Chapter 42: Fall
However, just as the giant god's hand extended and grabbed hold of the soul hyphae that the Great Khan had transformed into.
Joshua suddenly sensed something was wrong.
Regardless, the Great Khan shouldn't be this weak. The opponent was hardly a weakling.
Within the mental space filled with wails and majestic war horns, the colossal hand slowly loosened, revealing the Great Khan's soul held within its palm. As Joshua carefully observed the soul that had inexplicably lost its will to resist, he immediately understood the reason.
It was the power of the Decay Evil God.
At this moment, the Great Khan's soul had somehow weakened several times over. What was once a vast body comparable to a world had now shriveled into a fungal pillar covered in black spots. Traces of black chaos erosion spread across it, exuding a chilling aura of decay.
If the original Great Khan had zero physical combat ability but a soul strength of 80, then Joshua's soul cultivation, even after grasping the essence of Soul's Ultimate Essence, was merely 5. In terms of soul and spirit, the Great Khan's power almost completely overwhelmed Joshua. Few across the entire Mycroft Continent could surpass it.
But Joshua possessed the technique of Essence-Soul Conversion. Moreover, the opponent had invaded his territory, his mental space. Thus, he could convert his physical strength into soul cultivation with almost no loss.
And Joshua's physical cultivation level was undoubtedly above 100.
Comparing the two, perhaps when the Great Khan controlled the true body of a Void Behemoth, it could match Joshua evenly. But to avoid affecting the operation of the world on the behemoth's back, it chose to face him alone, putting itself at a disadvantage. In terms of mental invasion, the Great Khan's choice wasn't wrong—it did hold an absolute advantage. It just didn't expect that Joshua, who had achieved 'physical immortality,' was completely immune to such tactics.
Yet even with Joshua's Essence-Soul Conversion, he could only suppress the Great Khan in soul power and drive it out. There was no reason he could easily hold it in his palm like a sparrow.
"Good thing I didn't forget the real goal... Right, I directly crashed it into the planet sealing the Evil God. It would be strange if it wasn't affected."
Setting aside the conflict with the Great Khan's race for now, Joshua shifted his full attention to the chaos erosion.
To put it bluntly, while the Void Behemoth devouring worlds and destroying multiple life-bearing worlds was indeed a crime, it was akin to armed robbery and resisting arrest. But the Evil God—its mere existence represented crimes against humanity, against the world, against society. Even a single remnant of it should be immediately destroyed and cast into the eighteenth layer of hell.
Compared to the conflict with the Evil God, the Great Khan could even be considered an ally.
So Joshua gathered his power, stirring the Steel Force within him, and forcefully infused it into the Great Khan's body. Like pouring concentrated sulfuric acid into a culture chamber filled with fungi and moss, he began expelling the chaos in an extremely terrifying and destructive manner.
One could see, accompanied by a miserable shriek, large patches of chaos erosion spots began to fade and disappear. The filthy, malicious aura dissipated like smoke.
The previously sluggish Great Khan's soul immediately began to recover rapidly. But judging by the massive wounds left where the erosion had been, it would still take some time for true recovery.
In reality.
On the massive broken planet, tendrils of chaos began to reappear.
The soil and seawater had long been corrupted into a strange, unknown viscous slime. This turbid fluid matter, somewhere between liquid and solid, bubbled like boiling magma. As gray plant roots, pulsating like blood vessels with unknown purpose and meaning, rose from the gray mud, the entire planet began to be eroded by the power of chaos.
Perfection. Peace.
Abundance. Harmony.
These are the enemies of life.
As a chaotic tsunami surged where the continent once stood, countless fragments of residual information swirled between heaven and earth. The Aklafa Hub supported a thick, sturdy order-field shield as the filthy waves churned. Within it, people vaguely seemed to hear a voice devoid of emotion.
Life does not need perfection and peace, nor abundance and harmony. All things require competition to progress. In absolute safety, any creature will be eroded, leading to decline and destruction.
Priest seemed to glimpse some visions—a story of a race that grew strong through competition and hardship but was ultimately destroyed by comfort and peace. But he was not his teacher. His cultivation of Steel Force only involved amplifying gravity. So after roughly seeing the cover of a book, he could no longer sustain it and saw nothing more.
"What's the situation outside?!"
Gripping tightly to a protruding part of the control room, the Alchemist shouted in panic, "Hey, hey, reinforcements have arrived, right? Why hasn't anyone come to save us yet?!"
"The situation outside is very bad. The Evil God seems to have truly awakened. It's probably throwing a tantrum now."
