Chapter 549 Owner of the Akashic Record.
Chapter 549 Owner of the Akashic Record.
Unnamed Planetoid
Domain of goddess Artemisia
February 19th??
Year 1053
[Look at me, I'm Chandler. Could I BE wearing any more clothes?]
"Pfft…"
Artemisia had a hard time stifling the peal of laughter that threatened to escape from her lips, just barely managing to swallow her drink properly before bursting out into laughter.
[Maybe if I wasn't going COMMANDO…]
The woman guffawed at the scene of the man wearing more outfits than she could count doing some strange lunges, with no trace of her usual expressionless attitude.
'I see why this was one of the best sitcoms of the Original Earth. They even made sure to pass it on when they terraformed the decoy Earths too.'
Just as she was about to grab another handful of popcorn, she suddenly sensed a change in the ambient energy fluctuations around her.
The joyful expression on her face vanished completely and her eyes turned cold. With a single, thought the floating screen displaying the TV series vanished, as did her popcorn and drink.
Waves of energy radiated from her body and went on to cover not only the entire planetoid she was on but every celestial body within the next few dozen light years of it.
'?!'
Her eyes widened slightly as she realised the reason for the abrupt fluctuations, and she immediately held out her right palm and condensed streams of multi-coloured energy within it.
"Come forth."
With her command, the condensing energy manifested into the form of a book, one that looked as normal as could possibly be.
Its size was modest and unassuming, with a smooth and tactile cover. At first glance, said cover appeared devoid of adornment, save for a small delicate detail that caught the eye.
Positioned at the centre of the back cover, was a tiny star, with the same golden hue as the eyes of the woman who held it.
It glimmered softly, casting a warm glow that contrasted against the book's dark exterior.
By her will, the book flapped open and its pages turned rapidly. 𝓫𝓮𝒹𝓷ℴ𝓿ℯ𝓵.𝓬ℴ𝓶
If someone with high visual prowess was looking at this scene, they would be able to notice that some of the pages of this book were torn out.
Some were cleanly torn out, while some seemed to have been roughly ripped in half.
Eventually, the flipping pages finally came to an end, stopping on the remains of a torn-out page that was now glowing with a deep red light.
'Someone found it?'
A glint flashed through the goddess' eyes as she took a deep breath and asked a one-word question.
|Who? |
Her true voice resonated across the entirety of the white space she was in, and in response, the book consumed a portion of her divinity and revealed the answer with an emotionless robotic voice.
[The missing 'page' is now in the possession of a Grade 1 Singularity. The entity is a titled planetary 'Hero' who goes by the name 'Evan Bourne'.]
"Evan?"
Artemisia's face, now showing more emotions than it had in the past few months combined, once again displayed her clear surprise, and she quickly pulled up a diaphanous floating screen with her left hand and zoomed into a star map, picking out one of the planets on it and quickly navigating to the scene of the young hero of Aidos passing a paper over to a certain Emperor.
The energy of the law of knowledge escaped her body, scanning the records of the planet's past. Within a minute, she had watched the entire trip of Luke and Evan to Verduracliff from start to finish and understood how the boy had acquired the Akashic Page.
At this point, the identity of the book in her palm could not be any more obvious.
If Evan was present here with her and appraised it, the description he would have seen was as follows:
|Akashic Record: Valmone Universe Edition
Type; Immeasurable Grade C?????????????????????????i???????????????????m???????????????s????????????????????o?????????????????????????????c???????????????? Artifact.
The Akashic Record, a C?????????????????????????i???????????????????m???????????????s????????????????????o?????????????????????????????c???????????????? treasure of unfathomable significance is an archive of the timeless wisdom and boundless knowledge of the Valmone Universe.
This nigh-omniscient artifact chronicles virtually every infinitesimal detail from the C?????????????????????????i???????????????????m???????????????s????????????????????o?????????????????????????????c???????????????? Event that marked the Valmone Universe's inception to the present nanosecond.
Its contained insights traverse the boundaries of time and space, and these truths are not unveiled without caution, neither can they be unveiled just to anyone.
Only the 'Owner' of the Akashic Record, a being who has been chosen by both the Record and the Universe can even 'Open' this artifact.
Depending on the level of information, the Causality Index of entities involved and many other factors, the price of seeking knowledge from this Record may differ, ranging from just consuming a 'bit' of energy to absorbing pieces of the user's soul.
[…]
Current Owner: Artemisia M. Delgasso. |
There are other details in the description, but they were unnecessary in the current scenario.
