Now then readers, let's find out what happened on the night of Arthur's birthday, after the banquet ended.
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With the celebration party over, the royal family hosted a small after-party for the higher nobles to attend, even so, it only lasted for about an hour.
After this, Arthur walked up to Hades who was trying to prevent Cattleya from finishing another bottle of alcohol, and abruptly said as he dropped his glass.
"So I feel like my 'Magic Blooming' is not gonna happen."
Hearing his words, all the royals in the room, including Grand Dukes Eryrth and Belphegor turned to him with surprised looks on their faces.
"Um...I don't follow. How did you arrive at that conclusion?"
Seeing as everyone else was silent from the shock, Inglis decided to address the elephant in the room.
"The magic blooming or sprouting of wings, which happens first?"
To Arthur's question, they all replied almost immediately.
"Good. Now has anyone noticed any changes in my energy levels today?"
Arthur took off the concealment ring he was wearing as he asked that question, allowing them to all sense his energy level and realize there was no change. It also was not unstable like it was meant to be before the magic blooming.
"No, your energy level has been the same since I dropped you off on Lonope."
Cattleya who had used detoxification magic to deal with her drunken state, answered Arthur's question.
"And that's your answer to why I know I won't have my magic blooming."
At this point, Diablo sighed as he took a seat before asking.
"I don't exactly get why you think so. Besides, don't you know that one's magic blooming can be delayed by a few days or weeks?"
The others all nodded in agreement to Diablo's words. Although such a phenomenon was rare, it was not unheard of. However, Arthur just shook his head as he walked to the centre of the room while speaking.
"Earlier today, while I was on Lonope, I realized that I had completely lost my ability to manipulate my energy at all.
Also, my energies did become unstable like they were meant to, and then I passed out. When I woke up, it was back to normal, my energy flow had stopped completely, and I had 'these'."
As he said 'These', he shrugged his shoulder and revealed a pair of jet-black wings. The wingspan was about three meters and there was some sort of rune drawn on the inner parts.
The colour transitioned from black to silver around the edges. As for the shape, they looked like a mixture of high-speed and soaring wings.
Upon seeing the wings, they were all shocked. Diablo even dropped the glass he was holding.
This was expected, after all, no matter how long one's magic blooming was delayed, they never gained their wings before it happened.
The fact that Arthur had wings now meant that his magic blooming was supposed to have already happened, however, there was no change in his energy amount.
Instead, he had lost his ability to use his energy.
Originally, he could use tier one and two magic with ease. Then when his energy manipulation abilities began reducing, the tier of magic he could use began reducing until now, he could not use any energy at all.
Luckily, he could still use artifacts that absorbed the energy of the wielder automatically.
This was an unprecedented situation, and as such, they were at a loss for what to do. Diablo immediately recomposed himself and spoke to Belphegor.
"Tomorrow, search through the restricted library for similar situations like this. We need to know if this is temporary or it'd be permanent."
Belphegor nodded in affirmation immediately and Diablo turned to Arthur and asked.
"Arthur do you feel-"
"Sad? Unhappy? Far from it, I feel weirdly normal. Finding out I might not be able to use my energy forever sure does piss me off though."
Arthur cut Diablo off before he could finish his question. Cattleya on the other hand just silently hugged him. Arthur flinched and pushed her away.
"Why are you all acting all sentimental? It's me who's not gonna be able to use my energy but I ain't feeling that bad, also stop trying to hug me, mom. It's awkward."
Hades laughed and patted Arthur's head as he spoke.
"Keep trying to get stronger normally, the problem might be resolved once you get to a higher realm."
He then walked over to Diablo and whispered to him. The two then began discussing what they believed was a potential reason for his magic blooming's failure.
"It's probably because of compatibility issues with his divinity."
That was the conclusion the two came to. Nevertheless, they were not sure if that was the case or not. They also felt that it might have had something to do with the fourth unknown energy type that Arthur had.
"Finally, news of this matter is not to spread outside this room. Am I clear?"
