# Chapter 45: The Great Wound
Sometimes, words and language are powerless to describe certain scenes.
With his back to the divine light of the Seven Gods, the lone Joshua raised his head to look ahead. Yet even with his vision, straining his eyes as far as they could reach, he could only see an absolute blackness, like the thickest ink—a darkness that erased all light, stretching endlessly before him, with no end in sight.
It was like standing before a vast ocean, a solitary warrior gazing at a dead sea.
The River Styx from all directions of the World Star River converged here. The torrents of countless destroyed worlds roared, settled, and became part of this darkness. Thousands of years ago, this place was extremely dangerous, for at every moment, millions upon millions of worlds were being born within the largest star-forming nebula in the entire Star River, flying out to every corner of space-time. The unimaginable material shifts and gravitational distortions would tear apart all weak beings—even gods needed to be constantly vigilant against every accident.
But now, it was silent. The Genesis Maelstrom no longer turned. Yet it had become even more terrifying. The silent darkness was always more frightening than the roaring flashes of light, for the latter represented tangible, visible danger, while the former represented the unknown.
But... so what?
Facing the unknown and fear head-on, Joshua revealed a fearless smile.
Yes, this was below the nine hundredth layer of the Abyss, the lowest point of the World Star River, the graveyard of countless dead worlds.
Yes, this was the origin of the River Styx, the end of the River Styx, the place where all things in the World Star River cycled endlessly.
This was once the Genesis Maelstrom, now the deepest layer of the Abyss, the core of the Rebirth Plan, the site of the ancient Sage's final battle with the Plenty Evil God. The gods habitually called it the Abyss Nirvana Ground, but Joshua believed that the name Extreme Dark Abyss suited it best.
Here, not only would light dim, but even other Transcendent powers would be suppressed by the chaotic Steel Particles and Chaos force. In this domain of darkness, whether it was Arcane Power, Steel Force, or Divine Power, all would be gradually worn away, eroded, and turned into nothingness.
This was perhaps one of the most terrifying and dangerous forbidden places in the entire Multiverse.
And that was precisely why it was a good time for a challenge.
With a roar that exploded through the River Styx, the warrior stepped forward without hesitation.
A halo like a neon ring surrounded him, the blessings of eight deities shining around his body. Faintly, he could still hear the final sacred words of the God of Might in his ears. The moment Joshua calmly moved forward, he went from one darkness into an even deeper darkness.
Vision lost.
No sound.
Unable to distinguish up from down, left from right.
Like walking through reinforced concrete.
His entire body was suffering intense erosion.
The moment he took his first step out of the River Styx and into the deepest layer of the Abyss, Joshua felt as if he had stepped into the deep sea, surrounded by Chaos water that had frozen solid. Even with his strength, it was difficult to move forward even a single step.
"A bit tough," Joshua muttered to himself. At the same time, the Divine Power contained within the warrior's body began to take effect.
A flame of Divine Power was lit in the extreme darkness.
The moment the Divine Power blessing came into contact with this already materialized Chaos force, it immediately reacted. The eight-colored Divine Power fiercely clashed with the surrounding darkness, suddenly erupting into an extremely dazzling radiance. Then, like fire melting ice and turning it into water vapor, a massive amount of colorless pure energy was released, lingering around Joshua's side in a mist-like form.
This burning process was like the First Flame burning Chaos, turning it into primordial Steel.
The dazzling strong light, due to the collision of Divine Power and Chaos, flickered continuously in the darkness, swaying like flames. One could even see streaks of Divine Power lightning flashing through the mist, carrying a terrifying and dangerous aura.
And this was precisely Joshua's opportunity to advance quickly. By relying on the mutual collision and reaction of Divine Power and Chaos, he could avoid consuming his own Steel Force to resist the high-concentration Chaos of the Abyss Nirvana Ground. He could even use the flame-light erupted from the conflict between the two to regain his ability to observe and orient himself, advancing deeper.
However, just as Joshua, who thought he should be alone, was momentarily unsure where the core of the Rebirth Seal was or which direction he should go, a low voice came from within his body.
"This way. I can sense it—that's the axis of the Abyss."
The Lord of the Sixth Abyss, the Gluttony Demon King Goliath, spoke calmly: "I have no reason to deceive you. It's this way."
