Chapter 17: Where Is the Enemy? 6400
On the deep seabed of the Central Court Star, at the edge of the Far East Continent, within the abyssal depths surrounding the Great Maelstrom Sea.
As a rift split open in space, a powerful surge of psionic energy was released. Joshua emerged from within the Mother Tree's body, stepping into a vast underwater space that the tree had propped open with its own psionic power.
This was because, if Joshua wished to construct a psionic leap engine within his own body, he would have to reveal his true form. And although the Mother Tree was enormous, it could not possibly allow a giant hundreds of meters tall to exert his full strength freely within its interior. So, using its own power, it had created a spacious, semicircular underwater space roughly ten kilometers in diameter at the edge of the Eastern Sea of the Central Court Star, for the warrior's use.
"Chi—BOOM!"
Accompanied by a flash of crimson light, Joshua unhesitatingly released the restraints on his own power. In that instant, searing high temperatures, along with a distorting wave of heat, expanded outward. The seawater, blocked by the psionic wall several kilometers away, was instantly vaporized. Countless bubbles surged toward the sea surface along with the boiling water, creating a dark red zone of high temperature on the ocean's surface. Countless dead fish, carrying the smell of being cooked, drifted outward.
Boom. His two feet planted firmly on the solid rock crust of the seabed. The silt and seabed biological remains that had accumulated over millennia were all blasted away by the immense power released when Joshua manifested his true form. Now, standing upon the earth was a four-armed steel giant, four hundred meters tall, colored in gold and red. A hazy silver light flowed over his entire body, and layers upon layers of complex, philosophically meaningful patterned stripes emerged and vanished within it, radiating an aura of indestructibility.
But this time was different from before. After a few seconds, accompanied by a hissing sound like steel being quenched, the gold-red outer shell of the four-armed steel giant instantly cooled down, transforming into stripes interwoven with silver and black. Only at the giant's chest was there a circle of flickering, unstable golden light. Beneath it, a powerful heat, strong enough to incinerate all matter, pulsed steadily, causing ripples to spread through the surrounding space.
Joshua understood that the change in his appearance was because he had fully mastered his own power. Originally, the steel giant's gold-red outer shell and its surface temperature of tens of thousands of degrees were due to his inability to control the vast energy generated by the fusion core furnace within his body. The excess energy was released in the form of visible light and heat, turning him into a humanoid sun. The warrior had actually already learned to control this power, but because of the gathering of the Central Court people, the power originally used to open the void portal had been seized by the Dominant Will of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground and bestowed upon him, making his power suddenly too strong, causing him to lose control temporarily.
After steadying himself, Joshua originally intended to begin modifying his own body immediately. But before he could even start, the mere slight pressure from his feet caused a 'crack' as the earth's crust beneath him shattered. Countless sedimentary rocks crumbled like cookies into fine, powdery quicksand, threatening to swallow the warrior into the depths. Fortunately, Joshua reacted quickly, immediately using his own power to form a force field that roughly isolated gravity, preventing himself from sinking into the planet's core due to his weight.
"Indeed, after being strengthened by psionic energy, my true form has become far too heavy, comparable to a large asteroid."
Regarding this, Joshua had to sigh. In his current steel giant form, the outer layer of his skin was an ultra-thin layer of super-dense degenerate matter. From a microscopic perspective, it was entirely composed of dense neutrons and protons. Ninety percent of his Steel Force was used for this. Because of this, this ultra-thin outer shell could almost completely isolate any external energy penetration, making even the assimilation by the Plague Evil God's minions impossible.
But even this powerful defense was merely a superficial appearance. The strongest function of this Steel Force outer shell went far beyond that. Its most important power was to absorb external energy and temporarily gather surrounding matter to increase its own mass. In other words, if an enemy's attack did not reach a certain level—for example, the gamma rays of the Demon Lord Haier Mu—then it would simply be a free meal for Joshua. The attack, stripped of its energy, would cause the Steel Force to spontaneously assimilate surrounding dust, earth, and rock to increase its own mass. This was also why Joshua's weight increased countless times whenever he transformed into his true form: because he released the restraints on the fusion core furnace, the vast energy charged the Steel Force, leading to massive mass changes. This was even more pronounced after being strengthened by the psionic energy of the Central Court people.
"Even now, there's a system message?"
After roughly controlling his power, Joshua suddenly discovered something interesting. "It's appeared again. Long time no see."
He shifted his attention to the system. And as always, the warrior still couldn't find the source of the system. Even with the meticulous observation and control of a Legendary expert, he couldn't locate where it came from.
