Chapter 111: 111. “There’s only one possibility left.”

"Now that you know this," Chulainn paused. "I assume that you can predict the rest. The countless Planes form what we call our Reality. Well, if you want me to tell you if there’s anything beyond that, I can’t say. Maybe there are more Realities or even something bigger. But in any case, this is the limit of my knowledge. But if I had to guess, I’d say there’s indeed something.”

"Let’s go back to the planes now; the difference between Planes is basically how things occurred. The connection between the different worlds is essentially similar to parallel world theories in your world. They have huge similarities but at the same time, are quite different. The main difference observed is Worldly Energy. For instance, in our Plane, the Worldly Energy is Mana."

Arima sighed and sat down and so did everyone else, ready to listen.

"In other Planes, that energy can change and be things like Qi, Prana, Ur, Barakah, Odo, Ase, or Ether. Also, Planes have a semblance of a parallel timeline. Unlike Worlds, they indeed have a parallel version of ourselves.”

“As a matter of fact, you can be sure that there are other versions of ‘Arimane’ in the different Planes, although they're not inevitably Life Hunters. On top of that, you’re merely sharing a name. The many ‘Arimane’ in this Reality may as well be complete strangers to you. Some may even not have any common trait with you except your first name. But they’re still there. Parallel versions of oneself usually depend on the name they share.”

“A name, an identity, is a law in itself. The more a name is ‘influential’, the more parallels versions it’ll have. I would bet that you have many other selves since I’m sure your name is fated to be acclaimed by many. You could say that the reason why people have doppelgangers is that their existence would be too much fickle otherwise within this vast Existence. A powerful man’s name is bound to cause many changes and thus explaining his presence across Reality.”

“Well, all of this is too abstract to develop further,” Chulainn shrugged. “Anyway, this is not what I wanted to tell you. I want you to know that it's normally impossible to travel between Planes. But there are two exceptions."

"The first one is through Heaven and Hell. Those two Original Lands are truly infinite and connect everything, every World and every Plane. But no one ever actively attempts to travel between Planes through them. Why do you ask? Because most ended up dead or lost before even finding their path. I even got wind of a rumor saying that there’s a wall erected by the Original God to separate each Plane," Chulainn said and looked at Arima meaningfully.

"But I heard once that a Silver Emperor originating from this Plane actually managed to find that path a long time ago. If I'm not wrong, he was called the 'Lonely King'," Chulainn told and Arima engraved the name in his memory.

"Also, to avoid any misunderstanding; I talked to you about the cores last time, but Heaven and Hell both have multiple cores. One core for each Plane to be exact."

"Now, the second way, which is the reason why I explained all of this, is to be a Plane Guardian. They are beings said to be capable of traveling across Planes like it's a simple stroll. They’re legends per se.”

Night frowned. "How do you become one?"

"From what I know, ‘Plane Guardian’ is a privilege granted to someone who has transcended the Heavenly Realm and has been chosen by the Original God. Once you hold the title of a Plane Guardian, you fundamentally become a sort of policeman. Your job would be traveling around Planes and Worlds to save or help the people that will become huge characters in the future, enough to change an entire world," Chulainn sighed and stared at Arima. "You will become one of them."

Arima shrugged and stood up "I see. Though, even if I become one of them, I will never submit to any kind of order. Being a ‘policeman’ is not a prospect I welcome, to be honest."

Chulainn kind of expected that answer and just shook his head. "Now that I think about it, Life Hunters are actually the ones who have the most chances of becoming one."

"What? How so?" Arima raised an eyebrow and inquired.

"Mh?" Chulainn surprisingly tilted his head in response. "You didn't realize? You should be able to get it from what I said…" He stopped speaking. "Oh… you don't know about the Life Judgment, do you?"

Arima frowned and glanced at Night and Karma. He sighed. "No, I don't. But those two most likely know, so I guess it's enough."

Chulainn smiled. "I see, well it's not really a bad thing. Perhaps I even gave you too many hints."

"Maybe. Anyway, about the other things Chronepsis listed, do you know anything about them?" Arima asked.

"No, those titles must be special and unique to you. I obviously can’t know about it…” Chulainn mused. “‘Silver Emperor’ is a no-brainer. Same for your title; ‘Kind Demon’, as well as your identity as a Life and Death Hunter.”

“But for the rest, I don't have any idea whatsoever. 'Wicked One', a middle name, and seemingly a totally unknown race; ‘Eternal Dragon’. I absolutely know nothing about these. Though you can be sure that I heard a lot in my life. And to be fair, the Plane Guardian one is already shocking enough for me, so I’d appreciate if you don’t add anything else to it before I collapse mentally.”

Raal suddenly started laughing. "Well, I don't know what just happened, but I certainly witnessed something today," He said and Karia exaggeratedly nodded.

"Well, I guess we’re done here," Arima declared and picked Lanya up. His sigil revolved and they all reappeared on the royal castle's roof.

"Why here?" Night looked around.

"I thought it would be convenient for them," Arima pointed at Raal and Karia and they both nodded.

"We'll go meet the king right away. Let's meet again in two days," Raal said and jumped off with Karia.

Arima then teleported to the Inn and carefully put Lanya on her bed. He then grabbed Chulainn who was on his shoulder and handed him to Karma. “I want to be alone with Night for a moment. Do what you want in the meantime," He stated and snapped his fingers.

A smaller version of his soul gate appeared in the room. When the doors opened Arima stepped in and Night shrugged before following him. When the gate closed, Karma and Chulainn blankly looked at each other.

"First things first, let me go," The Hellhound uttered as he was being hugged and petted like an actual pet.

Karma grinned and continued to rub his head.

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

"Do you remember the suggestion I made?" Arima asked.

"The 'Final Resonance', was it? As you called it."

