Chapter 37: Meet Your Creator
Year 838 of the Falling Stars Era, November 9th, Mycroft World Northern Standard Time, 7:29 PM.
Inside the multi-dimensional array, beyond the space-time rift.
"Verification of authority passed."
When the ethereal voice of the Life God, who stood guard, rang out, Priest, who had somehow ended up following Joshua and Eagle here, couldn't help but take a deep breath.
After passing through layer after layer of twisted space-time and countless checkpoints that made one suspect they had fallen under an 'Endless Labyrinth Spell,' he finally arrived at the main core of this colossal multi-dimensional array: a completely sealed artificial alien space known as the 'Court of Annihilation.'
And the Black Mist Mother Entity was sealed at the very core of this artificial space.
The Court of Annihilation was not the final layer of defense. Beyond the outer thirty-six layers of distorted spatial barriers and one hundred and eight energy node checkpoints, numerous other peculiar measures had been added. These included a purely two-dimensional dimensional shield, a psychic subspace distortion matrix, and hundreds of neutron star collision cannons and super-gravity manipulators positioned throughout the seal, each powerful enough to blast an ordinary planet to smithereens. Priest knew this well because, to put it bluntly, those massive cannons were part of his mentor's own body.
The Black Mist Mother Entity was so dangerous, both in combat and in its sealed state. No one could be certain whether this intelligent entity, which had roamed the star rivers since ancient times, possessed some hidden trump card. All gods and Legendary beings had poured their full effort into reinforcing this seal, ultimately solidifying the entire multi-dimensional array into an ultimate prison—a cage capable of imprisoning stars and worlds. Even if the Black Mist Mother Entity were eventually destroyed and eliminated, this prison would not be destroyed. It had already gained the power of self-repair and self-energy absorption.
Priest saw his mentor and the old Pope simultaneously extend their right hands. Bright silver and golden light flickered, and instantly, the vast majority of defensive installations opened their gates for them. Even the core defensive system—the 'Divine Domain Suppression Field' established by nine deities—had a small area become transparent, allowing the three to enter and observe freely.
Priest swallowed hard. He had absolutely no idea how he, who had only intended to travel on World One, had ended up here, at the most secret and most important seal of the entire Mycroft Civilization. But now, the young man didn't even dare to ask, terrified that his voice might ruin something. So he could only hurry his steps, following Joshua and Eagle's pace, arriving at that transparent area.
And within the enveloping radiance of endless energy, at the center of the transparent seal, was an immensely vast gray-white world. It was trapped in boundless darkness, like an unblinking eyeball.
The silent Alpha Sanctuary was here, wrapped within the Black Mist Mother Entity's body, to this very day.
And today, the purpose of these two Legendary beings coming here was to strip it from the Black Mist Mother Entity.
The seal was extremely humanized. It was entirely inward-facing and would not indiscriminately destroy everything within it. That was why Priest could still walk alive on the grid-like floor made of pure energy. But his journey essentially ended here, because he saw his mentor and the old Pope simultaneously step forward, crossing into that transparent area, directly entering the interior of the seal.
And at that very moment, through the transparent section of the seal, Priest could see the Black Mist Mother Entity, which had been dormant inside the seal, suddenly erupt. It extended countless massive tentacles, lashing out rapidly towards the two!
But setting aside the fact that the Black Mist Mother Entity had been suppressed by multiple seals for half a year, even in its prime, such an attack could never cause the slightest harm to two Legendary beings. Joshua and the old Pope merely joined forces slightly, effortlessly shattering countless tentacles, causing vast swathes of black waves to collapse, turning into iron-gray necrotic particles.
Soon after, they arrived before the outer layer of the gray-white world, the Alpha Sanctuary world.
"Let me handle it."
Joshua was inside the seal but felt little pressure, as the seal was not targeting him in the first place. Additionally, his body contained a world of its own, granting him strong resistance to various restrictions and domains. "I have more experience."
"It's yours."
Eagle nodded. He was also not greatly suppressed, as his Radiant Domain itself was essentially the same kind of existence as the gods' Divine Domain Suppression.
