Soul of Searing Steel

“Curse you! Despicable Mycroftians!”

Silver heavenly flames descended from the gloomy skies like erratic intersecting arcs drawn on a blackboard, streaking down onto mountains and plains with white hot light. Over it, gray-white shroud emanated the light of deathly remains, crashing down from the horizon like a collapsing sky.

There were proverbs in the Rund civilization such as ‘There is peak in every collapsing sky’ or ‘Only fools fear a falling sky’, words of relief that also cautioned people not to worry about things that were far flung from real life and had little chance of happening.

Nevertheless, the sky was truly falling now—the silver heavenly flames compounded with mountainous gray shrouds to block all sunlight, bringing forth darkness and shadow to the land, pressing down slowly but constantly from above.

It reached the entire world, although something about that description did not quite fit, for the entire homeworld of the Rund was being grasped inside the palm of a massive steel hand, which was now closing gradually. Stopping all sunlight, it engulfed the world—the silver flame and shroud were merely gas cycles welling out of the hair pores on the skin of the massive hand.

The giant hand continued closing upon itself, as if grabbing and crushing the planet. The Rund civilization was certainly fighting back. Over the planet, huge accelerated pulse cannons were firing away non-stop, while wielders of electromagnetism powers unique to Rund—they were silicon-based lifeforms after all—morphed into bolts, dragging trails as they shot away bravely at the collapsing sky.

The Rund were not elemental lifeforms such as earth or steel elementals, but a naturally born silicon-based race that were capable of thought despite the absence of a soul, though even machines would have gained souls after delving into supernatural powers over a long period. Born as hovering solenoid orbs that were fifteen centimeters in diameter, they became larger as they grew, thereby gaining a soul and awakening electromagnetic powers, their thoughts and superpowers naturally accelerating and strengthening.

And now, every single Rund one was fighting back, bellowing and retaliating like a tide of metals surging from the ground towards the sky. Their power blew up the atmosphere and stirred raging gales over the surface as over 230,000 specialized Gold-tier fighters shot at the skies in resistance, for it was the Rund’s homeworld after all. One of them, whose size had grown over three thousand meters, could easily alter the planet’s landscape if his power was fully unleashed at full capacity, causing a planetary level of destruction—such a make of Rund was rare even across the Rund Federation, with only eight similar beings over thirty-three worlds, with each capable of standing toe to toe against an entire Void Fleet.

Now, however, that particular Rund was cursing. He was darting through the air at thirty times the speed of sound, while electromagnetic forces of horror warping the planet’s magnetic field, causing distinct ionization over half the world’s atmosphere and kicking up sparks in the gray clouds but with no effect. The powerful Rund had not actually risen too high when he was quickly struck heavily, his entire form crashing down diagonally and dragging boundless trails of sparks, although a layer of gray shroud kept the huge steel orb aloft so it did not destroy the planet even when it fell.

Likewise, the 200,000 ranks of Gold and Supreme-tier Runds were all beaten at once by empty illusory flashes and mist. Each Rund that had been flashed by the silver flames felt as if infinite spam messages were poured into them with optic fibers, their central processors instantly crashing. Any who reached the shroud would directly lose control over their bodies as well, the electromagnetic abilities they had been wielding all their lives now betraying them and causing them to rise and then shoot down rapidly.

“Curse you, evil destroyers, damned invaders!”

As he plummeted, the most powerful Rund orb swore with every fiber of its will, his furious soul quaking the atmosphere while information filled with hate and regret pouring out from within, directed to the master of the gray clouds. The emotion of that hate and regret even condensed into solid energies, streaming along an extremely powerful electromagnetic pulse that punched through the obstruction of silver flame and gray cloud, sinking into the closing giant hand.

Naturally, such profanity had no purpose. The cursing Rund was drowned in the gray shroud and rendered into systemic hibernation, his soul paralyzed into a truest of dreamlands. Despite that, it continued screaming and blaspheming even in the dream, unleashing veins of unique electromagnetic pulse.

The hand’s owner was only too used to that—black presence swirled, and within an instant, the angry supernatural electromagnetic pulse was sucked into a deep Soul Pool. Similar cursing and ill will were ever present within as endless malicious spirits and soul fragments stirred raging storms, their sheer number surpassing even the population of the Rund civilization. In other words, the Rund’s cursing was simply neither significant nor heeded.

That was why Joshua van Radcliffe had not reacted with any form of emotion—the Giant God who was clenching his fist neither smiled, frowned or raged. In fact, he simply grabbed to hold on to the Rund homeworld. “Will do,” he said—there was no telling who he was talking to. “The Rund homeworld has been collected into the First Reserve… you can’t talk to these fellows; they know no reason at all.” With that, the four-armed Giant God looked up at the star that was four light seconds away from him.

