Chapter 18: gods begin to move behind the scenes (NEW)
Chapter 18: gods begin to move behind the scenes (NEW)
Three-year-old Arthur was busy moving around the royal family's castle after avoiding the noble's children that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.
'Those kids are so annoying. Always coming over even if I don't want to.'
The boy grumbled in his mind as he moved up the stairs of his uncle Creusery's tower. There was a teleporter on each floor but the young Arthur did not feel like using it at the moment so he chose to take the stairs.
Upon reaching the sixth floor, he encountered some maids who were cleaning some decorative vases in the hallway.
"Greetings, Your royal highness."
"Good afternoon, Your royal highness.."
The maids greeted him one after the other after noticing him. As Arthur had been quite sensitive towards energy since he was barely a year old, he could more or less gauge how strong people were based on the amount of energy he could sense from them.
Creusery did tell him that stronger people could mask their energies and he would not be able to sense a thing, but the maids in front of him were clearly not at that level.
Their uniforms showed that they were the lowest-ranked maids and from what he could sense, none of them was above the silver realm.
Arthur, who was an intermediate stage master realm, was capable of defeating them with relative ease, if he could use that power.
However, at three years old, Arthur had only learned the basics he needed as a royal family member and nothing more.
His uncle told him that he would soon begin learning how to use a sword and he was excited, he couldn't wait to begin training.
Thinking about this, he smiled and waved to the maids while walking over to the next stairway.
"Was that really him?"
"Yes, he's the new prince."
"He's so cute."
"Still, to think there was a prophecy about such a cute child."
"I know right?! They said he was gonna kill the gods."
"It'd be good if he could kill those damn bastards but how long will it take, we'd be dead before he can get that strong."
"But his father is a god too, will he kill his father?"
Arthur had only turned around the corner when the maids started talking, nevertheless, he ignored their words and kept making his way towards the stairs.
However, when he heard that last statement, he stopped in his tracks.
'Kill? What does that mean?
They were talking about me, right?
They said there was a 'prophecy' about me. What is 'prophecy' ?
They also said I was gonna 'kill' 'gods'. What does 'kill' mean and who are 'gods'?'
Three-year-old Arthur could barely understand half of what he heard. All he could understand was that there was this thing called a 'prophecy' about him and in that thing, they said he was gonna do something called 'kill' to what he guessed were people called 'gods'.
He ran up the stairs to his uncle Creusery's office and decided to ask him about the things he just heard.
Upon entering the office, the young prince was greeted by the nobles who were in Creusery's office, discussing important matters.
Creusery on the other hand, let out a small smile upon seeing his cute nephew and spread out his arms to hug him.
"Uncle, are you busy?"
Arthur tilted his head and asked Creusery as he asked his uncle with puppy dog eyes. The young prince seemed to ignore the existence of the nobles who were giving presentations to Creusery as he asked this.
"Give me a minute, I'd be done."
While Creusery meant exactly what he said to Arthur, to the noble speaking, he meant something along the lines of 'you have a minute to prove to me that your presentation is worth my time.'
The noble broke out in cold sweat as he hurriedly highlighted the main points of his presentation while sneaking glances at Arthur who was looking at the wall clock and counting the seconds.
"Alright done, I get the main gist of it. You will receive feedback within 12 hours.
Dismissed."
Creusery dismissed the nobles who ran out hurriedly before turning his attention to Arthur.
"So Arthur is there a problem?"
"Problem? Uncle Creusery, what does 'kill' mean?"
"Huh?"
Creusery was stunned at the question he was asked by the innocent-looking three-year-old, before he could even formulate an answer, his nephew fired two more.
"What are 'gods'? And what is 'prophecy'?"
Hearing the three questions, Creusery's gaze turned cold immediately.
'There was a gag order issued that no one was to speak of the prophecy near him, who was the fool who disobeyed?!'
He turned to Arthur who was holding his hand to his chin with a pensive look on his face.
"Ah, Dishionary! That is the name of the book with many words. Dad said it's called Dishionary!"
The young prince shouted that as he ran towards Creusery's bookshelf to look for a 'Dishionary'.
Seeing this put a smile on Creusery's face as he stood up and picked the little boy up before placing him on a chair.
"I'd tell you the meaning so you don't have to look for a 'Dictionary'."
"No Dishionary?"
Creusery nodded as he walked over to his small fridge and brought out a can of juice, poured it into a cup, and gave it to Arthur.
"Don't spill."
He then sat beside the small prince and began speaking.
"So 'Kill' huh? It means to 'cause the death of something'."
"Death?"
"Yes, death is the end of someone's life. If they die, you won't see them anymore, forever."
"Whoa...!"
The young prince was fascinated by the new knowledge he gained, he then asked for the meanings of 'prophecy' and 'gods'.
Creusery did his best to explain in a way the three-year-old might understand.
'So 'prophecy' is telling someone about something that hasn't happened yet and 'gods' are beings like dad!'
The boy then spent the next five minutes trying to understand what he heard from the maids earlier. Upon arriving at a conclusion, his face paled rapidly.
"So someone said that I was going to kill dad? If I kill him, I won't see him anymore, right? I don't want that!"
He shouted with tears in his eyes. Creusery only wiped his tears before patting him on the back and saying.
"Yes, so because of that, some people think you are going to do very bad things to your dad and people like your dad, so they want to kill you before you can."
Creusery's words made Arthur burst out into tears, he began wailing while grabbing Creusery's legs and shouting.
"I don't wanna be kill! I won't be able to see mom and dad anymore!"