Joshua reached out his hand and pressed it against the solidified world barrier. He exerted a slight force, and under the manipulation of extremely precise techniques, vast amounts of energy and kinetic energy transformed into overlapping space-time tremors. In an instant, a gray, unremarkable hole opened in the world's surface barrier.
The warrior entered first, then turned his head, signaling the old Pope to follow. And after both had delved deep into Alpha Sanctuary, the gray, inconspicuous space-time fissure closed, like a human wound healing, amidst a twist in space-time.
"Why did you request from the gods to separate the Alpha Sanctuary world from the Black Mist Mother Entity?"
Walking within the world barrier, in an environment of absolute secrecy, Eagle walked side-by-side with Joshua, asking in a puzzled tone. "Just let the Black Mist Mother Entity and the world it guards be buried together. It has already gone extinct. The Black Mist has protected this world for so many years, unwilling to part even in death. At least in the end, let them end together."
Though it might be called hypocritical, this was the final mercy Eagle could conceive for the Black Mist.
Joshua did not reply immediately. After a long while, as they were nearing the end of the world barrier and about to formally enter the interior of the Alpha Sanctuary world, he spoke in a low voice: "Because it hasn't gone extinct."
"It's still alive."
As the words fell, light blazed. The two traversed the immensely thick world barrier and finally arrived inside the Alpha Sanctuary world.
A crimson continent-ocean world.
A dim energy sun hung high in the sky. Evaporating water vapor permeated every part of the atmospheric dome. Smoke mixed with dust formed a thick gray barrier, shrouding the entire world's sky. It was like a thick blanket, trapping all the heat within.
Temperatures exceeding several hundred degrees, mixed with water vapor, baked every inch of the continent's land. Everything was unrecognizable scorched earth and gravel, sometimes dry, sometimes damp. Perhaps it would be shrouded by clouds of water vapor for centuries, or perhaps it would not see a single water molecule for centuries.
On this land, no life could possibly exist. Even extreme thermophiles or extreme acidophiles could never survive in this volatile and complex world.
And Joshua and Eagle descended onto a black beach near the ocean. They trod on the scorching hot gravel, watching as boiling water vapor formed high-temperature tornadoes before their eyes, raging at the edge and depths of the sea. They were like pillars supporting the sky and sea, constantly exchanging matter between the clouds and the ocean.
"...You mean to say, within this kind of world, there is life?"
Eagle stared for a long time before speaking slowly. "It's still alive?"
And just as the old Pope spoke, a black tide could be seen surging in the crimson ocean. A rust-like dark red color welled up from the depths of the seabed. A massive amount of material debris from the seabed, even the Earth's crust, spread along with a huge quantity of fine minerals. High-temperature seabed jets and volcanic eruptions ignited countless years of accumulated silt and biological remains, then sent them into the shallow seas of the ocean surface.
Countless scattered minerals had even turned the ocean red. A pungent, metallic, rusty smell stimulated the simulated neural nodes of Eagle, a photonic being, through olfactory perception.
The old Pope silently raised his head to gaze into the distance. He could see, far beyond the vast crimson sea, countless bubbles and giant waves churning. Turbid air pockets, along with immeasurable clouds of water vapor, spread towards the highest point of the sky. From a distance, it looked as if a giant cloud-being was slowly rising, its surface temperature exceeding two hundred and seventy degrees.
"This is hell."
Eagle said.
"But it is a hell with life."
Joshua replied. "Including the life from which you and I originated, any life must inevitably pass through hell."
Joshua bent down. He knelt on the coastline, personally scooping up a handful of seawater. He gazed at the complex, thick seawater in his hand, then released it back into the ocean. The warrior stood up and said seriously to the old Pope: "Not here, but at the bottom of the sea."
With that, he stepped into the sea. Joshua's figure quickly disappeared into the murky water. Eagle was momentarily stunned, then shook his head and followed him in.
After another long period of silent progress, an unknown amount of time later, the two were at the deepest part of the pitch-black, turbid, almost semi-coagulated ocean.
