Chapter 36: World Devourer
In the void, the Nature Mentor was softly conversing with her friend, the legendary magical beast Fluffy.
The legendary magical beast from some strange world, tentatively named "Fluffy," a collective consciousness lifeform, was one of the legendary monsters that had attacked when sealing the World Will Mycroft. However, unlike other hostile entities that harbored malice and sought to seize the rank of the Steel Serpent, Fluffy had come purely out of curiosity.
Born as one, one being all, this collective lifeform, representing the entire ecological circle of its own world, had lived in self-amusement for millions of years, never taking a single step outside its world. But the call of the Steel Serpent Mycroft unexpectedly aroused the curiosity of this giant beast, so it split off a subunit, traversed the cold void, and journeyed to the source of the sound to investigate.
Coincidentally, it encountered the Nature Mentor.
No battle occurred, nor any conflict. Since the Nature Mentor also walked the path of embodying an ecological circle, their life forms were similar, and the two quickly reached a consensus. After a secret discussion unknown to others, the collective lifeform split off part of its subunits to follow the Nature Mentor, helping her with research, cultivation, and combat. In return, the Nature Mentor needed to teach this giant beast wisdom and knowledge.
This was the most perfect win-win situation. From then on, Galannod no longer had to worry about only being able to exert Legendary-rank strength within the Mycroft World. As long as "Fluffy" was by her side, she was as if within her own world. Correspondingly, Fluffy could also, by coming into contact with the advanced culture and technology of Mycroft Civilization, shed its primitive ignorance and unleash its innate Legendary-rank formidable power.
Someone had once questioned whether teaching such an otherworldly legendary existence was like raising a tiger that would eventually turn on its master. But the Nature Mentor scoffed at this.
"And what else?"
Should every wild legendary existence be killed on sight?
The experts of Mycroft World weren't that idle.
The other party wasn't an entity like an Evil God, harboring pure destructive malice, nor was it an Abyss Demon that invaded and plundered everyone it saw, nor was it a natural enemy of Mycroft Civilization.
A legendary being that came with goodwill—if you could befriend it, then befriend it; if you couldn't befriend it, at least don't make it an enemy. If, in the future, this legendary giant beast wanted to turn its spear, then that would be her, Galannod's, own doing, and who else had the right to speak?
After the Nature Mentor's murmuring ended, in the void, a huge spherical root mass—a beast that looked like it was formed from countless tree roots, vines, and branches—began to transform. With the Nature Mentor's assistance, it extended six steel-wood structures resembling wings, rows of green blade-leaves neatly covering them. The next moment, the tips of the blade-leaves glowed with a hazy radiance of Nature's Force, then, like rocket nozzles, released bright energy jets.
Instantly, the beast's speed doubled, and like a green meteor, it tore through temporal rifts and starlight, traversing the territories of hundreds of worlds.
And the purpose of the Nature Mentor and the giant beast doing all this was merely to catch up with that silver star, which was silently breaking through layers of darkness and tearing through the mist of time.
"This Joshua guy, ditching me and running off so fast, and on top of that, he hasn't said a word since just now, nor has he planned to discuss the battle plan for later—is this still considered cooperation?! Even if it's because we're about to face a battle with an Evil God, there's no need to be like this!"
"Why so serious? It's not a fight to the death; we still have reinforcements!"
Flying along the trail of the silver star, Galannod was extremely frustrated. This was her first time cooperating with Joshua in battle, and she had been somewhat looking forward to it. But she never expected that Lord Count Radcliffe's combat habits were so terrible, with absolutely no sense of cooperation. After sensing the Evil God and the strange world fluctuations, he had immediately sped off at full speed, leaving her, an ally, behind.
If her own top speed weren't slow, she would likely have been left behind entirely... No wonder when she had asked Nostradamus earlier, he had just kept shaking his head, even sighing and looking at her with a complicated expression.
The two legends moved at extreme speed, and in a short time, they had already approached the temporal domain where the Evil God's fluctuations were located.
But at that moment, the Nature Mentor noticed that the silver star ahead had suddenly stopped, no longer advancing. This stop was extremely abrupt. The silver star, possessing immense mass, seemed to ignore inertia, transitioning from full speed to stillness in an instant.
