Chapter 34: Decay
Hum!
An arrow instantly split the air, piercing the skull of a magical beast lurking behind a bush, pinning it dead in its tracks. The powerful penetration lingered, causing the arrow's tail to tremble incessantly.
This magical beast was not small; one could vaguely discern the outline of a giant lizard, with clear signs of otherworldly blight on its spine. Even with the arrow through its brain, it struggled wildly for dozens of seconds before slowly dying. Its thrashing stirred low growls from other magical beasts elsewhere in the forest, as if issuing threats and warnings.
Ignoring these growls, Su Er cautiously scanned her surroundings. She held a simple elven hardwood bow in her hand and nocked another bone arrow with practiced ease.
The elven girl, familiar with the movements of various magical beasts and wild animals in the forest, now understood that the woods were far more dangerous than usual. Many magical beasts that normally lurked deep in the forest had awakened, roaming the woods now, venting their bloodthirsty urges.
Fortunately, as always, no matter how ferocious these beasts were, they dared not approach the sacrificial holy mountain… but the mountain's deterrent wasn't very effective. Once these magical beasts gathered into a horde and the last shred of reason in their minds was drowned by the group's frenzy, they would charge without hesitation—even into an abyss, let alone a holy mountain.
But why?
Su Er felt puzzled.
Beast hordes surging into a tide was a rare event in the long history recorded by the Watcher elves, occurring only a few times. Each beast tide was preceded by clear omens: blood rain falling from the nine moons, coastal tsunamis, earthquakes, or thunderstorms across the land.
After these omens ended, it would take another seven or eight days for the beasts, gathered due to various anomalies, to form a tide, destroying everything around them through constant infighting.
But had any omens appeared just now? An earthquake? Yes, but beasts couldn't react that quickly.
"Miss Su Er, based on your experience, when do you think these beasts will start attacking us?"
The voice of the alchemist came from beside the pondering elven girl. Su Er turned slightly to look at this teammate of Priest's.
At that moment, the four members of the elite squad were rapidly setting up a position.
The spellcaster deftly used stone-to-mud and mud-to-stone spells, forming the rough outline of a fortress at the mountain's base. The clergy calmly inserted small crystal pillars into the fortress's foundation, using holy light to unify them into a whole. The knight was assembling various strange parts in the rear. In just over ten minutes, a crude, inverted trapezoidal fortress about eight meters high had taken shape.
"I'm not sure. We've never encountered similar omens before."
Su Er shook her head, nimbly jumping onto the fortress's arrow platform. After shooting another magical beast dead from a distance, she said slowly, "But if I had to guess, we have about an hour or two of buffer time. The strong magical beasts will eat the weak ones first. Once they're full, they'll have the strength to go mad."
The alchemist nodded slightly. He turned to loudly inform his companions of the estimated preparation time, then glanced at Su Er, who had just shot and pinned a magical beast trying to approach, and then at the still-silent Aklafa Hub.
"The captain's got good taste," he thought silently.
Elves were mostly slender and frail, and with their handsome features, anyone would instinctively think of them as 'delicate.' But this was a complete illusion. Elves living in the forest, moving among the trees, surpassed humans in strength, agility, and endurance.
And Su Er was undoubtedly a standard elf. The usually cheerful girl now wore a hint of a hunter's fierceness on her face. Her green hair was tied into a ponytail flowing behind her, and her golden-green eyes narrowed slightly as she precisely located every prey in the forest. The elf's slender build didn't make Su Er appear weak or gentle; instead, with her longbow, agile movements, and the streamlined figure wrapped in hunting gear, she evoked the image of a dangerous and graceful leopard.
If the alchemist didn't prefer the organs of a real magical beast leopard over a leopard-like beautiful girl, he might have tried to pursue her.
Just then, abruptly, the transparent barrier around the entire Aklafa Hub, which had been rejecting all outsiders, vanished in an instant. At the same time, the door that had closed as soon as Priest entered reopened. A figure, enveloped in a restorative pillar and seemingly about to collapse, appeared at the entrance.
"Priest!"
The first to react was Su Er. She instinctively ran toward that figure. With the barrier gone, no force prevented her entry, so the elven girl quickly reached Priest, who was on the verge of unconsciousness, and immediately reached out, as if to help him up.
"Captain!"
The rest of the squad followed Su Er, seemingly wanting to help support Priest alongside her, but he refused.
"Don't come close… The restorative pillar is now filled with surging information streams—it's dangerous!"
Perhaps because of his companions' presence, Priest perked up a bit. He leaned against the hub's door to stand up, then said weakly, "Don't stay outside. Come in quickly. I've obtained the hub's authority!"
With that, Priest turned and walked toward the hub's interior. The five exchanged glances and then hurriedly followed Priest's steps.
"Clark, Wayne, Constantine, Sade, and Su Er, this isn't the time for jokes. Everything I'm about to say is true."
As they entered the hub, Priest said in a somewhat hoarse voice, "It's not as we guessed earlier—it's not that a Radiant Civilization ruin was built on this world. The entire world is the ruin of Radiant Civilization!"
