Soul of Searing Steel

A choice has now been made about where Joshua’s true form should stay. According to the God of Wisdom and Choice’s prediction, the Vortex of Creation would assume initial form within a year at the earliest, while the ensuing augmenting and recovery would take even longer. In other words, Joshua would have around a year to stay safely in the Vortex of Creation, before the cost eventually outweigh profits as he repels dimensional pressure.

But one year was enough. The warrior would absorb more Steel Particles and Authority each day than wandering over the Void every year.

As Ezerg was ready to leave after a few more words with Joshua, violet and white light flashed. For some reason, Yolanda and the God of Life had descended simultaneously inside the warrior’s world.

“Radcliffe…”

Yolanda, appearing in elven maiden form studied all of Joshua once she descended. Her brow was furrowed as if she had seen something—she tried to mention it for moments, before shaking her head, “Well… I just wanted to say that you could tell us if you need any help.”

With that, she quickly turned into divine light and left. The God of Life who had followed her mimicked her as well: measuring Joshua for a while and then looked towards the world with nine floating islands. Then, after a slight nod, she left as well—there was no telling why she went there at all.

Soon, with Ezerg’s own departure and the light of the six deities circled the silver world once, they left the Darkest Abyss. Unlike Joshua, the gods are unable to absorb Steel Strength felt discomfort in the Vortex of Creation, and would need to consume divine ability in every moment to keep themselves from being repulsed.

“…”

Having ensured that the six gods had all left, Joshua maintained his original posture, the humanoid hub paused at the center of the star, remaining motionless for a long time.

At present, the warrior’s entire body was still as if time itself has stopped. Even the silver sun at the center of the world stopped stirring and shining, its energy cycle pausing and leaving the entire world in utter darkness. The power that shifted the positions of the nine floating islands dissipated as well, and all things fell into stillness and silence.

“…ha.”

After freezing where he was for a long time, a faint sigh resounded in the darkness.

Now, two crimson specks of light appeared in the heart of the darkness.

As the red light shone, the silver sun regained its like. The world which cycles had stopped also restarted, like a factory that had suddenly suffered power outrage and began running again.

Joshua, who finally recovered some of his mobility looked down at his hands, narrowing his eyes as if wanting to conceal the scarlet divine radiance rising from the depths of his pupils.

“Bad timing, their arrival.”

It was only after a long time that Joshua lifted his shuddering hand and pressed it on his forehead. “Even after I spoke so stiffly and doing my best to shorten our exchange,” the warrior said quietly and self-deprecatingly, “still, it’s still a little long, and I was almost exposed.”

The warrior’s human clone slowly lowered his hand, and yet such a simple act actually made it vanish for a moment as if a poor connection. Soon, he appeared again, but one could tell that there were minute parts in that reformed clone could not be controlled, and there were such great flaws in its construct, like a deformed 3D painting.

“I am still too arrogant…”

Joshua shook his head as if intending to regain consciousness, but even that did not allow him to gain lucidity, and he could only laugh bitterly in the murkiness. “The God of Death embody vengeful wills and despair… it is too heavy for me to shoulder it alone.”

Recently, in the decisive battle against the Evil God of Death, Joshua had used the runes of his body world and control a beam weapon with electromagnetism.

The weapon composed entirely of light did not deal any physical damage, but it carried special Steel Strength that swiftly transmitted information. In other words, it was a special optic cable, and was an advanced conduit instead of a weapon.

Whether used against a superhuman such as Fattrovi who controlled a world’s Authority, or the Black Fog, an intelligent enchanted construct, there was not much use—it was supremely effective, however, when used on an Evil God, it would crush their sturdiest of Chaos barriers, breaking the entity’s core that was composed of soul and memories, a weapon expressively tailored against Evil Gods.

If it was aimed against a forming Evil God Embryo—the early form of an Evil God of Death, the weapon was even more terrible. Its presence alone would drain the limitless memories contained in the Chaos, reducing the composites and celestial forms of Chaos into insignificant dust of Chaos, equally crushing them from a thousand and ten thousand into ten thousand ‘1s’.

Of course, there was a flaw in such a specialized weapon tailored against the Evil God: the spiritual blowback against the user.

Each time Joshua struck a Chaos composite with a luminous weapon, the memory of a ruined world would have been passed through the hub that was Joshua’s own body and be marked inside the obelisks.

