Aaron stared out the window as the boy vanished through the narrow streets of Blackport Ridge, his white hair disappearing behind a building, marking his exit.
Left alone at the table, he lowered his head, staring at the ground with a heavy expression.
Soon, Penelope's tranquil voice echoed through his mind, the ring on his finger pulsating gently.
『There isn't anything else you can do right now, Aaron. All you can do is abide by his wishes and leave him alone. As he said, he will be a victor at that competition no matter what you do to comfort him…』
Hearing her attempt to soothe his irritated, brooding self, he reached across the table, grabbing the untouched cup of coffee.
Taking a small sip, he responded quietly.
"There was something watching me from behind him. It was similar to that thing inside my head, yet it was far weaker."
There was a silence from the blade, but its slow throbbing revealed the woman's deep contemplation, thinking about the unusual situation.
Dismissing the thoughts with a shake of his head, Aaron stood up and shot a look at the thick black coffee that Raphael had ordered.
What a strange guy to order black coffee… I guess he took whatever happened to him on the Bay of Thorn to heart and needs a bitter taste of reality…
Chuckling lightly at his unfunny joke, he straightened his posture, then downed the drink, sighing at the flavor.
Needed sugar.
Placing the cup on the table, he added a silver Draught, freshly taken out of the castle treasury the night prior, in exchange for his other coins.
In his pocket now, he held two pouches, one full of the global trade currency that nearly nobody would decline, and a secondary bag with a handful of mysterious gilded objects.
They were the ultimate backup plan both he and Penelope had come up with to prevent a total failure of his mental defenses in case he fell into a mana deprivation.
"You finally revealed something of use when you told me about a property of these coins. I ought to thank you for that."
Smiling as he exited the shop, he flipped one of the objects between his fingers, listening as the woman responded quietly.
『Information comes at a price. One that must be paid with blood if you cannot afford it. However, if you continue to absorb cores and gain strength, certain knowledge becomes commonplace, and it isn't filtered by…』
She cut off like she usually did whenever bringing up the topic of the deity within the boy's head, a topic forbidden for even a god-slaying blade.
Walking through the streets with the appearance of the young, white-haired girl once again, his blue eyes glistened like storms, and he exhaled coldly.
"What's the cost for you telling me who the Old Man is?"
His feet dragged against the stone floors as he waited for a response that would never come, the woman seemingly vanishing.
"Penelope?"
There was a pause as he stopped, sensing the sword's consciousness that sat at the forefront of his mind.
She's awake but not saying anything… Is it a restricted topic, like about the god in there with her? But if that's what's blocking her from speaking, then why—
Amplifying the other half of his brain, the screeches of the Naelith performed at their usual chorus.
Prayers of death and drowning resounded through his head like marbles in a jar, his transformed teeth clattering against his tiny mouth.
『A god.』
Aaron's brow furrowed in confusion, and he quickly tried to figure out what she meant by that.
"A god? What do you—"
『Absorb the core of a god, and you can gain the information about the person you inquired about.』
…
The sunrise was a beautiful spectacle across the world; however, as the sun's circular gleam appeared along the horizon, all the humans everywhere the light could reach noticed something odd.
As it rose high into its lofty perch, for one minute, no more and no less, its entire form vanished behind the shape of the moon.
Solar eclipses were an impossibility since the moon never once changed its position in the sky; however, with what had just been seen, what could the truth have possibly been?
Telegrams were sent at a record rate across all nine habitable seas, and even the Marshals who hunted in the deepest parts of the South reported the anomaly.
Cauron Thorn himself, who had begun preparing for his lecture that would begin in thirty minutes, stared blankly into the heavens.
Holding a piece of cloth in one hand and his glasses in the other, his orange eyes did not waver as his knowing gaze settled over the moon.
Wiping the lenses without looking, he placed the spectacles over his eyes, took a book from a shelf nearby, and sat down slowly in his chair.
He did not say a word as he began to read the history textbook, one carefully preserved and selected by him one hundred years ago.
Its leather cover and thin pages were coated in an impenetrable mana produced by the King, a protective measure to preserve the rare records inside it.
For this was no ordinary historical novel, but instead, a precious find from the Library of Nautilus, a place he had spent his childhood.
On the very first page, a mural was depicted, one of a floating sphere in the depths of darkness that surrounded it.
As he placed a gentle flow of mana into the page, the black ink faded, revealing monsters of incomprehensible image.
Each one of a ghastly shape, a serpent with many heads, a dragon that shot electricity from its mouth, a humanoid with the face of a wolf, and even a massive creature with the head of a squid that towered over the others.
There were nine in total, with every single one of them having a certain number of slashes above their heads.
Placing his finger on the serpent with seven heads, he raked his hand across it, the feeling of five idents making his blood run cold.
While the names of these beings weren't recorded within the text, nor was there any further information about them available, there was not one Sea King who didn't know what this specific beast was.
The only creature to threaten to escape its seal and return to the Dimension of Waves is Nidhogg, the Devourer of Worlds.
He was the beast that had isolated the Devil's Triangle in the World Between, separating their own dimension away from all others except the roots buried beneath the World Tree.
Clenching his fists tightly, he gazed at the golden watch that clung to his wrist, the time of nine forty-nine making him sigh and stand.
Staring at the door for a long moment, he stepped forward, placing the book down and beginning his stroll towards the lecture hall.
