Chapter 25: Soul Stars 5000
As the massive steel golem roared and shot into the dark night sky, the view began to pull back from the barren earth. The gray-yellow sandy plains stretched boundlessly into the distance, and a sinister, cold wind, different from the daytime, lingered at high altitudes.
Joshua gazed down at the earth. He could see the flickering lights of the plantation grounds below. The battle of the Siberia superhuman squad had not fundamentally damaged this puppet plantation; as long as a new team of soul puppets moved in, it would return to its original state.
Joshua looked up at the night sky. He saw countless stars twinkling through the gray, hazy dust. The starlight was dim and obscure, as if veiled behind layers of misty gauze. They flickered, releasing an unsettling light.
The starlight in any world is more or less the same, but due to their different positions in the multiverse, the stars seen from each world are not identical. However, unlike the Mycroft World, the Siberia World had no moon. In the black night sky, only thousands of points of light sparkled, without the familiar silver glow.
Of course, this minor detail wasn't the most important thing.
"The Siberia World... shouldn't have stars."
Having already risen to an altitude of eight thousand meters, Joshua continued to ascend. He passed through most of the clouds and dust, reaching the high sky where even the finest particles were absent. He stared at the twinkling silver stars above, muttering to himself in a thoughtful tone, "How could a world within the Void Great Maelstrom have stars?"
The people living in this world might not know its true situation, but the warrior understood clearly. Within a distance measured in hundreds of thousands of standard points outside the Siberia World, there was no other world. What surged through the void were vast, surging energy maelstroms. This world was an isolated island at the center of that vortex.
It shouldn't have stars. It shouldn't have starlight. The night sky of the Siberia World should be pitch black, silent as death... So then, what were those glowing points of light?
It was precisely to investigate this that Joshua had ascended to such a high altitude.
By now, the massive steel golem had reached an altitude of twenty thousand meters. At this height, Joshua could see that the points of light, which had seemed like stars, were beginning to grow larger. This proved that the warrior was no longer far from them.
At a rough glance, they appeared to be clusters of burning fireballs. Silver-blue light spread through the clear, dustless air. Joshua could feel a series of very distinct fluctuations emanating from these fireballs. The fluctuations were rough, deep, and seemed alive, yet they also felt incredibly familiar. Sensing this fluctuation, the warrior couldn't help but pause for a moment. He scrutinized the distant fireballs, his brow furrowed.
Because this was the fluctuation of a soul core.
"...What in the world is this place playing at?"
The golem paused for a moment, then started up again. The rotating steel rings accelerated, and the intangible propulsive force sent it hurtling through the high sky at several kilometers per second. With such speed, in just a few seconds, Joshua arrived beside the nearest fireball.
And when he truly arrived beside this fireball hanging in the high heavens, Joshua realized it wasn't as large as he had imagined.
It was a perfect sphere with a diameter of twenty-five meters. Its outer shell was composed of some semi-energy crystal. Inside, silver-blue flames, like liquid magma, surged and churned. Intense light radiated from within, enough to blind any living creature daring to look directly at it from several kilometers away.
A terrifying soul fluctuation, thick enough to plunge ordinary intelligent life into endless fantasies, echoed with the surging of the silver-blue flames. It resonated through the thin atmosphere with a sharp hum, carrying an ionized, burnt smell... This was a star, the true form of a star in the Siberia World.
"This thing... this object."
Seeing this colossal 'star,' a 'soul core' so massive it was hard to imagine, Joshua's human body couldn't help but take a deep breath, then slowly exhale. He stared at the silver-blue soul-light with his puppet body, and spoke in a deep voice, "Just how many souls were consumed to create this?!"
Joshua turned his head, looking at the surrounding starry sky. In the entire high sky of the Siberia World, there were at least over a thousand 'stars' bright enough to be observed. Some were invisible due to angle, overlapping light, or their own dimness. If every star was like the one the warrior now saw—a giant soul core twenty-five meters in diameter—then how many souls were needed to create this false starry sky?
Soon, Joshua calculated the answer: one such soul star required at least 1.2 million standard souls. One thousand of them would require 1.2 billion.
1.2 billion souls... meant 1.2 billion lives, plus countless more soulless Siberians as byproducts.
Joshua arrived at the answer. He remained silent. For the first time, the warrior was shocked by a number.
Across the entire Siberia continent, excluding the large steel building complex at the world's center, the number of soul puppet plantations barely exceeded one thousand. No matter how generously one calculated, the world's total population could never exceed 400 million. 1.2 billion—three times the current total population. While it could be argued that this was the accumulated result of a thousand years of farming, it was still utterly horrifying.
"Clearly, a single plantation has no more than seven hundred soul puppets. A thousand plantations, plus a few armies of hunters, at most totals a hundred thousand soul puppets. Even if there are a large number of puppets at the world's center, the number can't exceed two hundred thousand."
"Just over two hundred thousand puppets are used to rule the world and maintain order, yet the soul mass hanging in the sky exceeds one billion. No matter how I think about it, it's unbelievable."
Slowly approaching this colossal soul star, Joshua reached out his hand, wanting to touch this surging mass of soul-light. In his eyes, besides shock and anger, there was also deep confusion.
What did the creator of this starry sky intend to do?
As he asked himself this question, Joshua acted decisively. He reached out, and the massive steel golem's iron fist clenched, then swung. With a flash of silver Steel Force, he cleanly shattered the semi-energy crystal shell of this soul star, and then directly used his Steel Force to link into this cluster of bright soul-light.
And then, the warrior saw the entire Siberia World.
The 1,684 stars hanging high in the sky were interconnected at the world's highest point. On the ground, the deep blue spiral high tower... He was confident he could defeat a Legendary, let alone a true god.
Therefore, he pushed the power he possessed within the Siberia World to its limit, unleashing an energy that shook space-time, tearing the world apart.
High in the sky, a rift split the heavens.
"Gods... what... what is this?!"
On the ground, the old man holding the six-colored gem, War Chariot, trembled all over. His mind went blank for a moment after learning the function of the information contained within the gems. Of course, he knew what this meant—these were six complete, powerful superpower inheritances. They would allow the holder of the gem to ignore their innate abilities and cultivate six completely different superpowers. The silver gem represented control over metal and earth; the cyan, the creation of wind, fire, and thunder; the white, high-speed vibration; the red, radiation and explosion; the golden gem allowed for teleportation; and the black could create an energy-absorbing shield that could withstand anything.
If they could perfectly utilize the knowledge from these inheritances, the Siberia resistance would gain the power to defeat the soul puppets! And the old man knew this was only the most basic inheritance. Behind these simple diagrams were more complex and profound superpower inheritances requiring various esoteric knowledge!
Now, War Chariot had recovered from the shock of the gem's inheritance. But now, he was plunged into a new round of shock. The old man stared blankly at the high sky. Beside him, the young man Blast widened his eyes and exclaimed, "War Chariot, Invisible, look! Over there!"
No one paid attention to his words, because everyone's gaze was already fixed on the same direction, towards the sky that had become clear as the clouds scattered. Then, accompanied by a flash of intense silver light, everyone felt a chill run down their spines.
Because at the highest point of the sky, a silver pillar of light connected heaven and earth. It pierced through the clouds, stabbed through the night sky, reaching deep into the night where the limits of vision could not see...
And there, in that supreme heaven that seemed to be outside the world, a colossal rift slowly split open. On the other side of the rift, a massive, majestic, and heavy steel hand, like a mountain, was slowly reaching out. But it did not pass through the rift. Instead, outside the world, it caught that beam of light.
The eyes of the giant god gazed upon the world. He took a deep look at this world, and then let out a breath.