# Chapter 40: More Terrifying Than Chaos - 6000
The Great Khan could not hear what Joshua said.
Or rather, it heard but could not understand, and even if it understood, it would have no meaning.
When it discovered that the terrifying silver giant before it had suddenly lit up two inconceivable energy points, releasing an absolutely terrifying and powerful electromagnetic radiation, the Great Khan knew that an impact far more fierce than before was about to descend. This strike made it feel genuine threat, so without any hesitation, it began to directly gather all its power, stacking up its strongest defense.
The Star Shepherds were a race that rebuked Void Behemoths, forcing them to carry worlds on their backs. They possessed one of the most profound world-shaping technologies in the entire multiverse, along with powerful soul and magical techniques. As the supreme and unparalleled Great Khan of the Star Shepherds, it naturally possessed power beyond all eight-legged fungi.
Accompanied by a piercing spatial warping sound that only those with transcendent perception could hear, the enormous and ferocious Void Crab with its sturdy giant pincers began to shear space. Using its own mass, it created densely packed spatial grooves in front of itself, each groove filled with nearly materialized magical energy. In merely a brief moment, less than a second, the Great Khan used space as a formation base to create a thin layer of 'world' and 'world barrier' in front of itself.
This planar world was simple and narrow. Apart from the world barrier, there was only a thin bottom surface. If such a world truly existed in the multiverse, the races living in it would be like ants—though living in three-dimensional space, they would never have the concept of three dimensions. This temporarily created world, which would be destroyed in an instant, was essentially an extremely sturdy shield. To break through it, one must possess the power to shatter a world.
But an instant was also too long.
So long that after the Great Khan shaped this world, it had no time to do anything else. It seemed to want to do something more, like reinforcing this world barrier, inscribing runic defenses upon it, but this action stopped halfway—not voluntarily, of course, but because the excessively violent energy impact interrupted all magical operations. An instant later, the Great Khan saw endless light erupt from the arms of the Steel Giant, and the moment this light appeared, it transformed in the Great Khan's photoreceptive organs into a vast, surging blue light.
Blue shift phenomenon.
The moment it saw this wavelength-shortened light, everything was already too late. As the Great Khan instinctively raised defenses for the world fleet behind it rather than launching an attack first, it lost all initiative and opportunity for counterattack, and completely lost any possibility of victory.
Because it saw a fist so enormous that it could pierce through all things in the world.
Because Joshua's fist, punched at thirty-seven percent the speed of light, had already arrived.
Boom!
The iron fist, powerful enough to shatter planets, easily pierced through the Great Khan's world barrier, smashing it into fragments, turning it back into distorted space. One could see that the mere swing of this giant fist, carrying incomparable force, left traces like channels in spacetime. Everything behind Joshua could only see a dazzling red light, while correspondingly, the entire world fleet could only see a brilliant blue light.
With two miniature pulsars as the core of the electromagnetic force engines at its shoulders, Joshua now possessed the power to accelerate matter to nearly fifty percent the speed of light. However, given the weight of his giant fist, even with explosive buildup, accelerating beyond thirty percent was the limit—but even so, it was enough to shatter everything in the material world.
One could see that after the incomparably enormous force shattered the world barrier, its momentum undiminished, it directly shattered the Great Khan's soul shield, then fiercely struck the dual pincers of this Void Crab. The violent power easily dented, cracked, and then pulverized the soul-material body far more sturdy than any alloy. A wound enormous enough to seem capable of tearing apart stars thus appeared on the Great Khan's dual pincers, then completely tore them from its body.
Boom!
Even though the void was a vacuum, one could almost hear a thunderous roar, hear flesh turning to foam, bones shattering. Everything happened in a single instant, and the Great Khan could only feel its dual pincers disappear in a flash, while its entire crab body tumbled backward like a rolling bowling ball. Its fortress-like thick carapace blocked the final remnants of the lightspeed punch, preventing its entire body from being shattered.
Without any hesitation, after a brief recovery of breath, Joshua immediately stepped through the void again. He paid no attention to the trembling world fleet beside him, nor to the group of Void Behemoths covering their faces with giant pincers, pretending not to see him. Instead, he directly and swiftly rushed in the direction where the Great Khan had been sent flying.
