章 187: ''Who am I, huh?''

While Jin went to arrange the transit for the Eion system, Arima started collecting his mana and force. Some of his circuits were still messed up so he couldn't use the Fifth Red Art nor the Fifth White Art to recover.

"Malum…" Arima mumbled. The concerned individual suddenly felt terrified although he was sleeping deep inside Arima's soul.

In the end, since Arima couldn't gather mana with his Arts, he did it the old way. He sat down cross-legged and closed his eyes. He then slowly began to gather mana from the surrounding nature.

The soldiers in the base had already gone back to their posts but they saw something that made their blood freeze. The stars in the sky were blinking as if they were threatening to disappear. Many people rubbed their eyes thinking they were hallucinating.

That was only a side effect of Arima monopolizing the magic circuits around, but everyone looked at the dragon as if he was about to destroy the world.

Arima frowned when he felt those gazes on him. He opened one eye and made them go back to work with a single glance. 'Now that I think about it…' He suddenly thought about something as he closed his eyes again.

He discreetly released his spirit but it didn't go past Layla and Night's perception. Karma wasn't even there though. She said she wanted to visit and went with Jin down to Earth. And since Jin needed someone to teleport back and forth, it wasn't a bad idea.

"Are you looking for him?" Layla asked and Arima half-opened an eye to look at her. He closed it back and nodded. He scanned the entirety of the Earth and frowned. No matter how much he inspected, he couldn't find the person he was looking for.

'Weird. It's not like he is dead… I would feel his death aura in that case. But why can't I even sense that?' Arima was confused for the first time in a while. '…There are remnants of dimensional travels in random places across the land. How could it happen? Considering the time shift between worlds, it's only been a few weeks at best since this one got magic circuits. Nobody should be able to engage in a dimensional jump…'

Arima's mind went over all the possibilities he could come up with but he discarded all of them after pondering about it.

'The dimensional residues are spread randomly but most of them aim for schools… 'many cases of disappearances', huh?' Arima listened to the news on Earth a little then came to a conclusion. 'It seems to be orchestrated by someone or something. But it also looks like a natural disaster. It happened one day and then nothing ensued afterward.'

Arima raised an eyebrow. 'The only thing I can think of is that the people in those areas were taken away from Earth for a reason… or was it just a process?'

Layla seemed to be worried by his behavior and Night was more confused than ever.

"{Who are you looking for?}"

"…A kid I met," Arima paused. "…Around ten years ago I think."

"Is he okay?" Layla immediately inquired.

Arima shook his head. "I don't know. He seems to have been taken somewhere but I can't even trace down the dimensional path that was used…" He answered and fell silent. No one spoke up for a moment until he snorted. "It's all right. That kid won't die easily. I'd bet he could become as strong as me if he had access to magic circuits."

Layla's eyes widened and Night was even more perplexed, 'What kid are they talking about?'

***

Meanwhile, the Lonely King was observing a rectangular crater in the middle of the city. His eyes were squinted as he was scrutinizing the area. His mind was going through the same speculations that Arima did.

The King looked up when he sensed Arima's spirit but then looked back at the crater. He shrugged after a few seconds. "Maybe it's a new concept created by Pandora, an unknown being, or even the Original God himself. We can never know everything," he uttered and continued walking in the streets leisurely.

"It seems that he is planning something," he mumbled about Arima's actions. "His current state is indeed unstable and mixed with a peculiar energy," he remarked while smiling. He wasn't even concentrating but it seemed that he knew everything about Arima's current state. "It's true that there's a strange stone on this planet that can produce potent energy… interesting."

"Who are you?" While the King was talking to himself, someone suddenly talked to him. His eyes widened. Even for him, when he didn't focus on them, things could get unnoticed by his senses. He turned his head slightly to look behind and smiled when he saw who it was.

Karma was staring at him with cautious eyes. She seemed to be ready to attack at any moment too. The King sighed in relief when he realized that she had not called Arima and immediately waved his hand, casting a silent magic.

He turned around and faced her. Just by doing that, Karma stepped back. Her entire body was trembling as she fell on her knees. Everyone around walked past them without even looking at her as if they couldn't see what was happening.

"Why are you here? It's weird. Your creator is still up there, no?" The King told and Karma flinched.