It was the sun that the Runds reverently named the one-eyed giant, but Joshua was sighing at it. “They don’t even know that disaster is looming, the sun is changing ever so clearly.” The star itself was on the larger side and had already lived through half of its lifespan, although it remained in its most stable period. Its orange-yellow radiance was dazzling, but the Giant God’s gaze could pierce the light to see beneath its luminous shell, viewing and dissecting the star’s seemingly mundane integrity or essence as its exterior cascaded with burning gases. In reality, it was a Void Behemoth’s egg that was about to hatch.

Indeed, the entire planet was an egg, or one could say that the world itself was the spawn split out from a Void Behemoth. According to Joshua and the others’ deduction in regards to the Void Behemoths, Ancient Dragons, and the various galactic cycles, it was nothing too unusual—by the end of their lives, ultimate Void Behemoths would turn into one or multiple worlds, perpetuating the worldly cycles of the galaxies at the cost of their lives.

But regardless of how wondrous the galactic cycles were, Void Behemoths were alive and it was therefore not unusual that they would produce descendants. Perhaps a few Behemoth Eggs would be hidden inside some of the worlds that it had split into, buried beneath the land while its entire form became the world itself, or… the star.

Elements, energy, and non-solid Void Behemoths—it was a fine research topic. As Joshua thought about it, he found that Imperator Amos may have been inspired by such a Void Behemoth. Could that be how his nebula body was formed? One must mention that the Multiverse was so wondrous that there were even sights the ancient Glorious Era had never seen, having never met anything such as the Super Void Behemoth now incubating in its star egg.

It was also possible that they had not investigated further, and as such could not have discovered it… In the end, the life of stars was so long that civilizations were like bubbles as compared to them. Furthermore, moving between galaxies could lead to variance of temporal traps over a dozen thousandfold, with one of two civilizations born at once having a few years pass for them, while dozens of millennia would have passed for the other. That was why many civilizations might never have seen the star’s changing even until they died.

Still, whatever the case may be, it was something worthy of memory. On the first of February in Starfall year 847, the Starfall Era had finally discovered a new thing the Glorious Era had never known or recorded into the Unified Archives—an elemental Super Void Behemoth, a historical discovery.

“It’s about time.”

Even after having ‘preserved’ the ignorant Rund homeworld by force, Joshua appeared to have no intention of leaving. In fact, he had already sent a streak of stimulating pulse to the massive star eight minutes ago, and now, what would have happened four minutes ago would now reach him from the faraway star alongside its light.

Within the light, the star could be seen ‘cracking’.

The first signs presented themselves—the sun aged rapidly, turning red as most of its mass became swiftly lost. As the outer hot gases lost the restraint of gravity, the star rapidly expanded like a red giant—the bloating would only last fifteen seconds, after which the mass reverted. Powerful gravity was pulsed back by the expanded gas, the reciprocation resembling a planet being torn apart, pouring masses of irregular planetary gases into vacuum while bringing inexhaustive, powerful light, raging electromagnetism blasts, and gravitational waves, along with an enraged cry.

And with that cry, the outer gaseous layer peeled off like an eggshell. The hot nuclear fusion that went out of control caused massive ionization, turning substantial helium into a dark carbon shell that wrapped around the planet’s surface. Helium flash then detonated and shattered the carbon shell, while streaks of irregular luminous rings reached out from the eggshell, intersecting and tangling before finally becoming the wings of a bird!

The wings appeared to be auroras or reeds wafting in the sea, whereas the golden radiance that was half-solid and half-illusory swept away the carbon shell formed from the helium flash, allowing Joshua to view its true form clearly.

A bird.

An undying bird of fire and light—a phoenix of incomparable size.

***

Legends claimed that phoenixes were immortal, bursting into flames before they died and were reborn from within.

“But no one has ever said that the flame of a phoenix is a supernova…” Muttering to himself quietly, Joshua could now see that the Void Behemoth had already undergone its birthing process. Initially, the Super Void Behemoth had probably left a massive planetary realm, albeit with a Void Behemoth egg left inside the realm’s star. That egg would absorb the stellar energies left by its mother, gradually replacing the star’s function… then, when it felt ‘appropriate’, it would trigger rapid withering of the star and be born, bathed in flames and a grand supernova explosion.

