Chapter 26: All Things, Like a Boat Sailing Against the Current 5000
Through the connection of Steel Force, Joshua's main body instantly understood everything about the Siberia World in a single moment. He now knew that this world's problems were deeply entrenched. The Siberia resistance was far too weak, while the enemy they faced was likely a deity capable of suppressing an entire world single-handedly and driving away the Steel Serpent... Even without considering the divine power, the strength of the Soul Puppets alone would require them decades to recover and then hundreds of years to reclaim their world and rebuild order.
Joshua did not intend to interfere with these people's struggle, nor did he intend to meddle with their glory in rebuilding civilization. But he could not tolerate the mastermind behind all this sitting securely on their throne, nor could he tolerate the creator of the Soul Stars watching everything from the sidelines.
He wanted to find that person, and then end this twisted order.
And so, the Giant God breathed, turning heaven and earth as bright as day.
The rift in the high sky tore apart the connection between the world's interior and exterior, revealing the bizarre scenery of the endless Void. But due to a layer of strange, thin mist, the world and the Void were not directly connected. However, the Giant God's breath could pass straight through. The sky above the entire world had, at some unknown time, turned a silvery white. Vaguely visible crimson sparks were surging in all directions along with the boundless light. Massive clusters of silver mist and light streams rolled along the horizon like the corona ejected by the sun, resembling the surging tides of the North Sea.
Energy from outside the world instantly stole the color from heaven and earth. The silver Steel Mist carried a roar like a horn. In just a few seconds, under the dumbfounded gaze of all life in the entire world, the silver tide swept across most of the sky. It descended, falling like rain. The War Chariot watched in disbelief as the silver mist swept across the sky, absorbing dust from the surrounding atmosphere to form a vast crystalline rain. It crashed onto the earth, not hitting any living being. One could only see strange gray-black crystals rolling on the barren ground, then slowly dissipating, turning into settled dust.
In no time at all, the sky-obscuring, sun-blocking dust clouds that had plagued all life in the entire Siberia World largely dissipated. The superhumans trembled as they bent down to touch the dust, taking deep breaths of incredibly fresh air—a feeling they hadn't experienced in decades. Some murmured to themselves, some even wept uncontrollably... But this was not the end, because from the rift, another massive mass of silver mist gushed out. It stained the surrounding atmosphere like ink dripping into clean water. The thick, unimaginable Steel Force surged violently, impacting the network of false stars in the sky.
Instantly, accompanied by a low rumble inaudible to the human ear, the stars in the sky flickered, sometimes dim, sometimes bright. Then, a soul wave, vast as a tsunami, swept across the entire Siberia World, shaking all things.
Almost in the blink of an eye, all Soul Puppets were paralyzed, and the Siberia superhumans also trembled and fell to their knees.
Because an unparalleled majesty descended, like a god descending to earth, bringing destruction to judge all things.
When Joshua von Radcliffe exerted his full power, releasing his terrifying strength, turning heaven and earth upside down was merely a backhanded motion. Even a world's natural ecology would be drastically altered. The sky-obscuring dust clouds left by the apocalyptic war a thousand years ago vanished without a trace under the warrior's breath. The star array observing the entire world was instantly suppressed and crashed. This was merely a breath. If he were to truly strike, perhaps, as the Steel Serpent Carlis had said, he would completely overturn a world's order and cycle.
And in the endless silver mist, the massive puppet stood at the center of the rift. Behind it was the solemn gaze of the Giant God, and before it was the entire Siberia World. Amidst the roaring Steel Mist and energy currents, the puppet raised its hand and pointed directly at the deep blue spiral tower at the world's center.
Instantly, the mist that had been dispersing in all directions seemed to receive its master's command and began to surge towards the world's center. It swept over the chimneys spewing thick smoke and magical light, over the factories rising and falling on the horizon, over the vast expanses of metal buildings. Joshua immediately understood everything happening in that distant land.
Those were factories—factories processing souls, processing bones and skin, manufacturing Soul Puppets and all creations of the entire Siberia World. Within those grand, majestic steel structures, countless assembly-line machines operated day and night without rest. The corpses, souls, and superhuman units transported from the various enclaves by Soul Puppets were all delivered here and then sorted.
Souls of Siberia people without superpowers, like the nameless technician, were classified into one category. Their dim, weak light clusters were piled together, then stuffed like canned goods into hexagonal prisms. Their fate was to be made into various soul creations, such as storage units for information, torches for energy, and calculation units for computing power. Intricate formations operated within the perfectly refined soul industry, forging individual souls into components of society.
Souls originating from superhumans were mostly brilliant. If a standard soul was considered one, then a superhuman's soul was mostly above three. These vigorous, shining souls would be inscribed with unique runic circuits and inscriptions, made into precious soul cores. Some of these cores were used to create new Soul Puppets, some were mixed with superhuman units to create a few high-level control cores, but the vast majority were stored away to construct a brand new Soul Star.