'He knows about Arima… and what I am,' she was baffled and scared. She had already noticed she couldn't contact her companions. A magic was restraining her spirit and it was so perfect that even Arima wouldn't be able to see something wrong unless he decided to call Karma himself.

Karma just wanted to visit the city while Jin was preparing the System since it was currently used to supply crucial facilities and he had to replace it. When she saw that man with long silver hair walking in front of her, her body immediately shuddered.

He was hiding his strength well but even like that, she could still feel how strong he was once close enough. "I don't have the obligation to answer," she responded to the King. "You still haven't answered my question after all."

The King scratched his head. "Oi, oi, that's unreasonable… Don't you understand your position right now?" He sighed. "Who am I, eh?" He reiterated and smiled wryly. "It's been a while since I last introduced myself."

"My name is Raylein Krae Gaelius. People called me the Lonely King in the old days. I am a Silver Emperor. A pleasure to meet you," Raylein bowed politely, which made Karma frown as she was still pressured to the ground by his aura. "Oh," he abruptly exclaimed. "I go by another title too. A former one to be exact."

The Kind straightened his back and laughed. "Ex-Seventh Plane Guardian, The Traveler, Raylein."

When he said that that, Karma's eyes narrowed.

"Anyway, don't worry. I'm not here to bring harm to your friend. I'm here to see his potential. But it'll have to wait for a little," these were the last words she heard before she blacked out.

When she opened her eyes again, someone was calling her. "Miss, Sir Jin has finished the preparations, he's waiting for you."

Karma turned around to look at the agent and nodded with a smile. "Let's go then," she forgot every single detail of her encounter with Raylein.

***

The man in question was watching her from the top of a skyscraper. "Fascinating woman. It's already incredible that a weapon could reach such levels of individual strength but she is also completely human," his smile didn't seem to be dishonest whatsoever.

He raised his hand and a silver flame ignited. He stared at it and watched the image displayed inside. If a normal person were to look at it, they would most likely only see strange lights, but Raylein sighed because of what he saw.

"Should I make him go through the test now?" He sat down. "It's really annoying that I have to choose my successor by myself. Who made this rule?" He grumbled.

"But at the same time, maybe I'm lucky to have found such talent in my plane… He might get insanely powerful in the future," he looked at the flame one last time before clenching his hand and extinguishing it.

"He should become a great help too. The Original Devil is sending his own Guardians already," he said and stood up before jumping off the tall tower. "I hope you will become THE strongest because there's no other way to stop this otherwise."

***

Karma teleported back with two massive boulders. One was white and the other dark blue. They were both connected with cyan rays of light and seemed to be attracted to each other like magnets.

Arima nodded at Jin and grabbed the two stones with one hand each. Compared to Arima, the stones were the size of a fist. The moment he grabbed the Eion stones, Arima's chest glowed with the familiar cyan light.

Back when he was still a normal human in this world, Arima had suffered a blow that incrusted a small Eion system in his heart. His survival was a miracle. But thanks to that, his blood had turned into an enhancing drug each time he received an intake of Eion energy.

Of course, when he was reincarnated into the other world, he didn't have any Eion energy to use anymore. But now, for the first time since he became connected to magic circuits, he finally got hold on Eion energy.

It was instantaneous. When Arima grabbed the stones, a cyan pillar of light suddenly raised around him and pierced the sky.

"{Layla!}" Arima shouted in her mind and Layla nodded. Her scales and wings reappeared and shocked everyone around who were already on the ground because of the shockwave. Thankfully, Karma protected Jin who was the closest.

Layla flapped her wings and teleported right in front of Arima. He was releasing an incredible amount of energy so she couldn't teleport him right away. She raised her hand toward the sky and chanted.

"[Second White Art, Calces Porta] (Gear Gate)."

The silver gear formed in the air really quickly and illuminated Mars and everyone on it. Jin looked up with a strange expression. It was something completely out of humans' imagination. Even after seeing some children playing around with their newfound magic, something like this would still be unbelievable for him if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

Layla waved her hand and the silver gear plummeted on Arima and made him disappear along with the cyan pillar. When everyone could finally breathe, a few seconds after, light years away from where they were, a giant explosion occurred and traveled far and wide across the universe.

Even on Mars, they could see a really big cyan star shining in the dark sky.