Chapter 60: Long Time No See
Above the Space-Time Hub in the Jetram Star Domain, within the Star River Star Gate, a golden flash of light suddenly ignited from the distant other end.
"What... is that?"
Lisa and Syndicate, guarding beside the Space-Time Hub, were the first to notice this anomaly, but before they could ask Chu Hao what was happening, the light around the entire Space-Time Hub began to warp strangely.
One could see that within the Jetram World, an unprecedented bizarre sight had appeared—centered on the massive, deep-blue space-time rift, all the light in the entire world began to gather unnaturally, like elongated ribbons of starlight, turning into streams that plunged into the Star Gate. At the center of this convergence of countless lights was a golden divine radiance hurtling in from the distant other end.
At the same time, the Steel Elemental, whose body was almost entirely fused with the Space-Time Hub, trembled. He felt an unprecedented burden. A non-material entity with an energy level so high it was unimaginable was crossing space-time at tremendous speed, shaking the transmission tunnel that had not yet fully stabilized. To maintain the normal operation of the Star Gate, Chu Hao turned every part of his body into computing units, embedding them into the central zone of the Space-Time Hub, exhausting all his power to calculate and keep the tunnel stable.
But Lisa and Syndicate's confusion, and Chu Hao's utmost effort, did not last long.
Three seconds later, the Star Gate was pierced through, the flowing light broke the dawn, and a resplendent golden radiance illuminated the cloud-shrouded, misty Jetram World.
In that instant, every corner of the world echoed with shrill wails and screams. Hundreds of psionic shadow figures, stealthily advancing in hiding, turned to ash under the illumination of this light. Dozens of giant beast cells and embryos growing in the world's corners were completely scorched. The enemies that Lisa and Syndicate had been on high alert to guard against dissipated into nothingness. But before they could even notice this, the golden light had already shattered the world barrier and arrived in the void.
"This aura?!"
In the void, Baniel was simultaneously fighting an entire Takur psionic legion and the occasionally leaping Amos warships, while also using one hand to do his utmost to suppress the temporal anchor set by the Takur people. Even for a legendary powerhouse like him, trying to multitask—fighting, maintaining a seal, reinforcing the seal, and outsmarting the alien civilization's experts on the other side of the seal—was indeed a bit too difficult. But just as the Rune Master was inwardly lamenting and thinking about how to break the deadlock, a familiar and immensely grand aura emerged from the Jetram World behind him.
The moment Baniel instinctively turned his head, the flowing light swept past. All the otherworldly interferers who had been battling the Rune Fortress, disrupting Baniel's maintenance and reinforcement of the seal, froze in place. A few seconds later, with a slight tremor of the space-time turbulence, these frozen entities collapsed into pure energy particles, completely dissipating into a sky full of light specks.
By the time Baniel turned his head again, staring in shock and uncertainty at where the flowing light had vanished, all hostile targets in the entire Jetram Star Domain had fallen silent.
"Is...rael?"
At the edge of the Two Realms Star River, the joint fleet and the Knowledge Seizers were still in a standoff, but the atmosphere had improved significantly. Although in terms of sheer numbers, the Knowledge Seizers' fleet was probably tens of thousands of times larger than the joint fleet, the presence of eight small-world-level Void Behemoths serving as fortresses meant that at least on the defensive side, they were not at a disadvantage.
Yarnamilo was still communicating with the Knowledge Seizers. This legendary figure from the Era of Radiance was exchanging information and corroborating some extremely astonishing revelations—such as numerous details about the shifting of star rivers and the merging of worlds, as well as secret knowledge concerning the [Epoch Transition] and the [Darkening of Myriad Realms]. Even with Yarnamilo's experience from the Era of Radiance, she couldn't help but feel deeply shocked. But before she could relay this information to the other legends, the emergency alarm in the flagship blared urgently.
"High-energy warning—detecting an ultra-high-energy target approaching via leap!"
