Soul of Searing Steel

The brief clash and the fight before had made it clear to all Legends that the monster they faced was a troublesome one. The main body had multifarious, formidable supernatural powers—it had merely been probing, and after some analysis its body throbbed and burst out with many complex, unusual, but powerful attacks.

Inestimable rays streaked across the Void like a rain of comets, brightening the darkness.

Annihilation missiles, phase transitional blasts, spatial compression, mana stagnation domain, Black Body absorption, near-absolute zero standstill field—the main body of the Black Fog silently manipulated time and space and set up countless traps and mazes in the Void. It flailed its tentacles whimsically, driving the special extraordinary modules within its body to design corresponding abilities tailored against each Legend.

Joshua was pitted against a gravity well, formed by powerful energies that distorted the structure of space-time. At the depths of the well was a Black Body energy sapper that could plunder all energies, embodying immense gravitational reaction even if it was no blackhole. In the instant it had appeared, Joshua’s true form that had similar gravitational characteristics formed a twin-star construct: gravity drew the two closer incessantly, with a collision looming.

Squandering its monumental energy reserves that could subjugate millions of worlds, the Black Fog had appeared to resolve itself into killing all enemies. Ripples stirred over its surface, taking billions of dark geometrical forms and creating various bizarre weapons in the Void, amongst of which were a cubic high-power spatial tremor cannon or halo-shaped pure-energy machines, all of which darted away from the surface of the main body and charged at the Legends like a swarm of beasts.

The main body of the Black Fog might well have grasped part of the mysteries of Steel Strength, and could convert the form and attributes of substance by using a certain amount of energy. In fact, its proficiency in converting energy and substance was on-par with Vahina the Sage, and yet those attacks were not very effective.

Or more precisely, it had truly underestimated the partnership of multiple Legends.

One Legendary individual would never be able to defeat the Black Fog. Even one as powerful as Joshua had to temporarily draw substances from seven worlds just to barely withstand the main body’s waves of blows for a short moment. The reason for that was because the main body itself was a Legendary-tier microscopic lifeform and possessed energy stores far beyond a single world. Furthermore, with various skills research and analyzed over a thousand years, the main body was in itself an ultimate lifeform comparable to Evil Gods.

At present, it could rampage across the Multiverse as long as it did encounter terrible beings such as the Evil God of Fertility. It would devour even ancient Void behemoths, and with its great intelligence, it could employ various machinations to destroy civilizations instead of having to act by itself, attaining resources from their destruction.

To a certain perspective, it was an Evil God.

Even so, regardless of its intimidating power, it would never surpass the Legends in different aspects.

Others notwithstanding, as Joshua faced the gravity well that was charging toward him, he had composedly split a particle that was a meter large. The particle rapidly expanded into a long, single-dimensional line that was extraordinarily sturdy. It was then drawn into a gravity well, and while gravity waves churned ceaselessly and emanated various spectra, the formless wavebands and energy flow manifested physically. By observing those manifestations, Joshua analyzed the weakness of the gravity in the five thousandth of a second, and hence disturbed the construct to easily disintegrate it into pure plasma energies.

Profound ultimate moves were unnecessary; a little skill would suffice. Joshua watched as the blue plasma flame dissipated rapidly from the Void like a shroud, and turned towards the other Legends.

Joshua knew well the strengths of the Black Fog after studying its memories and origins before. It was not a foe he could deal with by bellowing one or two catchphrases and resolving himself in a single duel—to defeat it, he had to wait until the Restoration Beams were fully activated in the multiple worlds and after the Multiverse Exploration Project had assumed the right path, just as the world in his body required initial stability before he tried anything. Therefore, he had thought things through in Simboa, that he would call for all Legendary champions he was acquainted with to challenge it together.

Still, while thirteen Legends could stave off the foe’s attacks, vanquishing it was impossible.

On one side, Igor’s entire body shone with unique rays, and myriad colors instantly cycled dozens of times. Everything, solid or energy that was nearby would crumple into nothingness under those radiances, and the area several kilometers around him was a Domain of Light that he ruled. The speed of light shifted, substance withered and the very essence of the universe deviated in that domain—if the Black Fog threw a world at him in there, Igor would not be the one hurt.

“Your Holiness, why are you still not destroying the Black Fog?”

The Sword Saint, who saw from another flank that Igor was still holding back, could not help joking although he was having a little time himself. Ternant was not used to facing gargantuan monsters without solid form and was unscathed despite losing parts of its body. In fact, the sacred sword Mystletainn was beginning to dull, a sign that its energy could no longer maintain its form. Even so, he simply brandished his blade, splitting apart the gravity shift missiles shooting towards him through two-dimensional space.

