Chapter 40: The Beast of Unrestrained Desire (Part 1)
"This is the entrance. We cannot proceed further. The rest of the journey must be completed by you alone."
At the center of the Royal Court's dome, void warships of various designs were being guided by the Royal Guards into the audience passage. They watched with envy mixed with reverence as the heroes who had eliminated 'Ultimate Beings' and earned an audience with the Great Emperor slowly stepped into the 'inner ring' shrouded by the halo of nebula light clusters.
"An audience with the Great Emperor..." They sighed with emotion, watching the shadows gradually disappear into the nebula. "When will I have such a day?"
No one heard the guards' murmurs.
Entering the inner ring, passing through an arch formed by a solar corona, stepping into a hall forged from nebula, and then ascending countless rainbow-hued steps—these were acceleration channels made of solidified mana and aether. But even this clearly visible portion alone stretched for hundreds of kilometers. Everything in the inner ring of the Royal Court was so grand that it felt like a dream.
There was no need to exert any effort at all. The surging aether currents propelled Erma and Ke Lei Le forward rapidly. After thirty minutes, they concluded this brief journey and arrived at the top of a massive, pure-white platform that radiated light.
This platform was shaped like a near-cone, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with a flat summit. It was several thousand kilometers high. If placed on a planet, it would be an astonishing, sky-piercing structure. But because it was situated within the dome of the Royal Court, near the avatar of Emperor Amos, this otherwise magnificent platform felt no more significant than a needle—practically negligible.
At the top of the platform was a dense array of runic formations spanning a radius of about seven kilometers. It began activating as Erma entered, generating a neat, semi-circular energy shield. Neither the platform nor the preceding steps were a waste of time; they were necessary measures to prevent other Amos people from being harmed when approaching the Great Emperor.
Without this, beings below the Legendary realm probably couldn't even get close to the Great Emperor, let alone communicate with him.
"Are we just waiting here?"
Watching Erma position herself at the center of the runic array, bracing for the impending impact, the human captain felt anxious. He voiced his confusion because this wasn't what Ke Lei Le had imagined.
He had originally thought he and Erma would be in a hall, waiting for a divine thought from Emperor Amos's avatar to descend and communicate, much like a local official seeking an audience with the Empire's Emperor. But now, he realized that Amos people weren't human. They were genuine alien lifeforms, an alien race separated by countless star rivers. Their culture, customs, and even living habits were completely different from humans. The reason he could communicate smoothly with Erma was that she was an anomaly among aliens.
For a race that once used mountains as territories, where status was determined by who occupied the taller and larger peaks, when seeking an audience with a more powerful being, one must build the tallest and most conspicuous platform. This allowed the 'stronger' being, positioned higher up, to barely see them, rather than troubling the other party to look down.
—The strong never bow their heads to look down at the weak; they only communicate with those they can see.
This was the culture of the Amos people.
To Ke Lei Le's question, Erma did not reply.
Because 'he' had already arrived.
As the hazy nebula mist above the platform began to tremble, a massive, perfectly circular golden vortex appeared above it. This vortex was over fifteen thousand kilometers in diameter, with distinct fault lines every few thousand kilometers, making it look strikingly like a giant, moving eye.
As this colossal eye, capable of swallowing a planet, took shape, an overwhelming sense of pressure filled the entire space. The semi-circular shield on the platform crackled, with pale silver arcs flickering violently above it, as if resisting some extremely powerful attack. This even caused the entire platform to tremble slightly. But thanks to the shield's protection, Erma and Ke Lei Le didn't feel the pressure. They could only watch, dry-mouthed, not daring to breathe.
The giant eye rotated, gradually focusing on the platform. Before it, the thousands-of-kilometers-high void platform was like a tiny upright needle, but at least it could barely be considered a 'comparable' object.
"Erma—General-Purpose Unit 19090763."
The giant eye locked onto the platform, onto the semi-transparent void warship at its center. Instantly, a suffocating mental pressure swept through Erma's spiritual world like a tsunami.
If not for the mental protection spells already cast on her, Erma felt her soul would have been severely damaged instantly. But even with the protection, she could barely make out the information contained within the mental torrent.
"Thinking unit, reaction unit, combat unit... An excellent record. You are a talented Amos person. If not for some recent slackness, you could have become a Grand General."
The information conveyed by the giant eye was flat and emotionless, like a human reading off data about an ant's height. But in the latter part of the message, a hint of intriguing emotion crept in: "You eliminated an 'Ultimate Individual' in the Collective Zone, protecting the safe retreat of many thinking units. Well done. However, that Ultimate Individual, due to convergent evolution, soon reached the level of what is commonly called a 'Titled Grand General.' It was capable of easily preying on planets and even barely surviving supernova explosions."