What was necessary, was that Artemisia was the being in possession of the artifact that was sought after by many gods and other powerful beings in the Universe, and the number of people who were aware of this was just as many as who knew Aidos was her birth planet:
Enough to be counted on one hand. (Herself Included)
"I see…so it was Evan.
Makes sense he went after that page considering I had made it impossible for him to acquire it in the game. Would have broken the balance after all…
Each of the top 10 could possess only 10 World Magic Spells…could not have any one person getting all 50 of them."
The goddess thought aloud as she closed the Akashic Record and carelessly tossed the book onto the table in front of her.
But just as she was about to lean back on the couch and continue the movie, her attention was once again drawn by the item the book had hit as it slid across the table.
It was a small framed picture of six people, one that filled her with so much nostalgia anytime she looked at it.
She could remember the day that picture was taken like it was yesterday, even though thousands of years had long passed, and she was sure that that feeling was going to remain as far as she lived—a considerably long time given her race and special circumstances.
From left to right, was first a young adult man with black hair and red eyes, wearing a wry smile on his face as he gazed at the camera.
Beside him was a brightly smiling silver-haired boy, with heterochromatic black and blue eyes that held a mischievous glint within them.
Right beside him was none other than Artemisia herself in her teenage years, with a beautiful smile on her face as she had her left arm over the shoulders of the silver-haired boy beside her.
Her other arm was on the shoulder of a teenage girl with long white hair and hazel eyes, having a bright photogenic smile on her face, but her gaze was not towards the camera but to the wryly smiling man on the left, and it was quite 'heated' too.
On the floor was another young man, with silver hair, clear blue eyes, and vertical slit pupils. He seemed to be laughing at the time the photo was taken and one could see a pair of fangs peeking out from his parted lips.
He had his arm around the grey-eyed boy who was squatting on the floor in front of her and the heterochromatic-eyed boy. This teen wore a mask that covered the lower half of his face, leaving his eyes to be the only feature one could make out.
He held in his hand, the remote controlling the camera that took the photo.
'When I think about it, right after we printed out this picture, he had quite a shocked expression on his face.
It didn't make sense to the younger me, but with the current situation, I understand why he felt that way.
Maybe I end up showing him this picture and he recognizes it when it actually happens.'
She picked up the photo with a small barely perceptible smile on her face and twinkling eyes as she wiped the frame with her thumb.
"The me of then wanted to experiment on him the moment I sensed my divinity on him."
"If Alvey and I didn't stop you, you would have actually gone through with it."
A male voice rang out from behind her but Artemisia didn't show too much surprise as she knew only one person could break into her domain without her even sensing his presence.
"Sure, I was a little bit research-crazed back then but there was no way I was gonna experiment on someone I had just met."
The goddess rolled her eyes while replying, but the man only placed his hands on the sides of her face and tilted her head backwards, gazing into her golden eyes with his red and blue ones as he asked.
"A 'little bit'?"
His skeptical gaze coupled with the doubt in his voice that was so much made Artemisia who wanted to refute find herself going silent.
The man then grabbed the photo in her hands and scanned it over, before tossing it back to her as he took a seat on the couch beside her.
"Oh, you used the Akashic Record?"
"Yeah. Someone got to one of the pages you tore out and I wanted to know who it was. Turned out to be Evan though."
Artemisia answered as she set down the picture frame while still gazing at it with sentimentality. As for the man she accused of tearing out the pages of the nigh-omniscient artifact on the table, he only chuckled lightly before voicing out another question.
"What happened to Aramis in the end?"
"It was conquered like all the other worlds Gozon was invading at that time. McEnda II made sure of that."
"So, he was the chief 'Demon King' behind that invasion. No wonder the Demon Lords were scared of McEnda III who was two ranks below them--only a High Rank Demon then."
I'm guessing he's also the reason they didn't take 'that'."
"Yeah. Alvey and McEnda III pushed for that decision. Maybe they didn't want to lose the House of Memories…or Planet in this case."
Artemisia replied with a shrug of her shoulders as the two of them casually conversed about the now-deceased grandfather of one of the Peak Ranked demons who invaded Aidos a thousand years ago, McEnda IV.
As for his father, McEnda III, the man was MIA; presumed dead, just like his best friend and father of the current Demon King of Aidos, Alvey Sargon.
Leaving aside why Artemisa of all people was speaking about Alvey like they were close, the two beings reminisced about the past for a while before eventually ending up watching the sitcom Artemisia was on a couple of minutes earlier.