# Chapter 16: Plague Evil God
"Time is short. Let me first examine the corpses of those Void Derivative Beasts and the body fragments of the Mother Beast."
The corpses of the Void Derivative Beasts had been brought over by the survivors of Root Court through an emergency teleportation system, while the body fragments of the Mother Beast had been retrieved from outer space by Root Court's special operations forces, who risked almost certain death to break through the encirclement of countless Derivative Beasts. After hearing Joshua's request, the Mother Tree silently integrated the psionic engine, which had already been mostly disassembled, into its own body, then raised another wooden experimental platform. Upon the platform lay a psionic barrier and the corpse of a Void Derivative Beast.
"Good heavens... what exactly is this thing..."
Even Joshua couldn't help but frown when he saw the Void Derivative Beast's true form with his own eyes. In the memories transmitted by the Mother Tree, since it was a space battle separated by millions of kilometers, it hadn't been clearly visible. But now that it was right before him, the contrast was striking.
Of course, this wasn't because the Void Derivative Beast was ugly, bizarre, or indescribable—in fact, the reason for Joshua's surprise was that its appearance was far too simple.
"Isn't this just a ball with a few tentacles?"
Beside him, Firefly couldn't help but complain: "And even the tentacles don't feel slimy or sticky—they feel like steel whips."
"It's a bit different from what I imagined..." Lin also nodded. He leaned in curiously to take a closer look but couldn't find anything particularly special about it: "It really is just tentacles and a spherical body... How does it even fight?"
According to the Mother Tree, the Derivative Beast corpse laid out on the experimental platform, nearly twenty meters long and fifteen meters tall, was merely the weakest juvenile form. A mature Derivative Beast could be several hundred meters in size, covered in black-red crystalline ore resembling bone spurs, capable of ejecting high-temperature energy streams strong enough to cut through warship armor. The juvenile forms came in various types—some cylindrical with many sturdy segmented limbs at the lower end, others roughly crown-shaped. In general, they could be divided into five categories: spherical, spiral-symmetrical, bullet-shaped, icosahedral, cylindrical, and finally tadpole-shaped.
These Derivative Beasts had simple appearances, even possessing a certain streamlined aesthetic, completely different from the twisted and bizarre Chaos Monsters Joshua had seen before. Yet he could sense an extremely dense aura of Chaos emanating from them, and for some reason, he always felt a strange sense of familiarity.
"That's right—viruses!"
For Joshua, who could now search through his memories like browsing a database, it didn't take long to easily identify the source of that familiarity—weren't the shapes of these Void Derivative Beasts just various viruses magnified billions of times?!
Although only the appearance was similar, and in essence they were already completely Chaos Monsters, at the root of it, that was the shape of a virus!
Upon realizing this, Joshua didn't hesitate to step forward and reach out to touch the spherical monster's body. Amidst the Mother Tree's loud warnings, he immediately sensed that the moment he broke through the psionic barrier set up by the Mother Tree and directly contacted the corpse, countless extremely tiny 'life forms,' or rather, 'Chaos forces,' were attempting to invade his body in the most direct and brutal manner. These microscopic forces tried to decompose the warrior's body, then assimilate and break through from within, eventually infecting Joshua into a Chaos Monster like themselves—exactly like how microscopic viruses invade cells, only countless times faster.
"Indeed, it's the Plague Evil God. A familiar pattern."
Shaking his hand, the flowing silver radiance completely annihilated the invisible Chaos forces. Steel Force was, after all, the foundation of all things. In terms of assimilation power, it was even more viral than viruses themselves. When the two met, naturally the warrior emerged victorious. At that moment, Joshua couldn't help but recall the scene from years ago when Robzek, in the Plague Lands, was forced to kill over a dozen of his own Paladin students. The Chaos forces on the Mycroft Continent were heavily suppressed, requiring bodily fluid contact for infection. Those suddenly maddened Paladins must have been invaded and assimilated by this kind of Chaos virus, right? Robzek's decisive killing of them all was correct, because those people were no longer human—they were human-shaped Chaos containers.
This was the horror of the Plague. Its frontal combat capabilities might not match those of Famine's or Calamity's minions, the Crystal Insects and Stone Demons, but in terms of insidiousness, it far surpassed them.
"...I was overthinking things. I suppose that someone of your level wouldn't fear this kind of bizarre erosion."
Seeing that Joshua indeed showed no abnormal signs, the Mother Tree's voice became calm. In a tone devoid of any emotion, almost coldly, it said softly: "On Root Court Star, the survivors are almost all staying in cold storage, volcanic areas, or sterile laboratories. People in other regions transformed within just three days into the prototypes of the monsters you see before you, then followed the Void Mother Beast to the next colony star... Even plants were no exception. This bizarre power can assimilate and erode any life form."
