Chapter 23: Trans-Temporal Strike
A long time ago, when Joshua had just returned from the Grandia World, he did not immediately go back to the Mycroft Continent. Instead, he went to the Carlis World, which he had rekindled, to visit the Mountain Titan Urbandeni, the son of the Earth Mother Goddess.
To visit this pure-blooded Titan giant, who had helped him greatly on his path to the Legendary realm, Joshua had two purposes. The first was to ask him to look after the remnants from the Grandia World. The second was to inquire, after reaching the Legendary rank, how his true form as a Steel Giant should proceed with its next advancement.
The Mountain Titan understood everything that had happened in the Grandia World. Facing this human who had destroyed his homeland yet saved his life, Urbandeni was silent for a long time before agreeing to Joshua’s request. As for the further development direction of the warrior’s true form, the Earth God’s son gave a suggestion that sounded simple but was actually extraordinarily difficult.
“Devour. Assimilate. Merge with the earth, let mountains become your armor, let the crust become your weapon.”
In the revitalized Carlis World, the giant, whose half-body alone was four hundred meters tall, spoke in a deep, low voice, slowly reciting the inheritance hidden within his bloodline: “Joshua, you possess the power of origin, which even I do not have. It is one, yet it is all; it is the root of all things, the mother of everything. It is the most solid substance in this world. As long as your capacity can bear enough, you will be invincible.”
The language Urbandeni spoke was the divine tongue used by the gods during the Era of Radiance. As soon as it was spoken, other intelligent beings would naturally understand its meaning. Although it sounded mysterious, its meaning became clear when summarized by the warrior.
To compress and assimilate, to condense ordinary, loose soil into ultra-dense degenerate matter. In this way, a mountain range would be nothing more than a component of the giant’s armor. As long as Joshua could bear enough Steel Force, he would one day become a pure ultra-dense aggregate, an existence that was both indestructible and all-destructive.
In ancient times, after mastering Steel Force, the Mountain Titans would seek out a piece of land as their future shell and spend over a decade assimilating it. Because Steel Force originated from the power of Origin Steel and was extremely difficult to master, their initial targets were usually hills, valleys, or small mounds. Only after centuries, when their Steel Force was fully developed, would they, true to their name, become giants like mountain peaks, the Earth Mother Goddess’s agents walking the mortal world.
And Joshua, on the very day he understood this, completed this step. He assimilated the remains of a mountain range and, with the tacit permission of the Steel Serpent Carlis, ‘ate’ a part of its world.
From then on, the steel that bore the power of the mountains became the warrior’s armor, his bones, a part of his steel body, and his core strength.
Now, there was a group of beings. They were the minions of an Evil God, the embodiment of viruses and plagues. Their mission was to devour and assimilate all life, their goal to erode every organic being. They now intended to use their innate power to assimilate, infect, and erode Joshua, turning him into a part of themselves.
—How utterly ridiculous.
How could one who devours heaven and earth be consumed by mere germs!
With Joshua’s loud laughter, at the very center of the psychic prison, where the Plague Minion Collective’s tentacles and limbs touched the Steel Giant’s four arms and body, a silver radiance began to spread like cancer cells. Just as when the Plague Evil God’s High Priest, He Er La Si, had tried to devour the warrior’s life force but failed, and was instead assimilated by Joshua’s life flame, the life level of the Evil God Minion Collective was far too inferior compared to Joshua’s. It was like the vast difference between sparkling diamond and soft, rotten mud. The mud might be able to engulf the diamond with its sheer quantity, but it could never harm the diamond, let alone erode it.
Now, the moment these Void monsters collectively released their assimilation channels, Joshua did not hesitate to use his Steel Force to assimilate the bodies of these Plague Minions. Although Steel Force could not assimilate organic matter like flesh and blood, even Void monsters contained various trace elements within their bodies. The silver radiance absorbed precisely these trace elements. Once they were lost, the massive monster collective’s tissues began to rapidly fester, decay, and then disintegrate. Wherever the silver light passed, the dark green psychic radiance immediately dimmed, then turned into a profound darkness that seemed capable of devouring everything.
