Chapter 46: Demon Lord and Dragon God
In that split second of lightning and flint, a thought inexplicably flashed through Joshua's mind.
—Aside from myself, probably only Pope Israel on the entire Mycroft Continent could face this demon head-on.
This seemed arrogant, but it wasn't. It wasn't that Joshua believed his own strength had reached a level second only to Israel, surpassing all other Legendary experts on the Mycroft Continent. It was simply a matter of combat style.
The thousand-eyed, thousand-pupiled Demon Lord before him relied on pure brute force. Its colossal body, hundreds of meters long, and its ray magic possessed the power to level a city in an instant and turn mountains into seas of fire. Haier Mu's true form was a genuine engine of destruction. Even in close-quarters combat, even if Joshua transformed into his Steel Giant form, he couldn't overpower it in terms of raw strength. He could only rely on technique to gain the upper hand.
Furthermore, Haier Mu could wield powerful spells akin to high-energy gamma rays. The power of these spells could only be withstood head-on by Pope Israel, who could transform into light, and by Joshua himself, who understood the source of that power and could disperse highly concentrated charged particles through his Steel Force. Even so, the warrior had lost a portion of his body. If an ordinary city were struck by such an attack, it would likely be completely vaporized and annihilated in an instant.
Before this demon—no fortress wall, no formation barrier, meant anything. Its immense size and innate abilities rendered armies useless. This was a monster that could only be stopped by relying on experts. Yet even for the strong, facing those world-destroying high-energy gamma rays required extreme caution, or they could be instantly erased.
If the Sixth Abyss invaded as it had in his previous life, unless a divine avatar descended, only Joshua, who was equally focused on combat and destruction, could stop it. But if Haier Mu resorted to guerrilla tactics—destroying a city and immediately fleeing to avoid confrontation—then no one could do anything to it.
Fortunately, Joshua thought. Now Haier Mu was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with him. This was the best chance to kill it.
This was something only he could accomplish.
So, Joshua made his choice. He ignored the bone spears coming from behind and the sides, cleanly continuing to swing his heavy fists, smashing them down onto the Demon Lord's body. His seemingly emotionless face twisted into a ferocious expression—a mix of savagery, excitement, and pleasure.
As an enemy—the current Demon Lord—was worth risking his life to kill!
Electricity leaped along his wrists, gathering on his fists. As Haier Mu roared and coiled its body around Joshua, the powerful spiral force generated by the high-speed rotation made the two steel fists in front of him act like a drill, piercing through the psionic body in an instant. The warrior churned inside the opponent's body, seemingly searching for something.
Joshua had already seen through the Demon Lord's endless source of energy—what was called laser fusion. This was the ultimate talent born from the Eye Demon race's evolution to its peak, and the reason Haier Mu could freely spew high-heat ion rays from any part of its body. Its very existence was a giant nuclear fusion furnace! The warrior's two arms searched for the opponent's energy core, while his other two arms were raised high above his head, ready to strike down like a great axe at any moment, shattering the core completely!
"*Ssss-riiiip!*"
But just as Joshua was fully searching for the energy core inside Haier Mu's body, the Thousand-Eyed Serpent let out a furious roar. It sensed two arms containing immense destructive power wreaking havoc on its internal structure. Before long, its body structure would collapse, and it would be unable to maintain its Legendary form. So, with a low serpentine hiss, all the eyes on Haier Mu's body opened simultaneously. High-heat energy surged, and rays began to slice into Joshua's flesh from hundreds of different angles. At the same time, hundreds of high-speed bone spears swept in through the storm, piercing toward the Steel Giant's body!
Both sides abandoned all defense at the same moment, focusing solely on destroying the opponent's body and vital points. Instantly, as the giant's arms churned, lava-like cracks appeared on the upper half of the Thousand-Eyed Serpent's body. Uncontrollable energy began to leak from these wounds. Meanwhile, the Steel Giant's body was riddled like a sieve by the bone spears that whistled in with the sound of wind and thunder. The explosive energy rays, like the sharpest blades, cut through the warrior's skin, causing high-energy flesh to burst out.
But unlike Haier Mu, who showed rage and terror, Joshua, who appeared more severely injured, instead revealed a pleased smile.
"Found it!"
With a sharp cry, Joshua's entire body suddenly contracted, then rapidly expanded. Countless bone spears embedded in his body were instantly sent flying back out. High-heat liquid, like magma, sprayed outward from the wounds like a pump—ignoring the injuries, the warrior channeled all his strength, concentrating it between his four arms. His extremely condensed spiritual will drove the energy core pulsating within him, unleashing a terrifying aura that even disrupted the gravity of the surrounding ground, causing countless rock fragments to float up and orbit like satellites.
In that instant, Joshua became the avatar of the God of Destruction. The next moment, like a mountain-splitting great axe, the two arms the Steel Giant had raised above his head came crashing down toward the exact center of the Thousand-Eyed Serpent's body, accompanied by a sonic boom that robbed sound of all meaning!
