Chapter 40: The Demon's Resolve
It was like being torn apart by a thousand gales high in the sky, or experiencing ten thousand earthquakes deep underground—this was the sensation the warrior felt at this moment.
The intensely powerful light and energy impact emitted by Haier Mu swept across the entire abyss, but astonishingly, aside from producing a blinding glare and the high heat that melted the rocky islands, it did not generate the truly devastating power of a supernova. Yet even so, Joshua was still severely wounded.
His mind was a blank slate, with only a strong sense of crisis echoing within. Joshua's will wavered unsteadily, as if being torn back and forth by fierce winds—the ring-shaped impact of Haier Mu's transformation was not merely a physical attack but also a spiritual one. The warrior's soul, originally solid and unbreakable, was nearly blown out of his body. If he hadn't learned a bit of Faina's Essence-Soul Conversion back then, strengthening the connection between body and soul, his soul might have been expelled from his body at this moment, scattering into oblivion in the endless energy storm.
Fortunately, that didn't happen. But even so, Joshua's mind was clouded by the shaking of his soul, making it difficult to think. At this moment, he couldn't perform any coherent actions, only sensing that the ball of light formed by Haier Mu's all-out sacrifice was still violently cutting into his chest... Cutting? If it were cutting, he should have been split in half by now. Degenerate matter wasn't indestructible; any attack with sufficient energy could destroy that shell made of white dwarf matter.
What... am I... even... doing...? A faint consciousness flickered in the depths of his mind.
Right... I am... facing... an enemy!
Behind Joshua, the Demon Lord Saruka was just a hair's breadth away from having its soul scattered. The Insect Demon felt its soul had already left its body, though the connection wasn't fully severed. At this moment, it had no mind to interfere with the warrior; instead, it frantically struggled to re-fuse its soul with its body—if Joshua hadn't blocked most of the residual shockwave, its consciousness would have been dispersed long ago, leaving it a soulless lump of flesh.
After barely pulling its soul back into its riddled body, Saruka quickly reinforced the connection between the two. Now, it finally had the energy to think about what had just happened... Haier Mu had transformed into a form it had never seen before and charged at Joshua. The warrior blocked it, but Haier Mu's sudden assault caused Joshua's defenses to fail. They collided, and Saruka lost most of its consciousness until now.
"That human... should be dead by now, right?"
Although Joshua's body still appeared intact, he had stopped moving. Saruka couldn't help but entertain this guess: after all, Haier Mu's unknown attack could target the soul. Maybe Joshua's soul had already dissipated from facing the impact head-on?
That would be just perfect... If given a second chance, Saruka would never choose to fight Joshua. The existence of that despair-inducing giant god was itself a nightmare. The Insect Demon Lord now wanted to return to the Sixth Abyss and advise His Majesty the Demon King never to target the Mycroft World again. This world was not something they could touch; they should learn to fear.
Just as Saruka was beginning to feel at ease, suddenly, the Steel Giant moved.
"What, what?!"
The giant's four arms suddenly trembled slightly. Soon, those arms, capable of crushing the shells of legendary monsters and as heavy as four mountains pressing down, regained mobility. Though they still seemed a bit stiff, they were undoubtedly operational. Saruka's heart was now filled with despair and terror. It had never imagined that Joshua's soul hadn't been blown away by that unknown light stream!
The next moment, silver flames began to flicker on the four arms. Gradually, saw-like flames started burning on the surface of the arms.
Joshua still hadn't fully regained consciousness. His soul was still being violently impacted, causing dizziness and making it hard to think. The vertigo echoed deep within his soul... If it were an ordinary person, they would have already fallen into an illusion of past memories, reliving every moment of their life from childhood to adulthood. They might even become trapped in a trap constructed by their own soul, remaining ensnared for centuries, never waking.
Joshua was almost the same, but he still moved. Under Saruka's trembling gaze, the four arms raised, gathered strength, and then swung down fiercely.
