Soul of Searing Steel

Starfall Year 841. Seventeenth of February, the Helgamoth Empire of the North.

Ten days had passed since the light of Emperor Israel’s divine ascension shone upon the world. Following grand celebrations and behind-the-doors political negotiations that lasted a week, as well as the support of two Legendary champions, the Second Prince Dimore would temporarily assume partial authority and title of Emperor, while the remainders were delegated to the palace powerhouses revolving around the Empress.

It was clear that there was great conflict between the Second Prince and the Empress that did not alleviate even now. But with things having moved to a critical juncture, both were aware that their squabbling was meaningless. Furthermore, there were still other prince and princes who held a right to the throne—especially the Eldest Prince, who held strong connections even if he usually appeared discreet, boasting roots that reached deep amongst nobles and the army.

To stand against those siblings of his, Dimore certainly needed the Empress faction’s political strength.

One Supreme naturally would not be able to make a good leader for the Northern Empire. Before he ascended as Legend, he might have to accept all manner of criticism. Still those were frivolous, for as long as two Legends were present and backed him, none across the entire Empire would dare to raise doubts.

Furthermore, Israel Diamond was unlike the former emperors who were forced to abdicate from death or deteriorating ability—it was the complete opposite, in fact, since Israel had become so powerful that the position of Emperor no longer fits him.

As long as that being growing in the cocoon of divine power in the Infinite Horizon had not perished, all would not detach the trail of Order.

At the moment, aside from the heart of politics—the Triplet Mountain Holy City being left in slight unrest due to the Emperor’s divine ascension, civilians of other Imperial provinces, even devotees of the God of Might and Justice across the world felt immeasurably delight. The former had been freed of the near ever-present abuse due to Israel’s Skynet system, not to mention that the peasants would go tax-free this year following the celebration. The latter on the other hand felt the gradual return of the divine spells exclusive to followers of the God of Might and Justice, and although its effect was a little different than before, their ability was at least recovering.

Naturally, just as the good could feel pleased, the bad could as well.

Because of Israel’s temporary presence, various dark factions which had cowered beneath him over three to four years and suffocated showed signs of recovery. Since it had not actually been a long time and without the next generation, when those vile people had realized that heaven’s fire would not descend from the skies and reduced them to ashes when they break the law, crimes began to brew in remote corners of the Empire.

However, they were simply greeted by streaks of sharp, unprecedented blades that darted out of another dimension.

“What are they actually thinking?”

At present, on the surveillance throne high above the Empire’s East Barnett Highlands, Nostradamus was controlling the Skynet Network while holding the core terminal, observing every unusual incident in the Empire. Behind him stood a black-haired warrior and an Avian girl, who was listening as the elderly mage complaining about the idiocy of those criminals.

“Joshua, do you think those people have brains? Do they really think that a Legendary dimensional mage would not be better than a Legendary dragon-rider in casting spells out of thin air? Hah! I even forgot, Israel doesn’t ride his dragon and only rears it as a pet.”

At that, Nostradamus turned to glance sideways at Joshua, saying quietly, “Right, just like you—both of you enjoy rearing dragons as pets.”

“Because it’s not necessary a crime to just be bad, they could try joining the trade industry as a black-hearted merchant or lawyer, with some even trying lottery or gambling—either way, bad doesn’t equate to crime.”

Watching as the old mage cursed and got rid of every criminal with complete precision, Joshua shrugged, causing Zero Three to sway a little while he calmly said, “Only the bad and stupid would commit crime. Furthermore, I don’t rear Black as a pet, I do ride her—we even went around the West Mountains, so I am greatly different from Israel in that respect.”

“Heh. With how you put it, Israel ‘rides’ dragons too.” The mage spewed a lewd joke, which made Zero Three slightly lift an eyebrow.

Joshua, meanwhile, ignored it entirely and made a suggestion. “Master, I believe you should do your best to make it obvious when you slay those criminals, or at least use some special element effects and not do it so stealthily—if you keep using the untraceable Dimension Slash, they would never know that it is a judgment leveled upon them from Skynet.”

“A fine idea.”

Mumbling, Nostradamus considered it for a while and added some photons to his Dimension Slash before continuing his patrol of the entire Empire. As for Joshua, he continued watching every screen with Zero Three from behind the mage.