The fusion of superhuman units and souls was extremely difficult to succeed at; fewer than one in ten had mutual compatibility. But even so, on thousands upon thousands of factory assembly lines, one high-level control core capable of being made into a superhuman puppet after another was sent to the warehouse for later use. This was a power that the Siberia resistance could not overcome even after decades of effort.
This was the supply target of the Soul Puppet enclaves, the core hub of the Soul Puppets, and the truth of this world. Under the puppet's utterly regular rule, countless Siberia people were raised and slaughtered like chickens and ducks. Of course, the Soul Puppets did not look down on any soul, nor did they look down on any Siberia corpse. They merely followed instructions and did what they were supposed to do. They did not look down on the crops they harvested; they earnestly and meticulously processed their final remains.
But this could not conceal the fact that the entire world was a farm, a field where humans were the crops. And worse, behind this farm, there might be an incredibly powerful master.
A world of eternal despair. This was Joshua's only thought. Imagine it: the lonely Siberia World in the Void Great Maelstrom, powerful Soul Puppets, a perfect farming system, and a confused, fleeing resistance. Without any external force, internal unrest could never overthrow this order. Everything was as solid and suffocating as iron mixed with ice, yet unshakably stable. If the Siberia World continued this farming, then even if tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years passed, it would never fall into chaos, nor would it self-destruct like the Famine Evil God.
Order? Of course it was order!
But Joshua could not tolerate such an order. A world without a future, not moving forward, existing merely for the sake of existing—what meaning did its existence have? Individuals did not exist; consciousness and souls were mere playthings and livestock. Cold programs were superior to wisdom. For any intelligent life, this was undoubtedly the hell of hells. Acknowledging such an order was equivalent to denying the meaning of all civilization!
The warrior was that kind of person. If you asked him what he liked, he would say a difficult challenge was best. Joshua had his own preferences. He liked to see the blood of his enemies flow at his feet, to decorate his castle with the skulls of enemy tribes. But a blazing fire burned in his heart. He did not like cold indifference, did not like looking back, did not like a world without change, as if dead. He liked change, progress, and the future. He liked challenging unpredictable fate. Suddenly, layers of red light rose from the massive puppet's body—crimson sparks dancing, crack-like patterns spreading across the steel.
If the birth of flame was because something was burning, then what was burning was surely the warrior's soul. He burned with anger, for the billions of harvested lives, for the nameless dead numbering more than billions. The surrounding high sky trembled from this boiling Steel Force. Space seemed as if it might collapse at any moment. The warrior was determined to punish everything, determined to consign this frozen, dead order to flames and ashes.
The civilization and order of the Siberia people had long since collapsed. There were no witnesses or jurors in this world. But that didn't matter. Since civilization and order were absent...
Then he, Joshua, was the court.
"Perish."
The warrior muttered to himself, his tone low and calm. But because of his words, a great uproar arose across the land. In all places covered by the silver mist, bizarre phenomena began to appear. Under the erosion of the minuscule, indistinguishable Steel particles, soil and rock melted like ice struck by hot water. The sturdy steel factories did not last much longer. One could see the grand factories rising and falling in the world's center shaking and collapsing under the waves of silver mist. One could hear the continuous sounds of impact and collapse from the earth.
This was a technique Joshua had learned from the Black Mist. His Steel Force was in no way inferior to the highest creations of the Sanctuary Civilization in terms of erosion. Now, this terrifying method was used against the warrior's enemies.
In an instant, dozens of factories were reduced to dust under the erosion of the silver mist. Other large Soul Puppet bases could not escape the fate of being swallowed by Steel Force. As the silver dust mist spread like a literary plague, the entire world's center was obscured. Only the enclaves raising large numbers of Siberia people were spared. Those were enemies the resistance would have to defeat themselves in the future; Joshua would not overstep his bounds.
At this moment, the resistance in the southwestern part of the Siberia continent could clearly observe that there were no more clouds in the entire sky. Only a thousand stars and the Milky Way spanning the stars shone. And within the Milky Way, a terrifying, awe-inspiring power was surging. The primordial force originating from the world's genesis was brewing its next wave of attack. The steel puppet residing in the middle of the sky swung its arm. It had already destroyed most of the steel building clusters in the world's center. But the warrior was still unsatisfied. He fixed his gaze on the deep blue tower.
"Calm down! Don't panic! First, maintain the team's order!" In the resistance's stronghold, several white-haired but robust old men were shouting loudly to calm the surroundings. They frowned, using clear voices to settle the superhumans panicking from the various phenomena. "It's just the sky glowing, what's there to be afraid of! We escaped from the Soul Puppets' hands, not to tremble before something!"
"Pick up your weapons, pack your bags! Protect your families, maintain our formation! Start moving now, we'll take shelter in the barren mountains!"
