Chapter 703 The One Who Embodies Authority (2/2)

”Who did you think moved the sun every day so that day and night changed?”

”Who did you think maintained Order upon the world so that all things lives?”

Fattrovi had left the top of the spiral tower, and now stood upon the zenith of Simboa's skies alongside sixteen hundred Soul Stars. Above him was a blazing fireball of energy over one hundred and fifty kilometers wide, emanating endless light and heat that released warmth and luminosity upon the world.

There was no question that it was Simboa's sun.

”Damn it, he really stole the Steel Python's place!”

Would Joshua not have realized who drove Simboa's Steel Python out of its own body? There was now no question that it was Farttrovi—although he did not know how he did it, but as the embodiment of the world's power, he could call himself the incarnation of Order and World without qualms, and was even able to divert the force of the sun to attack the warrior!

Such level of ability was far beyond comparing to certain Legends! In fact, was that even Ultra-power? It was clearly the Authority of a god!

The Time Turner's visage was hard as stone. With his back to the sun, his front fell into the shade—lifting his Steel Python Scepter, clusters of fireballs filled with incandescent positive energy were split out from the sun. However, as he kept imbuing different abilities into them, the golden-red fireballs turned a chaotic red-black, throbbing as if living as welling with the presence of destruction.

”It is I, Fattrovi the Time Turner.”

Every red-black orb from the Simboan sun contained energy that could instantly devastate a chain of mountains and melt summits into plains. A dozen of those fireballs was now descending at the same time, carrying shockwaves that could flatten the center of the Simboan continent and turned the world into a burning hell. It would destroy every Garden Zone on the surface and turn Simboa into a lifeless land of death, much less the spiral tower that was nearby.

It was an apocalyptic class of Authority, but Fattrovi did it. His gaze was apathetic as he pointed his Scepter directly at Joshua, and a dozen fireballs of direction shot out, descending upon him relentlessly like a chain of beads!

However, Joshua remained composed and fearless—he was simply astonished by Fattrovi's callousness. While it may be difficult for other Legends to handle those glowing spheres of energy, it was not even a challenge for him since he ignited a gas giant when he faced off against the Void Mother on Stellaris, creating a real sun by his own hands!

Ka-boom! The giant puppet shrugged off the gravity field and stomped the ground. Using that bursting force, Joshua rose straight above into the skies like an asteroid falling backward, while below him, endless burning fragments of the earth's crust and magma were lifted by the levitation as well, forming a belt of light behind him.

Boom! The Steel Puppet pierced straight through the first fireball. Endless lightning and disintegrative rays burst away at once into red-black energy clouds over the skies. Amidst rolling thunder, the puppet decelerated before darting ahead and breaking through the third and fourth fireballs

But that was already his limit. At the moment he struck the fourth fireball, the dragon horn on the huge puppet's head broke off, while his right hand shattered when he crashed into the fifth. Half of his armor plating had melted by the time he met the sixth, and his entire body was about to be crippled.

In the end, it was one of Joshua's clones which had descended upon that world. He was not the Giant God of Steel, and his puppet's armor had not evolved to the threshold of degenerate matter. It was precisely because Fattrovi determined limits of the warrior's body early on that he simultaneously produced fifteen fireballs.

As the seventh fireball was about to fall, Joshua looked up and leveled his eyes at Fattrovi's own from some distance away. The two glared at each other, one with visible indifference while the other with visible delight.

”Good move!”

With a soft cry, two veins of silver-gray rays ejected out of Joshua's back once more. Surging Steel Strength gathered, materializing and finally transforming into a bulky mountain-splitting axe. With a flash of red light on the observation lens of the puppet, Joshua once again charged toward the falling luminous spheres!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Joshua darted through the air, masterfully swinging his axe. Colossal yet invisible ripples of mass cut with the deftest angle into the luminous spheres, triggering self-destructive blasts. Abandoning brute force and relying on techniques and weapons, Joshua destroyed three spheres in an instant, and strode out, swinging his axe to force the tenth to implode itself. Frightening shockwaves descended on the ground along the swings, cutting an extended rift valley through the eastern mountains of Simboa.

