Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The Flame of the Multiverse would die and ignite repeatedly, just as civilization cycles between glory and destruction. In time, there were no things eternal, no unlimited possibilities and no absolute power. Even galaxies would wither unexpectedly, not to mention all that intelligent life created—those were perhaps the most beautiful yet most fragile and breakable of things.
But with lacking comes yearning. Unlike ordinary sentient creatures that lived in normal worlds and yet seek brutal powers that destroy themselves endlessly, the demons that naturally grasped the ability for ruin yearn instead the power to create worlds, the power of life that restores Flame.
In the boundless Void around the Sixth Abyss, two profound powers, bright and sinister, sacred and horrific—clashed once again. Devastation that could reduce all life into nothingness tangled with the dazzling fiery light that could shine over a thousand stars, the shockwave quaking the dimensional turbulences, engulfing even distant abysses.
“I see.” The gigantic demon’s form throbbed as it clenched its twin scythes, silver fiery light shooting out of its body from time to time intermittently while it laughed coldly—it was the laugh of a demon: as greedy as locusts and as searing as the magma of the depths. “You are that person who wields the power of Life!”
Just when Goliath ascertained the fact, it promptly spread its wings, boundless shadow hence spreading like a dark mirror. Countless unusually formed demonic shades seemingly of different species darted out of that mirror, burning in scorching flame when fact, each shade could drain every heat and mobility it touches, leaving whatever everything in stillness.
Thus, countless pieces of world fragments, touched by the shades lost at motion energy, before being pulled into the shade and vanished within the dark mirror that Goliath’s wings had turned into.
Joshua, nonetheless, made no move to defend himself. He simply looked up and glanced at the shades with the corner of his eyes—light, carrying anti-entropy comparable to stars instantly piercing the thousands of those demonic forms. Although it appeared to be light injuries, like a single point burnt out of paper, the blaze began to pierce those demonic forms and spread, swiftly reducing them to ash.
Even in the face of Goliath’s very bizarre attack, Joshua did not panic and calmly directed the most insignificant amounts of his power to counter each assault. On the other hand, whenever the warrior waved his fist, Goliath would face it all vigilantly at full power.
That was not actually unusual. The skill and combat ability that Joshua’s present clone had was no different from his true form, apart from the aspect of ‘yield’. Still, given that the matter of yield could be easily solved by self-summon and how serious the warrior was in facing him, the Demon King’s attack that used particles to steal the enemy’s heat, mobility and other abilities were neither unusual or mysterious.
There was no question that Goliath was formidable. However, it could not stand against Joshua, whose very strength had been refined to perfection, not to mention that it was not revealing its trump card and just using basic attacks. Each time the warrior fought an enemy that was his equal, the warrior always exerted a bit more power to learn about his foe. Goliath, meanwhile, could only learn meaningless information, such as how his foe was ‘powerful’, ‘defensively strong’, ‘swift’ and ‘possess a lot of energy’—in other words, that its enemy has explosive basic attributes. After all, Joshua only attacked normally from start to end, while it had to use one Extraordinary power after another.
Seemingly feeling that he had a handle on things, the motionless Giant God of Steel jerked his body. That faint movement warped the surrounding dimensions visibly, but Goliath guffawed unusually when it noticed that. The Abyssal Liege halo over its head enlarged, flickering in dark luster while the demon itself slashed its scythes, drawing a dark-red circle frame where endless unfamiliar runes materialized.
Then, Joshua moved.
His body vanished, leaving a streak of silver flow as he shot towards Goliath in a straight line. Distorted space appeared to be a single streak of an extended groove in dimensional turbulences, the gathering energies forming a belt of myriad colored stars visible even in other worlds.
The momentum that the charge carried could blast a planet into pieces, or planetary disaster if it was a sun. But that terrible energy was all gathered on the warrior’s four fists, the violent silver light downing Goliath and its spell.
But that dash was fruitless.
Joshua stood where Goliath was, touching a black scar that suddenly appeared over the chest of his neutron armor and flattening it. Frowning, the warrior then looked around—the Abyssal Liege’s massive body had vanished at once when his heavy fist swung at him, leaving him punching nothing. Indeed, Joshua himself never realized what it had done to achieve that counterblow.
Although his opponent counterattack which had been charging barely pierced his defenses, Joshua knew that the slash would drain most of the light and heat on a continent in an ordinary world. It would at once harvest countless souls while killing the planet’s core, a true scythe of that death that destroyed worlds and civilization.
Still, perhaps it was not that he could not see it—he could not understand it.
Joshua remembered the unusual spell and runes the demon conjured before vanishing. Those were things he had never seen before, and just as he watched his surroundings carefully while pondering, he suddenly raised his hands, catching a giant dark scythe with three fingers in a vice grip.
The scythe had abrupted appeared out of the darkness and was slashing at Joshua’s head, but with Joshua’s perception and reflexes having reached the very limits of the physical realm, he sensed the ambush and countered—by adding more power without break into his fingers, cracks appeared over the black scythe. In the instant that half the blade was crushed by Joshua, it turned into shadows and disappeared.
“So that’s what it was.”
That little opening and information enlightened Joshua immediately about many things, and he laughed quietly at the lightless Void around him. “No wonder your form had changed so drastically, as if you’re no demon…”
“Goliath, you’ve actually mastered the power of Shadow!”