"Wait, don't prepare to attack. It's a friendly signal—the Star Gate has successfully opened?! Is this reinforcements from home?!"
"Its target isn't us. According to calculations, it's a nearby star domain... It's heading for the Grand Marshal's battlefield!"
Because the commander of the joint fleet, which was the void force created by the Mycroft civilization of the Era of Falling Stars by pooling all its resources, most people referred to Joshua as 'Grand Marshal.' When they determined that the 'unknown high-energy target's' destination was Joshua's battlefield, set on the stage of the World Star River, everyone's hearts trembled, followed by a surge of joy.
The Star Gate had opened; reinforcements had arrived!
They were no longer a lone sapling suspended in an alien star river, isolated and without support, but an expeditionary army with a strong backing!
Joshua, the High Patriarch, and Emperor Amos sensed the surging divine power aura even earlier than the expedition fleet.
"Pure divine power."
"Powerful strength."
The High Patriarch and the Emperor both gave brief evaluations, but Joshua smiled silently. He knew who it was, why they had come, and what will lay behind that surging, brilliant golden light.
At this moment, the battlefield of the three powerful beings had shifted to the vicinity of several small worlds. The light emitted by their battle and their own bodies had already surpassed the suns or flames within these worlds, continuously heating their temperatures. In just thirty seconds of their entanglement in this area, the overflowing energy had raised the overall temperature of these worlds by a full five degrees. The ecosystem faced a cataclysm; an unprecedented wave of extreme heat was killing all life within them from a distance.
And at that moment, facing the High Patriarch and the Emperor, whose attention was slightly diverted to the other powerful being about to arrive, Joshua spread his four arms and clenched his four fists.
Then, in an instant, a vast gravitational force began to shift.
The void twisted, light bent, space surged with waves, and the gravitational tide spreading at the speed of light began to experience violent undulations. This sign immediately put the other two, who had been monitoring each other with space-time sorcery and could observe each other's actions across time and space, on high alert. The High Patriarch and the Emperor thought that Joshua was launching an attack in advance to attract their attention, to help the reinforcements arrive smoothly. So they simply abandoned defense, ready to take this hit, and by distorting space-time, they planned to hurl the incoming reinforcements from the Lost Star River to some distant star domain.
They began to interfere with space-time simultaneously, using their overwhelming energy as a guide to create chaotic, powerful gravitational sources, determined to disrupt the divine power aura about to leap in.
But they had gotten one thing wrong—
Joshua had no intention of attacking them, nor did he plan to rely on an attack to divert the High Patriarch's and the Emperor's attention. What he did was simply drag the other two along with him into a trap.
A trap called time.
Just as the several powerful gravitational sources used to hinder the leap were created, the gravitational tide triggered and spread by Joshua arrived. In that instant, time seemed to freeze, yet it did not.
Particles moved normally, elements decayed normally, and the surrounding small worlds were being attracted toward the battlefield of the three powerful beings at a normal arc. Their inevitable end was destruction, becoming the mass and raw materials they would absorb, weapons and shields for mutual assault.
Everything was perfectly normal—the light of stars, the trajectories of worlds, the explosions and various attacks among the three sides, the energy waves that could annihilate worlds surging back and forth like toys thrown between children.
"No, this is?!"
But everything was confined to a small range. The moment Joshua's gravitational tide interfered, Emperor Amos's thoughts immediately shifted. He sensed that the 'normal time flow' he had been maintaining was disrupted and broken. The nebula lifeform's immense mass distorted space-time, just as the neutron star creature opposite him also distorted space-time. Relative to the normal universe, time for both of them was rapidly slowing down!
He had been dragged into the slow-time zone of ultra-massive entities!
"Damn it, you two bastards, don't drag me into this!"
