Godslayer's Legend

"How the hell are you alive, Arthur Vaughn?!"

The moment Hermes called out that name, the young man froze.

His hand slowly slipped away from his forehead as he looked toward Hermes with a confused expression.

"Who?" he asked. "Who’s... that?"

"Hahh??"

Hermes’ expression filled with anger as he opened his mouth to speak again, but before he could say anything, the young man blinked.

"Who’s Arthur Vaughn?" he murmured. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

Hermes’ words died in his throat as he noticed that the confusion written across the other man’s face was genuine.

The young man absentmindedly scratched his silver hair before plucking out a few strands and holding them in front of his face.

"Silver?" he muttered. "My hair is silver?"

He released the strands, allowing them to drift onto the scorched ground below before clutching his head once more, his hands trembling lightly.

"That name... Why does it sound familiar?"

He staggered backwards before his eyes suddenly widened.

"Oh... of course it’s familiar."

A look of understanding appeared on his face as he nodded.

"It’s my name."

The moment those words left his mouth, the blankness within his eyes disappeared.

Thick, vertical slit pupils slowly appeared within his irises, and this time, Hermes noticed the change.

’I don’t know what is happening to him, but I can’t let it finish!’

Hermes didn’t hesitate to close the distance and swung his staff toward him, but the silver-haired man casually raised his right hand, condensing so much divinity in a split second that the fabric of space-time broke down and birthed a black hole, which devoured all the energy within Hermes’ attack in a split-second.

’Not good!’

Activating all his Authorities for an instant, Hermes fought against the black hole’s pull and backed away, and just as he did, the silver-haired man closed his palm, causing the black hole to silently disappear.

He raised his hand toward the sky, and the devoured energy violently burst from his palm into the space above.

Slowly lowering his hand afterwards, the young man pressed his fingers against his temple before looking around at the devastated surroundings with visible confusion.

"Where is this?" he asked.

He looked toward Hermes, blinked once, then raised an eyebrow before speaking. "You’re Hermes, aren’t you?"

His question made it seem as though this was the first time they’d met, as if he were a completely different person from the man Hermes had been fighting only minutes earlier.

Naturally, Hermes was left completely bewildered.

Before he could react or even answer, an overwhelming pressure suddenly descended upon the galaxy.

His head snapped upward just in time to see an endless wave of darkness spread across space, engulfing the entire galaxy and imprisoning everything within an enormous Domain.

"This divinity...!" Hermes muttered, fear and rage mixing within his voice. "Hades!"

At the mention of the King of the Underworld’s name, the silver-haired man looked toward the sky blanketed in darkness before speaking.

"Just in time."

A small smile appeared on his face as he muttered, "Thanks, Dad."

He took a deep breath, and the injuries covering his body rapidly regenerated as ambient cosmic energy continuously flowed into him, expelling every trace of Hermes’ lingering divinity and closing every wound.

Afterwards, he looked back toward Hermes and spoke.

"Messenger god of Olympus... I thank you."

Hermes snapped his gaze back toward him, shock and confusion filling his face, and seeing this, Arthur chuckled lightly before speaking.

"You have no idea how much you’ve just helped me, you see. I was in a little bit of a sleepy state. Sleepwalking, you could call it. I’ve been like that for the past hundred years."

Arthur walked forward leisurely, picking up the broken fragments of his mask before raising them slightly.

"This mask didn’t come off my face during all that time either."

Hermes gripped his staff tighter, his expression tense and wary as he watched Arthur, who seemed to have completely lost any intention of continuing the fight.

"A hundred years ago, your father did attempt to kill me. That is correct. But you see, there’s something your father, along with every other god within this region of the multiverse, doesn’t know..."

He paused, then shook his head before correcting himself.

"Rather, there’s something they all didn’t know a hundred years ago, and that’s my actual level of power."

Pointing at his chest, he continued, "As you’ve experienced for yourself, I’m on your level, a High-Tier Deity at the Superior Stage. Your father’s attack a century ago wasn’t loaded with enough power to kill a High-Tier Deity.

So yes, I suffered substantial damage. Yes, I was gravely wounded. But that wasn’t enough to kill me."

Hermes silently bit his lip as he took a step back, his thoughts racing as he searched for some way out of this situation.

Hades had deployed a Domain across the entire galaxy, and Hermes knew he wasn’t powerful enough to break it.

He was trapped.

’Unless Hestia notices Hades’ Domain and comes out, I’m basically a sitting duck waiting to be slaughtered by Hades!’

But there were also things he couldn’t understand.

’Why did Hades only deploy the Domain and do nothing else? And more importantly... how the hell is this guy this strong?’

