Soul of Searing Steel

The nine moons in the sky were nine massive, fearsome monsters that simply had no trace of being a normal lifeform.

Tentacles? Artificial limbs? Appendages? Tumors? Cysts? Irregular and bloated pieces of flesh, or simply churning fluids of rot?

All these were not the main body of Chaos, nor were they the true form of those monsters. Everything about them were phantasms projected by warped images in the human mind, a combination of all that every person feared, denied and was unwilling to see. It broke all common sense and ignored all that was normal, a hostile nightmare given form in reality.

Those who feared the sea would see tentacles and swirls, those who feared the jungle would see canes and roots, those who feared space would see grotesque wings and a bottomless abyss… while those who feared nothing, and instead brimmed with expectation towards the complete unknown would see a mist that emanated waves of gray light.

The Nature’s Magister pushed the nine spheres of ice, stone, and fireball before her, launching it at the Chaos planet that was now covered in dark, viscous organic matter.

Thus, nine dots that resembled suns shone upon the sky, crashing upon the surface one after the another.

In that instant, the apocalyptic disaster occurred nine times simultaneously.

Meanwhile, Priest appeared intent on saying something. He was inside Hub Accrafa which wafted in the vacuum beyond after being intercepted by the Nature’s Magister, but the no words came even when the youth opened his mouth, given that the battle was so profound it exceeded his common sense.

‘The flagships of the Nine Legendary champions could be inside the core of the nine moons that appeared enshrouded in Chaos.’

That was why he wanted to tell his own mentor and the Nature’s Magister.

***

With information recorded in Hub Accrafa and some guesswork drawn from vague clues, Priest easily realized that the nine Hubs over the surface were essentially part of the fleet of the nine Legendary champions who pursued the Evil God of Wither. The vessels acted as a suppression point, evenly covering the world with an Anti-Chaos barrier, sealing the Evil God.

The Evil God’s power was certainly nothing nine warships could hold down. It would occasionally go on a rampage, and in turn the nine moons in the sky would release the Chaos power so that the Evil God of Wither would repel another variant of Chaos with its own power, hence generating the primitive Steel Strength through its wilting abilities and suppressing the Evil God itself. It was simple as to why the nine moons were so far as well: if unnecessary, the two Chaos powers should not be placed together or there could be unexpected outcomes.

It was a sealing procedure that appeared unusual but in fact exceedingly logical—the seal would have been likened to a huge frame initially, but as time passed, Steel Strength accumulated, turning into its present planet form through a deliberate design of the nine Legends, thereby constructing a greater seal to weaken the Evil God. Therefore, it must be said that it was an intricate idea which made treasure out of refuse.

But now… it was all meaningless.

Priest looked at the distant Chaos planet.

That world… was turning world.

All things were ablaze.

The burning planetary body crashed into the earth, the ocean of Chaos becoming a boundless fiery sea instantly. Countless tentacles, appendages, and beings spawned from nightmares were reduced to wafting ash under absolute power, just as the branches of Chaos that had danced like seaweed were unable to pull back in time, thereby incinerated into nothingness in a split second.

With a tremendous, rumbling collision in the Void that could not be heard but observable through energy vision, nine massive golden-red fireballs appeared on the planet’s surface, their smaller fragments crashing down as well, stirring incessant golden light upon the black ocean of Chaos. A super cyclone massive enough to extend several kilometers promptly appeared around the globe, overlapping and drawing countless compost into the skies and the universal vacuum beyond.

In that instant, the Evil God had temporarily lost all resistance after the simultaneous barrage of nine moons.

***

At the same time, Joshua, now three million meters beneath ground, faced a problem he never encountered before.

“Troublesome. All there is here are faint Chaos shrouds, can’t tear it apart!”

In Joshua’s perspective, there was no tentacles, vines, roots, appendages—nothing. All that he saw was merely a large sized ball of blackness, whether it had been the nine moons or the Chaos planet. Chaos was simply mojibake to him, unreal even on touch, merely eroding on both directions.

That was not a conundrum in the first place, since nothing could escape his destruction regardless of his enemy’s form.

This time, however, he attempted to break apart the earth’s crust and mantle to directly expose the ‘planet’s core’, the true form of the Evil God Seal into vacuum, before crushing it or augmenting it. Even so, it was after a million meters down the planet that he realized that the inside of the planet was not of solid form and could not be affected by sheer force. It was not the same like real planets which he could tear apart from within, not requiring him to spend any of his strength that tears apart continents and throw celestial bodies.

Furthermore, there was a greater problem.