[Descendant – Joshua van Radcliffe]
[Status: Outsider Visitor, Psionic Ascension]
[Outsider Visitor: You are not a native of this world, but unexpectedly, this world does not reject you. Instead, it actively welcomes your arrival, as if greeting a guest. Cancels the 'Adapt to Foreign World' process. Temporarily bestows the 'Native' tag.]
[——This is not returning to your homeland. It is merely that this place has become your homeland.]
[Psionic Ascension: Millions call for your arrival, and you have come for this reason. Due to a special cause, the energy that should have restricted your actions has been fully bestowed upon you, greatly amplifying your power. Temporary base attributes significantly increased. Some skill levels increased.]
[——Beyond the Veil, Infinite Power.]
Originally, there should have been lists regarding age, attributes, and charm after this, but now they had all turned into complete gibberish. Strange patterns, like the most complex and profound magical runes, flickered and sank within the system's depths, the disorder even more severe than before.
"When my true form fully releases Steel Force, this system is almost completely broken..."
Joshua looked at the system, which now only had a short paragraph of recognizable text, but often displayed snowflake-like faults as if from poor contact. He couldn't help but sigh. However, because of this, the system's reaction gave the warrior a rough idea of its essential nature. It must be some kind of existential power, which was why it was affected by Steel Force, a similarly fundamental power. But now was not the time to care about a mere system. Having resolved all other matters, Joshua clenched his right lower arm. A layer of hazy silver light flickered on the solid steel arm. The next moment, he pressed this right hand onto his chest, which was flashing with golden light.
"BOOM!!!"
It was as if a valve had been opened, or a seal had been undone. Accompanied by a rumbling sound like a torrential river surging, the high-density material shell enveloping Joshua's body was immediately opened like a lid by that right hand. Instantly, a huge gap nearly a hundred meters long and several tens of meters wide appeared, revealing the extraordinary organs within Joshua's body, composed of incredibly complex, semi-energy, semi-material structures.
At this moment, because the Steel Force had not yet fully assimilated with his body, Joshua's interior was still somewhat human-like. The skeleton supporting the giant's body had divinity as its marrow and high-density matter as its bone structure. The muscle structure, resembling red-hot steel, was entirely composed of strands of Steel Force woven into spirals, mixed with unknown extraordinary substances. They covered the skeleton shimmering with silver light, connecting various peculiar organs within the body. The most important organ was the massive fusion reactor located at the center of the giant's body, where the heart should have been.
The spherical, crimson fusion core, a reactor simulating the energy from the explosion of a fusion core star, constantly generated vast energy flows. Liquid energy drove every organ and muscle within the body, creating the immense power that allowed Joshua to easily move mountains, drain seas, and create land. Joshua had long ago used Steel Force to recode the genetic information and material structure within his body. Now, ninety-nine percent of the matter in his entire body was equivalent to micron-scale or even cell-scale high-strength machinery. All redundant information and structures had been completely discarded, leaving only the aspects most conducive to combat and survival. At this moment, purely in terms of physical strength, the warrior could directly lift an entire continental shelf, creating an artificial giant island.
All of this made the steel giant's appearance increasingly ferocious, while also giving it an increasingly perfect, minimalist futuristic aesthetic.
"Aside from the Eye Demon Lord Haier Mu's Thousand-Eyed Serpent true form, I haven't actually fought a full-power battle against another Legendary expert. But from my current perspective, if I am gradually sublimating myself into an immortal, indestructible perfect steel incarnation, then he is probably pursuing the ultimate in 'energy concentration'."
Experiencing his own powerful strength, Joshua now had a new understanding of the Legendary Realm. "For an Eye Demon, the shape of the body, the number and size of eyes, or even whether they have eyes at all, is irrelevant. Because their essence is an extraordinary lifeform born with the ability to manipulate energy, which is to say, primordial ray magic. Haier Mu's study of gamma rays is one of the most correct paths for an Eye Demon. It's no wonder he achieved the Legendary Realm."
As for the serpentine form, it was also easy to understand. After all, neither a humanoid body nor the bizarre forms of other demons were conducive to energy concentration. A long, slender body could form a structure for concentrating energy, like a particle accelerator, thereby maximizing the destructive power of gamma rays. Joshua believed that if Haier Mu could, he would definitely transform his form into something like an Ouroboros to maximize energy concentration.