Each strike and each blow left Joshua’s mind heavily burdened, but since Joshua had no soul and had no need to endure spiritual injury, all his hurt was only a mutual burden of in his world’s integrated processing array—merely to record the information of over thousands of civilizations, the array would relive the demise of worlds over a hundred times, an equivalent of having a champion’s soul break over a hundred times.

Killing a thousand foes was hurting himself over eight hundred times—even two thousand times. Only Joshua could fight like that, with any other person spiritually maimed if they did that even once.

Then, the last burst from the luminous axe that split apart the Darkest Abyss,

Even Joshua would never be able to withstand such a torrent in the mind. That was why he only had one method to strengthen his own spirit, enduring that spiritual assault which could bend the construct of reality, that not even the soulless could truly withstand.

And that one method was divinity.

By awakening and strengthening the divinity he now controlled, Joshua rigidly weathered the most dangerous spike in spirit and forcefully crushed the final retaliation of the Death’s Embryo.

That, however, did not mean that the danger had passed.

Instead, it had just begun.

Compared to bidding his time to slowly grind away Chaotic force, the stalwart divinity was the fundamental reason Joshua’s mind had problems. Not even the warrior himself could resolve the fundamental attribute of divine ability, and it was only through foolishness and his own spiritual prowess to subjugate and repress his foe that led to Joshua’s present dire circumstances.

Presently, the warrior’s mind was in a state of murkiness like that of the recently revived heroic spirits. It was only through remolding the world that the revived spirits were slightly restored to normalcy—the six gods’ appearance had granted him brief lucidity, allowing him to realize his present circumstances.

“If this continues… Whether I am consumed by the residual memories of world demise from the Evil God of Death or divinity crushing my own consciousness, I would no longer be myself…”

At that thought, Joshua suddenly remembered the abrupt arrival and departure of Yolanda and the God of Life. The expression they showed that they could clearly tell what was happening, and they were always sensitive about such matters.

Joshua also could not help recalled what Yolanda said before, that the Sage was very different after returning from the Darkest Abyss.

Were there similarities between his condition and the Sage?

“Holy Light… Luminous weapons… Sage…”

Closing his eyes, Joshua’s human formed slowly vanished from the silver star. He no longer had the strength to maintain a human form, and his will was also dispersing. “Hah. The Sage would not be as prideful as myself and shoulder the despair of all Abyss and Evil God alone…”

Perhaps.

Probably.

Joshua stopped thinking about that.

Withdrawing all his consideration and focusing, all of his mental prowess diverted to suppress the despairing world memories, along with the growing war divinity. Crimson radiance distinctly swirled in the silver star, blood-colored lightning weaving in the silver clouds.

Though the repercussions of the battle were severe, Joshua would choose to do it again.

None would know if the God of Death would reassemble in the very next second, leaving every person’s sacrifice to waste. None would know if Death’s power and essence was so great that its defenses would barely break without a specially designed weapon.

Chaos occupied everything at the depths of the Darkest Abyss, a and Joshua would not have been able to act if it was not for the gods’ blessing and the Infinite Divinity. He would already have become a core for the Evil God of Death to assemble itself without those luminous weapons, his consciousness collapsing to the point that he would become an Evil God and destroy Mycroft and many other worlds.

Compared to such a future, present circumstances were merely a little troublesome.

***

At the bottom of the Vortex of Creation, six divine lights glinted. A silver planet whirled, but gradually dulled.

A long time passed.

There were occasions where dimensional spells or Void warships appeared near the star, looking at it from afar. Many broke through the growing repulsive force of the Vortex of Creation just for a glimpse of a silver world.

They were either worried, troubled, confident or simply wanted to join the trend… but as months passed and Starfall Year 840 as well, the silver star still did not change, remaining dim as ever.

Until one day.

***

Starfall Year 841, twentieth of January in Mycroft Time.

A silver planet unvisited that whirled by itself at the center of the Vortex, a normal, mundane day.

The surface of the world slowly regained luster.

The beings hidden and resting within were awakening.

At the center of the core star inside the silver world, Joshua’s clone reassembled—this time, it was complete and without any abnormal defects.

“Half a year has passed, huh… though I’ve established independent collection and steering procedures before my slumber, it still took too much time for testing.