Logically, the Endless Ring Venerable, whose mass was not large and whose essence was pure energy, should not have been affected. But at this moment, because it was too close to Joshua and Emperor Amos—two super-lifeforms whose combined total mass exceeded that of an ordinary black hole—and with Joshua's deliberate pulling, Emperor Amos, unwilling to suffer alone after falling into the trap, along with the ultra-heavy gravitational sources he had created earlier to interfere with the leap, and the combined space-time manipulation of the three, the ring-shaped psionic aggregate, the High Patriarch, was also forcibly dragged into this slow-time flow.
"Wait with me! Hahahaha!"
At that moment, the warrior laughed heartily. Outside the distorted space-time, one could see the light around this star domain being twisted. A ring of light trapped in the distorted space-time swirled and gathered around it, presenting a visible anomaly. At a glance, it looked as if this region of space-time had been covered with a strange lens of glass, making everything inside appear bizarre and grotesque.
One second inside equaled dozens of times the passage of time outside. And while inside the distorted space-time, the High Patriarch and the Emperor prepared to join forces to break through the distortion Joshua had created, the golden light had already arrived at the battlefield.
The God of Might and Justice did not hesitate, did not observe, did not wait. Israel took a deep look at the scene within the distorted void, so slow it was impossible to continuously observe, then raised his right hand, where divine power gathered.
Divine power is infinite power.
What does infinite mean?
It means without boundary, without limit, power that does not need to heed the laws of physical reality. Gods never have the concept of fatigue like ordinary beings. They are always at their peak, always full of energy, genuine perpetual motion machines powered by others. The infinite power from the Great Source pours into their souls and bodies, granting all gods infinite strength.
But divine power is not truly infinite power.
Relying on an infinite reservoir does not mean one can release an infinite flood in an instant. What constrains gods is not divinity, divine office, or the erosion of the Great Source—what constrains gods is only themselves. Because they are oppressed by the 'infinite,' the total energy a god can release per unit time has its limit, like a faucet inserted into an infinite reservoir. Unless on the verge of extinction, where they can tear open a large crack, no matter how wide the faucet opens, the water flow is only that much.
Fighting a god cannot be a prolonged battle; one must target burst power. Engaging a god in a protracted war is a foolish act akin to slow suicide, because if the consumption of battle exceeds the energy recovered, and the challenger cannot completely suppress the god, it basically signifies the challenger's defeat—gods have infinite time and energy to fight anyone.
Thus, any challenger who fights a god will instantly unleash all their strength, never giving the god any time to 'gather power,' 'plan,' or 'prepare,' unless they never intended to win from the start.
So, if a god has ample time to accumulate divine power, plan tactics, and prepare techniques, how great would the power they can unleash and the destruction they can cause be?
Now, the God of Justice and Might, Israel, was demonstrating.
"I will... destroy him."
The command was given. Infinite power began to stack.
First second inside the distorted space-time, thirtieth second outside. A small divine power orb, brighter than the core of a star, appeared.
Second second inside, first minute outside. High-energy particle streams began to scour every material in the surrounding space-time. Near-light-speed light flows burned away all debris, even forcing the distant world barriers to cave in.
Third second inside. The High Patriarch and the Emperor began to counter Joshua's interference. The two, originally mortal enemies, launched their first joint attack to break the blockade, intending to force the warrior to end the distorted space-time field.
At this moment, above Israel's head, around the raised divine power orb, the void trembled. Irregular light streams abruptly appeared and surged in the nearby space-time—this was a small wormhole effect caused by high energy piercing through space-time. Before this power, folding and warping space was as easy as breathing, no more difficult than blowing away a cotton wisp.
"Huh..."
He let out a sound that was either a sigh or an exclamation.
Tenth second inside the distorted space-time. The High Patriarch and the Emperor finally forced Joshua to fully contract his defenses and abandon maintaining the distorted space-time. The sudden gravitational waves, like layers of rotating gear teeth, tore apart and destroyed the several small worlds inside. But the High Patriarch and the Emperor didn't care; they finally escaped the time trap and returned to the normal time flow.