This process lasted for a considerable time. The Void monster collective was not so simple as to let Joshua go. They immediately abandoned the idea of assimilating him and continued to use psychic power to suppress the warrior, intending to use vast energy to ‘seal’ him within a special flesh chamber. But it was far too late. Even at their peak, they could not accomplish this, let alone now, when nearly ten kilometers of their internal flesh tissue had rotted and decayed. Joshua saw through the weakness in their psychic suppression caused by the loss of internal tissue and broke free from their suppression of his body.
The massive Steel Giant leaped up from the center of the Void monster collective. Around him were large chunks of black flesh tissue, like mountains, falling and rotting. At the same time, countless faint silver lights, like starlight, flew out from the black tissues and merged into Joshua’s body.
“Master, at the eleven o’clock position above, the enemy’s psychic defense is weakest!”
In the mental sea, the Divine Mechanisms were also fulfilling their duties. After their bodies were temporarily assimilated by Joshua’s combat form, their job was to be responsible for areas the warrior might overlook or not have the energy to pay attention to. Just like now, Ying loudly pointed out the enemy’s defensive weak point she had found, while Lin keenly observed the abnormal energy fluctuations of the surrounding Void monsters.
“Good!”
With a simple response, the Fusion Core Heart furnace in Joshua’s chest lit up again. First red, then orange, yellow, gold, and finally blazing white. After receiving a large amount of Steel Force, the warrior, in an unprecedentedly good state, immediately activated his full power. The massive energy generated by fusion erupted from the soles of the Steel Giant’s feet, exploding. In an instant, the Steel Giant turned into a high-speed projectile traveling at a thousand kilometers per second, crashing into the weakest part of the Void monster encirclement. Along the way, all psychic barriers and flesh walls were easily pierced like cream cakes, having no effect at all.
In space, on the bridge of the fleet, there was a heated discussion about whether to continue attacking, support the Steel Giant and the second Void lifeform, or take advantage of the Void monsters’ halt to immediately perform a short-range jump to the Neptune Defense Line and prepare for defense. At the other end of the Far Light Star System, Nostradamus had also almost finished annihilating the Void monsters attacking him. As the old mage said, with his Legendary-level magic power, killing hundreds of thousands of mindless Void monsters was just pure physical labor.
However, the old mage also discovered a problem. Although the great magic he used was powerful and had a wide range, within the scope of the universe, it still seemed too small. Whether it was the water-type great magic [Extreme Deep Freeze], which could freeze all living things within a radius of several kilometers, or [Annihilation Ray], which could destroy all matter in a straight line, these were war spells on the Mycroft Continent that could destroy a city. If used properly, they could annihilate tens of thousands of troops in an instant. But in the universe, these war spells, which were known for their wide coverage, seemed somewhat petty. The slightly narrow attack range caused Nostradamus quite a bit of trouble.
But now was not the time to think about this. The old mage planned to take time later to reconstruct some new war spells. For now, he turned his head to look at the distant dark green Evil God Minion Collective, his gaze sharp.
The Void monster collective, which had been tightly clustered into a huge round ball of flesh, was no longer as stable as a dead object. Instead, it began to tremble violently. On its black, fleshy surface, large patches of festering and cysts appeared, with countless dark green fluorescent pus sloshing inside. With just one glance, Nostradamus could confirm that this was a sign that the Plague Evil God’s minions were on the verge of destruction. He had previously visited the Plague Lands under the Church of the Seven Gods and knew what these reactions meant.
At this moment, it could be seen that a certain area of the originally perfectly round Void monster collective suddenly bulged outward. Like a round ball turning into an egg, a huge semi-circular protrusion appeared on the surface of the dark green sphere. The flesh of the Void monsters showed massive cracking and festering, and large amounts of dark, rotten bodily fluids sprayed from the torn wounds. But none of this could stop the protrusion from growing higher and longer. This massive shift in power even caused a psychic disturbance on the Void monsters. In the old mage’s eyes, the originally unified psychic energy of the Void monster collective, at this moment, was like lightning that had lost its restraint, madly dispersing in all directions. This burst of light even formed a ring-shaped dark green energy halo at the edge of the Far Light Star System.