"The enemy is the natural nemesis of organic life. Although you call yourselves a psionic civilization, at the root of it, you haven't transcended your physical shells. So being restrained by the Plague Evil God is only natural."
Having finished scanning the Derivative Beast's corpse—or rather, the active Chaos virus aggregate that had lost its autonomous action capability—Joshua murmured: "So that means the so-called Void Mother Beast is the source of the plague. Its so-called invasion is infecting one world after another... Not quite like the swarm I imagined. But this is a good thing."
Because his true form was a Steel Giant radiating temperatures of thousands or even tens of thousands of degrees, with a Fusion Core Star as its energy source—no matter what virus it was, it would be absolutely impossible to infect him, even Chaos viruses. After all, even without the Azure Orb, Joshua still possessed a portion of Order Force.
The Plague Evil God itself was hard to say, but its minions were naturally restrained by him! If the enemy was a virus, then he was a white blood cell.
Thinking of this, his mood immediately improved considerably. But Joshua suddenly frowned again, recalling the scene where the Plague Source, the Void Mother Beast, had instantly destroyed the Central Court colony star's detachment fleet—an endless deep green light barrier expanding in all directions, turning all asteroids and warships along the way into nothingness in an instant. Joshua still hadn't figured out the principle behind this move—was it antimatter annihilation? Material disintegration? Or perhaps a very special Chaos virus that eroded all matter away?
Regardless, it was an extremely difficult move to deal with. Joshua wasn't sure if the enemy could decompose his body, since he hadn't yet completed 100% assimilation, and his own mass was far from reaching the level of white dwarf matter. He could only temporarily condense it during battle, making parts of his body temporarily white dwarf-like.
"Joshua, do you still want to see the Void Mother Beast's body fragments?"
Just as Joshua was still pondering, he heard the Mother Tree's will speaking beside him. He nodded: "Let me see."
Soon, the Void Derivative Beast's body was immediately covered by a psionic barrier and then submerged into the Mother Tree's body. As a super lifeform, the Mother Tree naturally understood the horror of the Chaos virus, but having survived for millions of years as the will aggregate of Central Court's psionicists, it naturally wasn't afraid of this level of erosion. It could even reverse-analyze the enemy like Joshua, just much slower.
The next moment, another platform covered by a psionic barrier rose from the wooden chamber. Joshua strode over and looked at the fragments within the light pillar.
"Still hasn't lost its activity?"
What appeared before Joshua was a black sphere constantly writhing, splitting, and spontaneously suspending in midair. The sphere was five meters in diameter, occasionally ejecting smaller black spheres that impacted the psionic barrier set up by the Mother Tree. The impact force was very strong, causing even the Mother Tree's energy shield, which far exceeded Ultimate-rank on the Mycroft Continent, to vibrate noticeably. After failing to break through, the smaller spheres shattered into clumps of deep green mist. This mist had extremely strong erosive power and assimilative power, attempting to bit by bit erode through the Mother Tree's psionic shield. One could clearly see layers of mold forming out of thin air on the inside of the psionic shield, with deep green pus constantly flowing out from within.
"The Mother Beast's body fragments have extremely terrifying assimilative capability. Whether it's matter, energy, or spiritual psionic power, it can devour and strengthen itself... Before capturing it, we were always puzzled about why the Forbi people would allow the Chaos Monsters they summoned to grow so large, and why they fled so awkwardly. Now that I think about it, this is probably the reason."
The Mother Tree's words flowed past Joshua's ears. He naturally understood what this meant. Clearly, when those so-called Forbi people opened the Void Portal and summoned the Plague Evil God's minions, the Mother Beast must not have been this large—perhaps it was even very small, causing that interstellar race they had never met to let down their guard. By the time the plague swept across the entire world and the Mother Beast revealed its full power, rapidly assimilating and growing larger, the Forbi people must have already lost their ability to resist... Perhaps some parts of the Mother Beast's body were already lurking in their migration ships. The Mother Beast, like a virus, had deliberately let those fleeing Forbi people go, using them as hosts to infect other races in the universe.
Aside from once again confirming that this was indeed the Plague Evil God's minion, Joshua had no other special discoveries. He also reached out, allowing the Mother Beast's fragments to erode his body, but the result was failure. The Mother Beast's erosive power was indeed much stronger than the Chaos virus, but it still couldn't break through the warrior's defense. Steel Force was far too powerful in resisting this kind of erosion. It could even reverse-assimilate the Mother Beast, converting parts of the enemy's body into its own use just like assimilating rock. But doing so was too slow and too mentally taxing; otherwise, Joshua would have wanted the Central Court people to fire him like a cannonball into the Void Mother Beast's body, letting this 'white blood cell' of his eradicate those viruses.
"All things indeed have mutual generation and restraint. I never expected you to be able to completely ignore this kind of erosive force, which is practically a natural nemesis to us Central Court people... Summoning you is our fortune, and also the Saint's protection."
