappeared, and, using his Cosmic Teleporter, created a portal straight to Gozon and stepped through.