As he spoke, the remnant soul of the Demon King within the warrior's body sent out another stream of information, guiding Joshua's direction.
"...Right, you're still here."
Joshua, who had already relied on the other to point the way several times in the River Styx, blinked but wasn't too surprised. Although, in the later stages of entering the Abyss, as the memories of the Seven Gods continuously recovered, the group and the gods hadn't needed Goliath, this Abyss native, to guide them much. But now it seemed that his presence was indeed quite useful.
Without suspicion, Joshua advanced directly in the direction Goliath indicated. His decisiveness and straightforwardness actually startled the Demon King's remnant soul: "You trust me that much?!"
"If not?"
The warrior asked calmly in return, leaving Goliath speechless.
At this moment, in the Mycroft World, at the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, the old Pope Eagle, who had just returned from suppressing another Void civilization, seemed to sense something. With a sorrowful expression, he left the demiplane, stepped into the Void, and gazed in the direction of the Abyss, looking into the infinite distance.
In the eyes of this deity walking among mortals, the originally chaotic, disordered, and murky Abyss suddenly became clear. Before the six hundred and sixty-sixth layer of the Abyss, countless small flames were burning in the gray world—these were the footsteps of countless pioneers, clearing away Chaos, strangling disorder, using absolute violence to calm all the frenzied demons and monsters, making them no longer bloodthirsty and frenzied.
And after the six hundred and sixty-sixth layer of the Abyss, round after round of enormous Divine Power halos, like a massive vortex seal, shrouded the core deep layers of the Abyss. One could see the four great sacred emblems—the sky-blue Ouroboros, the light-green bird, the pale golden forked eye, and the violet heart—stably rotating within the Abyss, dominating countless worlds, as if they could last for countless millennia.
Going further, into the lower layers of the Abyss, the pure white divine light, the iron-gray divine light, and the black divine light appeared somewhat turbulent and unstable. One could see that the overly deep darkness was eroding the inner three layers of the seal, causing the radiance to grow dimmer. No one knew how long the radiance of Divine Power could hold—years, months, days, or hours.
Finally, the deepest part of the Abyss: pure darkness. Even the light of Divine Power could not illuminate it. It was like an ocean poured from ink; no matter how dazzling the light, it could at most penetrate the outermost layer, while the interior was forever cold, solidified black.
But the old Pope could see a faint point of light within, advancing continuously.
Though slow, sometimes slowing down, sometimes correcting its direction, it was indeed advancing, and it never stopped.
But just as the old Pope was gazing at this continuously advancing point of light, feeling comforted and expectant in his heart—
Suddenly.
It stopped.
In the Extreme Dark Abyss, Joshua had no choice but to stop.
Originally, due to the impact of Chaos material flow brought by the River Styx, the Extreme Dark Abyss should have been a turbulent domain. Though not as surging as the original Genesis Maelstrom, it should at least not have been as silent as it was now. However, the seals of the Seven Gods, and the final action of Xing Zheng cutting off the River Styx with a single slash, had temporarily caused all these things that should have greatly interfered with perception to disappear, turning the deepest layer of the Abyss, which should have been like a surging sea, into a calm, dead place.
And it was precisely because of this that Joshua stopped.
"What's wrong, human?"
Sensing something amiss, the Demon King's remnant soul held in his palm asked instinctively. The warrior did not reply. He simply raised his right arm high, Steel Force burning fiercely, mixed with the light of Divine Power, illuminating the surrounding darkness.
This action continued for a long time. Half an hour later, the confused and puzzled Goliath finally understood why Joshua, who had been racing against time, had suddenly stopped advancing.
Because what appeared before them were a dozen dark spheres, silently suspended in the chaotic darkness.
These spheres were familiar. One could see that around these dozens of dark spheres, space was extremely distorted, sinking like deep wells. Endless Chaos force surged around these deep wells, then was sucked into them.
That was the image of an 'End Star'—a black hole.
One could see that a full thirteen black holes were crowded into a star system space of less than three light-hours. Among them were both massive and small ones. The gravitational and Chaos forces between the black holes formed a delicate balance, causing them to hang almost motionless in place. Naturally, this peculiar situation was also because these black holes did not seem to be mass black holes in the normal sense.