This was the final glory, and also a sign of destruction.
The next moment, a figure like a golden sun burst out from the flesh protrusion and returned to space.
“Nostradamus? You’re finally here.”
With Lin’s reminder, Joshua, who had just escaped the Void monster collective’s encirclement, immediately noticed the old mage not far away. He quickly flew over and shook his head in complaint: “You’re too slow. If the two of us had joined forces, how could these monsters have wasted so much of our time?”
This was not just a joke; it was the truth. If Joshua had a Legendary mage proficient in space-time sorcery, he could even achieve short-range superluminal strikes. Imagine: the warrior only needed to stand still, aim at a space-time gate, and throw his full-powered heavy punch, easily blasting the Void monster’s body on the other side of the gate. The old mage wouldn’t need to use any time-consuming great magic. He could simply open a few hundred or thousand ordinary space-time gates, connecting all areas where the Void monsters were, and easily assist the warrior in blasting a large group of Void monsters within seconds. Because of the nature of space-time gates, the speed of this strike was even superluminal. Void monsters charging at three-thousandths the speed of light would be as slow as time standing still, unable to even touch the two’s clothes. Who knew how simple this was?
After all, the coordinated attack of two Legendary experts would absolutely multiply their lethality geometrically.
This was the simplest of the several cooperation plans the two had discussed back on the Central Court Mother Planet. Joshua simply named it the Light Speed Fist, while the old mage insisted on calling it the Trans-Temporal Strike. In the end, it was the same thing. Besides this, the two had several other backup cooperation plans, such as ‘Space-Time Resonance Splash’. The old mage would cooperate with Joshua’s power, simultaneously spreading his fist force over a radius of dozens of kilometers for lossless resonance, giving the warrior the terrifying destructive power to pulverize dozens of miles with one punch, killing Void monsters like sweeping garbage. Another was ‘Flame Incineration’. The old mage would directly connect the heat from Joshua’s Fusion Core Heart furnace to nearby Void monsters through space-time gates for cohesive contact, instantly burning their energy cores. These methods were unimaginable and outrageous, even making the Mother Tree will, who was listening in, clap in delight.
“You directly constructed a psychic leap engine inside your body, while I need the Mother Tree’s assistance to perform a light-year leap. The gap is huge to begin with, and the energy fluctuations from your battle here also hinder my leap speed.”
Halfway through speaking, Nostradamus shook his head again. Light-year—what a novel word this was for the old mage, who had only roamed the void around a single continent, at most the Mycroft World. The distance light could cross in one second was a length the entire original world could not comprehend. And in this Starry World, the distance between countless stars was so vast that even light had to measure its journey in years. “Enough of that, Joshua. These small fry are one thing. You still haven’t told me how to deal with that big one.”
At this moment, the two Legendary experts both looked into the distance, at the area where the huge psychic eye was located. The psychic leap trap released by the Central Court fleet had disrupted the Void Mother Beast’s leap channel. Given its enormous size, it would take days to calm the channel. Until now, the Void Mother Beast had not even cleared one-twentieth of the chaotic energy within the channel. This super lifeform could only project its cold, resentful will across time and space into this star domain.
“I proposed four plans before.”
To this, Joshua, who had shrunk from his Steel Giant form and returned to his daily black-haired man form, replied dryly: “There are still only four plans now.”
“…” Painfully closing his eyes, the old mage shook his head after hearing the warrior’s direct answer. Then he opened his eyes, turned around, and looked at the other side, where the Central Court colony’s third sub-fleet was regrouping. He said somewhat helplessly: “In that case, let’s go see those Central Court soldiers first. Understand the local star system… is that the term? Understanding the local situation is definitely not wrong.”
Nodding, Joshua used his peripheral vision to glance at the Void monster collective, which had already self-destructed and decayed due to energy conflict and extreme life force consumption. This group of Evil God minions had completely lost its danger. He shrugged: “Good idea.”