Chapter 25 – The one who watches secretly
It was a rainless summer afternoon, and eight-year-old Arthur was practising his swordsmanship with Creusery as usual.
This was a month after the incident where he'd entered into a soul contract with Lewis, the descendant of an Ancient Giant.
Speaking of Ancient Giants, Arthur had asked Creusery about them, but the latter only told him that he'd be granted access to information regarding the 'Elders' and the 'Ancients' once he'd reached the required age and level of existence.
With Larry's help, Arthur had begun recruiting mercenaries to serve under Lewis. It was his first attempt at building a force of his own.
As for the funding, it came from the enormous allowance he received as a member of the Devilian royal family.
It was the kind of money that would've been the annual budget of most intergalactic empires.
More importantly, Arthur had noticed over the years that his ability to manipulate his magic power was gradually declining.
The flow of energy throughout his body was becoming stagnant, and it seemed to grow worse as he got older. The more accustomed he became to the power he possessed as an intermediate stage master, the harder it became for him to use his energies.
He'd caught a glimpse of how to use his aura, but he hadn't been able to awaken it because of his stagnant energy flow.
After asking his mother about it, she'd told him it was probably because he hadn't undergone his "Magic Blooming."
Magic Blooming was an event during which a ten-year-old devil awakened their full energies and gained their first pair of wings.
Although they'd be able to use their energies before the age of ten, they'd only be capable of using barely a fifth of the power they truly possessed.
Nevertheless, even if he couldn't manipulate his energies, he could still use artifacts without any problems.
Most artifacts these days were designed with a function that allowed them to automatically absorb the wielder's energy and activate without the wielder having to consciously channel energy into them.
Arthur possessed more magic energy than his peers, along with an equally vast amount of aura and divinity.
That was the third of his four energies, divinity.
It was a type of energy that devils couldn't use. However, being the child of a god seemed to have granted Arthur that privilege.
The existence of his divinity was kept secret, as only his father and grandfather could tell that he possessed it.
Creusery helped Arthur become familiar with various magic artifacts, swords, spears, and other weapons. He taught the young prince how to use all kinds of artifacts, whether offensive or defensive.
Cattleya also continued Arthur's energy training despite the stagnation in his energy flow.
The ten-thousand-year-old Arch Devil pondered every possible reason why her son's energy flow had become stagnant as she watched her brother and son prepare to spar.
"Begin."
The instant Cattleya spoke, Arthur dashed forward. Pivoting on one foot, he swung his wooden sword toward Creusery, who avoided it with ease before launching a counterattack.
Arthur raised his hand to block the blade, but the chill that ran down his spine made him change his mind. He quickly pulled out the spare dagger strapped to his waist and used it to block Creusery's attack, as his uncle's original position in front of him was already empty.
"Nice instincts."
Creusery praised him as he pushed Arthur's arm upward, forcing it into an awkward position before poking him in the back with his wooden sword.
"First point. Idiot brother."
"Thank you for the praise," Arthur replied with a chuckle at the way his mother addressed her brother.
He then pulled out a sword artifact and dashed toward Creusery, who was staring at Cattleya with a confused expression.
"Leya, why..."
CRACKLE!!!
He was cut off by the sound of lightning as he filled his wooden sword with magic to keep it from breaking and turned toward Arthur.
Arthur used a footwork technique Creusery had shown him a few weeks earlier to close the distance before slashing at him.
Creusery smiled faintly, an impressed look appearing in his eyes as Arthur's execution of the footwork technique met his expectations.
He then answered by swinging his sword toward Arthur's.
The instant their swords collided, Arthur was startled to find all of his original force and momentum dispersing into the surroundings as Creusery's sword slid along his blade toward the guard.
He quickly broke contact and created some distance before pulling out two more handheld artifacts.
"If I can't win with one, then I'll just use more."
"What's wrong? I thought you were feeling confident earlier?"
"Tsk... What fun do you get from trolling me every time?"
Arthur shot back as he forced his energy into the two artifacts. Creusery only laughed and continued taunting Arthur in an attempt to make him lose his cool.
"You're practically asking for it with the way you're acting."
"You—!" Arthur barely held himself back from snapping, clicking his tongue in annoyance.
"Don't regret it. Blink!"
Arthur narrowed his eyes before activating the short-distance space artifact in his other hand.
Closing the distance between them, he thrust his sword forward as several bolts of lightning shot out from it.
With a sound that a wooden sword definitely shouldn't have made, Creusery cut through the lightning bolts in an instant.
"Rely too much on artifacts and your actual strength decreases."
"As far as I'm concerned, the artifacts are my strength," Arthur replied with a grin.