Everyone gave his or her consent as Diablo decided to end it there. Arthur, however, only shook his head and walked out of the room, saying he was going to test his wings out.
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Contrary to Diablo's words, Arthur went over to one of the drifter's information guilds after contacting Larry.
When it came to spreading rumours about any and everything, the drifters were the fastest. Even if he wanted the news to spread to other universes, it was not impossible for the drifters to accomplish this in a day.
According to Larry, most of the heads of the drifters in each universe around the Hell universe had a direct line connecting to each other.
In other words, all Larry had to do was contact another universe's drifter head and inform him about whatever the rumour wished to spread and let him do the rest.
Larry gave Arthur his word that the news would reach as far as Olympus faster than Hades could return there.
True to his word, the rumour of the prophesied child being unable to use his energies after a failed magic blooming spread to various pantheons within the next few days.
At this point, Layla had already fallen unconscious so she never heard about it.
When Diablo heard about it, he was enraged. This was expected as he had just said for the matter to be kept under wraps, yet not more than a week later, a fellow Arch Devil Master had contacted him to find out if it was true.
Finding out that Arthur was the source did not take him long. When he asked the boy why he let the news slip, he gave a reply that used the exact same logic Cattleya did when she spread the news that she was the prophesied child's mother.
Hearing that, Diablo flipped over the table he was seated on in anger. He decided to properly dish out suitable punishment to Arthur, (As the narrator, I can't help but agree with him on this.) however, the young prince was prepared for this possibility.
"The other pantheons have had their eyes on me due to the magic blooming, even to the point of sending assassins, something they had originally given up on.
They know you all are being vigilant so they sent someone weak enough for you not to pay too much attention to but strong enough to kill the average intermediate stage master, luckily I'm not an intermediate stage anymore.
I know full well that my high profile attitude would keep drawing their attention, but I kinda want them to focus their attention on other places and not things like my level of strength and the likes."
Arthur turned the table back over and took a seat before continuing.
"Truth be told, all that is simply me just bullshitting.
I feel useless being protected by you guys every time so I just wanted to reduce the burden on you all a bit.
I know I'm too weak to protect myself from the real threats to my life right now, even so, I just didn't want to sit back and do nothing.
If there are rumours that I can't use my energy, and I show that I actually can't. It would reduce the attention I'm getting and the level of assassins being sent and you all would be able to use your time to deal with other things."
Diablo found some sense in Arthur's words. Due to his early exposure, Arthur matured a lot faster than his peers did so he understood how the young prince would feel being protected every time.
Arthur also made a valid point in his statement. Diablo was the king of the Devildom and the master of the Pantheon. As for his mother and uncle, they were still the main entities of the pantheon.
They all had other things to attend to other than catching assassins sent by gods and their allies of other pantheons.
If these gods and their allies believed that Arthur was unable to utilize something as crucial as his energy, then they were bound to pay less attention to him, at least for now.
This would also reduce the extra work that Diablo and the others were putting in to protect Arthur.
"Hmm..."
"Though I would probably end up drawing their attention myself. I know how whimsical I can be. I may end up taking an action in the future that would result in them paying attention to me once more."
Diablo couldn't help but sigh in exasperation as he agreed with Arthur's words. The young boy was turning out exactly like his mother, Cattleya.
'No, he's even worse.'
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"Though there were other things involved like me actually using the assassins they sent to learn how to torture people but that's not important."
After hearing Arthur's explanation, Layla held her head as she sorted through her thoughts.
'Although it's true that some of the gods would stop harassing him after this, some might not believe it, but it's not a lie and he actually can't use his energy, but they might think it's a lie and- Damn it!
I'm done, why am I bothering myself anyway!? It's his problem, not mine!'
She looked up to see Arthur holding a volleyball and staring at her, he then asked with a small smile.
"You wanna play?"
"I need to hit something to relieve my stress so yes, I wanna play."
As such, she gave up on thinking about anything and just decided to vent her frustrations on the poor volleyball.
On a side note, the ball ended up bursting afterward. As Arthur held the deflated ball, he had one thought in his head.
'Frustrated women are scary.'