Chapter 2355: It’s Getting Bigger

Her name was Alora Loux, daughter of the great Loux warrior family, and now she was one of the maids in the Private Quarter. Right now, she was calmly sweeping the floor inside the Church of Stars, walking as the countless nuns of Amaterasu sat and prayed with Arad’s black hole resting on its pedestal, quietly humming.

She could feel it in her bones, the spark of power, the shards of gold, the radiant darkness of the one they once called their Emperor. She wasn’t that powerful, just a well-trained fighter who had fought in a war before. But she could tell just by standing nearby that the thing inside the black hole wasn’t a mortal anymore.

Yesterday, Baal and Ophan had separated Arad’s stomach into three realms, and the maids were slowly realizing that they weren’t working for just a really powerful dragon, or even a lucky one that married countless divines. But something even greater, something that was now holding an entire universe with its realms inside him.

One of the nuns approached her. "Alora, is the cleaning done?" As she asked, Alora lifted her face and looked at her for a second. Her honey-colored eyes glimmered with a strange emotion before shifting her gaze toward the black hole.

"He is our Lord, our master of all that is obsidian. This place isn’t even getting dirty. I’ve been sweeping the floor for two hours, and I haven’t been able to pick up a single speck of dust." She lifted her broom like a sword and pointed at the black hole. "It’s sucking up everything, not leaving anything for me to clean."

The nun looked at the black hole. She had noticed that as well. Right now, the black hole had started pulling air in, and it might’ve even gotten a bit bigger than before. "Don’t point at it with the broom. Lady Neptune would yell at you."

"I know..." Alora frowned. "Just... when will he wake up? It’s like we’re sitting on a bomb, waiting for it to explode at any moment." She pointed the broom down. "The waiting, it’s getting on my nerves."

"I know how you feel. We’ve been waiting for a while, and he still didn’t wake up. As per what Lady Violet said, he shouldn’t take months or years, but it’s still hard to just stand here and wait." The nun looked at the black hole. "Who will come out? Will he be the same Lord we knew, or will he be someone else?"

Alora smiled. "He’ll be the same. People change a bit, but that change always just stacks on who they were before." She rested the broom on her shoulder as she turned to leave. "This place is already clean, so I don’t need to swipe anymore. Take care."

As she left, the nun stared at her for a few seconds and then went back inside the Church of Stars. Neptune, who was standing there, called her. "Since you aren’t praying, go find Isdis and bring her here. I need to report something about the black hole. If possible, get Eris as well."

Hearing that, the nun’s eyes opened wide. "Is he waking up?"

"I don’t know. I don’t think he is waking up, but something is clearly changing. Since yesterday, the black hole has grown wider by an inch, and it’s still getting bigger. At this rate, we might want to move it somewhere else, or at least increase the flow of divine magic that keeps it stable." She waved her hand. "Just hurry, I’ll explain later. For now, get to work."

As she rushed out, Neptune walked back into the church and stared at the black hole, counting every flicker of light in its accretion disk. Both matter and divine magic were being burned rapidly and getting absorbed to feed Arad’s evolution, and by this point, Neptune was almost certain that what was coming out would be something special.

Merlin appeared by her side and smiled. "He is sucking twice as much divine magic as Eris has, every minute. If Eris were the one to fuel him instead of Amaterasu, he would’ve already sucked her dry a hundred times over."

Neptune frowned. "That isn’t funny. What is he doing with all of this power? Such an amount of energy won’t just disappear. It’ll either build something, or burst into a titanic explosion and burn everything to ash."

Merlin giggled. "Yeah, it won’t explode. That divine magic and matter should be going out to fuel his Nymph body. She is a Nymph on the same scale as Amaterasu, so it makes sense that her growth requires a lot of energy." But the moment Merlin said that, Neptune gasped. "What? I never heard of that!"

"Many didn’t. Amaterasu is a Nymph of Stars. I’m certain you know that. But Arad has a part of him that is a Nymph of Dark Matter. That female form is the fabric that holds the universe together. You must’ve noticed that Amaterasu had been doing a lot more recently. She even managed to shatter Nyar’s universe. None of that would’ve been possible if Arad’s Nymph wasn’t holding the universe for her."

Hearing that, Neptune gulped. "Wait... It is true that Amaterasu couldn’t leave the universe before... and if she was the same, the energy she used to shatter Nyar’s universe would’ve been enough to lose a chunk of the universe." She stared at the black hole spinning on the pedestal. "So... he is the one holding everything together?"

She then shook her head. "No, how did he even get a Nymph side? You don’t just magically turn into one."

Merlin shrugged. "It’s hard to explain, so I won’t even bother. I was thinking of introducing the Nymph to the people as one of the Queen’s. Call her something like Aron. That way Arad would be able to take her to the public without any trouble."

Neptune pursed her lips. "Let’s ignore where the Nymph came from now. If she is holding the stars with Amaterasu, then won’t she be divine as well?"

Merlin nodded as she approached the black hole. "The moment Arad wakes up, the universe itself would change. New rules are going to be born. The very fabric of existence itself would shift. Amaterasu had carried the universe on her own for untold eons, but now, and finally, someone else is showing up who could help her carry that burden."

"You sent for us?" Eris and Isdis teleported directly into the Church of Stars and looked at the black hole. "Is he waking up?"

"No." Neptune replied. "But his energy needs have increased dramatically, and I don’t think this place would be fit to house him any longer."

"That’s..." Eris frowned. "He is consuming my worth of divine magic a minute. Where is he shoving all of that?"

Isdis stared closely at the black hole, and then smiled. "I get it. He isn’t consuming it on his own. It’s what Baal and Ophan are using to stabilize the Heaven and Hell inside his stomach." She waved her hands, and sparks of white magic extended forward. "If that’s the case, we should be able to..." But before she could do anything, Kali appeared behind her and smacked her on the head.

"I get what you’re doing, but hold your horses. You aren’t anywhere near precise enough to do that." She extended her six arms forward and took on Isdis’s job. "I’ll be the one to take us inside and see how he is doing."