Chapter 14: Don't Just Casually Open Space-Time Gates and Passages, That's Common Sense
Over the years, Joshua had witnessed many strange things and had seen all sorts of magical tomes and forbidden spellbooks.
Summoning monsters and bringing misfortune were practically standard fare for these books, the basics of basics. In fact, whether it was books that killed people to absorb life and souls, those that seduced people into signing contracts, or even entire books that turned into girls or tentacles to fight alongside humans, he had seen them all. But regardless, a book that would actively try to escape and hide from people—this was truly the first time he had encountered such a thing in all his years.
In the hall, Joshua and Ying exchanged a glance. The warrior then took a step forward and reached out again to grab this parchment-bound book with its light brown cover.
But the strange occurrence continued—the book trembled, then actively leaped another step away, dodging further.
Frowning, Joshua took another stride forward and reached out to grab it. Yet, for some reason, the book's reaction speed was equally swift. Just as the warrior moved forward, it flickered and darted to the other side of the room.
His expression darkened completely. Joshua set aside his playful mood, his gaze turning cold as his eyes narrowed slightly. "What's going on?"
The warrior's voice was flat, as if he had grown serious. "It dodges? And its speed isn't slow. It seems Alfonso really did buy the real deal. This kind of book is no ordinary object."
With that, his feet trembled slightly, vibrating rapidly beneath him. In an instant, his entire body accelerated beyond the speed of sound, charging toward the book. His right hand shot out, tearing through the air, producing sharp, piercing noises while trailing clouds of white shockwave mist.
This time, even the strange book couldn't react. As the gale-force wind was about to reach it, it seemed to try to dodge, but a large hand, as firm as a steel clamp, reached out and firmly seized its body.
Using a bit of his true strength, Joshua successfully caught the magical tome.
Around him, though the floor remained intact under careful control, the tables and chairs had been overturned by the shockwave from his supersonic movement. Strangely enough, the book, which had been struggling incessantly as if trying to escape, stopped resisting the moment it fell into Joshua's hands. Instead, it lay quietly in the warrior's grasp like a real book, showing none of its earlier lively behavior.
This reminded Joshua of some cunning animals in the forest—they would play dead.
"This is truly strange."
Raising an eyebrow, Joshua said to Ying, who was righting the tables and chairs and tidying the furniture, "Why would a book have autonomous movement?"
"...Could it be that it's an object with self-awareness, like us?"
The silver-haired girl thought for a moment, then happily concluded, "Is it a kindred spirit?"
"Probably not."
The warrior shook his head, seemingly unconvinced by this answer. He glanced at the magical tome in his hand, scanning it a few times. "I don't detect any trace of a soul. It's likely an instinctive reaction or a pre-written automatic response measure."
But what kind of response measure would make a book run around everywhere?
Such speculation led nowhere, so Joshua simply gave up pondering the question. He grabbed the book by its spine with one hand and pinched the cover with the other, preparing to open it and take a look.
But another strange thing happened.
The book wouldn't open.
Startled, Joshua tried a few more times, but the result was always the same—he couldn't open it. It was as if it had been locked shut, not a single page able to be turned.
At this, he couldn't help but let out a laugh. But after laughing, Joshua frowned again.
A magical tome that couldn't be opened was actually quite normal. After all, such books typically recorded the lifelong experiences of some Ultimate-rank or higher spellcaster. Alternatively, they might contain various terrifying forbidden spells or the corrupting information of evil gods. Many of these books even had numerous seals, making opening them no easy task.
And the Book of Iboun, in his past life, had been a great magical tome that destroyed the Ares Fortress and summoned several Terranian Abyss Worms. It was only natural for it to have some bizarre traits beyond ordinary understanding.
—But Joshua couldn't be bothered with all this nonsense. He took a deep breath, and soon, the radiance of Battle Qi began to flow throughout his body. A powerful shockwave was released as Steel Force gathered within the warrior, transforming into an invisible power that surged into his hands.
A Gold-rank expert's body had already begun to integrate with energy, capable of unleashing immense strength unrelated to physical fitness in an instant. At this moment, Joshua refused to believe he couldn't open this book!
But before he could act, Ying's slightly panicked voice came: "Wait, Master, don't use force here!"
"Master, stop!"
Lin, who had been helping the maids clean up the dishes, now rushed back as well. Seeing Joshua, whose expression was calm but whose body was flickering with Battle Qi, he quickly urged, "Don't mess around inside the house, Master. If you need to do something, take it outside!"
Even Number 3 couldn't stay calm. Her projection appeared in midair, also advising, "Yes, Joshua. The commotion you'd cause is too great. This book does seem unusual. If you want to open it, try it in a more open space."
"...You're right."
Since everyone said so, Joshua naturally wouldn't insist on forcing the strange book open inside the Lord's Manor. In fact, the warrior had also realized that the issue wasn't about opening the book but about whether he could use his full strength at home. The new Lord's Manor had just been built—he couldn't just recklessly exert force like before!
So, Joshua exhaled, letting his Battle Qi dissipate. He took the magical tome in hand and headed outside.
Ying and Lin both sighed in relief. Together, they pushed the cart carrying Number 3's core, following behind the warrior.
Soon, the four of them arrived at the outskirts beyond the main city.
Now, the snow on the bitterly cold icefield was gradually melting. On the endless white plain, patches of black earth and green grass had appeared. But Joshua paid no attention to the scenery. His focus was entirely on the parchment book in his hand.
A brown cover, a title written in strange script, a touch like sheepskin... Aside from its ability to move on its own, it seemed like a very ordinary book. So why couldn't it be opened?
