Chapter 860 Divinity Erosion (1/2)

”A fine idea!”

Ezerg's eyes widened, and the dwarven deity nodded in admiration at Joshua's plan.

From his perspective, the special world construct that Joshua designed could accelerate the conversion and accumulation of Extraordinary abilities at full capacity, and could even be used as an example for molding various demiplanes. The intelligent life on it could simply be swapped for normal magical creatures albeit at a decreased effectiveness, but the greatest function of that design is to accelerate the growth from demiplane to an actual world.

Though Ezerg did not need that skill as a god, he would acknowledge and show support when it came to the development of skill or individual ability.

A choice has now been made about where Joshua's true form should stay. According to the God of Wisdom and Choice's prediction, the Vortex of Creation would assume initial form within a year at the earliest, while the ensuing augmenting and recovery would take even longer. In other words, Joshua would have around a year to stay safely in the Vortex of Creation, before the cost eventually outweigh profits as he repels dimensional pressure.

But one year was enough. The warrior would absorb more Steel Particles and Authority each day than wandering over the Void every year.

As Ezerg was ready to leave after a few more words with Joshua, violet and white light flashed. For some reason, Yolanda and the God of Life had descended simultaneously inside the warrior's world.

”Radcliffe…”

Yolanda, appearing in elven maiden form studied all of Joshua once she descended. Her brow was furrowed as if she had seen something—she tried to mention it for moments, before shaking her head, ”Well… I just wanted to say that you could tell us if you need any help.”

With that, she quickly turned into divine light and left. The God of Life who had followed her mimicked her as well: measuring Joshua for a while and then looked towards the world with nine floating islands. Then, after a slight nod, she left as well—there was no telling why she went there at all.

Soon, with Ezerg's own departure and the light of the six deities circled the silver world once, they left the Darkest Abyss. Unlike Joshua, the gods are unable to absorb Steel Strength felt discomfort in the Vortex of Creation, and would need to consume divine ability in every moment to keep themselves from being repulsed.

”…”

Having ensured that the six gods had all left, Joshua maintained his original posture, the humanoid hub paused at the center of the star, remaining motionless for a long time.

At present, the warrior's entire body was still as if time itself has stopped. Even the silver sun at the center of the world stopped stirring and shining, its energy cycle pausing and leaving the entire world in utter darkness. The power that shifted the positions of the nine floating islands dissipated as well, and all things fell into stillness and silence.

”…ha.”

After freezing where he was for a long time, a faint sigh resounded in the darkness.

Now, two crimson specks of light appeared in the heart of the darkness.

As the red light shone, the silver sun regained its like. The world which cycles had stopped also restarted, like a factory that had suddenly suffered power outrage and began running again.

Joshua, who finally recovered some of his mobility looked down at his hands, narrowing his eyes as if wanting to conceal the scarlet divine radiance rising from the depths of his pupils.

”Bad timing, their arrival.”

It was only after a long time that Joshua lifted his shuddering hand and pressed it on his forehead. ”Even after I spoke so stiffly and doing my best to shorten our exchange,” the warrior said quietly and self-deprecatingly, ”still, it's still a little long, and I was almost exposed.”

The warrior's human clone slowly lowered his hand, and yet such a simple act actually made it vanish for a moment as if a poor connection. Soon, he appeared again, but one could tell that there were minute parts in that reformed clone could not be controlled, and there were such great flaws in its construct, like a deformed 3D painting.

”I am still too arrogant…”

Joshua shook his head as if intending to regain consciousness, but even that did not allow him to gain lucidity, and he could only laugh bitterly in the murkiness. ”The God of Death embody vengeful wills and despair… it is too heavy for me to shoulder it alone.”

Recently, in the decisive battle against the Evil God of Death, Joshua had used the runes of his body world and control a beam weapon with electromagnetism.

The weapon composed entirely of light did not deal any physical damage, but it carried special Steel Strength that swiftly transmitted information. In other words, it was a special optic cable, and was an advanced conduit instead of a weapon.

Whether used against a superhuman such as Fattrovi who controlled a world's Authority, or the Black Fog, an intelligent enchanted construct, there was not much use—it was supremely effective, however, when used on an Evil God, it would crush their sturdiest of Chaos barriers, breaking the entity's core that was composed of soul and memories, a weapon expressively tailored against Evil Gods.

If it was aimed against a forming Evil God Embryo—the early form of an Evil God of Death, the weapon was even more terrible. Its presence alone would drain the limitless memories contained in the Chaos, reducing the composites and celestial forms of Chaos into insignificant dust of Chaos, equally crushing them from a thousand and ten thousand into ten thousand '1s'.

Of course, there was a flaw in such a specialized weapon tailored against the Evil God: the spiritual blowback against the user.

Each time Joshua struck a Chaos composite with a luminous weapon, the memory of a ruined world would have been passed through the hub that was Joshua's own body and be marked inside the obelisks.

Each strike and each blow left Joshua's mind heavily burdened, but since Joshua had no soul and had no need to endure spiritual injury, all his hurt was only a mutual burden of in his world's integrated processing array—merely to record the information of over thousands of civilizations, the array would relive the demise of worlds over a hundred times, an equivalent of having a champion's soul break over a hundred times.

Killing a thousand foes was hurting himself over eight hundred times—even two thousand times. Only Joshua could fight like that, with any other person spiritually maimed if they did that even once.

Then, the last burst from the luminous axe that split apart the Darkest Abyss,

Even Joshua would never be able to withstand such a torrent in the mind. That was why he only had one method to strengthen his own spirit, enduring that spiritual assault which could bend the construct of reality, that not even the soulless could truly withstand.

And that one method was divinity.

By awakening and strengthening the divinity he now controlled, Joshua rigidly weathered the most dangerous spike in spirit and forcefully crushed the final retaliation of the Death's Embryo.

That, however, did not mean that the danger had passed.

Instead, it had just begun.

Compared to bidding his time to slowly grind away Chaotic force, the stalwart divinity was the fundamental reason Joshua's mind had problems. Not even the warrior himself could resolve the fundamental attribute of divine ability, and it was only through foolishness and his own spiritual prowess to subjugate and repress his foe that led to Joshua's present dire circumstances.

Presently, the warrior's mind was in a state of murkiness like that of the recently revived heroic spirits. It was only through remolding the world that the revived spirits were slightly restored to normalcy—the six gods' appearance had granted him brief lucidity, allowing him to realize his present circumstances.

”If this continues… Whether I am consumed by the residual memories of world demise from the Evil God of Death or divinity crushing my own consciousness, I would no longer be myself…”

At that thought, Joshua suddenly remembered the abrupt arrival and departure of Yolanda and the God of Life. The expression they showed that they could clearly tell what was happening, and they were always sensitive about such matters.

Joshua also could not help recalled what Yolanda said before, that the Sage was very different after returning from the Darkest Abyss.

Were there similarities between his condition and the Sage?

”Holy Light… Luminous weapons… Sage…”

Closing his eyes, Joshua's human formed slowly vanished from the silver star. He no longer had the strength to maintain a human form, and his will was also dispersing. ”Hah. The Sage would not be as prideful as myself and shoulder the despair of all Abyss and Evil God alone…”

Perhaps.

Probably.

Joshua stopped thinking about that.

Withdrawing all his consideration and focusing, all of his mental prowess diverted to suppress the despairing world memories, along with the growing war divinity. Crimson radiance distinctly swirled in the silver star, blood-colored lightning weaving in the silver clouds.