Seeing that Joshua could even reverse-assimilate the Mother Beast, the Central Court Mother Tree's voice suddenly became much deeper. From this voice, one could hear not a trace of fortune or joy.
Undoubtedly, even the Mother Tree, as a will aggregate, had begun to fear Joshua's power. If it couldn't sense the Saint's aura on the warrior, it might have already classified this being, even more terrifying than the Evil God's minions, as an untouchable, strictly guarded against, or even sent as far away as possible to an alien colony, far from its main body.
What a joke—a white blood cell capable of infinite devouring and assimilation—what difference was there between that and those Chaos viruses! Although it didn't know about leukemia, the Mother Tree's instincts still had vigilance.
Joshua, however, didn't care about its wariness. To tell the truth, he himself was a bit afraid of his own power. This wasn't a joke, but reality—if one day, after achieving 100% communion with Steel Force, the warrior completely lost control of it and became a puppet of this power, then his outcome would either be self-annihilation or, with an extremely slim possibility, turning into a living white dwarf that continuously devours and assimilates orderly worlds, like leukemia. It wasn't even impossible for him to turn into a small black hole.
But wariness aside, Joshua had confidence in his control. He could even suppress divinity, let alone the Steel Force he had condensed himself. The warrior couldn't even imagine what level of corruption he would have to reach to end up at that point.
"Alright... I've roughly understood what the enemy's main body really is."
Having obtained the means for cosmic combat and understood the enemy's essence, Joshua had now completed most of his objectives on Central Court Star. He turned around—when a Transcendent being first goes to a world with almost no supernatural power, it's easy to become weak from depletion, even die. Although the Starry World had psionic power, and due to the Great Magic Tide, the energy concentration was sufficient to supply the needs of Legendary experts, overall it was still vastly different from the Mycroft World.
Nostradamus wasn't Joshua, who used Steel Force, this foundational power, as his base. So he had to reference the local energy conditions and fundamental constants, then fine-tune himself, in order to exert his full strength.
Besides this, Firefly and Lin were assisting Joshua on the side. Firefly helped Joshua disassemble parts of the jump engine's armor, while Lin helped the warrior identify areas with the densest psionic structure and most obvious space-time fluctuations. The Light Orb stayed in Joshua's pocket, seemingly resting. After nearly half a day of high-intensity analysis work, the warrior had finally roughly understood the working principle of the Central Court people's psionic jump engine.
"Use flesh and blood to stimulate psionic power, then amplify it with crystal machinery. The powerful psionic force splits the gaps of the material world, creating a 'psionic vacuum' similar to the Void. In this psionic vacuum, specially designed warships can accelerate infinitely, moving at the speed of thought, until reaching the limit of where the psionic power can extend."
With silver light flickering in both eyes, Joshua, having roughly completed his analysis, pondered for a moment. The Central Court people's engine design was indeed ingenious. They had created artificial psionic plants that released far more psionic power than ordinary Central Court people, then used crystal machinery structures to maintain the psionic plants' activity and amplify their psionic power hundreds or thousands of times, finally using this powerful psionic force to tear space-time for jumping. It appeared to be a perfect, self-consistent, self-repairing design that could have unlimited endurance as long as there was enough psionic plant culture fluid. But in reality, it had significant flaws.
First, the jump distance. Although the Central Court people's warship jump speed was said to be like thought—arriving as soon as imagined, like instant teleportation—in reality, their psionic intensity couldn't extend very far. Even with the Central Court people's special crystal craftsmanship design, it couldn't exceed three trillion kilometers. This meant that to cross a distance of one light-year, they would need to jump twenty or thirty times, or even more, with each jump requiring a long pause for cooling. The more jumps, the easier it was to make mistakes. This was also why the Central Court people had only colonized three planets in a thousand years—their jump technology was stuck at the bottleneck of psionic intensity.
And this intensity wasn't something that could be easily increased, like crystal craftsmanship or biological technology. Even if the Central Court people were determined to collectively modify their race, it would take one or two generations, or one to two hundred years, to see results.
"My Steel Force can simulate psionic power... According to their words, my psionic intensity far exceeds the Central Court's Omega-level psionicists. At full power, it's even several times that of the flagship Pioneer. If I reconstruct this engine inside my Steel Giant main body, then my jump distance should be farther than the Central Court people's warships, since my body's strength is far greater than any material the Central Court people can find—the material foundation is very solid."
Theoretically, this was indeed the case. But the reason Joshua was pondering was precisely this—although he had roughly understood the engine's operating principle through the design diagrams given by the Mother Tree and his own hands-on disassembly and analysis, and was certain he could reproduce it, jumping was not something to be careless about. It was an essential tool for cosmic-scale combat. He felt there was still some key point he hadn't grasped. However, the warrior wasn't one to dwell on such minor matters. He immediately shifted his thinking and began the next phase of research.