They were black hole-like entities formed by the accumulation and condensation of large amounts of World Wreckage, Steel Particles, and Chaos force. These End Stars floated in the depths of the Extreme Dark Abyss, like a trap, waiting for anyone who rashly entered to fall into them.
"Very troublesome. It almost blocks all paths, and it's very concealed. At my previous speed, if I wasn't careful, I would have rushed right into one."
After observing carefully for a long time, Joshua couldn't help but let out a breath. If it weren't for his deep understanding of gravity, his own body being an ultra-high-mass entity, and the Divine Power helping to clear the interference of Chaos force, he would probably have fallen into the trap of these multiple Chaos black holes this time, sinking forever.
But this was not the most astonishing thing—because Joshua sensed that around this stable structure of multiple black hole bodies, there were a large number of similar strange gravitational wave disturbances. This indicated that besides this direction, other directions also had similar high-mass Chaos black hole traps!
The sealed core of the Extreme Dark Abyss seemed to be completely surrounded by a ring of black hole traps, tightly wrapped!
The Demon King's remnant soul seemed to be shocked speechless by this unimaginable grand scene, but Joshua, while contemplating how to cross these traps, began to search for the source of these black hole traps based on the information recorded in the surrounding Steel Force.
"...They are the embers of worlds and stars destroyed... the war between the Sage and the Plenty Evil God... In the Genesis Maelstrom, the power used to create new Star Rivers was used as weapons to attack each other. The raw materials of countless worlds were condensed into huge, unstable stars. Both sides threw these bombs, which were about to explode into supernovae, at their opponents..."
"...The Great Wound—this is the unhealable wound left on this World Star River by the battles of ultimate Transcendent beings!"
Joshua read the memories of the stars. Because the Genesis Maelstrom had long stopped turning, these Steel Particles scattered in the deepest part of the Abyss had not had their carried information erased. The warrior could easily learn the origin of these black hole traps from them.
For Transcendent beings powerful enough to surpass supernova explosions, who could face even gamma-ray bursts as if they were a gentle breeze, only End Stars—black holes from which even light could not escape—could pose a fatal danger. The ancient Sage's war with the Plenty Evil God had catalyzed countless stars. Those celestial bodies used as weapons burned to their peak, then turned to embers. The condensed remains became this darkness that absorbed all light.
"Using the remains left from his own battles back then, the Sage used black holes to suppress the rotation of the Genesis Maelstrom... He formulated the Rebirth Plan, using these black holes as anchor points to absorb Chaos force, while preventing the 'Unknown Evil God' from awakening, gradually wearing away the Chaos."
Joshua looked at the dark celestial bodies before him with a complex gaze. Without a doubt, this was an extremely grand plan. If the Rebirth Plan had truly been fully realized, then the power that the Genesis Maelstrom had used for thousands of years to create world after world would have been forcibly gathered into one, creating a 'super-giant continental world'—like a Star Sea World, with countless Milky Way galaxies, but as a single whole!
In that world, a black hole with a mass hundreds of billions of times that of an ordinary galaxy would drive the entire world's rotation. Its immensely massive accretion disk would release eternal, immeasurable light, illuminating the entire world.
That world would have no night. Because of its excessively massive mass, even above the 'continent,' stars formed spontaneously from the condensation of nebular material would hang in the sky, or even be embedded directly into the 'continent' or at the peaks of 'mountains'—like the sacred flame atop Mount Olympus in myth and legend, shining upon the intelligent races living around it.
Perhaps in the remote corners of this world's edges, there would be areas with sparse matter, where neither the light from the core black hole's accretion disk could be seen nor stars could spontaneously condense, so it might be somewhat dim. But that would just be a novel landscape, like the polar regions—nothing important.
Even more, this immensely massive continent, due to its excessive size, would be divided into a dozen layers. Each layer would be like a Milky Way ring, with independent structures, environments, and a large number of stars. Any race, any life form could find its place in this unimaginable paradise world. No matter how harsh the conditions, on this 'continent' that was likely larger than dozens of Milky Ways combined, a suitable place to live could definitely be found.