"Highly abnormal, Erma. With your strength, even a severely wounded Ultimate Individual should be unbeatable. Even if its thinking core malfunctioned and you unleashed far more power than usual, you shouldn't have won so easily. You definitely didn't defeat it with your own strength."
The giant eye rotated, staring at the center of the platform. "You carry the scent of that Mycroft person. Ah, and there's even a juvenile Mycroft person. I sense it. Has he already extended his hand here?"
Ke Lei Le swallowed nervously, even instinctively touching his belt. But he was so tense that he couldn't even produce saliva, only letting out a dry cough. The pressure from the giant eye was truly terrifying. Although the pressure from the Grand Marshal and the Seven Gods was equally dreadful, even more so, they would suppress it as much as possible when facing ordinary people.
Facing Emperor Amos, who had clearly discovered Joshua's methods, his legs didn't go weak—because if they did, he couldn't escape. But even if he had a dozen more legs, could Ke Lei Le possibly get away? Recalling Erma's earlier analysis and explanation, and the fact that they had no chance to avoid this audience from start to finish, Ke Lei Le could only forcibly suppress his unease, stay inside Erma, and remain silent.
But the Great Emperor's avatar's divided consciousness—the golden storm giant eye—didn't dwell on this matter. It only said calmly, "Erma, tell that Mycroft person: cowards scheme in the shadows. He can bring his fleet to attack my world. I welcome it and look forward to fighting him again."
Both Erma and Ke Lei Le could detect a hint of 'anticipation' in the vast mental torrent, and even a touch of 'excitement' at escaping boredom. In short, the other party's emotions were completely different from the expected 'anger' or 'indifference,' which was extremely puzzling.
For Ke Lei Le, he just breathed a sigh of relief. Although he didn't know why, it seemed Emperor Amos wasn't as cruel and bloodthirsty as expected, since he let this matter slide.
But after a moment of daze, Erma understood why Emperor Amos had this attitude.
—Would you get angry because someone used sugar to tempt an ant in your anthill?
Of course not. No matter how you looked at it, he was the one benefiting, right? Even if there were some hidden schemes, it was just an ant. If it didn't work out, so be it. It didn't matter if the other party learned the ant colony's data. Even if he were to get angry, it would be at that person, not at the ant.
Especially when this tempted ant, having gained strength from the sugar, helped eliminate a pest in the nest. What was there to be angry about? He'd welcome more such 'multiversal friends' and their selfless help.
A simple, straightforward line of thought.
But it was infuriating and humiliating.
—For a betrayer, if the betrayal itself couldn't cause the betrayed even a shred of pain, what value did her rebellion have? Even though she had long guessed Emperor Amos's thought pattern, Erma still felt an immense sense of humiliation.
Betrayal? Did the weak even qualify?
In that instant, the confusion, humiliation, anger, and resentment that surged through Erma's heart exceeded the total of the past decades. And the source of it all was her own powerlessness. She would rather Emperor Amos kill her outright than be ignored like this.
Perhaps only by reaching the level of the Grand Marshal in the Mycroft civilization, as Ke Lei Le described, could she make the Great Emperor take notice, even send an avatar to probe and fight, showing anger and other emotions.
The golden giant eye naturally didn't care about Erma's emotions. Or rather, it noticed but didn't mind, even finding it amusing. In short, after confirming that Erma indeed carried power related to Joshua, Emperor Amos's divided consciousness said rather casually, "Whether you did it with your own strength or not, you eliminated an Ultimate Being. Very interesting. You deserve a reward. Tell me, what do you want?"
He generously offered a wish quota: "As long as it doesn't conflict with others' wishes, I will grant it."
Erma opened her mouth. The void warship was trembling slightly.
"Why..."
Finally, the moment had come. Finally, she could communicate face-to-face with the Great Emperor. Finally, she could fulfill her long-cherished wish.
Even if it was just a divided consciousness of an avatar, even if he hadn't really looked at her, when the moment truly arrived, Erma still felt incredibly nervous. So she could only speak in a bitter, emotionless voice, softly asking, "Why doesn't Your Majesty act to eliminate these Ultimate Viruses?"
The golden storm giant eye rotated, as if hearing something interesting.
And at that moment, Erma raised her head, forcing all her sensory organs to look up high, meeting the golden giant eye's gaze. Her tone began to normalize: "Your Majesty, the Ultimate Virus has ravaged hundreds of worlds, even several times or a dozen times that number. From what I know, tens of billions of Amos people have died in this time—less than three days."