The boy cried for a while as Creusery patted his back while trying to calm him down, unfortunately, Cattleya walked in on that scene and almost punched Creusery to oblivion if not for Arthur's timely interference, saying that Creusery was only answering his questions.
"There, there boy. Mummy's here."
She lifted him up and she successfully stopped him from crying before speaking.
"Don't worry about those people, mummy, and daddy will take care of it, okay?"
"Hmmm...."
The boy nodded before dozing off in his mother's arms. Cattleya shot one last glare at Creusery before taking Arthur to his room and placing him on his bed before warping back to scold Creusery.
◇ ◇ ◇
As soon as Cattleya warped out of the room, the sleeping Arthur's eyes shot open. He looked around the room before looking at his hands.
Coming down from his bed, he walked over to the mirror to see his appearance. His usual dark obsidian eyes were now glowing a faint blue light, noticing this, he heaved a sigh.
"I'm only a three-year-old. Oh well."
He then shaped his hand into a gun and pointed his index finger to his own temple before chanting in an emotionless voice, uncharacteristic of a three-year-old.
[c0^?3 ? ⊥ [Time]—Release [r3qq@)E#omn: Memories]
[Invoke: Passive Personality Alteration]
His right hand shone with a blue light that shot into his head. His eyes went blank for a moment before regaining their vigor in the next.
Turning around, he climbed back into his bed and closed his eyes. The next second, Cattleya warped back in with glowing red eyes as she scanned the entire room.
She walked in front of the mirror and inspected it before speaking to herself as she warped out of the room once more.
"Maybe I sensed it wrong."
As she left, Arthur let out a yawn as he slept peacefully, as if nothing strange had just happened.
◇ ◇ ◇
Meanwhile, Zeus was currently fuming after an argument he had with Hades when he tried to stop the latter from going over to Hell.
Over the past three years, as news that Hades, an Olympian, was the father of the prophesied child of destruction, many eyes had turned towards Olympus.
Some gods were enraged that someone of high status like Hades, fathered a child that could be a threat to them. Even those who were originally neutral joined in criticizing Olympus after feeling their worst nightmares on the day of 'Black Sun'.
Most of them were reasonable like and said that it would be in their best interest to make Hades teach the child in a way that he would not hold any animosity against the gods.
They believed this would deter the chances of the prophecy being fulfilled as many reasoned that Arthur bringing an end to the gods was only a possibility, not a future that was set in stone.
Unfortunately, common sense was not common, even among gods.
Some pantheons banded together in an attempt to pressure Olympus into sanctioning Hades in some way. An attempt that enraged Zeus as he felt that those gods were looking down on him and Olympus.
This fickle alliance broke up very quickly when Poseidon made a show of preparing his armies for war.
They were mainly greedy gods who were envious of Olympus' power and wanted to make them reduce it in any way possible, unfortunately, Olympus was not a force to be trifled with.
What made most pantheons fear Olympus, was the feat accomplished by its eldest gods.
Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, with the help of Hera, Demeter and Hestia were able to defeat their father Kronos who was the master of their universe.
This was a feat never before heard of, as the differences in strength between both parties was just too much. However, they somehow accomplished this feat, and although they were not able to kill him, they succeeded in imprisoning him for eternity.
They also led the younger Olympians to defeat the giants and Titans that were headed by Primordial goddess Gaia, and even succeeded in defeating Gaia herself! There were some strange circumstances behind that but a defeat, was a defeat.
Now, more than two hundred thousand years had passed and the Olympians were even more of a force to be reckoned with. Although the bad blood between the three eldest brothers was known far and wide, it was also known that they would put aside their differences if it came to defending Olympus.
Regarding Arthur's matter, some ancient powers and stronger pantheons agreed with the idea of making him inclined to the gods to prevent chances of him turning against them.
Although left unsaid, they really just wanted to keep Arthur under close watch so they could end him the moment he went out of line.
To all these, Hades released one statement in reply shocking most of them.
"Go fuck off, deal with your own internal problems before telling me how to raise my kid."
Naturally, many were enraged by this as Hades' statement did not show any respect to them. Unfortunately, they could not do much.
At this point, Cattleya, also spoke up to silence the voices of the gods who were of the mind that Arthur should be killed.
"You want to kill my son? Let me see you try.
It seems you need to be reminded why our devil race is not to be looked down upon."
Her statement was supported by the allies of the devils of Hell, for various reasons they only knew.
◇ ◇ ◇
Zeus thought about all these as he warped over to a random planet that was in a backwater galaxy in northern Olympus.
He landed on a seemingly empty desert and placed his hand on the ground, pulling out a tiny object from the sand.
This tiny object was shaped like an archaic door.
Activating the authority he possessed as the Master of Olympus, the tiny door began vibrating as a frightening amount of energy poured out, an amount capable of wounding the average god seriously.
Zeus just watched this energy flow without doing a thing, he didn't need to, after all, he wasn't the average god.
He was completely unharmed by this energy flow and only watched as the tiny door enlarged itself to a size he could pass through after the energy stopped flowing before entering it without a word.
As soon as he entered, it shrunk back to its tiny size and flew over to another random uninhabited planet before settling down in a desert and burying itself in the sand.
Inside the door was a dark realm with very little light, in front of Zeus was a maze that he easily navigated himself through.
After a few twists and turns, he ended up in a small clearing with a giant orb about 4 feet in diameter flashing an iridescent light as it floated in the air. Walking up to the orb, he looked at a small part of it that was cracked and had no light coming from it.
His eyes glowed dangerously as he spoke to no one in particular.
"Just a few more years, not more than two decades, it should be enough by then."