"They created an entire world and sealed an evil god within it!"
Su Er didn't understand what Priest was saying, but the other four, after a moment of shock, felt a chill run down their spines.
"Wha… what? You're not jo—" The spellcaster instinctively shook his head to question it, but recalling Priest's initial emphasis, he swallowed the word 'joking.' The expressions of the clergy, knight, and alchemist were equally vivid.
By then, Priest had already activated the auto-navigation system, letting the automatically speeding energy shield carry everyone toward the hub's core. He didn't waste words but continued seriously, "Over six thousand seven hundred years ago, nine legendary experts of the Radiant Era captured a severely wounded and weakened evil god. Among those nine legends was a saint's disciple. Using the power of the saint and the gods, she created a world to bind it."
"Wait, six thousand seven hundred years ago?!"
Hearing this, the most knowledgeable spellcaster among them couldn't help but speak again: "But wasn't that war just over a thousand years ago? And if they could severely wound it, why not completely destroy this evil god?"
"Time isn't absolute; it's relative."
Priest turned back to look at the spellcaster, his tone weary. He had gained a vast amount of Radiant Era knowledge from the hub's database and knew this wasn't impossible. As for his companion's other question, he patiently explained, "As for why they didn't destroy it, it's simple: keeping it alive brought greater benefits to the Radiant Era."
"This evil god can convert chaos and order."
Outside the Aklafa Hub, in the pitch-black night sky, nine crimson moons flickered with eerie light. One could see that the long-dead giant beast corpses had begun to slowly, eerily writhe. Large chunks of flesh and blood fell from their wounds, plummeting toward this trembling world.
The flesh and blood of the nine moons contained an incredibly dense aura of chaos. The blood they shed even formed a rain that swept over half the world, evenly and uniformly covering every patch of land. But strangely, from the earth itself rose ripples of chaos. These ripples decayed matter, lowering energy levels. When the two seemingly similar yet fundamentally different chaotic forces touched the ground, they began to rapidly weaken and cancel each other out, eventually turning into countless muddy streams that swept across the land.
And the nine moons' flesh and blood, far larger than before, fell from the sky like mountain peaks, pressing down on the constantly writhing crustal veins, gradually suppressing the unknown things squirming beneath the earth. These seemingly terrifying masses of flesh, shrouded in hazy black mist, writhing tentacles, and jointed limbs, after the two chaotic forces weakened and canceled each other, gradually transformed into pure Steel Force prototypes, then decayed into ordinary material particles.
Blood rain and giant beast flesh fell continuously, triggering terrifying earthquakes across the land. For a time, except for areas sheltered by the Mother Tree of Life, every region was nearly invaded. Yet this mutual chaotic assault from both sides ultimately caused no harm.
The soil became fertile, mountains multiplied, the earth's rocky crust grew thicker and stronger. After chaos was weakened by chaos, it transformed into the first seeds of order—the prototypes of Steel Force.
"This evil god, named 'Decay,' is recorded in no scriptures. Only the database within the Aklafa Hub contains partial information about it."
Outside the control room, Priest opened three crystal doors. He said in a low voice, "Its power is the decay of all things."
"Uranium decays into lead-uranium, lead-uranium decays into iron and stone. High-energy arcane power gradually loses energy, turning into more basic elements and aether. This process would normally take billions of years, but the Decay Evil God can accelerate it to a mere instant."
"No shield can block this evil god's attacks. No attack can harm its true body, because before it, any defense, no matter how solid, any attack, no matter how powerful, is merely something that grows fragile over time. It can even reverse the growth of life, temporarily turning powerful legendary experts into children."
Saying this, the three crystal doors opened. Priest turned his head to glance at Su Er, who hadn't understood but was still listening attentively, then said softly, "Wisdom, civilization, and the ability to think are no exception… The Decay Evil God can affect the carriers of memory, causing knowledge to be lost, civilization to regress, and even the drive to think to gradually fade, until it becomes a mass of dead flesh with only instinct—or not even that."
"This was something the Radiant Era only discovered over a thousand years later… and by then, it was too late."
"Hey, isn't that invincible?!"
Following Priest into the control room, the knight couldn't help but exclaim in shock, "How can there be such a cheap ability? How was such a strong evil god captured and sealed?!"
"Actually, the Decay Evil God isn't strong."
Priest sat back down in the control chair, closed his eyes, and issued commands to the Aklafa Hub. Then he said slowly, "You could even say it's very weak—it was driven back by fewer than ten legends. Only the Plague Evil God is probably weaker. Having a powerful ability doesn't mean being powerful itself. The Decay Evil God's own foundation is weak; it can't fully leverage its uniqueness."
"Moreover, the Decay Evil God's ability also affects itself."
At this point, Priest sighed and shook his head: "The power of chaos eroded chaos itself, causing chaotic decay to transform into a strange power between order and chaos. This power can be converted into the Steel Force that creates worlds."