After the Spellcaster calmly finished speaking, the Knight muttered softly, "We're still alive because the Aklafa Hub still has energy. If the energy runs out later, we're done for."
He spoke the truth.
But no one liked the truth.
At this moment, Priest firmly grasped the handle of the control seat, while Su Er tightly wrapped his arms around his waist. Otherwise, with the Aklafa Hub tumbling in the chaotic waves, everyone would be stirred into a meat paste like eggs in a blender.
Facing the current situation, Priest, who held the authority, understood it best. So his face was grim, covered in dark clouds.
"The teacher is probably already fighting the Evil God... Regardless of who has the upper hand, neither side likely has the energy to care about us..."
Priest knew his teacher's personality. He might have rushed here first for their sake, but if faced with the Evil God, the ultimate enemy of order, then the priority of his disciple and the exploration team would drop slightly. Not that he would ignore them completely, but it was absolutely impossible for him to give up the chance to suppress the Evil God for their sake. Count Radcliffe was someone who could clearly distinguish priorities, which was why Priest admired him.
At this moment, one could see that the entire broken planet had been covered by turbid gray chaos humus. The once vibrant green planet had completely turned into a bizarre, sea-urchin-like alien creature covered in soft tendrils and pseudopod-like appendages. A sinister giant web woven from flesh and plant roots covered the entire globe and began extending into the empty void, transforming into countless needles.
The malice of the awakened Evil God seemed intent on eroding and devouring this entire world.
But accompanied by a violent energy gale that raged even in the vacuum of space, a terrifying roar and tremor suddenly came from the planet's now-darkened back—the area where the Void Crab and the Steel Giant had collided! Hundreds of thousands of chaos needles instantly shattered in the violent shockwave, like trees ravaged by a typhoon. At the same time, Joshua's body, originally at the center of the impact crater, vanished entirely, leaving only footprints that had been stomped into bottomless pits, surrounded by spreading earthquake cracks.
The next moment, Priest and the others suddenly felt the Aklafa Hub, which had been violently tumbling, stop its bumpy ride and instead experience the pressure of rapid ascent. At first, the Elite Squad members didn't react. But when the Aklafa Hub's automated management system emitted a prompt: 'Friendly Legendary detected,' everyone realized with surprise.
"It's the teacher!"
Through the Aklafa Hub's observation window, Priest clenched his fists, staring intently at the surging silver mist outside. He knew they had been taken away from the Evil God's planet. He even saw a giant hand holding the main body of the Aklafa Hub, carrying them at high speed toward the void.
But just as Priest and the others thought Joshua would take them into the void, the Steel Giant suddenly let go, throwing them like a shot put toward the end of the world, and immediately turned back, falling toward the chaotic planet. Only then did the Elite Squad understand that they had completely overthought things.
And the next moment, one could see that on the dark gray chaotic planet, which had begun to recover into a perfect sphere, a massive basin appeared, covering a quarter of the planet's surface. The depth of this basin was hundreds of thousands of meters!
BOOM!!!!
The Steel Giant completely released its restraints, slamming its weight, comparable to a small world, directly onto the body of the Decay Evil God. This force was something chaos erosion could never resolve. Instantly, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and various natural disasters—whether they existed on the Mycroft World or not—began to ravage this nameless alien world. At the center of the chaotic energy flow, Joshua stood atop the endless chaos humus. Space-time twisted. One could see the rapidly rotating miniature pulsars on his shoulders flashing again.
Due to the Light-Speed Fist's impact, Joshua, already deeply embedded in the planet, sank even further.
If Joshua's initial position had only just broken through the planet's crust and part of the mantle, reaching a depth of about 750,000 meters, then now he had smashed through half of the upper mantle's outer transition layer, directly penetrating deep into the planet's interior—1.45 million meters into the lower mantle.
If it were an ordinary planet, it might have been shattered into pieces by his punch. But this planet contained an Evil God.
So not only did it not shatter, but one could even see behind Joshua, the originally sunken earth rapidly closing and leveling, as if trying to swallow the warrior whole into its belly.
But surprisingly, Joshua actually had teammates this time.
At the dome of the world above, the deep green Nature's Force reappeared. As massive, supple plant tendrils extended, the Aklafa Hub—which Joshua had casually thrown toward a safe area but had likely been subjected to excessive internal force due to overexertion—was caught, ending its long bumpy ride and acceleration.
At the same time, seemingly recognizing that Joshua was currently entangled with the Evil God and unwilling to approach—and temporarily unable to do so—the Nature Mentor thought of a brilliant idea.
So, under the manipulation of massive tendrils, the nine moons, which had already begun slowly descending toward the planet, accelerated their fall.
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