"What's going on?"
She quickly had the giant beast slow down, but unlike Joshua, the Nature Mentor couldn't stop the momentum of her full-speed charge so quickly. By the time the giant beast had completely halted, she had already passed the position where the silver star had stopped.
But precisely because of this, Galannod also understood why Joshua had suddenly stopped.
It was because of these worlds before them.
At the edge of the World Star River, the stars were dim. This was the end of the spiral arm, the farthest point from the center of the Great World Maelstrom. If, at the center of the World Star River, a temporal domain might contain dozens or even hundreds of worlds, then here, the same range had at most a little over ten, or even fewer.
"Souls of all living beings..."
And now, Galannod could see these dozen or so worlds floating in the void, and couldn't help but let out an exclamation. In reality, with her strength, she could have long since embodied all living beings, becoming the soul of all life herself. It could even be said that if Galannod were willing, she could have long become a new God of Nature. But years of habit made the Nature Mentor, when surprised, still couldn't help but sigh like this.
Because what appeared before her were a dozen worlds that had completely dimmed, no longer emitting any radiance.
In the dark void were large patches of material debris, like mist. Around those dim worlds, one could see rings of material debris, similar to planetary rings, still carrying some fluctuations, with energy lightning leaping within them, bringing flickering light.
One world, in particular, seemed to have suffered such severe damage that the wounds on its barrier had not yet healed. A massive amount of crushed material was still flowing out from a pitch-black hole, like a river of matter flowing in the void.
Galannod slowly retreated back beside the silver star. She stared at these stars, each heavily damaged and turned into dead worlds, then turned her head and asked, "Did you find anything?"
"Void Behemoths."
The black-haired figure standing on the silver star didn't speak, but a grander, more shocking voice emanated from around the star. It was the voice of Joshua's main body. Waves of Steel Force swept through the surrounding void like radar, probing the reality of each world. And precisely because of this, Joshua's voice became even more suppressed and low: "A large number of Void Behemoths have appeared in groups. These worlds are the leftovers after they finished feeding... Damn it, I didn't sense it before—these Void Behemoths are abnormal!"
Setting aside the entire Multiverse, Joshua was confident that in the World Star River where the Mycroft World was located, no one could distinguish the difference between a world and a Void Behemoth more clearly than he could. But this time, even the Nature Mentor had reacted faster than him. This couldn't help but make the warrior's heart sink, and it also made him wary of the origin of this strange void.
The silver star slowly advanced, approaching the surrounding worlds. In terms of size, even the smallest world was much larger than the silver star. But in terms of mass, some of the smaller worlds had even begun to drift slowly toward Joshua's position.
Joshua paid no attention to this. He was now using his full power, employing his Steel Force vision to observe the void and the interiors of the worlds. Soon, the warrior withdrew his gaze, his expression improving slightly, but still cold and low.
"These worlds... no longer have any life."
The Nature Mentor also finished her own survey. She said in a low voice, "Three of these worlds were primitive life worlds, without any intelligent civilization, but they already had many primitive insects and plants... But now, they have been completely wiped out."
Although worlds could heal themselves, and worlds devoured by Void Behemoths wouldn't completely collapse, slowly recovering into normal worlds over the next few thousand or tens of thousands of years... Even so, the lives that had already died, the ecological circles that had just started, had been destroyed. Even if they were reborn, they wouldn't be the same as before. The Nature Mentor naturally felt regret about this and became wary of the unknown number of Void Behemoths.
"There weren't many life worlds at the edge of the World Star River to begin with. Even if there were, they had no development value."
Joshua's tone was cold. He said in a low voice, "These Void Behemoths suddenly appeared and are continuously advancing toward the area where the Evil God is. There must be a big problem here. And besides, although the worlds destroyed now have little value, what if they start to penetrate deeper into the World Star River? What if they come to the vicinity of the Mycroft World?"
The warrior turned his head to look at the world beside him. It was already pitch black, emitting no light. On its world barrier, a dense network of complex cracks had appeared. And at the center where these cracks converged was a huge, crushed wound. Even though the wound had healed, it was still extremely fragile. Energy lightning coiled and twisted around the wound, releasing an aura of destruction.