Chains suddenly burst from the ground as he activated the second artifact he had pulled out.
The chains drained the energy of whoever they locked onto and prevented them from using it to enhance their bodies.
It was only a single-target artifact and didn't last long, but Arthur felt it was enough.
"Hou~ It'd take more than that to hinder me, you know?"
Creusery grinned in return as he inwardly praised Arthur for not losing his cool despite the derogatory remarks he'd been throwing out earlier.
"An unstable mind is one of the reasons people lose a lot of battles."
He took a deep breath as he spoke before stepping toward Arthur. The energy-draining chains were shattered instantly.
Before Arthur could react, he was disarmed in an instant, sending his sword artifact flying across the room.
Reaching toward Arthur, Creusery lifted him onto his shoulder and spoke.
"I suppose it's my victory."
Arthur had already grown quite tall for his age, reaching almost 4 feet 6 inches. Even so, Creusery lifted him onto his shoulder with ease and held him in place with a strong grip that prevented him from breaking free.
Until Cattleya punched him on the back of the head, that is.
"OW!! What was that for?!"
"You're teasing him too much."
Cattleya replied to Creusery as she pulled Arthur off his shoulder and held the eight-year-old in her arms.
"He's eight years old, you know? When are you going to stop treating him as if he's five years younger than that?
I don't think Lady Inglis treated you like this when you were his age."
Before Cattleya could reply, Arthur jumped down from her arms and landed on the floor. He told her he intended to go out, and she advised him to take the guard team she'd assigned to him.
It was a team of twelve Transcendents with a Half-Deity serving as their leader.
"Hmm... What's wrong?"
Cattleya noticed Arthur staring at the sky strangely and couldn't help asking. Arthur, on the other hand, scratched his silver hair before replying.
"So you know that stuff you taught me about sensing people's gazes and things like that. I felt like someone was watching me."
Creusery and Cattleya, however, only laughed off his statement, saying he was being oversensitive after his spar with Creusery.
They then warned the eight-year-old boy not to wander too far from his guards before letting him head out to the castle town.
◇ ◇ ◇
If Cattleya or Creusery had bothered to check, they would've realised Arthur wasn't just being oversensitive.
Far above the planet's atmosphere, inside a small private spacecraft, a tall figure could be seen looking down at the planet Aeturn.
It was a woman with light blue hair that reached down to her waist. She looked at Arthur with her monolid blue eyes, which fit perfectly on her beautiful face.
"Oh wow. I just did it on a whim, but I didn't think he'd notice," she muttered.
"I was surprised as well," a foreign voice replied.
The blue-haired woman sighed and deactivated her clairvoyance upon hearing that voice before turning to shoot the intruder an annoyed look.
The intruder was also a woman like her, except with black hair and eyes. She was quite tall and dressed in clothes that showed off her long legs.
"Don't you Watchers have better things to do?" she asked.
"Of course, we do. I'm free because I'm special."
"More like jobless..." the blue-haired woman muttered, rolling her eyes.
"I'm not jobless, okay?! I have a job. I'm even working right now."
"Yeah, you do. You definitely do."
"Of course, I do," the black-haired woman replied. "After all, watching you, Alexia, is my job."
"Yeah... I said I knew."
The blue-haired woman, Alexia, replied as she walked over to the small drink bar nearby, poured two glasses of wine, then offered one to her uninvited guest before sitting down.
"Ohh, so you finally acknowledge me as your drinking companion, huh?"
The black-haired woman then looked down at the planet below and asked a question that nearly made Alexia choke on her drink.
"So, when are you going to stop stalking him and actually go talk to him?"
"PFFFTTTTT!!!! What the hell, Kelly?! I'm not stalking him, okay?!
It's just that they're too overprotective. If I showed myself now, they'd be hostile. I also don't want 'that guy' to notice me. I feel like he'd recognise who I am."
"A little too late for that. He already noticed you," Kelly replied with a shrug. "It'd be weirder if he hadn't. This universe is his territory, after all. Moreover, you didn't bother hiding your aura. He probably didn't take any action because he knows you're not hostile."
She took a sip of her drink before continuing.
"He's been busy dealing with the assassins that get sent before his daughter can even notice. He even chased a few down after they fled to other universes."
"I see, so he knew, huh? And he seems to have inherited his father's senses," Alexia replied.
Kelly's drinking companion's expression darkened slightly, but she controlled it before Alexia noticed anything was wrong.
After emptying a few bottles, Alexia fell asleep on the sofa while her drinking companion patted her hair as she slept.
"Lucifer's descendant, huh?
To think you were the 'new one' I sensed eight years ago. Let's just hope you don't end up like your ancestor."
Her words were heard by no one, especially not the one they were meant for.