Thump, thump, thump! Heavy and short sounds rang out—the sounds of silent worlds floating in the void being used as stepping stones by the warrior to accelerate. Some of these worlds were large, easily bearing the warrior's stomp; some were small, knocked out of their orbits by Joshua's full-force step, beginning to drift cheerfully in other directions. Amidst the erupting spacetime warm currents, Joshua's figure disappeared. When he reappeared, he was already before the Great Khan, who had just stopped its momentum.
Worlds—some were large, some were small. In small worlds, there might only be a single continent, a single ocean, or even just a continent with an enormous lake at its center. These worlds, in terms of size, were only one or two times larger than Joshua as he was now, and in terms of mass, even less.
Slightly larger worlds, like the Mycroft Continent, had vast oceans, multiple continents, and even attached worlds like demiplanes. Such worlds were ten to a hundred times larger than small worlds, and the Great Khan's current size could compare to such worlds.
Even larger worlds possessed stars, galaxies, or even a small river system. Such worlds were so vast that even in the void, one could not see their end, but such worlds were also rare, only occasionally seen deep in the center of the World Star River. The largest, like the Star Sea World, even rivaled a small single universe, or rather, was a single universe.
Worlds were so grand and vast that when a transcendent being's power reached a level comparable to a world, it was absolutely impossible for them to be instantly killed.
Even though it was heavily wounded by a single strike, the Great Khan had no intention of surrendering. It could see that Joshua's move required buildup and preparation, a ultimate technique that could only be used once after a long interval. And although it was severely injured, it had not yet pulled out its trump card. Naturally, their battle did not need to be to the death. Having fought to this extent, both sides should acknowledge that the other had the power to seal the Evil God.
But to be honest, having fought to this extent, how could it end so simply?
"Must make the other side know some pain." This thought appeared simultaneously in the minds of both the Great Khan and Joshua.
So the warrior said nothing. Facing the Void Crab that seemed utterly unable to fight back, he raised his leg in midair, then, like a giant axe falling, fiercely and sharply chopped down toward its head!
And correspondingly, the Great Khan, which seemed to have lost all resistance, its entire body shattered, suddenly rose. Its originally cracked body instantly shed like a gray-white molted shell, and a brand new, intact crab, only slightly smaller than before but more refined, leaped out from within, meeting the attack head-on!
The giant god with four arms and brilliant light flashing from its shoulders and chest, and the Void Crab with two pincers and eight legs, its body as thick as a fortress, thus clashed again amidst the spacetime turbulence.
Above the Black Body World.
The Nature Mentor, who had been racking her brains, using neutralization, assimilation, analysis, stripping, and various other methods to remove the isolation seal of this world, couldn't help but turn her head to look at the distant, periodically erupting strong light and spacetime distortion phenomena. She couldn't help but twitch the corner of her mouth.
"There's completely no room for me to step in here..."
Facing the enormous main body of the Great Khan, the Nature Mentor did not consider herself weaker—size was relative; it didn't mean that a larger body necessarily represented greater strength. Galannod had enough confidence to avoid the other's charges, break through its world shield, and then use various methods like bacterial erosion or plant infiltration to subtly weaken and deplete the other's power, engaging in a protracted struggle.
But honestly speaking, the Nature Mentor estimated that if she were to enter the battle, regardless of victory or defeat, both sides would have to fight for at least several hundred days before barely establishing advantage or disadvantage. After establishing advantage or disadvantage, it would take another several hundred days to determine strength and victory or defeat. There would certainly be several reversals of situation and explosive bursts of hidden power along the way... To truly determine a winner, it would take at least, hmm, seven or eight years.
The Evil God would have long since broken free, and might even have been sealed by someone else again.
Not to mention the speed of battle, what frustrated the Nature Mentor was that the aftermath of Joshua's battle was simply too great, completely not allowing allied forces nearby to assist.
No wonder Nostradamus had that expression—what other expression could he have? Lord Radcliffe was simply not someone one could fight alongside, unless one wanted to experience the taste of being hit by both enemy and friendly fire. And given his mass, any attack one made would probably be transferred to him, right? This taunt truly ignored friend and foe, forcibly.
