Life Hunter

"That Judgment must be something like this. At some point, with a certain trigger event, Life Hunters have to pa.s.s through a certain judgment. I can"t predict what it would happen if it"s failed, but if the succeeding result is what I think, then fail most likely means death" Arima declared and Night gulped.

"So here is what I think. After that trigger event and that judgment, the Life Hunter will see every line converge toward him" Arima said. Night and Lanya both bitterly smiled, with that sentence, they knew he had gotten it right.

"Fusing with our doppelgangers, that what the Life Judgment is for" Arima bit his lollipop and concluded "That would explain why there isn"t a single Life Hunter out there. Because Life Hunters were most likely born in this Plane, and each time they pa.s.sed through the Judgment, their counterpart would disappear from existence to fuse with them. That"s why Chulainn said it is easier for Life Hunters to become a Plane Guardian since they are already unique" Arima finally ended his hypothesis and the two-listening sighed really strongly.

Lanya smiled toward Arima "You got it right, but the point that Night and Karma wanted to hide from you is not that" She said.

"Yeah, I know" Arima smirked and said "You most likely wanted to hide what is the trigger event and more importantly how the Life Judgment will unfold. For the trigger event, I think I know, but I admit that I have no idea for the other thing. A judgment could be anything" He declared and Lanya smiled wryly.

"Yeah, sure" Night grunted and said.

"I seriously wonder how you managed to deduce all of that" Chulainn"s voice resounded as he appeared on Arima"s shoulder. At the same time, Karma entered the room.

"It was just an elimination. I still had to think for ten minutes to deduce all of that" Arima grinned and said. Chulainn clicked his tongue.

"If it was someone else, I would have crushed him but it"s actually very convincing in your case and it annoys me" He complained and everyone lightly laughed.

"Arima, what about Chronepsis"s favor. I didn"t receive that information" Lanya suddenly asked.

"Aah, right" Arima recalled "He basically gave a location" He answered.

"To where?" Night raised his voice.

Arima pointed his finger toward the sky "Around a hundred million miles in that direction" He said and everyone froze.

"…What?" Night exclaimed.

"Like I said," Arima smiled "He gave the location of a certain planet. To be exact he told me where the Dragons" home is. Their planet" He explained and Night had to admit that it made him curious. He was a dragon himself, his race"s home was something that interested him.

"Are you talking about Fantasia?" Chulainn inquired.

"Yeah" Arima nodded.

"Then what was the favor?" Lanya asked.

"Well, although it was a bit surprising coming from him. He requested that I save his planet" Arima shrugged and said.

"Save? From what?" Night frowned.

"A coming catastrophe apparently" Arima shrugged "You know that Chronepsis can see into the future and is said to detain all of the knowledge of the world. He most likely saw something happening to his planet. But the favor he actually asked me is to find out what is that catastrophe and save the planet from it" He said.

"Find out? He didn"t see what would happen?" Lanya was confused.

"No, from what he told me. The force that will destroy Fantasia is something that even he couldn"t probe. Meaning that the thing that will destroy Fantasia is something above the third divine in terms of "prestige"" Arima declared.

"So how will you help them? You may be strong, but without going through the Life Judgment, you can only be as strong as the second divine at most" Chulainn remarked and Arima glanced at him "What? I know that you keep a lot of trump cards, I"m sure of that. I estimate that you can be as strong as a second divine if you go all out, without caring about your health. But your strength won"t be enough if the enemy is really above the third divine"

"To begin with, if you ever had to fight with an individual in the Heavenly Realm, you would be extremely disadvantaged because of the gap between your bodies" Chulainn said.

Arima chuckled "You"re d.a.m.n right. But," He paused "That"s why I decided to help you with Karez. To become stronger. To be honest I don"t care about the h.e.l.l core, even if it means the collapse of this Plane. Because I"m sure the powers in h.e.l.l will move to stop it. Heck, even maybe the H-G.o.ds will move to avoid h.e.l.l destruction. And for that reason, I don"t think I can be of any help" Arima alleged.

Chulainn looked wide-eyed at Arima "Well, what you say isn"t wrong, but I don"t think you would be useless. Your magic is incredibly powerful and omnipotent. I experienced it first hand. Your magic theories are not useless at all. Just the fact that you affirm being capable of bringing me back to h.e.l.l is enough proof of that"

Arima smiled and stayed quiet. While the three others in the room nodded in agreement "Actually, I may have something that could interest you in h.e.l.l" Chulainn declared "Apart from the life force, there"s something in h.e.l.l that no one ever managed to "tame" or control. The legendary mount and weapon, Origin"

His words picked Arima"s curiosity "What kind of object is that?"