Arthur had just claimed that he’d already possessed this level of power a century ago.

To Hermes, that was simply absurd.

’A century ago, he should’ve been, at most, in his fifties. He’s saying he reached the level of a High-Tier Deity in his fifties?!’

Hermes’ question went unanswered as Arthur continued speaking.

"After your father’s attempt on my life, I spent some time recuperating, and I was reminded once again of just how inadequate my power was compared to the existences after my life, so I changed my original plans for coming to Olympus.

I decided to make a second sacrifice, one that my father outright called insane. Nevertheless, I still went through with it."

Arthur turned around and took a few steps away as the fragments of his mask slowly floated into the air and into his hand. The laws of time wrapped around them and reversed the mask’s time, while the earth trembled lightly as a small earthen platform rose from the ground before Arthur.

"Geass: a restriction in return for a benefit, a sacrifice in exchange for a reward.

A hundred years ago, I restricted every single bit of power I possessed as a High-Tier Deity, my ability to utilise cosmic energy, my anti-divinity, my divinity, everything.

I restricted all of it, leaving myself no stronger than a mortal.

In return for maintaining that century-long restriction, I received a boost to my Universal Law comprehension speed, a boost equivalent to the tremendous amount of power I’d restricted."

Arthur turned around and took a seat on the earthen platform before looking toward Hermes.

"Being a Superior Stage High-Tier Deity yourself, you should know just as well as I do how much power we possess.

And, if you haven’t already realised, I’m a lot stronger than you are. I also possess the same cosmic energy that made your grandfather near immortal, in addition to divinity, anti-divinity, and magic power. That should give you some idea of just how much power I sealed away in exchange for receiving that hundred-year boost to my comprehension speed."

He raised a finger.

"With a caveat, of course."

Exhaling, Arthur continued speaking to the tense Hermes, subtly buying time for his body and soul to fully adjust, and for all his memories to return completely.

"If I’d broken that seal on my power before the hundred-year mark was over, I wouldn’t only lose every comprehension I’d gained during that time, I’d also suffer soul damage and lose some of the comprehensions I’d acquired before making that seal."

A wry smile appeared on Arthur’s face.

"A very risky endeavour. But I still went through with it anyway."

Arthur paused for a moment before adding, "And the place I chose to spend my century-long period of law comprehension happened to be Tartarus, the same place you broke into some fifty years ago to steal Ares’ soul."

The mention of that incident from fifty years ago caused phantom pain to shoot through Hermes’ legs as Cerberus’ bite came back to mind.

That memory, however, was the least of Hermes’ concerns.

Arthur paid no attention to the messenger god’s dark expression. He took another deep breath, absorbing a little more cosmic energy before continuing.

"The second sacrifice I made, the one I only went through with after personally experiencing your father’s divine lightning, was the sacrifice of myself."

Hermes raised an eyebrow in mild confusion at Arthur’s words, and without waiting for him to ask, if he even wanted to, Arthur continued explaining.

"Simply put, what I sacrificed was my true name, my existence.

I sacrificed ’Arthur Vaughn,’ sealing away virtually everything that made him who he was."

Arthur opened his palm and began counting down on his fingers as he listed all the things that were sealed away.

"His powers and Authority as the Progenitor of godslayers across the Cosmos, his memories of all his life experiences, his Innate Abilities, and his Unique Authorities. I sealed away almost all of it.

And in return, all I wanted was power."

Spreading his arms wide, Arthur released his magic power, revealing the immense amount of energy churning within his body as he declared, "I wanted raw power. So I sealed away my existence for a century, leaving behind nothing but a blank slate with only subconscious directives to follow.

’Spend all your time comprehending Laws, absorb the ambient cosmic energy of Tartarus into your body, and continue accumulating that energy.’

"Even if I lost access to my power as a Deity, it didn’t mean my power had vanished into thin air. My power was still there; I just couldn’t use it. My energy cores were still there, so I gave this blank slate I’d left behind a directive to continue pouring energy into those cores for a century.

"With the accelerated absorption speed granted by my sacrifice, I absorbed a ludicrous amount of energy. With the comprehension speed granted by sacrificing my power, I comprehended many, many Universal Laws.

All of that information has been sitting within my soul, simply waiting for the day I regained myself, the day I woke up from my... sleepwalk."

Pointing at Hermes, Arthur concluded, "And that’s exactly what you just did, Messenger god of Olympus. You woke me from my sleeping state.

You, someone who isn’t a direct relative, someone who had absolutely no idea about my Geass, no idea about the sacrifices I made. You... declared my name."

The moment Arthur said this, Hermes’ eyes widened as realisation dawned on him.

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