Chapter 1013 The Approaching Shadow (1/2)
”…An attack?”
Josuha's broken consciousness had reassembled because of his desire to battle. But even as he awakened within the icy coldness of the Void, what he saw was merely the surge of the Mana Tide which had begun to return to calmness.
Scattered white radiant specks were strewn across the dark Void and gathered into a gushing flow like stardust. Embedded within the gush, the larger world of Stellaris was a reef—sturdy, stubborn, and seemingly eternal unchanging. With that as the backdrop, the shockwaves from the battle continuously extended into the distance like a silver luminous circle.
”…nothing…”
The Ultimate Sublimator Collective had been defeated, and Joshua's enemy had ceased to exist.
Upon realizing that, Joshua consciousness, which had almost slumbered just before, began to slacken once again.
Soon, however, he noticed a luminous silhouette in a corner of the surge, boasting a powerful presence that simply could not be ignored.
It was a humanoid, which was ablaze with psionic energy and divine power far hotter than a supernova. Twelvefold bounded fields were crossing and spiraling from it as twelve dominated spaces, chewing down on everything like fangs. Moreover, there was no personal label upon that humanoid form at all, with only a single eye faintly discernible from its head, allowing it to be identified.
It was a Takurian.
In fact, it was the Grand Patriarch of the Takur Ruin Cult, Galgur Takur.
”…danger!”
The other's power was of such intensity that it was capable of wiping away his mind now, in his moment of vulnerability. Upon sensing that potential threat, Joshua finally reassembled his consciousness in full based on his basic instinct of hostility.
Like a star assuming form after being accelerated countless times around a core—or the lack of it—one way or another, in a certain spot in the Void, a power began to surge, with more and more Steel Strength thus manifesting and converging before spreading.
However, Galgur did nothing even as he reassembled his consciousness. The being that was once considered an enemy had actually conveyed no hint of hostility from the very start, and simply used its single radiant eye, which could now longer close itself, to stare at the cluster: a nebula giant which was now continuously manifesting and putting its broken limbs to their original positions.
Otherwise, with that malice alone, Joshua could not have reawakened.
Still.
”…it's not looking good, Patriarch of the Takurians.”
In the very moment that Joshua's mind had been restored, his first words was a ruthless statement of reality. ”You're disintegrating.”
”It's really annoying to hear that from a fellow such as you, who had almost dissipated entirely just a moment ago.”
The humanoid formed of divine energy opened his mouth as if saying something, but his words were immeasurably distorted as if a million voices were speaking at the same time, the voices utterly overlapping. Pausing blankly for a moment, the Grand Patriarch then shook his head and laughed bitterly.
”…So, I can't even talk? This sort of ending is just a little too lonely.”
”It's not as bad as you would think,” Joshua replied to this, sighing flatly.
Meanwhile, the giant that resembled a nebula was compressing himself once again, withdrawing the broken pieces of his body, which had almost spread throughout half of Stellaris itself, and rebuilding his form. Soon, in a brief dozen seconds and as inexhaustive Steel Strength had once again been compressed into a crystallization, it unfurled amidst a single rumble, becoming a brand-new world—the warrior has rebuilt a world, an embodiment of his personal consciousness.
”Is it that shocking?”
Now, having recovered his body to the size a star, the four-armed world giant turned his eyes to the Grand Patriarch, whose single eye was widened. ”I could understand even the voices of worlds and Evil Gods. What is your voice in comparison? Anyway, thanks for your help before.”
”…”
The Grand Patriarch kept silent and did not respond, but Joshua had never been one to concern himself over such things. The power of the Takurian Grand Patriarch had been one of the most important elements in defeating the Ultimate Sublimator Collective.
Before this, Joshua's clone which had escaped the pursuit of the Ultimate Sublimator Collective had been accumulating power by the downstream of the Great Mana Tide. He had split away millions of Restoration Beams that flowed along the Mana Tide to reach different corners of the Multiverse, drawing energy and waiting for an opportunity when his main combat form and the Ultimate Sublimator Collective fought to a stalemate, and then blindsided the enemy from behind.
Halfway through it, however, he picked up on the psionic presence that could only belong to Takurians. It was when the most powerful presence arrived that Joshua saw the Grand Patriarch, leading an entire legion of souls and brimming with almost profoundly limitless divine energy as they made a beeline for the Ultimate Sublimator Collective.
When he saw that, Joshua's clone could still mostly deduce the reason behind it even if he did not know what it was all about. Therefore, compressing all the power he could collect from the Great Mana Tide, he darted forward along with the Grand Patriarch.
Incidentally, when they rushed to the scene of the battle, the Ultimate Sublimator Collective had been maimed and prepared to flee Stellaris. Hence, both the Grand Patriarch and Joshua raised their powers to the very limit and beat it back into it.