Fire burns chaos, forging it into steel. Steel gives birth to all things, beginning life and death. Life ends, death rusts, ashes scatter into the void. Chaos recondenses, fire rises from embers. The cycle repeats, endless and unceasing.
Instantly, all members of the elite squad recalled the inscription engraved on the core building of the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground.
The First Flame burns the chaotic void, transforming it into primordial Steel Force. Steel Force coalesces, forming worlds and all things.
But since existence exists, so does destruction. All things naturally have life and death, even worlds are no exception… And the wreckage after a world's destruction recondenses in chaos, while the flame also reignites from the ashes, recreating the world. This is the cycle of the multiverse, an unceasing rotation.
The Decay Evil God decayed itself, accelerating the speed of this ash recondensation by countless times.
No one could know how to convert chaos into order, because no being could observe the nirvana at the end of the multiverse's life—at least for this young multiverse, estimated to be about 1.6 billion years old.
But the Decay Evil God managed it.
This gave the Radiant Era an opportunity to glimpse the secret of the conversion between order and chaos.
"I've never really understood this."
Hearing this, the usually taciturn clergy couldn't help but speak. He lowered his head, looking at the metal floor, and said in a puzzled tone, "Since the ancestors of the Radiant Era believed that the cycle of order and chaos was so natural… then why do evil gods exist?"
"After a world is destroyed, all things fall into chaos, and the extinguished flame reignites from the embers… This is a perfect cycle. But evil gods are not like that. They wield the power of chaos yet follow the action principles of orderly life. They destroy countless civilizations and worlds, like reapers… or as if they want to accelerate the process of order's cycle."
"…Who knows. Don't try to guess chaos."
Priest was silent for a moment, then shook his head: "We're just an ordinary Gold-rank exploration squad. Thinking about such things only troubles ourselves. More importantly, we have more critical tasks to do."
Saying this, Priest controlled the Aklafa Hub and issued the final command: "Prepare the Anti-Chaos Order Field… Begin full-area purification!"
Instantly, with his command, the entire Aklafa Hub began to rumble into operation. Centered on the silver metal mountain, endless free energy was stripped away, gathered, and then transformed at the mountain's peak into a colorless, transparent light pattern. Its mere existence caused all the frenzied magical beasts within several miles to stop their attacks on each other. An unparalleled pressure was gathering above the Aklafa Hub.
And the next moment, the light pattern shattered.
An illusory ripple, like a tsunami, spread outward, covering areas dozens or even hundreds of miles away.
"Aaaah—"
Suddenly, Su Er, who had been standing beside Priest, let out a painful scream. She knelt on the ground, even dropping her bow. Noticing this, Priest quickly tried to get up to help, but remembering that he was still wrapped in the restorative pillar, which still contained surging information streams, he instinctively stopped.
Can't touch her.
But soon, as streams of black gas detached from the wound of chaotic erosion on Su Er's back, her screams gradually weakened. The elven girl fainted.
One could see that the chaotic erosion on her back, though not completely gone, had noticeably faded.
"It's fine. The chaotic erosion at her spine stimulated the nerves, causing her to faint."
The clergy beside her didn't forcibly lift Su Er either. He just used holy light to check her condition, then took out a bedroll for the unconscious elven girl to lie on. He said with some confusion, "Strange. Since the hub has a purification field, why did those elves bother with a sacrificial ritual?"
"Because the energy consumption is too high. Killing a few people is more cost-effective than activating the anti-chaos field."
"Then why use it now…"
"Because there's no 'later.' How long do you want to stay here?"
Retorting to the clergy, Priest looked at the elven girl's condition and decided not to wake her. He silently turned around and used the Aklafa Hub's observation array to look at the distant elven camp. The purification field easily calmed the nearly erupting beast tide and also enveloped the camp.
"Su Er, not just you, but the entire Watcher tribe."
He muttered to himself, his gaze full of determination.
You shouldn't stay in this world, in this prison… You've been jailers for six thousand seven hundred years. You shouldn't gradually become prisoners under guard.
I will take you to see a broader world, and I will take these elves, along with the bones of countless sacrifices, home—back to our homeland.
Then, he issued a second command to the Aklafa Hub.
"Activate the hyper-time-space communication system! Begin full-frequency wide-area information transmission!"
…Far away…
The world fleet and Joshua both shuddered simultaneously.
"…Coordinates… Chaos warning… Emergency situation… Come quickly…"
After silently listening to the information, carried by time-space fluctuations and highly resistant to decay by chaotic forces, Joshua couldn't help but chuckle: "These little ones are interesting."
It seemed that even if they hadn't come looking for them, they could still send information back to Mycroft and thus escape.
On the other side, the Nature Mentor, who was tracking the source of chaotic fluctuations in the void alongside Joshua, asked curiously, "What? Is that the information from the missing exploration team?"
"Exactly, it's them."
Having collected all the wide-area broadcast information, Joshua analyzed it for a moment, then nodded slightly, his expression turning serious: "But the situation isn't as good as I imagined. To be precise, it's very bad."
"They're in the same place as the source of the chaotic fluctuations—they're right beside the evil god!"