Moreover, the extremely high concentration of Transcendent power could supply nearly unlimited cultivation for Transcendent beings. Because behind it was the Genesis Maelstrom, the energy mass of the entire World Star River's cycle as its backing, this super-giant primordial world would never fall into resource scarcity, requiring war to plunder.
Even, one day, the endless worlds in the entire World Star River would, over the flow of time, be gradually merged and unified by this world, 'reborn' into an unimaginable 'single world.'
This was no longer a plan that could be described as crazy.
If being half a step ahead of the times was a great man, and being two steps ahead was a madman, then what was being ten or a hundred steps ahead?
Even the gods could only barely understand it as the 'Rebirth of the Era of Radiance,' worshipping this illusion that could not even compare to a ten-thousandth of its true purpose.
Having glimpsed the secrets behind these black hole clusters that appeared to be traps, Joshua could only exhale slightly, unable even to sigh.
Only now did he finally understand what the greatest mystery left by the 'Ancestor Civilization' in the Star Shepherd's words was.
If the one who left this message was the Sage, the Sage who believed his plan would surely succeed, then his purpose was very clear—he wanted the races of other World Star Rivers to leave their dangerous worlds and enter this absolutely safe world, far away from the encroachment of Chaos and Evil Gods.
If the Rebirth Plan had succeeded according to plan, then when the Great Khan brought the Star Shepherds to the Extreme Dark Abyss, what would have greeted them might not have been the black hole traps Joshua saw now, but a gentle, vast, magnificent world that accepted all orderly life.
The sturdiness of this single world's world barrier would be nothing that any 'Evil God' could shake. Joshua even suspected that a world barrier of this degree—what difference was there from the event horizon of a black hole? Once you entered, it would be almost impossible to leave. Like in stories, those gods and immortals who became deities and ascended almost never returned to their homes. Entering this world would be almost equivalent to never being able to leave again.
However, the Rebirth Plan failed.
Those exciting, passionate future prospects were now just designs on a blueprint.
What lay before Joshua was still the pitch-black, cold Chaos darkness that constantly eroded everything like strong acid, and the End Stars deeper than the darkness.
The Demon King's remnant soul did not know Joshua's thoughts and deductions. It just kept staring at the deepest shadow cast by the black holes in space-time—the deepest shadow in this entire Multiverse. For Goliath, who was in the process of summarizing and concluding the path of Shadow, this had indescribable value. From it, he could even seek out gravitational techniques subordinate to the path of Shadow, as well as energy absorption barriers similar to black body defense.
But just as it wanted to observe those black holes further, suddenly, the Demon King heard the sound of crying.
This sound was sorrowful, despairing. It was not malicious, not heart-wrenching, but it pierced directly into the deepest part of the soul, staining everything with the color of pessimism and meaninglessness.
The crying sound echoed in Goliath's ears. He faintly heard the sorrowful cry of an infant who died immediately after birth, unable to look upon this world.
He faintly heard the wailing of an underage youth who, just after having a dream, died because the world was destroyed.
He heard the sound of a weary adult individual struggling to carry a family, raise descendants, and work hard as a gear in the great machine of civilized society. He heard all efforts turn to futility, decades of hardship ending in tragedy, until finally, holding a spouse and children, watching a great star fall from the sky, destroying everything, and sighing.
He heard many, many things. The Demon King even heard the voices of demons—the painful roars of confusion, growing up in the Abyss in pain, surviving in the Abyss in pain, living in pain, but without any purpose, only able to vent confusion through slaughter and prove their existence through destruction.
"They are crying..."
In the warrior's palm, the Demon King's remnant soul said somewhat confusedly. Goliath looked around but could not find any trace of the source of the sound: "Who is it? Why can I see those illusions and hear those voices?!"
"That is the memory contained within the Chaos."
Joshua lowered his head, looking at the Demon King's remnant soul in his hand, and said calmly: "An Evil God is a destructive entity formed from infinite souls, infinite resentment, mixed with the residual information of infinite civilizations and Chaos force. Every part of it condenses the memory of the destruction of its mother civilization and mother world."
"The Genesis Maelstrom was infected by Chaos. The resentment of countless destroyed worlds gathered, causing the 'Unknown Evil God' to take shape. The River Styx is its tentacles, the Abyss is its body. The Chaos around you and me is its still-unawakened body. The voices you hear, the resentment you feel, are all the future power of this Evil God—because we are inside its body."