After Israel had been contacted Joshua ten days ago and assumed the path of divine ascension, everyone knew that the state of the world would thus change.

Having inherited the title of God of Might and Justice, should Israel succeed in divine ascension, there was no question that he would naturally become one of the Seven Gods of men and obtain unimaginable power. Furthermore, he was a powerful Legendary champion before his divine ascension, and would rapidly control his own power after becoming a god, filling in for the loss of superior combat force following the death of Zinsen, the former God of Might and Justice.

Now, however, Israel had yet to conclude his divine ascension—the luminous cocoon formed from Steel Strength was throbbing on the Infinite Horizon, which was a cultivation to become a True God according to the six gods. With the power left by the last god, the successor would quickly transcend the barrier between Extraordinary and God, and quickly grasp the power of the Multiverse’s Root through divinity.

Of course, that ‘quickly’ was relative: according to the Six Gods, it would take Israel months or up to a year to becoming a True God. Still, the duration was neither good nor bad signs, but a matter of sheer luck.

“It mainly depends on when he comprehends the power he commands.”

When Joshua and the other Legendary champions asked after the Six Gods’ information in that aspect, the God of Law and Freedom had kindly explained, “It does not mean that he mastered it quickly if he awakens quickly, nor does it mean that he has a profound understanding if it takes him a long time. In the face of infinity, countable time matters not.”

Such an explanation was not actually detailed. Some would ponder about it as if understanding something, just as others would not care but remain unaffected.

Joshua, however, suddenly felt stirred.

He began to understand a little why Yolanda, the God of Love and Death would say that Igor and himself were too powerful that they were reluctant to have them as gods.

The warrior had managed to reach the other explanation of those words.

In fact, Yolanda probably would not know why herself had said that back then. She only probably thought that becoming a god meant protecting all life on Mycroft, and to sacrifice herself like Zinsen did for civilization, placing herself in the constant threat of being consumed by the Root… The power of the gods was definitely powerful but not unreachable, and it was precisely why Yolanda was reluctant for Igor and Joshua to enter the shackled path since they had the power of gods even if they were not worshipped.

But in Joshua’s perspective, there were no distinct superiority or inferiority between gods and Legends—it was true especially for the Glorious Era where the combat ability and position of the gods were clearly greater than Legends.

Lower-ranked servant gods such as the River God who served the Earth Mother was not considered powerful even amongst Legends. But when he reached the tier of god, he would gain the profound essence of divine power and near eternal endurance, allowing him to fully suppress multiple ordinary Legendary-advanced champions, even directly fighting Evil Gods.

In that era, the gods were venerated. Though ascension was difficult and it was not impossible, and it would not turn out into a spiral that champions must not fall into.

And it was simple to understand the reason why: the Initial Flame was detaching.

Yolanda had probably simply mentioned it in passing, and yet that mention contained the correct solution: Divine powers is the boundless power that originates from the Initial Flame. The gods are thus empowered, just as they would thus be restrained.

And now, having known that the Initial Flame was shrinking and moving away, even detaching itself from the galaxy and sink into some unknown darkness, it was a gamble to become a deity’s whose power was connected to the Initial Flame’s power. None would know if the Initial Flame could develop troubles, and if it does, every god would lose their source of power, even falling due to the essence of their living form being shaken.

On the other hand, Legends were different. They changed their very own living form, and while it would present great problems such as greater power but shorter lifespan, Legends’ power remained rooted to their own bodies. Even if the Initial Flame should extinguish, Legends would not have much problem before the Multiverse descended into the darkness of death.

Powerful Legends could even survive after the Initial Flame dies and the Multiverse perished, until the next cycle of life comes.

“That’s thinking too far.”

Withdrawing his thoughts, Joshua shook his head and laughed softly, before turning to look over all of Barnett Highlands.

The vast elevated plains between the West Mountains and the Northern Empire is presently a massive base of steel. It was the Empire’s production line for Void warships that Joshua had built with Steel Strength after rising as a Legend, and thanks to him, Void warships were now an important transportation of the Northern Empire to head for other worlds.