Because, even if he lost consciousness, even if his soul was shaken, even if he had no idea what he was doing, even if his faint consciousness could only flicker like a fragile spark in the sea of spirit, the warrior was still a warrior. His body still remembered. The faintest flow of consciousness made the steel body understand its mission at this moment.
That was to slay the enemy.
"Boom!"
The four arms pressed together like blades, resolutely chopping toward the ring of light before him. Even the intense light comparable to a supernova explosion couldn't stop Joshua's strike. His hand blades heavily struck the ring of light formed by Haier Mu's transformation, and then... passed through it.
"Buzz!!"
Accompanied by the ring's vibration, an even stronger wave came. This time, not only Joshua but even Saruka felt its mind go completely blank. When it regained consciousness, the Insect Demon Lord could see that the surface of Joshua's front body was beginning to peel away, turning into burning steel fragments.
But thanks to this impact, Joshua's soul also regained some normal thinking ability. He stared at the ring of light continuously impacting his body and the fragments scattering from his surface, finally understanding Haier Mu's attack method.
It was particle acceleration impact pushed to the extreme.
Haier Mu was now burning its soul—it had staked its soul, body, and all its dignity, turning its legendary body into a pure particle accelerator, then transforming into a spiraling ring of light charging at him. In other words, Haier Mu used its own body and soul as ammunition, exchanging an irreversible suicide attack for severe damage to Joshua.
At the moment of impact, countless soul particles belonging to Haier Mu turned into a gale piercing consciousness, trying to blow Joshua's soul out of his body and then tear it apart completely. At the same time, the material particles composing its body, accelerated to the extreme, impacted the warrior's tempered steel body, 'eroding' his form.
Countless material particles collided, split, and fused at the microscopic level at high speed. They transformed their forms in incomprehensible ways, turning into various heavy elements: the Steel Force fragments now peeling off Joshua were no longer Steel Force. They were gold, carbon, iron, platinum, and lead—the elements of all things in this world! Like nebulae scattered into the universe after a supernova explosion, they were blown to every corner of the Bloodmoon Abyss.
In that instant, Joshua finally understood the essence of primordial creation: it was to combine them from the most microscopic perspective, like building blocks. But now was not the time for enlightenment. Since he had seen through the enemy's attack, the time for counterattack had come.
"Phew—Demon Haier Mu."
The warrior let out a long breath. He felt his soul was both unprecedentedly weary and unprecedentedly elevated. Silver light shone in Joshua's eyes. His four arms clenched into fists, and an unparalleled magnetic field and gravitational force began to converge—compared to pure physical impact, this was an attack that could truly distort and destroy particle acceleration. Joshua stared at the ring of light before him, which had completely lost self-awareness and was only continuously impacting him based on its final command, and spoke words of praise: "You are a true warrior."
"I admire your resolve."
With these words, Joshua van Radcliffe spread his four arms and swung them heavily toward the indescribable, formless 'ring' that had accelerated its own soul and matter to the extreme. The four fists moved against the light, cutting through layers of shadow. They shattered space, but what they were about to break was not the enemy's attack, but its soul, its body, and the resolve poured into everything.
In the world that had become nothing but light, a sound of shattering suddenly came.
Saruka perceived all this. It still hadn't understood the essence of Haier Mu's attack—but it was stunned. The Insect Demon Lord knew that Haier Mu's final desperate strike had completely failed. Their enemy still existed.
They had failed.
In the Bloodmoon Abyss, the all-illuminating intense light gradually faded.
The high heat that had burned away all air and everything also dissipated, leaving only a red sphere that had turned into a molten rock floating in midair.
Within a radius of hundreds of kilometers centered on the battlefield, there was nothing left except the various heavy metal particles produced by the collapse of Joshua's surface body. At this moment, the warrior's steel body had shrunk by a third, and his four arms were reduced to mere skeletons. From soul to body, Joshua had suffered a rather heavy blow.