Night was currently under his dragon form, sitting cross-legged on the bluestone.

"Yeah, that's something I found after analyzing the circle of the soul summoning. Basically, the regular resonance isn’t complete, or to be exact, I noticed that there was something beyond. So, I thought we could find a way to complete it. At first, I thought that it just was an even stronger link between our souls, but what I heard from Chronepsis changed my perspective a bit."

"'Eternal Dragon'?" Night guessed.

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"Yes. When Chulainn spoke about it as a new race, I realized how we could do it," Arima affirmed and cracked his neck. "Now, let's try it. I want you to fuse with me. Not only with your soul but with your body as well."

Night frowned. "That's… risky."

"Kinda, but it should be okay. Who do you think we are?" Arima smirked.

Night sighed. "Yeah, sure…" He inhaled and stood up. He retracted his wings and tried to concentrate on his body and soul. "I'm in," He declared.

Arima grinned and released his spiritual force and even exposed his mana cores. Night did the same as two mana cores formed around him. One was red and the other blue. The former directly came from him, representing his identity as a dragon. The blue one simply represented his connection with Arima.

"The first step is to resonate as we always do. But during the process, I want you to split your soul and body and make them fuse with me separately. I'll do the exact same on my side. It's quite simple on paper but we never know for sure. Let's try it out for starters," Arima instructed and Night nodded.

"[Resonance]" They both chanted.

Night's body gradually became a black and red light that covered Arima’s silhouette. The whole thing appeared to be a lot slower than usual.

When the light entirely enveloped Arima, the latter breathed in and focused on monitoring every last cell composing his body. He also had to keep an eye on his soul, but since it required less spirit and stamina, he used a parallel mind to take care of it.

Arima's figure became slightly bigger. Lightning and fire were going wild around him and a pillar of black light was erected around him. A few seconds later, a powerful energy wave was produced by the pillar’s violent explosion.

The ocean in the sky shook and all of the plants curved like they were pressured by a powerful tempest. From within the flames and lightning, Arima and Night were sent flying toward opposite directions. They both crashed on the bluestone with a really nasty sound of bones breaking.

The bluestone that hadn’t suffered any damage from Lanya and Velvet's fight instantly broke apart this time.

Night snarled and punched the ground in annoyance. He crushed the broken pieces of stone as if it was nothing. Arima sighed and jumped back on his feet.

"Okay… that rejection was a lot stronger than I thought it would be," He remarked whilst wiping the blood on his lips. He then healed and cleaned himself at the same time.

"No shit… it not only fissured my scales but even broke some of my bones," Night complained and started tending his own injuries.

"But it was a valuable first attempt. We're on good tracks," Arima smiled. "Again."

"'Again', he said," Night muttered and prepared himself to use the resonance.

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

Fortunately, Arima's soul realm could be controlled in every kind of way possible and since he was proficient enough with Time magic, Arima also slow time within it.

After two weeks in the soul manifestation, Arima and Night stood silently in front of each other. They both sighed and sat down. The bluestone around them was full of small craters, obviously fashioned by their own bodies.

"We can't go any further," Night said and Arima nodded.

"Yeah, even for me, if we try more than that, the risks are too large," He agreed and summoned his soul gate. "It was more than enough anyway. I didn't expect we would spend two weeks working on this," Arima added and the gate opened.

Before going through, he sharply looked at the gate and his sigil revolved once to make sure anything like last time wouldn’t happen again.

It was only after this that he went through the vortex, followed by Night. When they resurfaced on the other side, the first thing they saw was Lanya standing in the room. Arima estimated that they had spent thirty minutes in his soul realm from this side's perspective.

So, it was predictable that she would regain consciousness. But what surprised him was the expression Lanya wore. Her countenance seemed to be a lot more serene, wise, and confident than before.

"He gave me some of the knowledge he possessed," Lanya smiled when she noticed Arima looking at her like that. She continued, "I also heard everything from Chulainn. I thought it would be a good idea to let you know."

Arima snickered. "I see. What do you think about your new-found strength?"

"It's incredible. I can feel the draconic power swirling through every part of my body. Also, my aptitude with magic in general greatly improved since I inherited Chronepsis's theories and some of his experience," She answered and paused. Her expression appeared to reflect a bit of worry. "By the way… you really don't want to know about the Life Judgment? I learned about it as well."

Arima smiled wryly. He thought that she was talking a bit more openly than before. But he thought it was a good thing and shook his head. "I don't want to. Well, considering your expression right now, I can guess it’s not something really bright. But it would be a bit stupid to ignore both Lilis’ and Chulainn’s advice.”

"I understand," Lanya slowly nodded and Arima smiled at her. He sighed and sat on his bed.

"To be honest, I can already deduce what kind of thing it is. Chulainn said it had something to do with Planes. In that case, it's quite elementary. First, the ‘Life Judgment’, as I just called it, has a name, a title. It means that it's something known and most likely braved by every Life Hunter.”

“Incidentally, Lilis once told me that I was the last Life Hunter. I'm sure she knows about Planes so she could have considered that a Life Hunter was perhaps alive in another Plane. But she said that I was the very last one without any hesitation," Arima put a lollipop in his mouth and Night glanced at him.

"I conclude with this that Life Hunters don't exist even in other Planes for some kind of reason. Finally, Chulainn talked about our…let's call them doppelgangers; our copies. From what I understand, the Life Judgment is something supposed to give a Life Hunter great power and the ability to rise to the Heavenly Realm," Arima said and looked at his hand which he clenched.

"In fact, I'm already at the late Fifth Sky, but I can't see the path to the Heavenly realm at all. And I'm sure that taking the life force of even Errastas will not allow me to do so," He declared and waved his hand dismissively.

"Anyway, with all of this, there’s only one possibility left." Arima raised his index finger.

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