Chapter 600: Omniscient Vessel
Arthur stared at the vessel before him unleashing his mana. It was as if he was staring at a ruthless tornado that wanted to rip him apart. A man against a natural disaster was a more accurate way of portraying the scene.
"Let me summon the rest of our friends here," said Sier as he raised his arm. The violet mana coagulated into several figures that began turning into tangible people. "As the enemy of Mistletoe, you will have to face all of us."
The figures of violet mana turned into the masked and cloaked figures resembling his friends. Arthur stared at them, and his eyes lingered on the bear mask. The presence of Ivy here confirmed that these were illusions.
"Illusions cannot do anything if we know they are fake," said Arthur to the seer, who smiled through the violet mana surrounding him.
"A normal illusion cannot indeed make others believe. However, what if the G.o.d who sees through everything creates the unseen through?"
Arthur frowned as he watched Ivy rush forward and try to strike him. Even if this was an illusion, it was still a creature of mana that could harm him. This is why he threw his hand to create a barrier between them, and the gauntlet struck the ethereal sphere.
Crack.
The barrier began to crack as if something had struck it instead of raw mana. Arthur stared at the barrier with confusion before Ivy followed with another attack toward him, which he worked to block with a fortified arm.
This was an experiment, and when the gauntlet touched his arm, Arthur felt the overwhelming crushing presence of an actual attack. His feet dragged along the soil due to blocking Ivy, and he did not stop until he was several meters away.
"An illusion is what your mind sees, and what is there but the mind for us to perceive the world?" said Sier, standing behind his group. "And how easy it is to replicate an illusion?"
Sier waved his arm, and the illusions began to multiply before Arthur"s eyes. Suddenly, there were a thousand Mistletoe members around him and tens of figures that were identical to Sier.
"Am I an illusion too, Arthur?" said one of the Siers behind him. "Can you not tell the difference as the creator?"
Arthur was quiet as his eyes scanned the surrounding, looking for the smallest detail that could make him tell them apart. Of course, the fastest method was to sense their existence but even failed to differentiate between them.
"It is futile to tell them apart," said another Sier standing the closest to him. "These are me, and I am them, and our existence is one and only. However, one of us can do more than physical attacks, and when you let your guard down, it will strike."
"Is that all?" asked Arthur with a smile as he looked at them. "I thought that the seer guardian could do more than replicating a few bodies. I saw what you did to Grandmaster Casca, and doing the same to me will be the fastest method."
"You are a monster in that regard too," said one of the Ivy"s to him. "An alien that does not conform to our world"s knowledge."
"However, we are stronger in some regards, too," said a man wearing a tree mask. "Prepare yourself, my lord."
This was not the first time Arthur fell into an illusion like this. Daemon was an enemy he killed a long time ago, who tried to devour his life to feed Lilo at that time. At that time, Daemon threw him into an illusion that Arthur had to reclaim his dispel-rune to destroy.
"Can a similar rune work on these?" pondered Arthur as the figures began to surround him. "That rune worked to disrupt the mana constructing the illusion, making me see through it. A stronger one should make the illusions waver, at least."
Arthur wouldn"t lose anything if he tried. As the figures suddenly rushed toward him, Arthur"s finger danced in the air to write a powerful rune.
[Reveal!]
The rune glowed brightly as its aura exploded to push back the incoming illusions. Arthur saw them turn hazy except for one, which he rushed forward to attack.
[Disturbance Sword!]
Another rune glowed as mana covered his arm and turned it into a sharp weapon, which he used to strike the real body. Sier staggered back while trying to run away, but the sword pierced through his body.
"I..." the seer guardian muttered with eyes full of shock. "You killed me, Arthur..." coughed the guardian, and blood spilled over Arthur"s arm.
It was then that Arthur sensed a threat. It took him nothing more than a second to retreat from the injured Sier and roll to the side. A disturbance in s.p.a.ce appeared in his earlier position as a violet spear impaled the ground.
"You are still sharp, even when your reality deceives you," muttered a voice from ahead as Arthur glared at it. "A truly befitting battle senses for the outsider. However, this is not a part of your powers, but something that you have honed as Arthur Silvera of Kera city."
"An illusion within an illusion?" muttered Arthur with surprise as the scenery began to burn like canvas engulfed with flames. Sier appeared from behind the spear, which he pulled out of the ground.
"That is a bit incorrect. We have been inside my illusion ever since you appeared in this pocket dimension. That bamboo forest was one I created too."
"A place created by someone who knows me, huh?"
"No one knows about you as much as your enemy, outsider," said Sier. "I have seen your rise from nothing into Gaia"s inheritor. I know more about you than this current self knows."
"I feel flattered, but what are you going to do now that you have failed to kill me?" asked Arthur while standing. "Do you plan on killing me, Sier?"
"And what harm would that do?" asked the vessel. "You had no qualms about piercing my heart earlier, knowing that it would end me."
Arthur did not seek to clarify, and he simply glared at the vessel. It has never occurred to him that the first vessel for him to fight would be none other than the one he accompanied all along. Then, he took a deep breath.
"Answer me, Sier. What brings you to these ruins? Isn"t the Moonlight Crossbow enough to save Ivy?"
"You fail to fathom the amount of change your actions brought to this world," said Sier with a shake of his head. "The merge was not a simple matter that changed history. Instead, it changed the future more than anything."
"And how is that related to the robbing these ruins?"
"I am making sure that Mistletoe can survive the future struggles await us. We will use the treasure in these ruins to overcome any challenges that may arise, including you."
"Future struggles?"
"The world has entered the realm of the unknown. What was once written as the future changed forever, and new aspirations were untethered from the path. Even the guardians have no way of knowing what the ending is now."
"And what about the Omniscient Vessel?"
"A certain monster sealed me within the void, unable to bring forth the true might of my insight," said the seer with a smile. "Is that all?"
"I have one more question to the Seer Guardian," said Arthur as he suddenly realized an inconsistency in his story. "How did the future-seeing G.o.d end up here, begging for a chance to manifest in this world?"
His words cut like razors, and Sier"s face crumbled. The Seer Guardian must be feeling rageful because it appeared on Sier"s face. However, Arthur was far from being taunting.
Arthur has once realized that even if Nameless saw the future, it could not see Arthur. A similar occurrence was when Shinva showed Arthur the past, and Kar disrupted the vision. However, even with this limitation, the Seer Guardian should have been able to see his end.
"You knew that what awaits you was the void, so what is why you accepted it?" frowned Arthur as he asked. "Is it possible that there is a different ending that you seek?"
"That is... enough chitchat," the seer cut him short as he waved his spear. "You handled it well when there were a thousand enemies, so how about none?"
As he said so, the world disappeared from around Arthur. As far as his eyes could see, there was nothing but darkness, and Arthur could not sense a thing from anywhere.
The vessel did not speak to him again like earlier, and Arthur realized that the question he asked had an answer the guardian did not want him to know. There was more than he had a.s.sumed about the end of the Divine Era, but Arthur had no luxury to mull over the matter.
[Reveal!]
A rune glowed, but there was no reaction other than a ripple in s.p.a.ce. Arthur realized that this was not an illusion integrated into reality but a new reality into which Arthur was integrated.