Chapter 22: Sublimation Virus
Joshua's incarnation, in its full-power state, was an immensely colossal giant, even as an incarnation, easily capable of crushing planets with its hands.
Before him, small worlds were like ping-pong balls to be toyed with, and medium worlds were merely slightly more spacious sheds. Only large worlds and the Void were stages where he could exert his full strength.
The Void outside the Starry World was precisely such an excellent stage—the boundless world barrier stretched like a vast, blue-ink wasteland, while the world wreckage drawn to it resembled black mist spreading across this wilderness, sharply distinct from the white torrent of the Great Magic Tide.
And on this vividly colored stage, the silver Steel God was struggling to rise, raising four arms to bear the crushing weight of a falling world.
It could be seen that a tentacle, far larger than a world and radiating infinite light, was holding aloft a blank world. Like an open palm, it descended upon Joshua with unparalleled might, as if a mountain were collapsing, the world's canopy shattering. In the warrior's eyes, there was only that ever-expanding world, seeming to cage and imprison him.
"Who is it?!"
Joshua wanted to roar and demand who the sudden attacker was, but facing such a crisis, he had no chance to speak. The world barrier of the Starry World was already slightly dented by the descent of that world-sized palm, creating rippling waves. The energy pressure, far more surging than the Great Magic Tide's torrent, left him with no spare energy to think.
At this moment, he could only exert all his strength, raising four arms to meet the incoming world, like a Titan bearing the sky, firmly holding against the opponent's attack.
Boom!!!
The moment the world and the warrior collided, an earth-shattering roar erupted. The overwhelming energy waves even stirred concentric ripples on the barrier of the Starry World. It could be seen that even the barrier of this super-large world, reputed to be 'indestructible' and impervious to Evil Gods, was deeply cracked by this impact. Spiderweb-like fissures spread across the blue-ink plain, revealing the bottomless darkness beneath.
Before the aftershocks had dissipated, the massive light tentacle lifted again, seemingly ready to repeat the attack—but just as it rose high and prepared to descend, accompanied by a sound like shattering glass, the world bound within the tentacle suddenly disintegrated, scattering into countless steel fragments in the Void.
It was clearly visible that this originally intact medium world, with a complete world barrier, had a hole punched through its center from the bottom, as if pierced by some bullet. Then several long cracks spread outward from that point, turning into fragmented gaps, until it completely vanished.
As if feeling shock, the massive tentacle paused briefly, seemingly pondering why. But the next moment, Joshua's counterattack arrived.
From the center of the broken fissure in the Starry World's barrier, a silver meteor shot upward. The moment the world in the opponent's tentacle shattered, the four-armed Steel God charged into the opponent's 'hand'—then, the next instant, with a cry of pain from the light tentacle, a silver light band flashed across. The 'palm' part of the light tentacle that had been holding the world was severed cleanly, falling toward the Starry World.
At the same time, the silver meteor continued flying into the Void, putting a long distance between itself and the Starry World—after confirming he had maintained a safe distance from the unknown enemy, Joshua immediately turned around, warily looking back at the area he had originally occupied.
Then, he saw it: an enormous cocoon, radiating the same pure white brilliance as the Great Magic Tide.
This cocoon floated in the Void, most of its body fixed within the Great Magic Tide's torrent, concealing its aura. Even Joshua, without seeing it directly, could not have detected it. The other small part protruded into the Void around the Starry World, waving several tentacles, or rather, intertwined threads.
The thread-tentacle that Joshua had severed earlier had already regenerated, though it no longer held a world. The other three tentacles still contained worlds, releasing an aura that even Joshua found astonishing.
The aura of Chaos!
"An Evil God!"
And not just one!
With four arms each holding different weapons—a greatsword of gravity, a battle-axe of Steel Force, a spear condensed from Emotion Force, and a warhammer condensed from pure mass points—fully armed and clad in black heavy armor, the warrior stared at the worlds in the opponent's tentacles and the Chaos Evil Gods imprisoned within them. Joshua's expression shifted slightly but quickly returned to seriousness. He frowned, gazing at the distant light cocoon that had also recovered, and the two sides began a long standoff across the Void.