Glancing at his palms, Joshua clenched them into fists before relaxing. He looked up towards the floating islands that were directed by the steering procedures, learning again the knowledge of the many heroic spirits before nodding. “There’s still half a year then and it’s not late… but I should return once or they would be worried.”

At the brightest center of the star, Joshua looked around at his own world serenely. However, formless presence was surging, and any looking upon it directly would face an enraged deity. Around the silver star, the nine floating islands orbited as if planets, with the heroic spirits slowly building civilizations and communicating with others, along with many dancing Silver Fairies that granted the still world slight vigor.

As he took in the sights, Joshua’s gaze that had a machine coldness gradually softened. “…There are still things to do,” the Lord of that World said quietly after moments of silence, and thus the entire planet rumbled.

The former Darkest Abyss and present Vortex of Creation, the raging black-and-white turbulent flow maintaining its surge and swirl.

World fragments that accumulated over thousands of years compounded with the energy of the Mana Tide spilling from the Vortex of Creation—a gush that could crush anything into the tiniest of Steel Particles.

Nevertheless, a rather dim silver star appeared in the bottom of the dangerous center of the Vortex. It appeared unaffected by its environment, and remained tightly embedded at the most terrible surge, enduring the brush of limitless material cascading.

And now, the silver star that had weathered half a year of scrubbing changed unusually.

Several craters hence appeared over the perfectly smooth surface of the silver world—the craters then rapidly enlarged into cavity that drives deep into the world. At the same time, vast amounts of cylindrical particles of steel material ejected out and missed into the Vortex of Creation.

Still, the cylinders were particles only to the Vortex of Creation, with each being a meter long and composed of sturdy composition. Even the pressure of the Vortex of Creation could not break its surface, but carry it along.

Thirty-six cavities opened within the silver world, each gushing with steel cylinders at the Vortex of Creation for around five minutes. From affair, it would appear as if the silver world was breathing in severely cold and dry air, with substantial vapors spraying out of the rifts and vanishing into the swirl.

With that accomplished, the silver world was once against dormant.

But unlike before, a streak of light detached from the world’s pole. He dragged a long radiant trail that swiftly left for beyond the Vortex, towards the normal galaxy.

***

Starfall Year 841, twentieth of January.

The Liege’s Residence in the Inner City of Moldavia, the North.

The afternoon light pierced thick steeled glass to sprinkle over the dark brown desk. Dust wafted in the light, and rose above in the heated air—alongside the magical projection of an Avian maiden.

In the quiet, dully colored study, the artificial intelligence that should be controlling the main Mana Net server blankly floated by the ceiling of a certain person’s study as if meditating about some matter.

There were many books in the study which had not be visited by anyone for a long time. Some were thick and heavy historical tomes such as the [History of the Thirty-Six West Mountain Nations] and the [Genealogy of the Diamond Family] , while others were popular present-day novels like [Expedition to the Next Dimension: Otherworld Development Chronicles] and [Small World, Great Riches].

Naturally, most were texts about supernatural abilities, while the edge of the desk was piled full of handwritten drafts. Those were filled with various special Extraordinary abilities cultivation, and the writer also appeared to take into consideration the reader’s standard by writing it so that it was easily understood.

Everything was perfect, apart from the rather rigid and unruly penmanship on the draft.

The Avian lady simply stared at it all, her gaze splitting as if her mind had wandered away.

“What is it, Zero Three?”

A deep, familiar masculine voice suddenly appeared by the door.

The exceedingly sudden call startled the blanked-out AI, causing her projection to disappear for a split second before she reformed it in panic.

That was when a man opened the door and entered the study, looking up at Zero Three.

“Did something happen?” Joshua asked calmly.

Gaping at the man by the door, Zero Three tried to tell him how Ying and Ling had been hardworking, how Black was training diligently and how Light was a little larger now… She wanted to inform him that another batch of Winter Fort Academy student had graduated, that his apprentices were becoming lynchpins in the Imperial External Exploration Department and that many of their acquaintances had improved in ability after the entire world had headed to other worlds to keep the peace as unrest surfaced.

There was so much she wanted to say.

But in the end, all she said was a single, flat line.

“Nothing happened.”

Slowly descending from the ceiling, Zero Three smiled. “I’m simply waiting for your return.”

“Ah.”

Joshua van Radcliffe replied. Though his tone was stiff and his answer rather machinelike, he smiled in return. “I’m back.”