As soon as these old men, clearly the leaders of the resistance, spoke, the entire group was calmed. They were like pillars holding up the sea. No matter how great the storm outside, they could make the resistance feel at ease. Hearing their words, the entire resistance quickly settled down from the commotion. Then, they transformed into a mighty procession, heading towards the desolate mountains in the world's south.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh." And in the world's center, from the gaps in the buildings shrouded by silver mist, suddenly flew out thousands of strangely shaped aircraft. They darted through the mist, with a translucent light shield on the outside temporarily blocking the erosion of the dust mist. These flying shuttles, like those with wings, fired a series of cannon fire and missiles into the air, shaking the atmosphere. One could even hear the faint hum of crystal vibration—the sound of a series of high-energy beam generators activating.
Instantly, countless cannon fire and beams struck the high sky together. The weapons placed on the ground by the Soul Puppets also all opened fire. The incredibly powerful energy currents even shattered the thin silver mist, shooting directly towards Joshua in the high sky. They seemed to want to shoot down the giant puppet in the center of the sky, ending everything that was shaking the world.
But suddenly, a storm arose, howling and swirling the atmosphere, sweeping across all the cannon fire and beams. The fierce wind, mixed with silver and red, erupted with incredibly powerful energy currents, annihilating all physical and non-physical attacks. It even descended to the earth, causing countless rocks and soil to fly up. Even the surface crust was shaken by it. A small mountain was directly leveled, becoming a huge depression.
Joshua watched all this coldly. He watched the silver mist erode the Soul Puppet factories, watched the fierce wind sweep the land, turning mountains and buildings into nothing. The warrior waited for a counterattack from the power behind the Soul Puppets, but he did not receive one. The mastermind seemed to still be asleep, showing no reaction to Joshua's destruction.
Since that was the case, the warrior controlled his power and decisively gathered it towards the deep blue spiral tower standing at the world's center.
One could see factories being leveled, buildings being shattered, the world shaking under Joshua's power. Tornadoes and earthquakes raged in the continent's center. Everything seemed like the end of the world. The impregnable Soul Puppet fortresses were completely destroyed. And now, the tower was about to face the same fate as the factories and fortresses. The Steel Force, eroding all things, swept through like mist, turning everything to ashes.
But just as the silver mist touched the surface of the deep blue spiral tower...
An invisible wave, centered on the tower that pierced the clouds and sky, caused layers of ripples to spread. It formed one concentric circle after another in the atmosphere, endlessly expanding. An incredibly complex, mysterious, dreamlike radiance diffused, causing the wind around the entire tower to stagnate.
The Steel Mist froze in place. The storm also stopped its surge. If one had vision above the Ultimate-rank, they could clearly see that the layer of Steel Mist closest to the tower was less than ten micrometers away from its surface. But this distance of less than ten micrometers was now like the gap between heaven and earth, because the entire world had stopped here!
In the distance, the rapidly advancing Siberia resistance was still racing across the wilderness, but everyone was frozen in place. Their faces were tired, showing expressions of worry and fear. Even the leading white-haired old men looked uneasy, only forcing themselves to stay calm. One could see the rising dust beside them frozen in mid-air, like a painting called 'Migration.'
In the Soul Puppet enclaves, a large number of Soul Puppets were gathering. Their pre-set programs activated, beginning war preparations. Countless previously sealed weapons were taken from armories and equipped on their bodies. But now, they too were frozen in place, maintaining a tense pre-battle posture.
In the world's center, amidst the collapsed factories and buildings, one could see industrial assembly lines and giant puppet facilities that had been mostly decomposed and eroded. Some were left with only skeletons, some had collapsed foundations and were about to crumble. But everything, like mosquitoes and ants in amber, was frozen in the stagnant air, maintaining a posture of about to fall but not falling.
Everything stopped. Time seemed to stand still.
No, 'Time' had already stopped.
Then, a dreamlike light wave shimmered. It was the only thing that could move in this frozen world. It seemed not to exist in the material world at all, merely an afterimage. And accompanying the surge of this afterimage, time began to flow backward.
The silver mist rolled back. The collapsed buildings stood again. The factories returned to their original state. The tornadoes dissipated into nothing. The resistance that had marched into the wilderness returned to their camp. The falling crystalline rain, like a reversed video, showed countless dust particles on the ground condensing into gray-black crystals, flying backwards into the sky, and then decomposing into countless hazy dust clouds in the sky. And in the high sky, the rift torn by the warrior slowly closed. Everything returned to normal. The network of stars returned to normal. The array observing heaven and earth resumed operation.
Even the giant steel puppet was no exception. It slowly descended, falling from the highest heavens back to mid-air. The light that pierced the heavens and earth retracted from the sky and returned to its palm... Everything seemed as if nothing had happened. Everything seemed like an illusion in a dream.
The hands of the clock turned counterclockwise. The river of fate flowed backward. All things, like a boat sailing against the current, were constantly pushed back... And then, just like that.
Returned to the time of the past.