Soul of Searing Steel

Boom-boom-boom-boom.

The World Inner thundered incessantly.

Amidst the incessant rumbling, the profound power of the Giant God from beyond the world burst instantly as two arms forged from Steel gripped the right hand of the Celestial Giant, forcefully dragging it to the Void.

Bang! With a tremendous reverberation, half of the Celestial Giant’s body—whose knees had been planted on the ground crashed heavily onto the dimensional rift, his right hand already entering the Void as if he was about to be pulled out of the world entirely. But in the very last moment, Fattrovi gritted his teeth, mustering his full power and anchoring himself on the ground with one hand to push himself backward.

In a split second, dense hairline fractures appeared beside the dimensional rift in the World Inner. Space itself cracked crisply where the two profound beings wrestled, with the entire Celestial Throne Room booming, rumbling and trembling without as ceasing as if it was about to collapse.

“Damn it!”

The Time Turner howled in rage. How long had it since been he cut such a sorry figure? Not even when he used the diverse powers of Authority to drive that sleeping serpent out of Simboa! Now, even Fattrovi could see that the Foreigner before him did not intend to let him reverse time, instead dragging him from the world into the Void—a crude and violent plan, but most effective!

The dimensional barrier of the World Inner was now filled with fractures. The Celestial Throne Room appeared about to disintegrate amidst the violent quakes, and while the ever-machine-calm Fattrovi rapidly thought about how to counter Joshua’s unreasonable moves, he soon discovered that he had no way of retaliation. While both were equal in strength, the Steel Giant had four arms which gave him a strong advantage in melees, while Ultra-powers would never be effective against the Giant God whose entire body was condensed from Steel Authority: both of them were in the Void, Authority of the world was pointless.

Though it appeared that Fattrovi was now out of options and about to be pulled beyond the Void, the Celestial Giant suddenly paused as if remembering something.

“Fine,” he then muttered. “If you want to pull me out, have it your way!”

In an instant, the Celestial Giant gave up on struggling. However, the silhouette of Steel Serpent that had wrapped around Fattrovi’s body appeared to have removed the lock over something. The entire sky and earth of Simboa thus began to convulse tremendously. All things shuddered, the continent wobbled while the mountains collapsed by regions. The sturdy lithosphere hence floated fluctuated, and the rifts appeared over the bottom of oceans, endless seawater and dirt sinking within.

And in the Void, Joshua suddenly realized that Fattrovi was no longer resisting, even as he kept pulling the Celestial Giant at full strength, attempting to snatch him away from within the world. Although surprised and doubtful, the warrior did not stop, and his two right hands immediately clenched and burst with strength that would seemingly pull off the arms of the Celestial Giant. Nevertheless, the more he burst, Fattrovi remained inside the world even after giving up on resistance, and was not dragged out.

“Wait, Joshua. Something’s not right!”

Karlis the Steel Python exclaimed loudly at once inside the spirit of Joshua’s original form. “Stop! Things don’t look good!”

But would he stop then? Such a window of opportunity came once a lifetime, and Joshua was aware that Fattrovi was no fool—would he give the warrior a second chance to turn the tables? Until now, Joshua never did understand the principle of how he retrogressed time, which made fighting him in Simboa completely meaningless.

Still, Joshua knew that Karlis the Steel Python would never suggest things arbitrarily. If he said that something was not right, something unimaginable would assuredly be happening. Joshua hence paused his drag on Fattrovi, but he kept both right hands caught on the Celestial Giant’s right hand.

Even so, Karlis’s warning appeared too late. When Joshua finally held back and calmed himself to observe the Void, his eyes widened despite his composed self.

The world was moving!

Layers of vast ripples were stirred upon the eye of the Void Vortex amidst the serene Void. At its center, Simboa, which had kept moving along with the formation began to inch toward the walls of the Vortex, in the direction where Joshua was dragging Fattrovi!

“What on earth?!”

Joshua was left dumbstruck. When did his power ever ascended to the point that he could pull an entire world?! Be that as it may, it was no time for random thoughts: according to his own calculation—which stunned Joshua once again—If Simboa did not return to its original position in eight hours, it would crash head-on into the Void Vortex at its current velocity, and torn into pieces by the horrific dimensional turbulences and the Great Mana Tide!

“Think. How could a world remain at the heart of a vortex for so long?”

Fattrovi’s voice wafted from the other side of the dimensional rift. His voice was dispassionate once again, as if everything did not matter.

“It was me. If I did not anchor the world coordinates, the world would not have remained existent.”

And what Fattrovi said next stunned even the Steel Python of Simboa, who had looked on quietly through it all.

“That serpent had always slumbered, never once considering its own life or death… If I didn’t drive that fool away, fine-tune the world and anchored its coordinates so that the world would move with the Void Vortex, it would have long been engulfed and churned into those ever-present fragments and energies.”

The one who stole the world’s Authority spoke serenely, revealing the circumstances all those years ago from beyond the dimensional rift. “When I obtained almost all Ultra-powers, I also gained the power to break through the dimensional barrier and enter the Void outside the world… and found that endless energy vortex, along with the endless source of Ultra-powers that permeated a world. It was then that I promptly understood why our world became like this, but that was not the time to be in awe of the source, for I realized that my world is slowly moving away from its orbit, heading toward the vortex that destroyed all things.”

And the rest was history.

The most powerful Ultrahuman who held the Authority of ten thousand worlds thus used his full power to drive the Steel Python out of its own body and claimed that supreme throne. It was how Fattrovi became the Time Turner of the present.

And now, to resist Joshua’s ambush, Fattrovi freed the world coordinates that he had anchored a thousand years ago, the world’s Authority he once used to save the peoples of the world, allowing the world to return upon the path of destruction.

That is Fattrovi’s silent question and challenge, issued toward Joshua.

[Since you could decide to go against me over the lives of billions, the world is now heading toward destruction. Would you keep dragging me out of the world, or enter the world and fight me until the end?]

Even so, that was not a question that required consideration.

Without needing the Steel Python Karlis to say something like ‘I can’t stop it’, or the Steel Python Simboa’s regretful shake of its head to express its powerlessness even if it was to reclaim its throne, Joshua made his decision the instant he understood Fattrovi’s intentions.

And acted.

“Alright, Fattrovi. If you yearn for it so much…”

Then I shall pummel you into hell in your own domain.

The four-armed Giant God of Steel released the two hands of the Celestial Giant he was pulling, while each of his four arms pressed respectively on both sides of the dimensional rift before pulling forcefully. With the clear sounds of shattering glass, the rift was expanded into a maw that could accommodate a mountain freely, the contrasting flow of Void and world hence stirring raging energy storms.

The wind is howling.

And the Giant God strode forward with no hesitation.