Chapter 568 Where Is the Enemy? (1/2)

In the depths of the sea around the Far Eastern Vortex on Midgard.

As a tear opened out of thin air, powerful psionic waves emanated from within as Joshua left the Mother Tree's body and arrived in a vast space beneath the oceans, held aloft by its psionic power.

There was a reason for this: Joshua must revert to his true form if he wanted to construct a Psionic Warp Engine in his body. Though the Mother Tree was colossal, it could not accommodate a giant over several hundred meters tall and unleashing its full power within the Mother Tree's body as it liked, which was why it used its own power to pillar a hemispherical space beneath the ocean for the warrior that was ten kilometers wide.

”Buzz— Boom!”

With a flash of crimson radiance, Joshua released his restraint over his own power with no hesitation. In that instant, searing heat spread with distorted waves over a few kilometers and directly evaporating seawater behind the psionic walls. Countless bubbles swarmed towards the surface of the boiling sea that now had a dark-red circular burning region, while the smell multitudinous dead fishes being charred spread towards the environment.

Boom. Two feet stood steadily upon the stone layer of the sturdy seabed, as sand and marine remains accumulated over millions of years were blown away as Joshua materialized his monumental power. Now, a four hundred meters tall four-armed golden-red Steel giant stood over the land, his body gleaming with a layer of hazy silver radiance. Overlapping, complex yet philosophical stripes spawned and then vanished within, displaying the meaning of indestructible.

Unlike other occasions, the golden-red outer shell of the giant cooled in seconds in the company of cracking sounds as if metal was quenching, turning into mix patterns of silver and black hues. There was a fluctuating golden light glinting on his chest, and beneath it was a heat that could incinerate everything that throbbed steadily, kicking up ripples in the surrounding space.

Joshua was aware that his shift in appearance was thanks to the complete grasp of his own power. The Steel Giant's golden-red shell and its surface calefaction were due to his inability to suppress the monumental energies produced by the Nuclear Heart in his body, which was why light and heat were brimming visibly from within, turning him into a human-shaped sun. The warrior had, in fact, controlled that power, but the force that the Midgardians assembled to open the Void Door had been plundered by the commanding will of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds and placed in him, allowing his power to become so overwhelming it could not be controlled at once.

Having held himself steady, Joshua had wanted to alter his body immediately. However, before he could act and his feet just exerted a little bit power, the seabed beneath promptly shattered with cracking sounds. Endless sedimentary rocks were turned into minuscule flowing sands as if cookies, intending to pull the warrior under. It was fortunate that Joshua reacted quickly by forming a barrier with his power that mostly repelled gravity—he would have sunk into the core of Midgard otherwise.

”As expected. After attaining psionic strengthening I have really become too heavy, and almost comparable to a little planet.” Joshua could not help but sigh at the fact.

At present, the skin over Joshua's steel giant form was a layer of densely packed degenerate matter that was supremely thin. On a microscopic view, it was completely formed from compact neutrons and protons. Ninety percent of his Steel Strength was used over it, and exactly because of that, the thin layer of shell could divide anything from the outside from seeping within, something that even the minions of the Evil God of Pestilence's assimilation were powerless against.

But even such a powerful defense was a skin-deep appearance. The most formidable power of that Steel Strength layer was absorbing foreign energies, temporarily assembling matter around its surroundings. Theoretically, if the enemy's attack did not reach a certain threshold like Demon General Helm's gamma ray, it was simply a dish for Joshua. The attack which energy was stolen would cause the Steel Strength to reflexively assimilate the surrounding dust, land, and stone to boost its own mass. That was why Joshua would be several times heavier whenever he turned into his true form—he had released the restraint over his Nuclear Heart, and the profound energy would charge his Steel Strength, in turn leading to a tremendous shift in mass.

That was especially the case after he attained the psionic empowerment from the Midgardians.

Then, after mostly controlling his own power, Joshua noticed another entertaining thing.

”A message from the System at this time? It's actually appearing—long time no see.”

Turning his attention to the System, Joshua could not find its origin as usual—even the intricate observation and control of a Legendary champion could not find where it came from.