Devouring worlds—he, Joshua, had no right to condemn these Void Behemoths.
Ever since the warrior and the many legendary experts of the Mycroft World had discussed the issue of "flee or fight," he had made up his mind to become stronger at the fastest possible speed.
To this end, Joshua had relaxed some of his own restraints and began to seek out those dead worlds that had lost almost all their energy, below minus two hundred degrees Celsius, to devour their star cores.
It wasn't some mystical "absorbing the essence of heaven and earth, condensing the qi of the nine heavens." What he did was literally "swallowing the sky and devouring the earth." Joshua tore apart continents, hollowed out mantles, fished out the cores of worlds from the deepest layers of planets, and then, like eating a cake, turned the mass of a world into his own. This was how he grew stronger at an unimaginable speed.
There were differences among legends.
These differences were predetermined when they chose their path to the Legendary Realm.
In terms of the subtlety of runes, in terms of the speed of magical programming, a hundred Joshuas wouldn't be enough for Baniel to handle, and the other party would even have to use one hand to avoid making the loss too ugly.
In terms of mental cultivation, in terms of the depth of research into thought, William, who usually looked like a gentle wandering poet, could be the teacher of everyone in the entire Mycroft World.
The Nature Mentor could rewrite and create life at will. If she learned to say "Let there be light," she could go directly to a low-level civilization and act as a god. Although Israel, ever since becoming emperor, hadn't fought at full strength due to severe injuries, it was said that with his power, he could rewrite reality.
The Holy Sword Bearer, the Fishman High Priest, the Old Pope, the Dwarf God-Smith—each legend had unique abilities. They could shatter anything, even three-dimensional worlds. They could transform into myriad forms, changing everything... But they all had one weakness.
They were too exquisite.
Due to the temporal rifts caused by Space-Time Distortion, the Mycroft World, before the year 831 of the Era of Falling Stars, was still in an independent reference frame. Other worlds found it hard to enter, and they found it hard to leave. Only a few nearby Abysses and worlds could interact with each other. This narrow perspective inevitably affected the vision of most legends, causing them to unconsciously remain within the limited scope of "within one world" and "from a human perspective" when choosing their path.
The Holy Sword Bearer's two-dimensional holy sword could seal even a World Will, but how long could his sword be? Could it be longer than a continent? The Old Pope's light-speed domain might make even gods retreat, but how large could his light-speed domain be? Could it envelop a world?
The Sage of the Eastern Sea, Faina, could convert soul, matter, and energy, holding nearly perpetual motion-like, inexhaustible energy. But with her power, how long would it take to destroy a star?
Joshua was different.
In the void, the warrior took a breath.
Instantly, centered on the silver star, a massive vortex formed. All the material debris drifting around the dead worlds involuntarily drifted toward him, like leaves in a tidal current. One by one, the huge planetary rings collapsed immediately, turning into a river-like accretion disk, circling around the silver star.
And from that world whose wound had not yet healed, a massive stream of matter gushed out. This caused its wound to heal quickly while losing a large amount of matter again. And all this mass became Joshua's food, becoming the drifting mist of Steel Force around the silver star.
Joshua was different from these legendary experts. If Joshua wanted to destroy a world's ecology, to completely annihilate a world's surface, he only needed to breathe.
This was the "destructive power" he had gained by abandoning all subtlety.
"Let's go, Galannod. Compared to an Evil God, Void Behemoths are just natural disasters."
Having devoured the scattered material debris around him, Joshua raised his head, his gaze fixed on the other end of the void. "We need to understand the difference between doomsday and disaster. We're almost at the destination."
Devouring matter, even worlds—this method was far more excessive than that of Void Behemoths. So the warrior had no right to condemn them. But that didn't mean their act of destroying three life worlds could be encouraged. One thing was one thing; this had to be distinguished.
"...Alright."
Shocked by the terrifying power Joshua had displayed, the Nature Mentor pursed her lips slightly, seemingly pondering some questions. But soon, she suddenly turned her head, her expression serious.
"Joshua, the chaotic fluctuations of the Evil God have intensified again!"
"Great Khan, the fluctuations of the World Devourer have intensified again!"