"It seems Joshua has the upper hand..." Through the energy fluctuations and distortion amplitude in the void, the Nature Mentor could clearly perceive who was currently controlling the battle situation. Without a doubt, Lord Radcliffe, who had recently improved again, was once more suppressing the enemy—although the Great Khan's energy fluctuations were not inferior to, and even several times greater than Joshua's, in terms of power density and ferocity, the enormous Void Crab, which needed to protect the world fleet, could not surpass that man.
Galannod noticed that the previously fierce and imposing group of Void Behemoths were now standing obediently to one side of the void, not daring to cross the silver boundary in the slightest. Even if, due to spacetime turbulence, some Void Behemoths involuntarily drifted toward the boundary, other similar beings would quickly extend their giant pincers to pull them back into formation.
"Well, at least there's no interference."
With no interference from any existence, the Nature Mentor's decomposition of the black body shell proceeded quickly. Before long, the thick natural force permeated through that layer of black shell that could even absorb and distort light completely, entering the world within the shell.
And at that moment, the Nature Mentor perceived an extremely thick, nearly materialized chaotic aura!
At the same time, the Chaos, also sensing the natural force invading from outside, immediately reacted.
In the sea, within the continent, at the bottom of countless mountains and islands, endless black aura seeped out from the world's low depths—actually, the aura of Chaos was not black, nor was it any single color. It was a filthy, indescribable color that seemed to contain all colors and malice, soaked in despair and rot for a hundred million years. The moment these strange mists rose, they transformed into thick tentacles. Like flower vines yearning for sunlight, like long snakes yearning for food, they extended their bodies as far as possible, trying to touch the deep green at the top of the world.
These Chaos tentacles extended at least eight thousand meters in height, already taller than any mountain peak in this unknown world. They twisted violently under the orange sunlight and deep green natural force, casting large patches of shadow across the entire world. But this was not the end. Following the tentacles, countless branch-like strange structures rose from deep underground. Like Venus flytraps, they rose beside the silver mountain hubs scattered across the world, then slowly closed. Like an octopus, a sea anemone, a carnivorous plant, they wrapped around the nine hubs and numerous Mother Trees of Life spread across the land.
Both the hubs and the Mother Trees of Life launched counterattacks. In an instant, silver lights lit up across the world, and rainbow-colored magical light illuminated most of the world like neon lights—but soon, dozens of enormous whirlpools appeared around the Mother Trees of Life and various hubs. The soil churned like water, and at the bottom of these whirlpools, even thicker Chaos tentacles leaped up from deep within the world's core. Each one seemed nearly ten kilometers long.
At the tips of these tentacles, fluctuations like smoke flickered. The moment these fluctuations appeared, all the counterattacks being prepared by the hubs and Mother Trees vanished into nothing. Everything was weakened into a state where attacks could not be launched. The spindle-shaped magical cores that could have continued functioning for thousands of years instantly lost control, naturally no longer able to condense surrounding free magical power, while the chaotic power accumulated within the Mother Trees immediately backlashed, directly transforming the Mother Trees of Life into branches of Chaos.
In a single instant, the Evil God about to awaken stirred up a rebellion sufficient to overturn the surface. The aura of Chaos spread, vowing to destroy everything that currently existed.
"Troublesome!"
The Nature Mentor naturally noticed the changes in Chaos. She also noticed those eroded Mother Trees of Life, and naturally understood that there might still be many Elf survivors living on this world. So Galannod's expression immediately changed. She immediately exerted her full strength, manifesting her own great power.
In an instant, one could see that behind the Nature Mentor, a magnificent giant tree supporting the heavens and the earth, seeming to break through the void, was taking shape.
Then, the giant tree's roots spread, taking root in this Black Body World. One could see that the deep green natural force reversed its previous balanced coexistence form, transforming into an extremely violent, bloodthirsty, and nakedly predatory aura. It penetrated deep into the world's interior, transforming into seven enormous roots, perched high in the sky, launching a sweeping counterattack against the rioting Chaos.
One root transformed into a hexagonal prism, and at the center of the prism, a pink crystal gem was rapidly secreted into shape. In the seemingly cute and gentle pink flash, the air began to turn red. An instant later, a plasma storm hotter than the core temperature descended like a tornado upon the sea, not only pulverizing all the black Chaos tentacles on the sea surface but also stirring up super typhoons exceeding level seventeen.
