Chapter 430 Interlude 9 – Cognizance



SunPenny Coffeehouse

####### City

##### Country

AD 3101

Earth V

"Large Expresso Con Panna for Vincent?"

"Here."

"Okay, Mr Vincent, that'd be #9.99."

Vincent Bourne nodded as he passed the notes over to the cashier who tacked them into the cash register and printed out a small receipt for him.

"Ahh…that hit the spot."

He muttered to himself after walking out of the Coffeehouse and taking a small sip from his coffee, before beginning to make his way back to his office, only for his vision to suddenly grow hazy as he staggered to the side.

*TICK! TOCK!

"Are you okay, sir?"

"…yeah…I'm fine. Think I tripped or something."

He replied to the security officer who noticed him, stomping his foot on the ground a few times before beginning to walk back to his office once again.

*TICK! TOCK!

This time, he made it without suddenly staggering, but the moment he sat down, he was attacked with a sudden headache, with him pressing his fingers to his temple as he searched for the pills he usually kept in his drawer.

*TICK! TOCK!

"Where on earth, did I drop that thing, 'twas supposed to be in my drawer."

*TICK! TOCK!

His headache only intensified as he carried on the search for his pills, with his vision growing hazier by the second.

*TICK! TOCK!

It felt as if the sound of the wall clock in his office was amplified to an outrageous degree, but strangely enough, it also sounded as if the clock was ticking inside his head.

*TICK! TOCK!

The sound of the clock ticking increased in intensity, along with his headache which was now turning into a full-blown migraine.

If his vision wasn't hazy, he would have been able to see that strange energy waves were spreading out from his body; and that almost everything in his office was now hovering in the air as if it was the work of some poltergeist.

**DONG!

*BAM!!

"HUH?!"

All of a sudden, the clock sound stopped, and the floating items all fell back onto the ground, causing a loud noise that attracted the attention of the secretary outside.

"Director Bourne, I heard some loud noises. Is there a problem?"

"No, nothing. I just dropped a bunch of stuff by accident.

No need to worry about it."

"…okay…"

His secretary clearly wasn't buying the excuse but they decided to let it go, choosing to instead watch the office closely in case anything strange happened again.

As for Vincent, the man was trying to sort around the memories that suddenly found their way back into his head and fitted themselves into his memories like the pieces of a puzzle.

"I see…so that's why I've been feeling weird all this while."

He looked up from his desk, a thin ring of blue light appearing around his pupils as he continued.

"Evan isn't here anymore."

The ambient energies around his body thrummed as if to affirm his words.

Artemisia had 'hidden' all traces of Evan in Earth V's records, making it so that it was as if 'Evan Bourne' never existed in the first place, however, Evan's father, Vincent, had just realised this.

"Just who is responsible for this? Was it a celestial? Or one of the gods? Maybe a Demon Emperor?

Where did they take Evan to?"

He asked himself these questions, sighing in exasperation right after as he tapped leaned back on his chair and tapped his finger on the desk.

|Authority of Knowledge|

A wave of grey light spread out omnidirectionally from underneath his finger, followed by the blue ring of light in his eyes momentarily turning grey.

"Whoever did this, the job was so clean that it took me a whole year just to realise something was wrong."

Evan was right about one thing, his parents on Earth V, were indeed humans. Well…genetically, at least.

But when it came to the strength side of things…let's just say both of them were powerful enough to give a goddess like Aphine, or a war god like Canis a run for their money.

A grey magic circle with multiple rings manifested around his finger, which he then pointed to his temple and downloaded information about Evan's current status into his head.

"Aidos? It's a higher world…? No, it's a Prime world. Under the control of who? a god? goddess Artemisia?

Artemisia…?

Isn't she the one who YZqG!u3 came over to this universe to mess with?"

The grey light in his eyes dimmed as he sorted the information he just received via his authority and spoke.

"If Evan's in Artemisia's world, then he'd be fine, I guess.

Worst case scenario, he'd just return to normal. Then again, that's not really a bad thing, it's been too long after all.

He might just flip out on the person who caused him to return to normal though, which in this case, is this goddess Artemisia."

The man then sighed softly before pressing his head on his temples and asking the most important question.

"Now that I know this…how the heck am I supposed to face my wife and tell her that her son's in another world?"

He tapped the side of his head multiple times in silence for a few moments, with his eyes suddenly widening as a look of realization flashed through them.

"Knowing her…there's a possibility that she might already know.

She doesn't know I know she's not a normal breed."

The man was about to laugh out loud when he suddenly sensed a chill down his spine, with the power of the law of destiny showing him the bleak possibilities that awaited him if he did not take a certain action within the next 2 seconds.

He instantly folded his finger into his palm and crushed the magic circle around it, simultaneously deactivating his authority of knowledge, as well as every other passive authority-related ability he had.

"Shit…that was close!"

Vincent breathed heavily as cold sweat poured down his back, stretching his hand out to manipulate the ambient essence of the law of destiny and confirm that the crisis had been averted.

"Seems like this Artemisia isn't like the others.

She had already long discovered I was snooping and was tracking me down. If I let my authority stay active for even a second longer…. she might have zeroed in on the exact coordinates of my location."

He placed his hand on his chest as if trying to calm his frantically beating heart as he spoke.

"Such frightening power and precision.

That's a Universe's 'Main Entity' for you. In fact, I feel this Artemisia should be more powerful than the others, even though they are older."

He gauged Artemisia's strength from the little 'exchange' the two just had, taking one last deep breath to calm himself down before saying.

"Just in case she comes over to do a sweep on this world. I'd temporarily seal my memories back again so she would not realise."

He formed a finger gun and pointed his hand to his temple, before 'shooting' a beam of blue light into his head.

Vincent's body collapsed weakly on the couch, with him being silent for a few seconds before he suddenly jerked up and looked around in confusion.

"Huh? What was I-! My Expresso?!"

He screamed out as he checked the expresso cup that had fallen over, heaving a light sigh when he noticed that its contents hadn't spilt.

"Thankfully, I don't have to walk back to that Star***** rip-off Coffeehouse."