As a murmur sounded from the depths of the earth’s core out of nowhere, ripples of Wither that had no substance or form began to attack the human who dared approach it.

And just as the erosion started, a violent explosion detonated over Joshua’s skin.

Boom!!! Sparks outshining nuclear fusion ignited upon the armor over the Giant Silver God. The sturdiest matter in the observable universe hence began to release bright light and heat comparable to a star that rapidly collapsed in itself, just as Joshua’s form enlarged swiftly, his body expanding for four times in an instant without any signs of slowing!

“Even degenerate matter is forced to revert into normal star matter? No… it’s nullifying the Steel Strength I applied to maintain matter density!”

With the strength that supported his body diminishing directly and his bloated feet directly crushed beneath his own weight, Joshua had been stunned when he believed that the Evil God of Wither’s ability to wilt escaped all reason and could restore a star out of its remains. Indeed, if that was the case, it was better to call it One-Click-Restoration than an Evil God that withered all things—but he soon realized that the degenerate matter that formed his body was not the remains of a natural star, but artificial substances he forcefully bound together with Steel Strength.

After most the warrior’s Steel Strength was reverted, most substance and energy diminished into typical particles which naturally caused his body to rapidly expand and his true form reduced into formlessness. If the miniature world inside his body retrogressed into Steel Strength crystallization, Joshua, who maintained his mind with mental nodes connection hubs would become an aberration incapable of thinking, only instinctively strengthening itself by devouring.

Even so, Joshua was not left panicking and helpless despite Wither’s abnormal offensive. Battle was a two-way process in the first place, and the warrior calmly considered a path a victory despite the disadvantageous situation with his body rapidly being reverted to ordinary substances.

While his form diminished, the Giant Steel God who kept expanding laughed. Spreading his four arms and extending them in different directions, a light that gradually brightened surged over the warrior’s skin!

***

In the Void.

The Nature’s Magister looked down upon the Chaos planet which was utterly deformed after being struck by nine moons, her gaze somber and there was no telling what she was thinking… Now that things had come to this, she no longer had any measure to stop a planetary Chaos mutation, a flaw of most Mycroft Legends—they critically lack firepower when it came to a world-scale battle.

But soon, an anomaly that appeared before Joshua tore the ground apart and dived deep under caught all of Galanoud’s attention.

It was a ‘swelling’, expanding without stopping and bulging rapidly.

Galanoud had imagined that the swelling was another one of the bizarre compositions created by the Evil God’s mutations but soon found that it was not quite right. The swelling rose at terrific velocity, while compost laden over other parts across the entire Chaos planet surged toward at once as if to subjugate it.

Even so, that suppression was powerless and meaningless, and for some reason the Nature’s Magister remembered the sight of Mycroft plants as they sprouted.

Because of various unexpected factors, seeds that had wafted into the cracks between stones or was pressed into the earth by rocks would absorb sufficient nutrients after day after day of exposure. It would expand, sprout, pushing everything around it away—be it heavy boulders or sturdy stone, the seed would still sprout, knocking away crust and bursting out of boulders, spreading its leaves beneath the sun.

Galanoud could vaguely feel that same bursting energy of life inside that rapid swelling.

And that expanding energy was explosive.

Compressed air would rapidly expand and swell into shockwaves in the atmosphere, causing an air explosion that destroyed all things—so what would happen if matter compressed to its very limit rapidly expanded as well?

Naturally, that would be the Big Bang.

The degenerate matter that made up Joshua’s body was not—logically speaking—an Initial Singularity, just as his mass did not expand at a terrific rate. Be that as it may, none would know or imagine what the warrior who was comparable to a small world used eighty percent of his mass to trigger an explosion.

But now, the Nature’s Magister gaped as she witnessed everything firsthand.

A massive swelling thus rose without stopping, having reached hundreds and thousands of meters in height and was as large as a continent. The surface layer of Chaos matter that enshrouded the swelling within grew thinner, and it was now clearly visible that inside of it was silver radiance that neither stopped expanding nor bellowing! Steel Strength radiance, as if a keen blade, cut through the swelling on its top and bottom with countless rifts spreading over it, inside of which blinding silver light streamed. Even so, the Chaos matter in the entire planet remained reluctant to give in, and kept suppressing, engulfing that radiance. Be that as it may, the Evil God of Wither no longer had the strength to stop any of it, after having half its body knocked away in its collision with the nine moons and most of its Chaos matter paralyzed.

Then, the swelling ruptured, Steel Strength radiance burst off violently, illuminating the world.