[Foreigner—Joshua van Radcliffe]

[Status: Foreign Guest, Psionic Soar]

[Foreign Guest: You're not a native of this world, but the world unexpectedly doesn't ostracize you, instead welcoming your arrival voluntarily as if welcoming a visitor. Nullify the process of 'Otherworld Adaptation', temporary 'Native' boost.]

[—This isn't a return to your home. This is now your home.]

[Psionic Soar: Millions call for your arrival, and you came. For certain special reasons, the energy that should restrain your actions is completely added onto your body, greatly empowering your body. Temporary substantial basic attribute increase, sectional technique level increase.]

There should have been tables and data stating things such as Age, Attribute and Charm, but now everything was completely scrambled codes. The most repetitive and indecipherable unique patterns reminiscent of magic runes flashed and surfaced at the bottom of the Stem, an erratic situation that was much more serious than before.

”The System is virtually crumbling the moment my true body unleash Steel Strength…”

Joshua watched the few lines of words in the System that were recognizable even as the data display intermittently generates static as if having a troubled connection. He could not help but sigh, but precisely because of that, the reaction of the System allowed the warrior some inkling in regards to the essence of its existence—there must be some energy existing within that it would be affected by Steel Strength, one of the fundamental powers. Still, now was not the time to mind a mere System. Having solved every other matter, Joshua clenched his right fist, and a sheet of obscure silver radiance glinted over the Steel arm, and in the next moment, he pressed that palm over his chest that glimmered in golden light.

Boom!!!

As if a valve or a seal had been unlocked, the dense matter shell over Joshua's body was opened like a bottle cap by that right hand in the company of a tremendous rumbling akin to a roaring river. An opening that was a dozen meters wide and almost a hundred meters long appeared over Joshua's immeasurably complex extraordinary organ that was completely formed from diverse half-energy, half-physical constructs.

At the moment, the insides of Joshua's body remained slightly human since his Steel Strength had yet completely assimilate with his body. The bone frame that supports the giant body, with divinity as marrow and dense matter as its substance. Muscles that were red as if burnt metals that were all composed from a spiral of Steel Strength fusing with an unnamed extraordinary matter covered the bone frame that was glinting in silver, connecting every bizarre organ within the body.

And the most important organ was that huge nuclear reactor core at the center of the giant's body, where the heart once was.

Like a sphere, the crimson core that emulated the self-destruct energy of Nuclear Stars were producing incredible energy flow in every moment. The liquid energy drove every organ and muscle to produce majestic power that allowed Joshua to move mountains and fill seas. Now, ninety percent of matter in his body was equivalent to powerful cellular machines—every excess information was completely removed by him, leaving just aspects that were most advantageous to combat and survival. With pure muscle strength alone, Joshua could now lift a small continent and create a large artificial island.

While all of that made the Steel giant's appearance more ferocious, there was also a complete, simplistic, and futuristic aesthetic.

”Apart from the Thousand Eyed Serpent that was the true form of Demon General Helm, I have not really exchanged blows with another Legendary champion in real combat. But now it seems that if I seek a perfect, indestructible Steel incarnation by refining myself little by little, it probably had been seeking the extreme of 'energy condensation.'”

Joshua now had a whole new realization in regards to the threshold of Legendary as he experienced his own colossal power. ”To the Beholder, their form, size, and number of eyes or perhaps even the eyes themselves were unmeaningful, because it could innately manipulate energy, in other words, an extraordinary being of primeval beam magic—the gamma ray which Helm studied meticulously was the most correct path for Beholders, it was not unusual that it would develop into a Legendary.”

It was easy to comprehend its serpent form as well, since neither humanoid form nor those grotesque bodies of demons were advantageous in terms of focusing energy. However, as a serpent, its lengthy shape would act like a particle accelerator that concentrates energy to maximize the destructiveness of the gamma ray. Joshua believed that if Helm could, it would definitely have turned into something similar to ouroboros, in turn building an unlimited cycle of energy condensation and 'singularity' level of lethal force.

In a nutshell, the path of extraordinary is nothing other than to compress a natural evolution process that would take over million years into a short few decades through self-cultivation, energy absorption, and fixed-point breakthroughs, to completely present the 'self-path' with a single stride and becoming the zenith of the body. That was why every Legendary pinnacle champion could be viewed at the pioneer and achiever of their race's final evolution—they abandoned the slow and ineffective act of natural evolution, directly reaching the final step of being.