Chapter 983: Equivalent Exchange: The Geass
Berlal first headed directly to the training pocket universe that Barda had created within Draco Sirus to keep the unconscious Elaine there, creating a Shadow Clone to watch over her before leaving and making her way toward where she sensed Aleksas and Quinn.
When she arrived on the unknown planet, she also saw Lostvayne and Celestia in their humanoid forms, and the sight left her slightly confused.
’I understand Lostvayne, but Celestia as well?’
The fact that Celestia was away from Arthur was enough to set alarm bells ringing in Berlal’s mind.
She turned her attention to Aleksas and Quinn, who hadn’t reacted to her arrival, the two of them seemingly in the middle of an argument.
"Be rational for a moment, Quinn. Reacting explosively is exactly what Luka would want you to do," Aleksas said, grabbing Quinn and pulling her away from the Cosmic Gate she had been about to enter.
’Luka?’
Berlal glanced around after hearing that name, immediately putting the pieces together. She tried to teleport away right after, but before she could, Aleksas turned his gaze toward her, interrupting her teleportation as he said, "Don’t. Leave him alone."
"Leave him alone, you say?" Berlal echoed, a slight frown appearing on her face.
"He wants to be left alone, so leave him alone," Aleksas replied.
"But he’s not alone," Berlal shot back.
Her words left Aleksas and Quinn lightly surprised, both of them immediately turning their gazes in the direction of the planet where they’d left Arthur.
Berlal took that chance to warp herself to Arthur’s location, arriving to meet him dusting the back of his palm.
The moment she appeared, Arthur stopped, turning towards her before muttering, "Oh. It’s you."
"Who was that?" Berlal asked, glancing at the dent in the nearby wall.
Understanding that Berlal had definitely sensed Alkosh’s presence, Arthur responded candidly.
"The Master of a Universe near Hell."
He paused for a moment, thinking of how best to describe Alkosh now before continuing, "Possibly a future ally."
Just then, Celestia and Lostvayne appeared, and Celestia immediately rushed up to him, her expression and voice filled with worry.
[Master!]
She slowed when she got close, looking around before frowning.
[Divinity? A god was here?]
Instantly looking back up at Arthur, she asked, [Who?!]
However, Arthur did not answer her question.
"Whatever you have to say, Celestia, save it for later."
With those words, he waved his hand, forcefully returning his two Rule Breakers to their weapon forms and unsummoning them, before looking at Berlal and asking, "Hey, Berlal, can you do me a favour and help me confirm the state of space around certain coordinates?"
"Coordinates for where? And where do you acquire these coordinates?" Berlal asked, her gaze searching Arthur’s for anything that would give away what he was really thinking.
"This universe’s Memoria Dragon. He claims that’s where he got the fragment of Celestia which was in the Alpha Sirus Cluster. However, I have no idea how the location the coordinates lead to would b—"
Arthur stopped mid-sentence, pursing his lips lightly before shaking his head.
"On second thought, never mind. I can’t go there now anyway. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to acquire the fragments if they are there, and right now I’m a bit pressed for time."
Arthur changing his mind about trying to recover whatever fragments might be in that location prompted another question from Berlal.
"And what is pressing you for time?"
"I’m heading back to the First Multiverse," Arthur declared. "It’s high time that I put into motion plans I’ve had for decades."
Arthur touched his shirt, about to use his time manipulation to rewind the tear on it, but changed his mind and instead used the spell to swap his shirt with a different one.
"I’ve had a bit of a rude awakening, Berlal," he said. "I’ve been once again reminded that I am starting my journey on the path to acquiring power while my enemies are those who have already completed their journeys on this path, and they sure as hell aren’t all just gonna wait around for me to get as strong as they are."
"You realised this long ago," Berlal responded, folding her arms across her chest. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Well, what else can I do besides trying to get stronger as quickly as possible?" Arthur asked in return with a dry laugh.
He clenched his fist, that simple motion causing cosmic energy to rapidly gather around his hand, and with a faint, depreciating smile, he continued, "I have a lot of potential, but it’s all meaningless if that potential is never actualised.