“My domain could not deal with such a massive monster… Still, no worries. Our task is to keep the Black Fog at bay—the gods are joining us this time.”

With those words, Igor looked up toward the distant Void and smiled.

“And they’re here.”

Nine trails of novas had shone in the vast Void at Igor’s words! Three dimensional and reaching deep into Psionic Space, subspace and various unusual dimensions, the gods cast a grand-scale formation that engulfed the dimensional region where the Black Fog was. At its center, nine supernovas unleashed near limitless brilliance as nine different nodes.

Complex runes, profound and beautiful, formed gears, text, flower petals or water ripples intermittently. Nine different divine powers were causing boundless phenomenon, building a colossal stockade at the edge of the small galaxy!

Joshua’s human form clone manifested once again from his true form as he calmed the wild gravity tides stirred by the Black Fog’s main body before him—he no longer had to maintain his full-power state.

Looking up, the warrior turned towards the nine nodes. The first he saw was the divine symbol of Yolanda, the God of Love and Death. The deity had appeared as a female elf, stirring vacuum with endless divine power. Beneath the shining of violet radiance, countless energy particles combined and withered, as if reenacting the birth and death of a small world. She spread her domain, and the main body of the Black Fog froze for a moment—all magic and phenomenon caused by nuclear fission and fusion, as well as the combination of elements were hence sealed.

The second was the Murloc God, the protector of the depths. He unleashed a gigantic dark-blue jellyfish with thousands of feelers, while Its own power rippled over space like translucent oceanic waves. It opened its own domain as well amidst a raging bellow from the Black Fog’s main body, as any magic or ability correlated to phasing and transfiguration were rendered useless.

The third, the God of Wisdom and Choice had assumed the form of an elderly person with a single eye draped in robes. Divine powers emanated from those words, turning into symmetrical branching patterns—all things must choose to walk toward the future. As He cast its domain, the Black Fog’s colossal form began to shrink as the rate of possibility began to plummet: the main body, which had absorbed energies from the limitless sea of the Void was denied part of its energy source.

The fourth, fifth and sixth gods Joshua saw was the God of Order and Destruction, the Metal Dragon God and the God of Law and Freedom. They worked together to make itself constant so that it could not be distorted, as well as turning energies into solid to prevent them from being drawn by other beings. They also closed the Void, sealing all possibility of singularity or warping, ascertaining a new Order and affixing a fountain of energy, an artificial boundary of freedom.

A great domain thus opened, and the entire dimensional region was now a sealed prison.

The seventh god Joshua saw was the God of Might and Justice. However, he could not help gaping at His familiar gray-haired knight appearance, for he saw another well-acquainted figure beside the deity who maintained a stalwart expression.

It was the silhouette of Israel, the Emperor.

As the God of Might and Justice spread his domain, he began to work in tandem with the eighth, the God of Conservation and Reformation who appeared as a plain, armored dwarf. They forced disturbances into the energy circulation of the Black Fog’s main body, destroying or altering its once stable chain form. The colossal but singular body instantly split into a few parts, and was foiled or destroyed as it attempted to recombine itself by the combined assault of divine powers and the Legends.

The last and the most mysterious, the God of Life wore a veil. The deity’s figure, whose gender was unknown appeared in the faint white fog, clutching skull-like divine crest in a hand wherein indescribable sacred radiance emanated, filling the entire region.

The light touched the body of the Legends, and they could feel their wounds and strength recovering as if time was reversing. On the other hand, frightening wounds appeared on the Black Fog’s main body, despite having healed itself by its powerful regeneration ability. Some of those wounds were not even those inflicted upon it by the people Mycroft, but wounds inflicted by other powerful beings, even Evil Gods in a time long past.

Joshua could feel that all of that was not explainable by simple lifeforce. He could feel shifting, profound entropy as massive negative entropy was being peeled off by the God of Life from the main body of the Black Fog, and distributed to the Legends. He instantly understood that so-called lifeforce was actually entropy given form, and the enigmatic God of Life possessed the power to manipulate and transfer entropy!

However, even deities themselves faced irreversible entropy. He could only plunder lifeforce from a being, and bless it upon another life.

The nine gods unleashed their full power; their divine crest flicked in the Void. Unimaginable power turned into multidimensional formations that illuminated the Void, utterly engulfing the main body of the Black Fog within.