In essence, the path of transcendence was nothing more than compressing the natural evolution that a race might take millions or even billions of years to achieve—or might never achieve—into a few decades or centuries through self-tempering, energy absorption, and targeted breakthroughs. The two realms of Ultimate Essence and Legendary were leaps in this self-evolution, fully realizing the 'Path of Self' in one go, thereby becoming a pinnacle within the life system. If it were a transmission within a star system, it would be too dangerous; it would be better to just fly."
The vast psionic energy, besides meeting the basic operational needs of the leap engine, also gave Joshua a special kind of perception. He could now feel the surrounding psionic energy as easily as the Central Court people could feel the presence of air. With a single glance, the warrior could see the Mother Tree's psionic light, filling the world like a sun. Even in his psionic ascension state, this energy was far beyond him. However, this immense power was exceptionally loose, not concentrated at all, which greatly reduced the Mother Tree's combat effectiveness. Now, the Mother Tree, an aggregate of countless psionic wills, was afraid and wary of him. But Joshua understood its feelings. He knew it was merely an instinctive fear and an avoidance of an overly dangerous powerful being. Overall, it was still friendly.
Besides the leap, the existence of psionic energy was also a major enhancement to Joshua's power. Originally, the warrior's high-density body shell was shaped to correspond to the power of the Mycroft World. It could not completely block this peculiar energy of psionic power. This was why, even before, a psionic user of Milhabs' level could sense Joshua's terrifying power. But now, through self-adaptation and reconstruction, the warrior's shell could resist psionic scanning.
This was the evolutionary path Joshua had chosen: by constantly imitating and assimilating new systems to strengthen himself, just like a primordial star absorbing foreign asteroids to increase its own mass. He could continuously grow stronger by experiencing new civilizations and energy systems.
"Now, when my shell is penetrated, it even releases terrifying energy comparable to nuclear fission or fusion... It's essentially a kind of fusion reaction armor in a sense."
Clenching his four fists, Joshua swung them, and the immense power stirred the underwater air, forming peculiar tornadoes. He nodded with satisfaction. "If I were to face a direct strike from the Earth God Sword from the previous Holy Mountain battle now, I could block it with just my external armor, instead of having to use all my strength just to deflect it like before."
If he went a step further, Joshua estimated that even a gamma ray cannon, if Haier Mu didn't go all out, would not be able to penetrate his outer armor. He could even take it to the face. At that point, it could be called neutron star reaction armor. Perhaps there was also black hole reaction armor, but that was too far off.
Just then, the Mother Tree also sensed the intense psionic fluctuations emanating from Joshua. Its will descended, and it asked cautiously, "Veil Descendant... are you finished?"
"Yes, I'm finished." Joshua nodded casually. From start to finish, he had spent almost an entire day studying the essence of the psionic engine and the void mother beast. This speed might seem incredibly fast to an ordinary person, but for him, who was naturally adept at assimilation and imitation, it was just right. After all, the warrior didn't need to understand the entire operational method of the psionic engine from scratch. He just needed to know how to use it. He could slowly figure out the details later.
"Your friend, the other Descendant from beyond the Veil, has created an unprecedented spatial storm in the center of the Far East Continent. He seems to have found a way to use his own power for a leap, finishing even earlier than you."
The Mother Tree's voice sounded somewhat emotional. This was inevitable. The Central Court people had spent thousands of years finding a way to reach the stars and navigate the cosmos. Yet these super lifeforms from the other side of the void had accomplished the same thing in about a day. Although it knew that both Joshua and Nostradamus were standing on their shoulders to achieve such an astonishing feat, it still couldn't help but want to sigh.
"Nostradamus is a Legendary mage of space-time. He could even leap originally. He just needed to adapt to your local energy and space constants. It's normal for him to be faster than me, who can only barely use tools for teleportation through physical analysis."
Joshua laughed. He didn't dwell on the topic. The warrior said directly, "I can feel tension and urgency in your psionic energy... Go ahead, Mother Tree. Has the void mother beast stirred again?"
"Indeed, it has."
The Mother Tree's will hesitated for a moment, then answered bluntly, "The remnants of the Flower Court and Root Court fleets have merged with the Second Leaf Court fleet. They have returned to the colony planet for repairs. However, at the same time, the psionic radar has detected massive space-time distortion fluctuations. The mother beast is warping space, following their space-time trajectory..."
"In short, the situation is critical."
Joshua didn't let the Mother Tree continue. He interrupted, and at the same time, the massive four-armed steel giant slowly shrank, finally reverting to the image of a human warrior clad in black armor. He said calmly and steadily, "So, where is the void mother beast now?"
"I'm setting out."