[So you're aware of that? Good. I was starting to think you'd forgotten about my Defence chanisms.]
At the sound of the voice, Evan turned around, his eyes widening when he saw the 'woman' who had appeared behind him.
"Well, look who's here! It's our resident planet! It's been a while, Aidos."
Evan called out with a smile, equally surprised and pleased to see the incarnation of Aidos' Consciousness again.
The 'woman' took a seat on the reclining chair beside him, and when 'she' noticed the cocktail resting on the stool between their chairs, 'she' reached toward it.
However, before 'her' finger could make contact, Kayla returned to her humanoid form, grabbed the glass, and flashed to the seat on Evan's left, a series of actions that prompted Evan to laugh lightly.
'Aidos' didn't particularly care about the drink, being an existence that required no sustenance other than the ambient cosmic energy in space, which 'she' absorbed by default like every other planet.
"Artemisia told what happened. Are you okay? I've been back for months, and you didn't say anything. Was it that bad?"
As a reminder, shortly before Evan fought the Fallen Celestial Deities in December of Year 1054, 'Aidos' had been attacked by an unknown assailant who did sothing to shut down 'her' consciousness and disable 'her' Incarnation, preventing her from warning Evan about the anomaly she had discovered regarding the supposed death of the now-dead Sun Celestial Conroe. [Chapter 782]
That also ant that 'Aidos' hadn't been able to warn Evan or Artemisia about the abnormalities that only 'she' would have detected in the events that followed that fateful day, information that would have led both of them to adjust their plans and would have greatly reduced the likelihood of Evan being thrown back in ti 10,000 years.
Evan only learned about this from Artemisia after returning from his Blast to the Past, and 'Aidos'' continued silence even after his return had left him slightly concerned.
[My Incarnation has been fine for a while now. I was occupied with other matters.]
"Other matters?" Evan repeated, one brow lifting in question.
'Aidos' was silent for a mont before finally responding.
[My records were damaged.]
"!"
Evan's eyes widened at 'her' words, the shock evident on his face.
The higher a world's level, the more difficult it was to damage its planetary records, and given the timing of that damage, Evan had a bad premonition.
"You don't rember who attacked you, do you?"
'Aidos' gently shook 'her' head, confirming what Evan had already suspected.
The one who had incapacitated the planet's consciousness had also damaged its records to erase any trace of themselves.
[All I know is that the one responsible possessed an Ultimate Skill.]
"That narrows it down to only a couple billion Deities across the universe," Evan replied, rolling his eyes.
He couldn't really be faulted for reacting that way.
Ultimate Skills—Unique Authorities were rare, and only a 'handful' of Deities possessed one.
99% of the Deities who would ever rise within the Valmone universe would never obtain an Ultimate Seed, and even among the 1% who could acquire one, not all of them were able to successfully bloom that Seed into a Skill.
Even though the Devour Class System had simplified the process by making it so that gathering three Unique Series Skills could grant an Ultimate Seed, it still wasn't guaranteed, as that only provided a 99% chance, with each Skill contributing 33%.
That remaining 1% still represented the possibility of failure.
And even after obtaining the Seed, blooming it into a Skill was an entirely different ball ga.
However rare it might be, when considered on the scale of the entire UNIVERSE, the total number of individuals within that successful 1% still amounted to billions.
It wasn't a figure Evan even wanted to try estimating.
'It could've been Beatrix, one of her god or demon servants, soone Artemisia doesn't know about, or it could be soone completely unrelated to Aidos' current situation who ca to the planet for another purpose and incapacitated 'Aidos' to keep their actions from being discovered.'
"Was the damage that severe?" Evan asked, erging from his sea of thoughts.
[The affected area wasn't large, but it cut deep.] 'Aidos' replied. [It took so ti to gather all the fragnts and patch things.]
That was why 'Aidos' had been silent over the past few months and had only intervened during the failed 'Fall of the Desert Country' in Tarse, when 'she' montarily resisted Beatrix's Authority as it attempted to widen the Dinsional Rift, and later snapped it shut after Kolvar killed Kriemler.
"So now we've got to watch out for another invisible enemy capable of damaging your records, huh? And here I was thinking my job was already difficult enough."
As soon as Evan said that, 'Aidos' shook 'her' head.
[Don't worry about that. Artemisia will handle it. That's her job,] 'she' replied. [You just focus on the Demonic Hand's Disasters and the consequences of your actions.
That 'World Formation' was originally part of my Defence chanisms, which Ferrid is rely repurposing for his own ends.
You're aware that it's connected to my other Defence chanisms, so even if this sounds unreasonable, I'd like you to refrain from killing any more Fingers of the Demonic Hand for now until it stabilises.]
The World Formation was currently unstable because of the deaths of its Nodes, and there were no appropriate replacents in sight.
This was supposed to be a positive developnt, since those Nodes were the Fingers of the Demonic Hand, and their deaths significantly weakened the organisation's overall strength and disrupted the First Finger Ferrid's plans.
However, the Demonic Hand weren't the creators of the World Formation.
It had already existed on Aidos for millions of years before Ferrid's ancestors had even been born.
It had purposes beyond what Ferrid was currently using it for.
In truth, Ferrid had only managed to reactivate a fraction of the World Formation's capabilities, which was only to be expected, since the World Formation was the 'Tier 10 Magic Formation' Kayla had ntioned earlier.
Tier 10 Magic, the kind of magic that required one to be around the High-Tier Deity, possibly Monarch Level, to cast.
It was simply impossible for Ferrid, a mortal, to completely reactivate it.
Even so, he'd succeeded in restoring part of it and tapping into its energy-gathering functions, and because the World Formation was linked to Aidos' other Defence chanisms aside from the 'Iremith Ouroboroses' and the Hero Killers Evan didn't know about, its reactivation caused so of those dormant Defence chanisms, which hadn't been active for thousands of years, to malfunction.
[Don't forget it's also the final restraint holding back that guy on the Beta Continent apart from the Fallen Celestial Deities.]
"Don't worry about that," Evan replied, brushing aside 'Aidos'' words.
"I'm planning to check on the FCDs in the Solaris Union once I reach the Beta Continent."
The country attempting to push forward the International Law to bar Evan from its territory had a larger number of FCDs within its borders.
Not all of them were on the Alpha Continent, after all.
When the FCDs ca to Aidos seeking refuge after losing the war against the Infernal Devils, they made an agreent with 'Aidos', and eliminating too many of them would create issues for what 'Aidos' was using their very existence to suppress.
The FCDs and part of the World Formation's defensive functions.
"So much work," Evan said with a tired sigh. "All in a day's work for a Hero, I suppose."
Evan raised his drink to his lips once more, chilling it with ice magic before taking a sip, and 'Aidos' spoke.
[I only ca to warn you about the worsening damage. Be careful.]
With those words, 'Aidos' disappeared, leaving Evan and Kayla on the Voyager's deck beneath the slowly descending afternoon sun.
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