But regardless of Joshua’s thoughts, the behemoth was now ablaze in apocalyptic fury. The warrior had triggered it to awaken days, perhaps even months, early, meaning that it had not completely absorbed the star’s energy to be born in a supernova. Its current form was incomplete, which greatly lengthened its future growth in the Void and its threat level! According to the legacy runes inside the core energy construct, it would have been born as heir of a Super Void Behemoth with stellar power. Now, however, it was probably merely a few levels stronger than ordinary Void Behemoths, making it dangerous instead of having almost no natural enemies at all.

“Shriek—!”

The Undying Bird cried shrilly, causing magical and elemental forces to quake through the planetary realm as it stretched out its wings, posturing as a massive bird and leaving its original form when it shrank itself tightly inside the star. Then, as it energized its senses, it conveyed its rage with the angriest sound possible.

“Shriek—!”

But it was wrong.

What it was seeing was not the fleet of the little people it thought it would have, but a huge person that was several times its size and incessantly enlarging, his entire body glimmering with white-hot light. “Greetings, little bird.” The huge person made some weird sound that the bird could not understand. “You’ve forced me into considerable misunderstandings.

“Shriek…Shriek…Caw?”

The Behemoth’s infuriated cries softened. In the presence of the four-armed Giant God who had warped to him out of nowhere, the Sunbird closed its beak and its senses, withdrawing its wings evasively and attempted to revert itself into a star. However, it was too late. As the Giant God dusted off the stellar residual substances away from his feet, he mustered a bounded gravitational field on his left hand, grabbing the phoenix’s neck even as it tried to pass itself off as an ostrich. Then, as he dragged the bird without stopping to the beyond, the Phoenix cried shrilly and helplessly, having inherited no knowledge of any of such circumstances.

In the end, it was still a child. Would it know how to face a brutal and vicious God of Steel? And reasonably speaking, which legacy would have such scenarios?

Thus, it was dragged off along with the entire planet of the Rund civilization—millions of them along with their twenty Void fleets only arrived later in the Void, intent on surrounding and stopping Joshua ‘the-damned-Mycroftian-who-attacked-our-homeworld’. The Seven Gods above did not understand what was happening at all.

The monstrous sized four-armed Giant God dragged the Firebird that was almost its size away from the Runds’ now-dark homeworld, and before they realized that their homeworld was gone and mourned, all of them were handled—forced inside Joshua’s ‘protection’ in the First Reservation.

The entire planetary system became silent at once, leaving several worlds whirling carefully in the empty Void.

***

“Another planet about to die preserved.”

Days later, on the fourth of February in Starfall year 847, after Joshua had suppressed the Undying Bird’s consciousness and held it inside a yellow K-class star, he handed the Void Behemoth infant to the God of Life. Still, the god whose face was hidden behind a veil looked up more than once to survey Joshua’s human-sized clone—she leveled a direct but weird gaze upon him to the point that the warrior felt a tinge uncomfortable.

“It’s fine to protect lifeforms… but there is probably no repairing the relations with the Runds. You invaded their borders, broke the World Barrier of their home planet, and took control of every colony along the way, even their homeworld.”

Noticing Joshua’s questioning gaze, the God of Life coughed once in front of the star and within the vacuum. “They would probably have a profoundly wrong idea about us,” she said tactfully, “especially when they assume that you’ve destroyed their entire fleet.”

“They will understand,” Joshua replied, naturally taking no heed of such slight misunderstanding—they may have brains of steel, but it was not as if the Runds could not think, and they would soon realize that the warrior had saved every single one life in their homeworld. After all, none knew how long it would have taken for the Super Void Behemoth to be born and set fire to the entire planetary system.

Although Joshua’s duty in recent months had been to patrol the stars to inspect the planetary systems surrounding Dimensional Hubs of different galaxies and scouting for possible threats, it was by coincidence that he happened to chance upon that powerful Void Behemoth spawn. If not for Joshua passing by, the Rund would have had to confront a real planetary-class Void Behemoth.

“Leaving that aside, Your Majesty…”

Joshua would not delve into similar issues since he had been saving too many worlds that it had became his nature, just as he would not be concerned with the gratitude of those saved. He then noticed that the god before him clearly had more to say, and that the matters regarding the Void Behemoths and the Runds were merely a conversation starter. Not one for idle conversations, he asked at once, “Why have you came looking for me?”

“Certainly.”

The God of Life did not continue; she knew Joshua’s personality well. Therefore, after breathing a sigh, she said at once, “There is reliable information that the Amos Court has run into some trouble—I know, that’s not major news, but this is what’s surprising…”

At that, the God of Life’s tone turned serious, her veil glinting in gold from the radiance of a nearby corona. “When the Amos Court ran into said trouble, the Takur Ruin Cult actually did not try to exploit that,” she said with a low voice. “In fact, they did nothing.”

“Joshua, this is important news.”