It’s high time I started bringing every single bit of that potential into reality, leaving no stone unturned."
Arthur loosened his fist, looking at Berlal as he said, "I’ve focused on honing combat skills, energy manipulation, and power control for decades, and somewhere along the way, my law comprehensions started to fall behind. I can’t allow that anymore. I also need to carry out my plan to deal with my weakness to creation.
So much to do, and so little time to do it."
"You seem calm enough to map out a plan of action. I suppose that’s good enough, considering the circumstances," Berlal said.
Hearing this, Arthur froze, his expression cracking for a moment before he then chuckled lightly.
"Of course, you’d see through it," he said, shaking his head slightly.
Berlal had said Arthur seemed calm, not that he was calm.
She had quickly seen through the façade he had put up and recognised the boiling rage that simmered beneath it all.
Walking up to him, Berlal said, "I’m not saying what you’re doing right now, turning your rage into motivation, is the wrong decision, but if you keep that rage bottled up too much, it’ll eat away at you from the inside. You have every right to express it as loudly as you can.
Rather, you should express it as loudly as you can."
At Berlal’s words, Arthur raised an eyebrow and said, "And here I thought you were going to tell me that I should keep my cool at all times."
Berlal scoffed, "It’s impossible for a being who possesses emotions to keep their cool at all times. Even I’m no exception, no matter how calm I may appear to you."
She stopped directly in front of Arthur, meeting his eyes as she raised a finger and said, "I’ll help you."
Cosmic energy swirled around her finger and formed a brand, a pitch-black infinity symbol with a break in one of the loops. Law energy was drawn into the loop through this break, and as this happened, Berlal asked,
"Do you know what a Geass is?"
"Yes. A Restriction in return for a Benefit," Arthur answered.
"A good answer. Exactly what I sought long ago when I was still a young dragon hungry for power. I wanted power, even if I had to pay a price, and the result I reached at the end of my search was a binding force of equivalent exchange created with the powers of the Laws of Restriction and Amplification.
Restricting certain aspects of my existence in return for amplifying the speed at which others progressed."
When Berlal spoke to this point, she brought her finger down and pointed it at Arthur’s chest, stopping just before pressing the brand onto him, and continued, "You already have that Temporal Epitaph branded on your soul which is accelerating several facets of your existence, but since that clearly isn’t enough to satisfy you, what do you think about this?"
Arthur looked down at Berlal’s finger, observing the law energies flowing through the broken infinity symbol.
Then he looked back up at her and asked, "So...how do I create this restriction? What’s the difficulty?"
"It’s not difficult. Far from it," Berlal replied. "Creating a restriction for a Geass is fairly simple. All you have to do is decide what you wish to bind."
Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but Berlal continued before he could say anything.
"Maintaining the restriction, on the other hand, is not so simple. Your willpower will be put to the test."
Arthur closed his mouth silently, swallowing the words he had been about to say, and seeing this, Berlal went on.
"A permanent restriction would be unwise, so I wouldn’t teach you how to do that."
"Unwise?"
"Breaking a permanent restriction could potentially lead to death, depending on the benefit gained from it.
The risk is much lower with a temporary restriction, but it doesn’t disappear completely. It cannot. After all, if you break your restriction before the set time ends, you lose your benefit."
Berlal’s words did nothing to mask the high level of risk involved in placing a Geass on oneself, but that only made it even more appealing to Arthur.
’After all, a high level of risk means an equally high reward.’
"I understand the risks," he said. "And knowing that, I’ll repeat my earlier question: how do I go about creating this restriction?"
Seeing that he didn’t back down even after learning the possibility of death, Berlal nodded with satisfaction and said, "As I said before, it’s fairly simple. But since you don’t comprehend the laws of restriction and amplification, there’s an extra step for you."
"And what is that extra step?" Arthur asked.
Berlal, a faint smile on her lips, responded, "First, you get branded."
With that, she pressed her finger to his chest, imprinting the brand onto his soul.
As she did this, a silent thought formed in Arthur’s mind.
’Just as planned.’