The Bloodmoon quickly extended thousands of light pillars, falling toward Joshua—because of Haier Mu's impact earlier, its connection with the warrior had been severed. Now, seeing Joshua's abnormal state, it wanted to help him recover, but Joshua waved his hand to block these light pillars. He shook his head and refused: "Forget it, no need."
"I can't stay here forever—I can't really become your lord."
"Ring?!" Hearing this reply, the Bloodmoon flickered with light. After a moment of hesitation, all the light pillars were withdrawn. It seemed angry, but Joshua didn't care—at this moment, he held a semi-transparent crystal in his hand, and before him, hundreds of similar crystals floated in the air, then turned into fragments drifting away with the wind. Vaguely, the shape of a thousand-eyed giant serpent could be seen twisting in the wind.
These were the spiritual fragments left after Haier Mu burned out. Vaguely, memories of the Demon Lord's past could be seen flickering within these crystals. In the abyss, these were priceless soul gems, containing the life experiences of a powerful being and the final crystallization of its condensed will.
With the force of his five fingers, Joshua crushed the largest soul crystal of Haier Mu in his hand. His eyes were filled only with indifference—precisely because he admired it, he had to destroy it completely. The demon's resolve was humanity's great calamity. To annihilate the enemy meant leaving nothing behind, not a single trace. Whether it was the enemy's spirit or existence, everything had to be completely erased.
Three hands reached for the spiritual fragments left by Haier Mu, while the other hand reached behind, grabbing at the dazed Saruka's insect cocoon. The Insect Demon Lord was also a very tenacious enemy, after all, not everyone could be as resolute as Haier Mu. Joshua didn't intend to kill it outright but planned to capture it and hand it over to William to extract its soul and inquire about the secrets of the Sixth Abyss. Just as he was about to grab Saruka, suddenly, a deep black spatial ripple flickered. A silent and furious will crossed the boundary. It tore through space and forcibly snatched Saruka from Joshua's hand—and it wasn't satisfied, reaching for the remaining spiritual fragments of Haier Mu.
Because Joshua's soul and body had both suffered severe damage, he was stunned for about a tenth of a second at first. A tenth of a second might sound short, but for a legendary powerhouse, it was enough to fight several rounds. In that brief moment of hesitation, most of Haier Mu's spiritual fragments were collected by the other party. Joshua immediately reacted: "It's you!"
"Demon King Goliath!"
Without a doubt, the one who had now saved Saruka was the Lord of the Sixth Abyss, the King of Demons, the Gluttony Demon King Goliath! It had somehow broken through the interception of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, forcibly arrived in the Bloodmoon Abyss, and snatched the Insect Demon Lord from Joshua's hands! It even intended to take Haier Mu's remains.
How could Joshua allow the other party to so easily take the spoils of war from his grasp? In an instant, the warrior returned to a combat state. He took a step forward, intending to punch through time and space, sending the Abyss Lord's damned tentacles back to its home, but a beam of light moved faster than Joshua's iron fist!
"————————!"
Within the Bloodmoon, the massive light humanoid emitted an indescribable sound. It was furious, because the will of another abyss had invaded its territory. This was far more infuriating than Joshua refusing to become its lord.
A pillar of light fell from the zenith of the sky, directly striking the black spatial ripples. Instantly, time and space trembled, and large swaths of space shattered, making the entire world look like a spiderweb.
"—Consider this your win this time!"
A muffled groan could be heard from the other side of space. Even a Demon King couldn't contend with the will of the Bloodmoon Abyss and a legendary powerhouse after crossing two layers—the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground and the world barrier. As large swaths of space shattered and healed, it could be seen that a small half of the insect cocoon and nearly half of the spiritual fragments remained in place. Although the light humanoid hadn't completely blocked the Demon King of the Sixth Abyss, it had still retained quite a few spoils.
Fragments of light danced in the air. The memories of the Demon Lord drifted away with the wind. Joshua gazed at all this, his form gradually shrinking until he returned to his normal size. The warrior took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.
This was war.