The Giant God’s information flow extended over the Void that anyone within surrounding Abysses could hear his voice. The Void, meanwhile, had neither sound nor echo, only silence.
[Shadow]
Joshua had once discussed world migration with the Mycroft world’s most powerful spellcasters, including Nostradamus, Barbarossa, Barnil, and William. They sensed that the essence of the Great Mana Tide might have come from the heart of the Multiverse—an energy wave that took shape after countless worlds were destroyed. It was they who had uncovered a whole-new Extraordinary power of this Multiverse through data from Simboa and many other worlds.
And that power was Shadow.
The standard phenomenon of light and shadow had been changed at its essence in that silent but monumental shift. From then onward, it grew supernatural aspects, like how intelligent beings solidified spirit in ancient times into psionic energies, or how fluctuating energies in the air turned into mana, ether and the six elements, and how living energies were given definition of Combat Aura, just as how light and love became Holy Light—everyone was therefore not puzzled that Shadow would become a certain ability legacy as well.
Be that as it may, the research on Shadow was in the early phases even on Mycroft. By observing the Ultrahumans on Simboa who had awakened that ability instinctively, the Skypiercing White Tower Mages managed to come up with several basic Shadow runes, and the patterns in which it runs.
But now, Goliath the Demon King displayed an advanced Shadow power and application—it truly left Joshua shocked and awed.
Even so, that was not too unusual.
Joshua coldly looked at the surrounding Void as he tried to determine where in the shadows Goliath was lurking. The new ability was a troubling one even for him, and not something he could decipher in a short amount of time.
After all, t he warrior thought, having a complete legacy of Extraordinary power, Mycroft is naturally careful about a whole new unknown power and examine it bit by bit. Neither would there be many champions who would abandon their natural path to fully focus on that power.
Demons, however, were different. They do not have much choice, and Goliath could become the Demon King because it was gifted, a Demon General-class being that did not fear failing its experiments—it was reasonable for it to train Shadow ability to paragon levels.
Goliath, who had melded into shadows, should be nearby—it was not actually some hiding move, but since Joshua was unfamiliar with Shadow, he simply would not be able to sense where his foe was.
Such was the effect of a whole new Extraordinary power towards orthodox Extraordinary individuals. They have to adapt to the new landscape and face new enemies while repairing the gaps that now existed in their training and combat skill… If fighting alone would leave them with so many flaws, the new ability was certainly a headache for beings that intend to master everything.
Goliath, meanwhile, said nothing in return or banter. Even when its Shadow ability, its trump card had been revealed, it did not react as it searched for Joshua vulnerabilities in the Void, ambushing him occasionally—even if Joshua perfectly guarded against each onslaught, it was not his style to be beaten up in such single-sided fashion.
Then, as Goliah suddenly appeared out of the shadows once again to attack Joshua, it appeared to have been retaliated against. The warrior had clearly did not turn to parry, and yet its entire body was sent flying along with its two scythes, before it pathetically dived into the shadows.
Joshua turned slightly. Around the Giant God of Steel were expanding fireball that appeared in the cloud of stars around him: Flames of blue, white, orange, yellow and red shone, the dozens of different colored fireballs were gathering, swelling and blazing. Each of them fused, split, shrunk or bloated, the light swiftly changing depending on what they did.
At that moment, Joshua body was orbited by those little stars of endless, powerful light. There were more than forty-five and counting, whirling around the Giant God of Steel like satellites. As those dozens of stars shone at once, all shadow in an optical definition no longer existed, and not even the supernatural aspect of Shadow could pierce that pure celestial domain.
Even without Holy Light, Joshau could repel Shadow—he himself was the torch who ignited the distant unknown, why would he fear the endless darkness?
” Phew— ”
The Giant God of Steel lifted all four hands at once, catching four different-sized stars. Unlike natural planetary forms, some of them were pure luminous forms or crystalline stars, while others were fireballs, true stars which surface presents coronas intermittently.
Others were even miniature, fiery galaxies, with spiral arms that revolved with different attributes, kicking up burning sparks. There was also those that were geometrical forms that kept splitting and fusing—there were some which had the shadows of phoenixes growing at its core, or weird, three-legged birds.
In short, there were psionic crystal stars, blazing mana stars, elemental stars, and elemental geometrical stars, as well as stars of Holy Light and stars that were almost alive. In that instant, the God of Steel brought light that could be animated by all Extraordinary powers, illuminating half of the Abyssal Void.
Joshua looked around coldly. All darkness was dissipating, with dimensional turbulences calming with his very presence and forming a colossal bow-shaped formation. Endless light of myriad-colored spectrum and supernatural powers unfurled towards every direction as if a supernova, breaking all shadow and things uncorrelated to those supernatural forces.
The warrior definitely did not know the power of Shadow—but he knew other Extraordinary powers, and as long as he applied what powers he knew and eliminated everything else, what was left were things he did not comprehend.
Radiance shone.
At the very end, a massive demon’s form could no longer conceal itself, and leaped out of the Void.
Raggedly, the Demon King Goliath arrived outside the boundary of the stars’ illumination, leveling its gaze at the warrior’s own from afar.
“Round two…” Joshua said quietly, his lips curling up.
Goliath, however, spoke first. “It’s my defeat. I surrender.”
“…?”