The warrior shook his head.
Then, in the next instant, he erupted with full force. Crimson Battle Qi blazed fiercely. Today, Joshua was determined to open this book!
Boom!
The aftermath of his immense power blew away the remaining snow and black soil around him. A ferocious shockwave swept in all directions. Except for the small patch of ground beneath Joshua, a vast area centered on him was scoured clean, dust and smoke rising to engulf the warrior's figure.
The shockwave gradually subsided, and the dust cleared.
Amid the settling haze, a voice rang out.
"Can't open it, can't tear it."
Frowning deeply, Joshua stood on the only intact patch of earth, staring at the undamaged book in his hands, muttering to himself, "I wasn't even trying to open it just now. I just wanted to tear it apart, to prevent it from causing any more harm. But even that had no effect... It seems this book really is connected to Abyss Demons or evil gods. Even if an Ultimate-rank mage were standing right in front of me, their magical shield wouldn't be this tough."
A Gold-rank expert's strength, when fully unleashed, could reach levels unimaginable to ordinary people. The main gate of Moldavia's capital was a massive solid steel block, integrally forged by Rune Dwarves in an underground black steel furnace, weighing around four thousand five hundred tons. Even a solid iron block would be crushed into a flat cake and driven into the ground under such a colossal weight. Yet Joshua, at full power, could lift it with one hand.
But even with that level of strength, he couldn't tear this book apart. So, without a doubt, this wasn't some mad book written by a powerful mage but a tome of an evil god, inevitably tied to Chaos and Demons.
"The material isn't mysterious—just ordinary sheepskin and monkey hide."
Joshua, now refraining from using brute force, squinted as he carefully examined the book's material. "The back cover is patched with human skin. Definitely a forbidden book... It seems my guess is correct. The book itself isn't special; it's the content within."
In this world filled with magic and Battle Qi, holy light and demons, words themselves held power.
Legend had it that in the primordial era, the [Runes] born from the First Flame were said to possess the power to recreate all phenomena in the world, while the [Inscriptions] that appeared on the Origin Steel had the ability to grant wishes.
Not to mention these, even ancient Dragon Tongue, High Elvish, and the original common tongue of humanity all carried a power akin to magic. The same went for the scripts passed down by the evil gods wandering the Void.
Words steeped and corrupted by Chaos power, even when written on the most fragile of ordinary objects, would become extremely difficult to destroy. This was why the Church of the Seven Gods had specialized holy light for purification—it was meant to target these Chaos-born products that were so hard to eliminate.
"The existence of evil gods must not be known to ordinary people. The more who know, the more become vessels for the power contained in those evil names. These corrupted beings can gain forbidden power through sacrifice and duoluo (falling into corruption), but the evil gods also take this opportunity to spread their influence into this world."
Softly repeating what he had learned long ago from the old steward about evil gods, Joshua gained a deeper understanding of these words. He thought of the corrupted black dragon he had killed and how its corpse had been eroded, turning into an invisible monster. "For these terrifying entities, their power can reside in all things. Even a simple record in a book can be an immense force. If too many people learn of an evil god and become corrupted, it might actually allow those monsters to invade directly through this."
Looking at the book in his hand, Joshua nodded slightly and muttered to himself, "I roughly understand now. This book, simply by recording some information about an evil god, has gained forbidden power and developed some instinctive reactions. It avoids me because I possess Order Force, a power capable of destroying it."
"Lin, you take this book."
"Huh? Me? Alright."
The black-haired youth standing at a distance heard his master's call and was momentarily startled. But he quickly ran over to Joshua and took the book from his hands.
As he handed the book to Lin, Joshua's aura began to drop rapidly. Before, the warrior's presence was like a blazing volcano, scorching and conspicuous. Now, it was at most the level of a matchstick—on a slightly bright daytime, even with careful searching, it would be completely invisible.
And as Joshua's aura completely vanished into nature, the book in Lin's hands, though still somewhat restless, showed no sign of wanting to break free, even with the warrior standing right beside it.
"Try opening this book."
Joshua instructed, looking intrigued.
Lin did as he was told—though the black-haired youth doubted whether he could succeed, given that his master had failed to open it with full force. He was just a Divine Mechanism, after all. Would it work?
But in reality, he opened it quite easily, as simply as flipping through an ordinary book.
It really did open.
Joshua watched this scene, thinking to himself, "So it just can't be me."
And at that moment, space-time rippled.
Far away, in a forest within a mountain range, a white-haired old man stopped his measuring work.
Nostradamus, who was searching for a suitable site to build a mage academy in the Northern Lands, raised an eyebrow. He turned around with some confusion, looking behind him.
"This is... the aura of the Abyss?"
The old mage muttered to himself, "How can this be? The aura of an evil god is one thing, but why would the aura of the Abyss appear in the Northern Lands..."
In the Void, a great rumbling sound came, as if some evil, colossal monster was traversing the narrow passages of space-time, arriving in this world.
As the Book of Iboun was opened, waves of eerie black-red mist seeped from its pages, enveloping the surroundings and exuding a terrifying pressure.
"Rumble!"
Heavy footsteps echoed.
Rip.
A claw appeared.
Under the erosion of the black mist, the fragile fabric of space-time was torn. A fierce, malevolent aura spread as a massive rift was ripped open in space-time. Two enormous red lights flickered within the black mist. A colossal, terrifying humanoid monster gazed coldly at this world from the other side of the space-time rift.
But then, it saw Joshua standing in the black mist, before the space-time rift.
The warrior's eyes also flickered with red light. A faint, calm smile curled at the corners of his mouth.
The monster froze.
(To be continued.)