The rapidly descending steel hand blades tore through the vacuum. The overflowing high temperature melted floating rocks and soil into magma. Their might could split mountains, melt lakes, and boil seas. A faint silver glow coated the very edge of Joshua's hand blades, shimmering with barely perceptible light. Even a tiny fraction of this Steel Force, weighing as much as a small hill, had transformed into an indestructible steel blade, ready to cleave the enemy in two!
Matter, energy, and even space were distorted. After delivering this strike, the silver glow covering Joshua's entire body vanished instantly. His whole form seemed to shrink by a size. But in return, all of Haier Mu's defenses were pierced—the high-heat rays shot forward were severed! The psionic body pushed forward to defend was shattered! Dust, wind, flames, and light were all cut down. This was the fist technique that severs everything: the White Dwarf Hand Blade!
The flesh could not compare to a weapon. Weapons were tools humans used to supplement their strength with wisdom. But this principle was completely shattered by Joshua's strike! What weapon could surpass the extremely condensed Steel Force? What shield could be more sturdy than White Dwarf matter?
Naturally, none. So, when the Steel Giant staggered back a step from the serpent's desperate charge, pulling his arm, covered in high-heat plasma fluid, out of Haier Mu's body, the Demon Lord's psionic body, now cleaved into three sections, began to slowly collapse and self-immolate.
"How is this possible?! How did you see through my—"
Although all the eyes on its body were beginning to slowly close, Haier Mu was not yet dead. The Thousand-Eyed Serpent was laboriously writhing its body, retreating in the opposite direction from Joshua. It simply could not imagine that someone could see through its vital point—the core energy array located in the middle of its body—in their very first battle. This mana furnace, which used countless runes to emit hundreds of high-energy rays to bombard a mysterious metal excavated from an ancient civilization's ruins to generate terrifying energy, had not been shattered by Joshua's full-force strike. But the outer rune array had begun to collapse on a large scale. Unable to temporarily contain the berserk energy within, the giant serpent could only flee in panic while self-immolating.
The serpent's movement seemed slow, but it was actually incredibly fast. Its massive body writhed across the ground, leaving a trail of gold-and-blue lava and plasma. In the span of a single breath, the Demon Lord had fled several kilometers away.
How could Joshua sit idly by and let a severely wounded enemy escape? But just as he was about to take a step to give chase, an extreme sense of danger surged into his mind. The warrior forced himself to overcome the exhaustion flooding from all over his body, forcibly controlling his form. In an instant, the massive Steel Giant began to shrink, returning to the human-sized body the warrior usually used. After reverting to human form, Joshua's entire body shimmered with a now-thin silver glow. A suit of black armor draped itself over his extremely robust frame.
Having just returned to human form from his combat state, Joshua didn't hesitate. He flew straight up. He didn't go after the giant serpent demon, which was almost out of sight. Instead, he flew rapidly in the direction the Black Dragon had retreated. The warrior acted decisively, without a moment's hesitation.
And a few seconds later, at the edge of the sky, on the distant horizon, two completely different yet almost equally powerful, violent auras suddenly erupted!
"Who dares to invade the Sixth Abyss?!"
A deep voice roared as if from across a world. A solid mass of chaotic power pierced through space, descending upon the Molten Sea Hell from afar. Accompanied by this furious bellow, above the central Sixth Abyss, above the majestic fortress built of black iron, bone, and volcanic rock—[Tear Valley Fortress]—a massive, burning eye rapidly condensed. The power of the [King of All Demons] manifested out of thin air. This crimson vertical pupil, filled with an utterly blasphemous and evil aura, flickered with cold, merciless light. Its gaze swept across the entire central Sixth Abyss, easily discovering Haier Mu, who was fleeing while healing itself. Instantly, the vertical pupil narrowed slightly.
Goliath, whose main body was still engaged in a bloody battle with other Demon Lords and Abyss Lords in another Abyss, had sent a part of its clone back to the Sixth Abyss precisely because it had sensed an unprecedented great earthquake across the entire central Abyss plain. It was well known that the geological changes of the Sixth Abyss had ceased seven thousand years ago. Earthquakes were celestial phenomena that could only be caused by all-out battles between sovereigns. It had thought that Haier Mu might be in a tough fight, but it absolutely could not have guessed that the Thousand-Eyed Demon would be defeated on its own home turf!
Streams of invisible power emanated from the burning eye, channeling through intangible conduits into Haier Mu, helping it heal. The Abyss Lord's eye, having returned to its own world, did not sweep across the other end of the battlefield to find the origin of the unknown sovereign. Goliath stared warily at the edge of the sky, where a massive emblem of a five-colored dragon head was condensing and appearing above the clouds!
Divine, chaotic, orderly, evil, free—five different and conflicting auras erupted simultaneously in the sky. A long, drawn-out dragon's roar followed. As the five-headed dragon emblem fully condensed, the fluctuations of a true god began to spread through the Sixth Abyss. Vague hymns played between heaven and earth, heralding the gaze of a deity falling upon this place!
"I sense it—the Dragon Slayer of the Mycroft Continent! How dare you come to the Abyss! This is a death sentence!"