"An artifact, created by the Original G.o.d himself. It"s a mount capable of traveling to anywhere in the Existence" Chulainn said with a grin on his face "Everyone in h.e.l.l knows of its location. But anyone who dared to approach it never came back alive. Even some at the third divine didn"t come back"

"Well, isn"t that interesting. If you had said that at the very beginning, I would have accepted to go to h.e.l.l instantly" Arima smirked and said.

"Yeah, I"m sure you would have. But I didn"t know if you could actually tame Origin at that time" Chulainn responded and the room fell silent.

"…So, what do we do now?" Night broke the silence "You"re going to finish this tournament, then go to h.e.l.l and after that, to Fantasia… something like that?"

"Yes, I think it"s pretty much all I have on my agenda" Arima stood up and looked at Lanya "Well, we have still two days before the main tournament. I"ll train with you for a bit since you just received your full inheritance" He said and his soul gate reappeared "Let"s go back in there, it"s more convenient"

Lanya smiled and nodded "I would appreciate that. I"m having a hard time controlling my own physical strength and aura right now" She said and entered the soul realm along with Arima.

"I don"t even know anymore. Is this guy too chill or just don"t care?" Chulainn muttered and went through the gate"s vortex too.

"Most likely both" Night casually said while following along with Karma who was smiling in amus.e.m.e.nt.

****************************************

Two days later, Arima"s group left the soul realm. Since Arima didn"t want to overload Lanya with training, he just spent two weeks coaching her in his soul.

"Well, it"s time to go now" Arima commented and snapped his fingers. Small circles formed below each person around and they disappeared from the Inn.

On an island very far away, a boat arrived and docked on its sh.o.r.e. When it stopped, two groups of forty students descended the boat and stepped on the beach. When they looked around, they could see two other boats docked to the island.

Those boats were, of course, meant to carry the students to cross island. Ofia, who was with her cla.s.smates led the cla.s.s and followed a man who had come to welcome them. The man looked a bit like a butler and when Ofia saw him she instantly felt shivers crawling down her spine. She looked at her feet and restrained herself from looking directly at the butler.

She felt like that man would destroy them if they ever were to annoy him. It wasn"t only Ofia, all of the other students were bowing their heads, it was the same for Velvet"s cla.s.s. And the latter, who was with them, wore an extremely unpleasant expression as she stared at the butler.

The only person who was nonchalant in the bunch was Arister, but when he looked at the man leading them, he felt extremely annoyed. But when he was about to speak up, five magic circles formed not that far from them and the same number of figures appeared.

Arister"s eyes widened and he closed his mouth. He snickered and just prepared to watch. Ferzia who was beside him instantly understood his reaction.

"Excuse me" Arima slowly walked toward the butler. He was polite but his voice sounded really cold. The butler froze on his tracks and looked behind him from the corner of his eyes. He couldn"t turn around because he knew one thing for sure: there was a heaven-defying monster behind him.

"Can you stop intimidating my students?" Arima"s chilly voice resounded one more time and the man trembled.

He immediately retracted his spirit and Arima nodded in approving "Let"s go then" Arima said and started walking in front of the butler. The latter felt even worse when Arima pa.s.sed just beside him but he could only follow that man who seemed to know what their destination was.

The two cla.s.ses behind were quite happy to see that. Even Velvet could only smirk as she was satisfied that this man had been shaken like that. Arima"s group casually followed the latter and Chulainn was actually sleeping on his shoulder like nothing was worth his attention. He was just here to wait before going to h.e.l.l in the first place.

"So, who are you?" Arima asked while they were walking on a sort of road made of a material similar to asphalt.

"…My name is Mandus. I"m one of the disciples of the Cross-compet.i.tion"s organizer" The butler responded.

"Disciple, huh? Well, maybe the butler attire is some kind of trend" Arima muttered and Mandus could only bear silently behind "Your master must be strong to have disciples like you" Arima then said. And as he said, Mandus was in the first sky. Maybe the master was around the third sky.

After a moment of walking, the cla.s.ses of the FDA joined with four others, coming from two different academies of two different continents.

Most of the students in those cla.s.ses, and even the teachers, strongly reacted when they saw Arima. Even in other continents, he was well known. The theories and magic he gave to the world were revolutionary. Some people even thought that he was still hiding a lot of things, and not only about magic techniques.

The three "butlers" guiding the six cla.s.ses also reunited and then observed everyone "We"ll be the ones telling you how the tournament will go from now on. For now, please enter. We"ll explain everything to you soon enough. The actual tournament will begin in three days. Enjoy yourselves here until then" The man in the middle and seemed to be the stronger among them said and pointed behind him with his hand.

Most of the people were confused because they didn"t see anything there except a vast plain. But after a few seconds, they started to see a blurry image in their view. And in no time, a huge building complex had appeared just in front of them.