"What kind of monster is this, using worlds as tools to imprison multiple Evil Gods?!"
Earlier, while enduring the hammer blow from the light tentacle, Joshua felt like a steel particle on an anvil. The anvil beneath him was the Starry World's barrier, and the hammer was the world held by the light tentacle—at that moment, Joshua thought this incarnation was done for. Although being capsized in a ditch was infuriating, the enemy's strength and depth of concealment were undeniable.
But neither the enemy nor Joshua expected that the steel particle being hammered could be harder than both the anvil and the hammer combined—like using two bricks to crush a steel particle from a starship's armor alloy. The result was not the particle shattering; the Starry World's barrier cracked slightly, the hammering world shattered directly, while the steel particle remained intact, even using the impact to dissipate most of the attack's force. Finally, Joshua took advantage of the opponent's shock to sever the tip of one tentacle.
When attacked, Joshua had classified the light cocoon as 'far stronger than any enemy I've ever seen.' But now, its strength seemed utterly unimaginable, because even Emperor Amos and the High Patriarch of the Takur Annihilation Order probably couldn't suppress multiple Evil Gods! And this was just a small part of its body manifested as tentacles. The main body hidden within the Magic Tide torrent surely controlled more tentacles, imprisoning more Evil Gods or powerful beings like himself!
"So it's treating me as an Evil God-level being to imprison? Quite the compliment."
Waving his spear, Joshua used Emotion Force to create a barrier, blocking the opponent's faint probing and peering. He muttered to himself.
Using worlds to seal Evil Gods was indeed feasible. The former Radiant Civilization used the same method to imprison the Decay Evil God. The warrior could clearly sense that the opponent itself had no Chaos aura, meaning the light cocoon's essence was not an Evil God. All the Chaos aura came from the Evil Gods imprisoned in the worlds within its tentacles. Among these auras, several felt particularly familiar.
The Famine Evil God, the Plague Evil God!
The main forces among the Evil God's minions in the Starry World! Even in the Mycroft World, there were sealed lands created by the pollution of these two Evil Gods!
"So he's the real invader of the Starry World. The Evil Gods are just his tools. Those abnormal actions of the minions, even the fluctuations that made the Extreme Virus appear out of thin air, must have been orchestrated by him behind the scenes!"
Thoughts racing, Joshua knew he had encountered the true target of his journey to the Void outside the Starry World—the 'original bodies' of the various Evil Gods. But what he hadn't expected was to meet both the Evil Gods and an even stronger super-lifeform.
—Legendary Limit? Perhaps.
—Sage Realm? Not quite.
For a moment, standing in the Void, Joshua couldn't determine the opponent's strength. He could only confirm that its terrifying power, if it entered the Starry World, could shake thousands of galaxies and drive most species to extinction.
As for the opponent's true identity... Memories surfaced in Joshua's mind. He raised his hand. When he had severed the light cocoon's tentacle earlier, the warrior had picked up some fragments of the opponent's body. Comparing them, Joshua indeed felt a familiar scent.
"Could it be..."
Recalling a seemingly unremarkable existence from his memories, he thought in disbelief: "The 'Infinite Sublimation Virus'?"
In the past, Joshua had assisted the Midgardians in the Starry World, slaying a beast that came from the stars—a minion of the Plague Evil God, a Legendary-rank Void Mother Beast. By burning its body with Steel Force and shattering its core, Joshua obtained some memories and information from the Void Mother Beast, including data related to the 'Evil God' behind it.
The 'Infinite Sublimation Virus': countless years ago, a fully automated life-modification virus created by a race called the Robel people. Originally designed to grant the short-lived Robel people complete evolution, eternal life, and transcendent power, the virus went out of control, gained self-will, rewrote its underlying life programs, and the mutated Sublimation Virus devoured the entire Robel World, becoming a member of the Great Devourer, wandering the Void.
