Chapter 1079: The Weight of Centuries

The entire room was silent for a moment after Cattleya’s hand hit Arthur’s face.

In the next moment, powerful cosmic energy erupted from Arthur’s body as a furious Celestia attempted to manifest physically.

However, Arthur stopped her with a single command. ’No, Celestia.’

[But master—!]

’No,’ he insisted, stopping her despite her obvious dissatisfaction.

The furious waves of cosmic energy reluctantly receded, and despite being unable to sense this cosmic energy, Cattleya could tell that something had occurred.

However, she paid no mind to it as she looked at Arthur and asked, "Why didn’t you dodge?"

At this, Arthur chuckled, silently grabbing his cheek as he said, "Well, I guess there’s a part of me that thought I kind of deserved it."

Arthur had quite literally seen Cattleya’s actions coming. Leaving aside his kinetic vision, which would’ve allowed him to easily dodge any attack from her, his future sight had activated and shown him what would happen, which was precisely why his expression had changed into one of confusion during that final moment before she hit him.

It had only been a second, but that was more than enough time for Arthur to teleport out of the planet entirely, and yet, he didn’t move.

In all the years he’d lived under the same roof with his mother, not once had Cattleya ever raised her hand to hit Arthur in genuine anger.

This was the first such incident.

"Why did you do it?" Cattleya asked, her voice cracking slightly as she held back the many emotions threatening to spill out.

Faced with the question, Arthur responded calmly, "Because it was necessary. And, like I just told Grandpa, if I had the chance to redo everything, I’d do it all over again."

"You—!"

Cattleya shouted and raised her hand, but the words she’d been about to say caught in her throat.

Her hand lowered and grabbed Arthur by the arm, shaking him as she grumbled through her cracked voice.

"Why? Just WHY?! Why do you just keep...!"

The woman bit her lip so hard that it began to bleed, and seeing this, Arthur silently raised his other hand before cleaning the blood from her wounds.

A moment later, she dragged him towards herself, pulling him into a deep hug as tears silently slipped down her eyes, and Arthur simply returned the hug while patting her back.

"I’m sorry, Mother," he muttered softly, his voice carrying the apology he couldn’t express through anything else.

Cattleya simply held onto Arthur, with neither of them saying anything further as the sounds of the factory around them were completely drowned out.

◇　◇　◇

Arthur told Cattleya almost everything, including all that he had done and experienced during the century he spent in Olympus.

He explained the reason behind the actions he’d taken, and how he intended to temporarily free himself from all the targets that could be placed on him by anyone within this region of the multiverse. That way, he could grow his power in secret, reaching heights that would leave them stunned when he finally revealed himself.

He also told her about his plans for the near future, which naturally included his intention to leave the multiverse right after creating a situation that would force the war to end.

Naturally, Cattleya wasn’t too pleased with either his previous actions or the decisions he intended to make in the future.

"Is all of this even really necessary?" she asked, her barely calmed anger already beginning to shoot through the roof.

Faced with her question, Arthur nodded calmly.

"Yeah, everything is necessary," he said "I have a particular goal, Mother, and I’ll do all that is necessary to achieve that goal. I have to acquire competent subordinates for my army, and I also have to recover the fragments of my weapon."

Cattleya frowned at his words, having nothing to say that could refute Arthur’s decision to head to the Fifth Multiverse to recover the fragments of Celestia, which he had confirmed were there.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but ask, "Just what the hell is this goal of yours? Destroying Olympus?"

Arthur immediately burst into laughter at Cattleya’s words, guffawing loudly as he held his stomach despite her cold gaze.

"What’s funny?" she asked, clearly annoyed by his reaction.

At this, Arthur, still laughing, replied, "The fact that you would think that destroying Olympus is my goal is laughable, Mother.

Destroying Olympus is far from my end goal. It’s a stop on the way, a means to an end, but most definitely not the end."

"Then what is your end goal?"

Arthur didn’t immediately answer this question. He took a deep breath before finally saying, "It’s not something that you’d understand even if I explained it to you, Mother."

He tilted his head lightly, a wry smile appearing on his face as he continued, "And honestly, I don’t mind if no one ever understands. As long as I earn that feeling of satisfaction with myself for having achieved this goal of mine, that’s all that really matters."

There was something about the look in Arthur’s eyes, the expression on his face, and his entire demeanour in that moment that made Cattleya unable to say anything she’d wanted to.

Arthur then clapped, snapping her out of her daze, before saying, "Now then, Mother, as much as I’d love to spend time with you, I’d also love to reunite and spend time with the woman that I call my lover, as well as certain friends of mine, especially since I intend to take all three of them with me when I’m leaving this multiverse."

Naturally, Arthur was referring to Nicole, Esna, and Layla.

A moment later, however, he blinked as he remembered someone else that he hadn’t seen much of, even during the decades before his hundred-year hiatus in Olympus.

"Ah, Edward."

He pursed his lips lightly, rubbing his chin before shrugging. "I guess I’ll just pull him along as well, even if only for Esna’s sake. I wonder how things are between them now."

Such thoughts crossed his mind as he stuck his hand into his subspace, pulling out a certain item. It was a bracelet he’d gotten from Lucifer’s Vestige called the Linked Echoes, one that paired with a necklace in the possession of his childhood friend.

He infused a little cosmic energy into it, and it immediately began pointing him in the general direction of its pair.

"Oh, so she’s on Aeturn. Good."

With those words, he drew a circle in the air with his hands, then flicked the centre, shattering space to form a Cosmic Gate.

He then looked towards his mother and said, "I’ll be here for a while. I have to stabilise my power and wait for the players to arrive at the stage that Grandpa Diablo created. See you later, Mother."

With those words, he stepped into the Cosmic Gate and vanished in a flash of light.

◇　◇　◇

On his way to Aeturn, Arthur was thinking that it would be awfully convenient if even two of his targets happened to be in the same location. But to his surprise, when he entered Aeturn’s atmosphere, he discovered that there were three of them in the same location.

His presence was concealed, so his arrival wasn’t detected by those whom he was after.

However, even with his concealment, there was someone on the planet who still noticed him. Arthur wasn’t surprised that he’d been noticed, and upon that realisation, he wrapped cosmic energy around his body and teleported, reappearing in one of the hallways of the royal castle.

"What’s up, Uncle Bel?"

His sudden appearance didn’t surprise the man dressed in a suit in the slightest. With his usual calm voice, he responded, "Hello, Your Highness. And also, it is Belphegor, not Bel."

Arthur smiled lightly at the man’s words, waves of nostalgia filling his body at the familiar correction that usually followed his greetings to Belphegor.

"Been a while, hasn’t it?" he said.

"I suppose it may seem that way from your perspective," Belphegor replied. "But the longer you live, the less importance you place on certain stretches of time."

Arthur nodded in understanding at Belphegor’s words as he said, "True. When I was still a teen, ten years was a lot of time to me. Now here I am, making plans for centuries down the line, and I find myself thinking, ’Huh? It’s just a few centuries anyway’."

"Soon you may begin to perceive centuries how you currently perceive minutes," Belphegor said. Taking a step towards Arthur, he added, "But you must take care not to let yourself become so desensitised to the passage of time, to not let your perception become so...distorted."

"I’ll take your words to heart," Arthur responded with a single nod.

He snapped his fingers, conjuring a cosmic gate, and as he stepped into it, he said, "I’ll see you around, Uncle Bel. Say hello to Quinn for me, and tell her thanks for helping me deliver my message."

With those words, he stepped fully into the gate, while Belphegor, right before the gate closed, said, "Again, it is Belphegor, not Bel."