"They were destroyed..."
The Demon King, who had himself destroyed several worlds and plundered souls and matter, muttered to himself, then quickly fell into silence. Perhaps the Demon King's original body could resist this voice that pierced the deepest part of the soul, could isolate these memories from Steel Force and Chaos, but the Demon King's remnant soul could not. It was deeply affected, even falling into confusion.
And Joshua shook his arm, waking the other up.
"The tears of the destroyed have always been so sorrowful. Always have been, for millions upon millions of years, with no exception."
Without continuing to look at the Demon King's remnant soul, Joshua raised his head and looked at the darkness before him. The contemplation just now had allowed him to find a path that could pass through the gravitational gaps. He began to step forward, walking towards the constantly shifting gravitational passage. As he walked, he said softly: "Wars of super-civilizations, battles of Transcendent beings, can instantly annihilate countless ordinary worlds and civilizations at any moment. And in these civilizations and worlds, there are tens of millions, or even billions, of intelligent lives."
"Among them are embryos, infants, men and women, old and young, joys and sorrows, partings and reunions. They have their own joys and sorrows, their own fates and stories—but in the overly vast background of the Multiverse, in the wars of the strong and super-civilizations, everything is just tears in the rain."
Was their destruction fate, or bad luck? Who could say such things clearly?
That was why it was so sorrowful.
"Are you starting to feel sad for these civilizations, moved? Goliath?"
Not waiting for the Demon King's remnant soul to answer, Joshua, who was passing through the gravitational equilibrium points formed by multiple black holes, smiled and shook his head: "Don't be sad, don't be moved."
"The echoes of destruction, the memories of civilizations, left here number over a hundred thousand, a million, possibly tens of millions, or even more. Anyway, I can't count them."
"Don't forget, the Abyss you are in is the graveyard of countless destroyed worlds in the entire World Star River."
"Wait!" Watching Joshua perilously pass through one gravitational trap after another, traversing this high-concentration Chaos space about two light-hours thick at extreme speed, Goliath couldn't help but ask: "How do you know so clearly?! Were you also listening to those voices just now?"
Just a few seconds of echoes had made the Demon King's remnant soul feel unable to control itself, as if it wanted to merge into this Chaos and be assimilated. But Joshua could clearly state the origin of these voices and tell it the essence of these sounds... How clearly and how thoroughly must he have listened to understand from those fragmented murmurs? And how strong must his willpower be not to be assimilated by these sounds?
Goliath wanted to say a few more words, but then Joshua's words made him completely shut up.
"I have always been able to hear them."
With a perilous Psionic Leap, avoiding the collision of a World Wreckage orbiting a black hole, Joshua adjusted his next direction of advance. He said flatly: "Actually, from the moment I entered the Abyss, I could hear countless worlds crying and wailing at me. They begged me for help, hoping I could save them, or destroy them."
Don't you isolate them?!
Noticing the terrified look in the Demon King's remnant soul, the warrior smiled: "I'm not crazy."
"And I won't isolate them."
Could one see that the outermost layer of the eight layers of Divine Power radiance surrounding Joshua's body—the light blue Divine Power of Order and Destruction—had already begun to falter. This proved that the warrior had penetrated to the very core of the Extreme Dark Abyss, to the point where even Divine Power was beginning to fail, even being devoured by Chaos.
Joshua took out the light blue hourglass given to him by the God of Order and Destruction, Mie Lu, from his bosom. He said softly: "You don't understand. I am the Soulflame King."
"To listen to the sound of the world's end, to burn Chaos with flame and reshape the world, to maintain order."
So saying, he crushed the hourglass in his hand, causing the light blue Divine Power sand to splash out and burn fiercely on the surface of his body. Faintly, one could see that on the surface of the armor condensed from neutron degenerate matter, snake-pattern-like Divine Power patterns appeared. They overlapped with the dragon-scale patterns of the Dragon God, forming a dense and even more sturdy microscopic Divine Power structure.
At this point, the warrior's voice sounded again.
"To listen to the cries of the sorrowful, to calm their grief—that is my responsibility."