But before these two entities could begin to think, the 'Light of Divine Power' had already arrived.
The High Patriarch's feelings, Emperor Amos did not know and did not want to know. But for himself, it felt as if two black holes were rotating and colliding right in his face, and he was precisely at the point of merger. Energy sufficient to evaporate several stellar masses turned into a mighty wave of divine power, slamming into his nebula barrier.
The strongest barrier in this world, formed by solid Aether, reputed to even reverse vectors, shattered like a soap bubble. Before an attack that exceeded the limit of reversal by too many energy levels, no matter how powerful the ability, it was useless.
Also pierced through were the multi-star system contained within the Emperor's body, and the several worlds behind him.
A small, lifeless planet. At the edge of a nearby world, a light suddenly appeared. Three seconds later, the continent evaporated, the world was pierced through, and the satellite on the planet's far side was directly turned into nothingness. After punching through this planet, the light would, eight minutes later, sweep past the star of this world. At that time, the overly powerful particle stream would blow away the star's outer gas layers, causing it to lose forty percent of its mass.
An hour later, this light would pierce through another world. This time, it wouldn't pass through anything, but the overflowing energy would heat the entire world's average temperature by seventeen degrees. The aftershocks would roll and evaporate almost all liquid water on a water-rich planet.
This light would pierce through several worlds, thousands upon thousands of things. Its radiance would remain concentrated and undispersed, capable of piercing through several star domains within a predictable time. Infinite power was condensed here, causing the white light of the Great Magic Tide to excitedly rise and resonate. In the distant future, it would lose its destructive power but would still drive the energy surges of the multiverse itself, creating energy tides sweeping across thousands of worlds, continuing to surge forward for decades to come.
But that was all in the very distant future—the time after the light spread to endless distances.
At this moment, here and now.
Emperor Amos's avatar struggled to reform. Unlike worlds, his body was a star river war fortress surpassing worlds. Even after bearing a blow of condensed infinite divine power, it did not shatter on the spot. It even had room to contract its body, recovering from its injuries by losing a large amount of mass.
If no one interfered and he was given time, he could quickly regroup, absorb world mass, and restore combat effectiveness. 'Regeneration from a single drop of blood' was too low an estimate for beings of their level. Whether it was Joshua, the High Patriarch, or Emperor Amos, as long as a single basic material or psionic structure survived, they could be reborn from endless material changes.
But the golden divine light and the hurtling silver giant god would not give the enemy time to revive.
Boom! Bang!
The powerful light illuminating the star domain flared again.
Under the giant god's four palms, capable of extinguishing stars, and the perfectly coordinated, continuous divine power strikes of the golden light, the last remnants of Emperor Amos's avatar were ground away in a long howl, turning into a speck of dust in the void.
"..."
The High Patriarch in his Endless Ring Venerable form silently watched this scene—he had just barely reacted to the blow of condensed infinite divine power—and without any hesitation, before Joshua and Israel could finish grinding away the remnants of Emperor Amos's avatar, he directly dissolved his combat form and vanished.
The plan to hinder the Lost Star River civilization from entering the Multiverse Star River had failed. Since that was the case, there was no need to stay any longer. Although he didn't know why these otherworldly visitors didn't attack him first but instead concentrated fire to annihilate Emperor Amos's avatar... what did that have to do with him? In any case, running away was the priority.
After all, this was just a probe. Since he already knew the approximate strength of the other side, there was no need to dawdle.
Thus, the avatars of the two otherworldly supreme beings—one was erased and dissipated, the other forced to retreat and leave.
Within a few minutes, the star domain that had witnessed fierce battle fell silent once more.
And in the dark void, the four-armed giant god turned his head to look at the golden deity beside him. Without any verbal exchange, the two beings who had just executed a perfect coordinated attack met each other's eyes and then burst into laughter.
"Long time no see!"
"Long time no see!"