"I... I felt from that powerful being from another world that his power can expel the Ultimate Virus, preventing its spread. In the border star domain, I witnessed this power. It truly cleared all surrounding Ultimate Viruses, dispersing the plague... Great King, you, you must be able to do it too, right? If you were willing, even that being from another world couldn't compare. You could surely and easily eliminate all Ultimate Viruses in our domain!"
Erma's tone was agitated. If she had hands, she would have clenched them so tightly that blood dripped. Inside her, Ke Lei Le could feel that Erma had cast aside all concern for life and death. She didn't even deny Joshua's existence.
But this agitation was meaningless.
"Is this your wish? To eliminate the Ultimate Virus."
The information transmitted by the golden giant eye was calm. "A bit greedy, Erma. But this kind of appetite is quite interesting."
"Fine. I permit it."
The easy agreement caught Erma off guard. The void warship's tendrils waved aimlessly in midair, as if she hadn't heard clearly.
But soon, the golden giant eye's message came with a hint of regret.
"I was originally curious to see how many in the Royal Court had the potential to undergo Ultimate transformation. After all, it was the voice of that being. What it said was quite interesting... The last hope? If it weren't for a critical period, I would really like to go and see."
Meanwhile, Erma was still in a daze.
—The Great Emperor... agreed?
Just like that? Easily, without any resistance, almost without a moment's hesitation?
He could do it! He could completely do it! Unlike her earlier thought that he might not be able to, this was effortless for him!
He truly could do it if he wanted to. The reason he let the Ultimate Virus run rampant, let the Ultimate Beings destroy... was because he didn't want to!
This was the final straw that broke Erma's heart of resentment.
"No, Your Majesty... Why?"
In a dreamlike tone, she asked the golden giant eye that seemed about to fade away, her voice filled with disbelief: "You clearly could do it... Why didn't you expel the Ultimate Virus earlier, letting hundreds of billions of Amos people die worthless deaths?"
She recalled the eroded skeletons she had seen in plague-infected areas—combatants, researchers, and naturally, civilians. Some were carrying children, nurturing the next generation. Others were working hard, contributing to the Royal Court's grand cause.
They all had families, lives, jobs, friendships. They had independent personalities, ambitions both small and great, hopes and expectations for the future.
But they all fell yesterday and today, never to see tomorrow.
"They were your subjects, Your Majesty! Amos people who revered and worshipped you!"
The golden giant eye paused. It rotated, gazing at the agitated Erma with some interest, like watching a fluttering butterfly.
"It said this is the final war. A great calamity is about to appear, cutting off the path to the source."
The giant eye seemed to be talking to itself. It showed no emotional change from Erma's questioning. "I think, facing a calamity that even that voice considers 'great,' you would all be destroyed anyway. In that case, being infected by the Ultimate Virus just means dying a little sooner. And a few interesting Ultimate Individuals might emerge from it."
"Besides, the Ultimate Virus doesn't affect Commander-level beings. It conveniently weeds out the weak without me having to lift a finger. I find it very convenient."
Deigning to answer Erma's question, like a human pausing to watch a butterfly flit by the roadside out of curiosity, Emperor Amos's divided consciousness laughed. "Speaking of which, the Ultimate Individual you killed was actually quite formidable. If it hadn't been severely wounded by a supernova, it would soon have gone to a star to absorb stellar matter and evolve, becoming a Star Devourer. There aren't many Ultimate Individuals of that level in the entire Royal Court. I was originally curious to see if, as the plague spread, any beings above Star Devourer would appear."
This curious laughter and profound indifference left Erma momentarily unable to breathe.
She finally understood that Emperor Amos's true nature was probably even more malicious than she had imagined.
"Are the Amos people's existence merely tools to satisfy your amusement and curiosity...?" Erma groaned, feeling her internal organs convulse, rejecting this reality. "Are the countless millions, billions of people just a number..."
"What else?"
The golden giant eye was puzzled. But after thinking, it continued, "Of course, it's not that bad. You are living beings, and I do like you, especially interesting individuals like you. Although such Amos people are rare, one or two do appear from time to time."
"But to be honest, aside from interesting individuals like you, other Amos people truly have no value."
Whether it was mercy or cruelty, the golden giant eye laughed. "Amos people? Any one of my avatars can instantly create hundreds of millions, billions of them. Trillions are no problem. It wouldn't even use up the mass of a planet. Very easy. Speaking of which, your ancestors were those Amos people I created. Because they were perfect, I haven't updated them in a long time."
Noticing that Erma seemed about to say something, the golden giant eye effortlessly read her thoughts. "The previous Amos people?"
"Oh, they were too ugly. I destroyed them."