But at that moment, the silver axe turned into fragments as well: Even the weapon formed from Steel Strength could not withstand the excessively brutal clash of energies. Thus, the remaining five luminous spheres of devastation shot toward him from every direction—and this time it was not the half-hearted trial effort. The two champions who had been probing the limits of each other's power were finally about to enter direct conflict!

And facing the simultaneous ambush of the five spheres, Joshua did not materialize the Steel Strength axe again.

Instead, he paused where he was, and then…'breathed'.

Standing in the sky, Joshua spread his arms as if to embrace the world. Soon, the chest armor of the huge puppet dropped away, revealing the Extraordinary module behind it—a blazing, miniaturized sun!

Boom, boom—The little sun quaked and rumbled louder than thunder. Under the warrior's control, it began to whirl and ceased emanating energies, voluntarily absorbing the energies around him instead. A windstorm was stirred at once in the skies of Simboa as if to devour everything around it cleanly, endless consuming the wafting energies around it. There were even specks of fluorescence appearing in the air, turning into translucent winds that poured into the small sun.

Such was the precise definition of 'World Devourer'! The surrounding light promptly dimmed as the dazzling sun turned deathly, and everything was seemingly entering finality and end.

Even time itself!

The five luminous spheres of devastation that was about to strike Joshua abruptly slowed, and kept decelerating until they had almost stopped, wriggling forward with turtle speed. Faraway, Fattrovi's eyes widened at the sight, showing an expression beyond 'indifference' for the first time.

And in the ensuing moment, he realized the reason.

It was the phenomenon where all things had been drained off their energy and approaching absolute zero.

Around Joshua, mass and energy fell into silence as all energies that allowed molecules to moved were drawn away. The five destructive luminous spheres had long since collapsed into a sparse nebulous mass, since they consisted of object particles which existence nothing apart from energies could support. At the center of the huge puppet's chest, the miniaturized sun that was a few times brighter now pulsated with a terrible presence, and with such a pillar of energy, Joshua's broken dragon horn and melted armor completely recovered. In a single breath, the huge puppet returned to its original state, becoming even larger and stronger—

Time was an illusion, or at least it was for the physical universe. It was a restraint enforced upon the speed objects move, just like how space was the coordinates in which objects moved. On a certain meaning, time paused was the ceasing of movement for all object, and Fattrovi could achieve that miracle through Steel Strength's Authority. While Joshua was not so direct, he could obtain the same outcome by draining all energies in the world him, thus stagnating all things.

In such lowered temperatures, even large chunks of a sun would be extinguished into visible sunspots, much less drain away the energies from some luminous spheres of devastation.

Stopping his draining of the energies adrift around—which considerably burdens his core engine—the warrior lifted his eyes toward Fattrovi, who did not say a word. At present, his puppet body had become larger and sturdier like his original form, composed of nearly indestructible degenerate matter.

Joshua feared no human or being when he did battle in a world with substance and energy—not even Fattrovi, who held the Authority of a world.

And at the zenith of the world, the Time Turner remained silent. His back still facing the sun, his brow tightened as if considering a way to counter Joshua, but finally shook his head.

”You are very powerful,” Fattrovi said. ”I can't actually come up with a way to fight you at once… which is why.”

”Let's start again.”

In the very next instant, the world stood still. As Joshua looked on in astonishment despite having expected it, time reversed once more… The sun set to the east, the mountains recombined while the crater on the earth protruded. Shattered lithosphere combined, and countless Garden Zones and steel factories were built.

Everything returned to what it once was, but even as he resisted the reversal of time, Joshua, faintly noticed.

There was a single star upon the sky that dulled slightly.

That was the only difference.