…
Aaron's eyes gazed upward at the massive entrance of the university building before him, which welcomed guests from all over as they came to see the strange new product of electricity stationed in the largest auditorium.
In the center of the mob of visitors, a ticket booth was swarmed with buyers, the woman inside looking overwhelmed and panicked.
Taking a deep breath and stepping forward, Aaron appeared at the very front of the line, cutting the queue, hand wrapped around the handle of the sword he had summoned.
It was sheathed, of course, yet not a single person dared move at the sight of the undisguised boy in front of them.
"How many tickets do you have left?"
Speaking only towards the ticket seller, he waited for her response, her face pale as she looked downward at her supply.
"T-two…"
Sighing hard and looking back at the line that stretched on for kilometers, he raised his voice, imbuing the ever-slightest amount of mana in it.
"This session is full. Leave now or be removed."
Releasing as much mana as he could muster without the worry of notifying the Sea King inside, he made the rows of people step back, their numbers dispersing slowly.
Inside the booth, the woman gasped, a smile curving up her lips as she looked at Aaron joyfully.
"T-thank you, sir Grimstall!"
Raising his brow at the formality of the words of the woman, who was much older than himself, he scratched the back of his head.
"Well… I don't suppose I could get one of those remaining tickets, could I?"
Before he could even pull out money from his pouch, she practically threw it at him, a happy grin plastered across her face.
"Free for challengers."
After that, she bolted from the room, vanishing inside the building without another word, leaving the boy confused and fatigued.
Turning towards the guarded entrance, he stepped forward and flashed the doormen the ticket he had just acquired.
Nodding slowly, they let him through, their eyes following him for a short while as he moved further inside.
The small hallway he entered was utterly vacant; however, he saw another set of double doors ahead of him and could hear loud voices coming from behind.
Taking a deep breath, he readied himself, gripping the sapphire ring upon his finger in a signal his body knew well.
In a series of gruesome changes, his body morphed and changed into the spitting image of Alice Styx from Sea Fallen.
He had once saved her from certain death—albeit unknowingly—with the miraculous coin he had handed her, and now, she would stand between him and a King.
Activating every barrier he could muster, he groaned as he felt Penelope pulsate on her own, forming a shield around her own mind and a secondary one around Aaron's.
The disguised boy's black hair ran down to his shoulders, his tiny hands reaching out in front of him to grip the door.
In his pocket, he clutched the pouch of emergency fuel he could use if the King's influence on him became too much.
The first time I'll meet a King after becoming a Ghostship wielder…
Feeling his chest tighten, he smiled through it, the tiny girl's face contorting to follow the inner personality's urge.
Pushing open the door to the auditorium with all his force, the creak echoed throughout the chamber, silencing those inside.
Awkwardly shifting through the crowd to the seat his ticket was assigned to, a small row at the farthest reaches away from the stage, he sat comfortably, staring at the front of the hall.
There was no presenter in the room yet, only a large clock—it was nine fifty-nine, one minute until the start of the presentation.
Relaxing into his seat, he prepared for the man's entry, the hypothetical image of his thick glasses and long white beard nearly making him chuckle.
He's over a hundred years old… Maybe even older if he's really contracted with the Goddess of Life. Wonder if he's a prune or not.
Smiling, he watched as the electricity-powered lights shut off without warning, a flash of mana exuding from the podium.
Confused murmurs erupted through the crowd; however, inside the boy's head, alarm bells had already begun ringing as if there would be no tomorrow.
The mana of a Sea King had spread through the room, alerting the deity in his head right away.
It had not intervened yet, as Aaron's barriers were strong enough to protect him against such a threat, and even a direct hit from a bullet if needed.
As he watched the front of the room, he noticed a small door behind the stage, its frame opening slightly.
Then, in one loud thud, a footstep rang out throughout the room, completely snuffing out all other sounds, be it the soft buzzing of electric devices or the chatter coming from the audience.
『Grace of Life.』
Aaron's entire body turned rigid, his brain shutting off as a magnitude of force so incredible that it threatened to crush him into paste shot down into his flesh.
His eyes leaked droplets of blood, his appearance flickering as a gaze so powerful that it warranted a classification of its own drilled into his skull, prying for anything it could find.
Inside his mind, the deity reacted faster than he could himself, perfectly sealing both his consciousness and subconsciousness, causing the blond-haired boy to lose all coherent thought.
All he could do was watch as his body collapsed in on itself, the omniscient gaze of the heavens attempting to descend in full to examine the anomaly in the chamber.
Yet at the forefront of the chaos that bombarded Aaron's body, one man sat responsible, his orange eyes staring up into Aaron's flickering turquoise ones.
The King did not blink, nor did he waver; he simply exuded every ounce of force he could muster onto the boy, attempting to break him.
He had no information on Aaron Grimstall, a fact that forced him awake at night as the curse given to him by a pact he had made burned with renewed ferocity.
Now, that mysterious child, whose very existence had plagued him daily, appeared before his eyes, making his rage boil up and lash out in an unprecedented attack.
The audience themselves couldn't sense anything that was happening right in front of their eyes, their gazes of awe fixated on the orange-haired King, feeling every bit overwhelmed.
His pale, unwrinkled, and smooth skin radiated a brilliant white under the mana-infused light, his glasses glowing with a light orange hue.
Cauron Thorn, a man gifted with the power of the Goddess of Life, is known by a title unanimously accepted everywhere in the world.
The Immortal.