That single strike had been the power that Joshua had gathered from all his own clones spread throughout the cosmos, the energy gathered from consuming a few worlds, along with the Steel Python Star's power as the Soul Cycle, the Triple Curtain's power, the Takurians' power, as well as Joshua's clone after it had intercepted the surge of the Great Mana Tide.
Moreover, the warrior had also stuffed the black hole bomb containing the mass of six billion stars inside the body of the Ultimate Sublimator Collective—even if it would not have been lethal in its peak form and very much manageable, its body was completely harmed inside out, and so with the pincer attack from atop and beneath, as well as the combined might of near endless ranks of civilizations' champions, it was struck down by their combined might and perished utterly.
”…actually, we were almost unable to kill it.”
Absorbing the information which he had exchanged with the Ultimate Sublimator Collective in the fields of dimensional fragments, Joshua could not help but sigh. ”We are all beings who fight against the darkness in the first place. Why could it not just understand cooperation and communication?”
Be that as it may, if the Ultimate Sublimator Collective actually had the capacity to work together and interact with others, it would not have been the Egoistic Beast, and certainly not so powerful to reach the threshold of Demi Saint.
When Joshua had finally mostly restored his body and roughly 80% of his combat prowess, the Grand Patriarch finally spoke.
”I'm dying,” he said softly.
”I know,” Joshua nodded and replied calmly. ”And I can assure you that as long as the Takurians no longer treat us with hostility, the people of Mycroft will not treat the Takurians as an enemy.”
”Good…”
With that powerful assurance and after having personally witnessed the otherworld champion from the Lost Galaxy displaying power far beyond that when they fought years ago, the worried Grand Patriarch could not help but heave a sigh in relief, his tightened nerves relaxing at once. All at once, divine presence began to set ablaze upon his body as strong luminous flames, as if to devour Galgur.
From a certain perspective, it was a divine advent.
It was then on that Joshua finally saw the state that the Grand Patriarch was in.
***
With their 'thoughts' alone, which in other words was the resemblance and common understanding towards 'doctrine' and the 'mindset of the divine', devout followers of a faith could invoke the power of gods upon their own bodies to unleash power far beyond their own abilities.
Naturally, zealotry did not denote resemblance, but was instead very far away from it, since it was blind worship and not true belief. Generally speaking, clergies who could cast divine invocation were mostly considered apostles, as their words and behaviors were mostly identical to gods' and very much a backup form of the gods. If a god should fall, those apostles could directly obtain their legacies from Divine Dungeon Shrouds and in turn become a new god.
On the other hand, the Takurian Grand Patriarch had now essentially invoked over millions of deities!
Although the power of the invoked gods was actually weak and insignificant and it was unimaginable at all why such weak deities existed, what manifested within a short time with the multiplication from their terrific fundamental numbers was a power that could almost match the Demi Saint itself. Joshua could not at once tell what the 'common understanding' was in which the Takurian Grand Patriarch had invoked so many deities at once, but being the Creator of the Four Divine Rings of Emotion, he could faintly sense that it was a remarkably strong bond of emotion that linked the Grand Patriarch to that power.
”…it is love.”
Finally, Joshua managed to see through the essence of that emotion. He then hesitated before stopping himself for a moment, leveling his own gaze at Galgur's.
”From a certain point of will, you were embodying the divine power of billions with your individual form. Even if your soul and will and that divine power have a remarkable infinity, you would quickly be devoured by the excessive power of the Root, therefore progressing towards Divine Death. That is the reason you are disintegrating.”
The warrior calmly described his understanding about the Takurian Grand Patriarch's present state. ”Even if you dispel your divine invocation form, your body and mind would be overburdened by the absence of divine power, dying as your body is utterly incinerated.”
”Divine death is assured if you don't give up.”
”It's like almost dying.”
That Takurian divine invocation had granted the Takurian Grand Patriarch the ability to fight the Demi Saint, even if his present power was far from reaching that level… perhaps, it was the presence of such a trump card that kept the Takurians and the Court of Imperator Amos in a standoff for so many years.
If the purpose of Amos civilization had been for the amusement of a single individual, the Takurian civilization was a true collective.
If the former's motivation to fight was the hate towards alien races, the motivation to fight for the latter would be their love for their own brethren.
”Whatever the case may be, this battle is over.”
Joshua turned towards Stellaris with a thin gaze. ”The very origins of the Evil Gods in Stellaris has been wiped out, and the source of the Ultimate Plague having been stricken down by us just now. Even if the plague itself is still at large, it would not be in waves after waves and spreading without an end—the Multiverse is now much safer because we had fought.”
”Although I'm unsure if it's possible, Galgur, I have a divine position ready just for you on my end which could stop your divine invocation, and sustain you with new divine powers.”