Years passed in the blink of an eye. With various data from the Unified Archives and Glorious Era blueprints for Void warships, the Empire’s Royal Mage Guild had pushed their warship design standard to an advanced level—they did not simply copy the Glorious Era designs, but attempted to analyze the construct, even improving it into a Starfall vessel they could understand and maintain.

At first, such profound research would take many mages, but with the Winter Fort Academy’s founding a few years ago, there were many new spellcasting researchers who could join such correlated work. While they did not have the vast knowledge of traditional mages, years of diligent study and research kept them from falling too far behind professionally.

Joshua’s Steel Strength vision activated. He could see research vessels being assembled and completed in enchanted docks. Some might not really enter service which would make it a genuine waste of resources, but there was no question that each Void warship that could really work is a massive source of precious data for the design team.

For example, that includes scientific vessels used exclusively for observing and scanning worlds from beyond World Barriers.

Another example was construction vessels that specialized in building, each of which was equivalent of an entire magical construction team.

There were also probe corvettes, used for exploring within worlds and having considerable combat capacity in the Void.

Certainly, it also includes auxiliary vessels used for aiding, resupplying Void warship shields and energy source, augmenting armors and release substantial magical buffing halos.

Either way, there were many warship prototypes being tested, such as Void cruisers and destroyers that were designed exclusively for Void battles. There were also Dreadnought-class battleships that carried the greatest firepower of Mycroft civilization at present, each vessel having an entire fleet’s combat capacity.

Those warship designs deviated from Glorious Era ideals, and it would either take a long time or substantial resources to complete and take them out on trials.

And now, the vital role of the External Exploration Department has to be mentioned: without various parties finding metal worlds and the high-quality alloy mines from the Black Fog, Mycroft’s own resources would never be able to support the developed industry of the Northern Empire.

***

“Zero Three, it seems that our present magical technology could create mountainous moving cities like your original form in Karlis.”

Bringing along the Artificial Intelligence girl and leaving the monitoring throne, Black and Zero Three strolled along the clouds above the highlands, studying every detail of the warship production line. “Ten years, and we have reached such levels,” the warrior murmured emotionally.”

“Actually, the magical technology of Mycroft had long since surpassed Karlis.”

Zero Three shook her head gently in return, her eyes reflecting a corvette slowly taking into the air and flying towards the horizon and into the Void. “We could only create several primitive Void warships with the combination of an entire world’s technology,” she said softly, “And only built a moving city after pouring out every last strength of our civilization.”

“As for your world, a single nation—or should I say, a single mage guild had managed such great feats already. Joshua, this does not compare.”

In return, Joshua did not say anything… in truth, he wanted to praise the courage of the Karlis people to not hesitate putting out the full power of their civilization in the face of destruction. Against the minions and the Evil God of Famine itself, they never gave up on fighting back, even daring to raise their weapons.

The warrior had always respected that.

“Joshua, every place on the Mana Net is filled with details about Void warship designs and Continental War… Aside from that civilization game of yours, could the Mycroft civilization really plan to assemble a fleet and head for the galaxy where the Starherders had been?”

Stopping the discussion about Karlis, Zero Three turned curiously to Joshua. The craze over Continental War meant that Joshua did not need her help in every moment to think normally now, and with certain matters being communicable through spirit, Zero Three would not know what the warrior and the other Legendary champions had decided to do.

Nonetheless, Joshua nodded in response to Zero Three’s question. “That’s right. We no longer have the time to delay for finding out the reason that the galaxy is stopping—we can’t simply stay in one place, and have to head for other planetary regions to truly uncover the cause for those anomalies.”

“Actually, I’m here not to join Nostradamus in activating the Skynet system… I’m really here to build a tower.”

“A tower?” Zero Three became even more curious at those words. She blinked, and lowered her voice as if being up to no good, “What tower are you building?”

“It’s not an ordinary tower.”

Joshua looked down from the clouds towards the Barnett highlands before looking up at the endless Void. The warrior smiled, extended both his hands, pointing with one at the skies above and the land below with the other, his voice resounding through the skies as he said boldy, “I shall build a tower that reaches into the clouds and pierces the world. No building in the past thousand years would compare, just as all would feel pride over it a thousand years later.”

“It would be named Babel, Zero Three. It is a Heaven Reaching Tower that reaches the Void and world!”