Joshua had once regarded it as an Evil God, because the Plague Mother Beast indeed carried the Evil God's aura, and its behavior was especially similar. But now, it seemed those Chaos auras were merely contamination from the Evil Gods. The true creator of the Plague Mother Beast, and this powerful individual imprisoning multiple Evil Gods, might be the 'Infinite Sublimation Virus' after countless sublimations!
Joshua was not surprised that it had transformed from a demon devouring a world into such a powerful being, because he himself had done the same, growing countless times stronger in a short time. Since he had fortuitous encounters, hard work, and excellent returns, it was not strange for others to have similar experiences.
Although its attack hadn't even destroyed his incarnation, anyone could see that it only wanted to capture him alive, without killing intent. Having experienced countless battles, Joshua knew how much difference there was in the force used when someone wanted to capture versus kill. This could not be used to judge its true strength.
Moreover, even the force used for capture was a bit too strong. Joshua estimated that even his original body couldn't surpass it by much. If both went all out—he would undoubtedly be at a disadvantage.
"It also has obvious intelligence, not just a simple monster... Who is it?"
The enormous light cocoon remained silent, as if the voice that had earlier answered Joshua's 'That is the First Flame' was not its own.
Rather than capturing Joshua, it seemed more focused on the fissure in the Starry World. It could be seen that the light cocoon extended many more tentacles toward the cracked barrier of the Starry World. Threads split off, falling like rain into the cracks, as if trying to seep into the Starry World through these gaps.
Seeing this, Joshua wanted to act immediately, to stop its invasion, even if it meant self-destructing his incarnation to prevent its success. But after gathering half his strength, he realized there was no need for excessive urgency, because the Starry World's barrier was far more sturdy than the warrior had imagined.
Like rippling water gradually returning to a calm surface, after just over ten seconds, those wide fissures, enough to hold hundreds or thousands of small worlds, began to slowly close and heal, squeezing out all the threads the light tentacle had infiltrated. This caused the light cocoon to swing its tentacles again, hammering the barrier, creating shockwaves that could affect the Magic Tide's flow. But without Joshua's steel particle to shatter both sides, these attacks yielded no results.
Finding it impossible, the light cocoon turned its attention back to Joshua's incarnation watching from the side. Vast malice surged like a cold deep-ocean current, threatening to drown the warrior. But Joshua was no pushover—before the opponent could lock onto him, he plunged directly into the Magic Tide's torrent, his entire figure disappearing, as if smoothly riding the tide's current downstream.
In other words, he ran.
—Only a fool would fight an obviously powerful enemy in this situation!
First, this was just an incarnation. Starting a battle rashly would only expose his power details to the enemy, and possibly, very likely, lead to capture, allowing his original body's power system to be studied.
To prevent the light cocoon from taking advantage and invading, this incarnation couldn't temporarily return through the Founder's backdoor. Most importantly, rather than fighting now, only depleting a negligible amount of the opponent's power, it was better to lurk in the Magic Tide's torrent, observe what this light cocoon really was and what its purpose was for lingering around the Starry World.
No matter how much he loved battle, Joshua was not a battle maniac. Fighting without knowing oneself or the enemy would only be a mess.
And just as Joshua plunged into the Magic Tide's torrent, leaving the vicinity of the Starry World, he vaguely saw the shape of the light cocoon's latter half within the torrent.
It was like fungal threads invading the energy surge, dense, layered roots. A huge net had already spread within the Magic Tide's torrent, absorbing its endless energy. At the same time, this net was constantly spreading its 'spores,' or rather, some kind of 'fluctuation.'
This felt like a strange fungus or plant scattering its seeds, so natural and harmonious. Joshua reached out, intercepting part of its fluctuation, and his expression immediately became solemn.
"It's the Extreme Virus, or rather, the fluctuation inducing its manifestation... So the Extreme Virus wasn't the Plague Evil God's doing. At most, it assisted while this monster spread itself!"
He muttered to himself, even gritting his teeth: "This monster, by dwelling upstream of the Magic Tide, is spreading this transcendent plague downstream—I'm afraid the Multiverse Star River was just a coincidental victim. Its real method of spreading the plague is through the Great Magic Tide, infecting all races and civilizations that benefit from its power!"