One root transformed into a nozzle-like spout. One could hear the sound of liquid surging. Soon, accompanied by misty cyan biological acid falling like rain, the Chaos tentacles, along with the intact earth, began to emit wisps of cyan smoke, then rapidly melted like ice on a hot pan.
One root's end transformed into a translucent crystal. Within it, light far surpassing a star began to gestate. The next moment, light spots like a rainstorm fell, blasting the black filth covering the earth into powder and gas, or even cleanly purifying it into nothingness.
Various powerful attacks clashed head-on with the chaotic force extending from deep underground, suppressing most of it. The Nature Mentor's remaining four roots, after dismantling the chaotic force enveloping all the Mother Trees of Life and mountain hub plates, plunged deep into the earth, beginning to gestate even more terrifying attacks.
Galannod knew that the Chaos Evil God's main body was certainly located at the core of this planet. Clearing the surface tentacles was like removing a sea urchin's spines—merely a step before the actual meal. Next, an even more arduous battle awaited her to display her skills.
If matters developed like this, it would still be manageable.
Just as the Nature Mentor was concentrating, controlling her four roots to penetrate deep underground, preparing to release a terrifying attack sufficient to destroy the surface ecosystem, she suddenly sensed an abnormally terrifying and distorted spacetime fluctuation behind her.
Startled, she turned her head to look. Instantly, the close friend of the Elf Empress, the leader of the Far South Elves, the Nature Mentor, the Supreme Archdruid, the Protector of the Forests, Eydril Galannod was terrified out of her wits.
Because she saw a blazing silver light point, pushing a struggling Void Crab waving its pincers, hurtling at low light speed toward her position—toward this Black Body World!
"Hey, hey! Joshua! Wait a moment!"
Already unable to care about resisting Chaos—how could Chaos compare to the scene before her eyes?! Galannod pulled up her main body's roots at the fastest speed, fleeing the surface of this world as quickly as possible. But clearly, Joshua was at a critical moment in his entanglement with the Crab. The Steel Giant was constantly stomping and shattering the Crab's surface shell, seemingly trying to completely pierce and shatter it. Correspondingly, one of the Crab's giant pincers was firmly clamped onto the Giant God's body. He was using his four hands to resist the pincer's closure, preventing it from closing. Both sides were fighting so fiercely that they had no spare energy to listen to external circumstances.
And just as the Nature Mentor, at the last possible moment, pulled out all seven of her roots and barely managed to dodge to the side, the entangled Steel Giant and Void Crab crashed into the Black Body World.
The sizes of worlds are different.
The Black Body World contained a planet and an energy sun. It was larger than an average continental world but smaller than an average planetary world. The collision between the Crab and the Giant God was not a force that this world could ignore.
So, in an instant.
The Black Body shield that the Nature Mentor had spent a long time barely prying open a crack in shattered into nothingness.
And the next moment, the two broke through the world barrier cleanly and crashed into that unknown world.
Inside the world.
The rioting chaotic aura also suddenly stalled.
All the madly dancing tentacles, and the constantly closing and opening branches, all froze in place as if hit by a paralysis spell. Then, they all retracted deep underground, revealing the already devastated world surface.
But these were all useless efforts, meaningless cover-ups. Because in the next instant, accompanied by the terrifying roar of the world barrier shattering, an enormous Void Crab, as large as a continent, was pushed by a Steel Giant toward the void, the nine moons, and the entire world.
Boom! Accompanied by endless terrifying roars, as three of the nine moons were grazed by the terrifying force, spinning rapidly in midair like tops, half of the entire spherical planet instantly turned into a blazing sea of fire. As the spherical planet dented inward like a bitten apple, the Void Crab, along with the Steel Giant, crashed into the planet's very core.
"You damned, arrogant, bastard!"
Suppressed from beginning to end, the enraged Great Khan did not give up its counterattack even when crashed into the chaotic aura-filled core. Facing the still expressionless Joshua, the white Crab's surface began to release soul-fire like burning. The otherworldly Legendary, who had never had the chance to unleash its true ability, finally found the opportunity for a full-power strike at this moment.
Incomparable spiritual impact directly plunged into the Steel Giant God's mind. The eight-legged fungus's piercing and sharp screech seemed to ring right beside Joshua's ear.
"I will make you taste the flavor of fear!"