Large and small deep-sea hydrothermal vents were rapidly spewing heat from the Earth's core. A vast amount of inorganic macromolecular mineral structures, mixed with seawater, were ejected, forming continuous, extensive high-temperature deep-sea layers. The jet temperatures ranged from three hundred to one thousand six hundred degrees. Elements and Aether were extremely active here, and even slight element-Aether cross-discharge phenomena could be observed around the vents.
Joshua swept his gaze over these vast stretches of seabed hydrothermal vents. The pitch-black seawater could not obstruct his vision at all. After a few seconds, the warrior identified his target. He casually pointed and said to Eagle, "Look."
"That is 'life'."
The old Pope, puzzled, followed Joshua's direction and looked at that unremarkable circle of seabed thermal layer. It was a simple water layer, like a pocket, surrounded by rocks. Inside, countless high-temperature, thick, primordial soup was boiling. Eagle could see, within the sediment of this soup, a puddle containing simple organic matter—or rather, muddy water.
The simplest organic small molecules were constantly rolling under the impact of the thermal currents. They were lashed and stimulated by elemental lightning, eventually aggregating with other organic small molecules to form larger organic molecules. It was possible to see linear macromolecules like ribonucleic acid, capable of self-replication and self-growth, appearing.
"You call that life?"
Eagle initially wanted to laugh, thinking it was another instance of Joshua's misunderstood humor. But he couldn't laugh. He turned to the warrior and asked, word by word, "That?"
"This kind of thing is more like the simplest machine than life—even a wardrobe has a more complex structure!"
Joshua still did not answer immediately. After a moment, he replied calmly, "Life is a machine."
"You, me." He raised his index finger, pointing at himself, then at Eagle, and said flatly, "When you and I were still flesh and blood, there were countless machines within our bodies."
"They supply each other, absorb energy, and store it in the chemical bonds of microscopic structures. They use ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid as raw materials, as databases for recording information. They divide and reproduce, undergo metabolism. They eat, move, maintain their own existence, and use various reactions within themselves to manufacture all the molecular components they need."
"Its name is a cell, a most primitive 'machine.' And in this puddle of primordial soup before you, a miracle is taking place—the transformation of inorganic matter into organic matter, the polymerization of small molecules into large molecules. A miracle called life."
Joshua turned his head, no longer looking at Eagle, but fixed his gaze on this puddle of primordial soup. He said in a low voice, "I never expected the Black Mist Mother Entity to have gone this far."
"You mean, this life..."
The old Pope keenly noticed Joshua's muttering. Although he didn't fully understand some of the specialized terms, with his wisdom and microscopic observation abilities, he could naturally grasp Joshua's words. He immediately asked, "What did the Black Mist Mother Entity do?"
"I can see the playback of the Steel Force, the memories of this world."
In response to the old Pope's pressing question, Joshua did not answer directly. He pondered for a moment, then spoke slowly: "The truth is as you think. Alpha Sanctuary was actually destroyed long ago—along with the last survivors of the Sanctuary Civilization. But the Black Mist did not intend to give up. It tried again and again to reshape the world, to create bodies for the Sanctuary people."
"But it could not create souls. This is only natural. A pure body can indeed move, but as a high-level civilization, the Sanctuary people were born with souls. The soul was even part of their genetic organs. Without a soul, their bodies could not even be activated. And without the accumulation of time and wisdom, a soul cannot be generated by mere material movement. So the Black Mist could never resurrect the Sanctuary people."
"So?"
Eagle no longer had a heart, but he felt as if his heart was pounding wildly.
"So." Joshua answered seriously: "The Black Mist Mother Entity reverted everything to the very beginning. It reconstructed a brand new Alpha Sanctuary, then started from the original source, patiently waiting for life to emerge from this primordial ocean."
"It would spend millions of years, bit by bit, catalyzing life from macromolecular structures, influencing it into the Sanctuary people it desired. It would spend millions of years, from nothing, nurturing a complete ecosystem, a food chain!"
"To shorten this time, the Black Mist hunted Ancient Dragons, attempting to seize the power of creation. And its goal was to control the entire evolutionary process of the world, to create a brand new Sanctuary Civilization!"