Chapter 1034 That Which Was Hoped For (1/2)

The dimensions quaked and the Void itself stirred. The bolt unleashed by Evil God of Cohesion had torn everything there was apart, radiating in the single split second that it had struck true on the Giant God. Endless bizarre streams of energy weaved and combined as a net, enfolding the entire region beneath a vague halation, dense, heavy and dazzling, although it was full of death.

The faintest bit of shockwave emanated and stretched out towards the rear, but one of the fortresses in the midst of fighting a swarm of Evil God spawns simply had no time to spare and take notice of the shockwave, and as such, was hit along with their enemy. However, within that instant, each individual had suddenly awakened some ability akin to spiritual ability for some reason. All of them were abruptly able to connect with other beings in spirit and mind, promptly understanding each other and forming a massive spiritual network with which their power and minds combined, as if they had been one in the first place.

With wills united as one impregnable stronghold, everyone fought the darkness in solidarity, setting themselves aflame without sparing effort, with all of them embodying the same intention for victory to stride forward. Those were emotions that were at once beautiful and positive, incidentally fitting the concept of Cohesion…every person within the fortress had been refined in no time at all, fusing and condensing into a blazing bundle of radiances.

A network of psionic and spirit, a complete intertwining of heart and mind—a threshold that countless psionic civilizations could only hope for but not reach was now promptly realized. At the very next instant, in addition to shrill bellows and wails, the spirit network which had just assumed form and all which were inside the bundle of soul radiance were gathered by some greater existence, thus consumed and turned into a part of themselves while leaving a hollow emptiness in the real world.

After all, beauty and ugliness were merely shallow concepts that creatures of intelligence held. Beings of profoundness had never once been bounded by such things.

”Fort Bidar has gone completely quiet… all of them are gone…”

”What Evil God could it actually be?! Even from such a great distance, I am definitely feeling a chill of malice!”

Be that as it may, the war waited for no one. Soon, those who had been worried and concerned about the battle unfolding some distance away no longer needed any observation spells to survey the situation.

That was because a hand had reached out from the heavy and dense halation. The massive iron fist was aflame with a silver inferno, with the world itself havingly seemingly parted just by its appearance. The dimensions around it were collapsing into itself as deep wells that dragged everything into itself, converging and progressing towards a holy radiance. However, it was actually being burnt, absorbed, and assimilated in return, condensed into a part of another person's body.

But that was only one hand. From the other directions of the halation, as the shrouds stirred massive tides, another three hands had reached out and streaked through the Void as punches. Dragging along scattered scars of radiance along with them, they crashed into the darkness of the Void, crushing every single spawn of Evil God in its way and catching three Evil Gods one after another.

Ooom!

The brightest runes in the shape of Φ were appearing on the back of flying fists, with silver rivers of flame engulfing each of the struggling Evil Gods and igniting them, burning them so entirely until they were simply black patterns inscribed upon the fists.

Boom!

Covered in the deep wells of dimension, the four-armed Giant Gods strode away from the halation, pulling back his three fists of inferno. Amidst a deafening rumble, they reattached themselves to their respective arms, which at once prompted the radiant flame covering the silver body of the Giant God to burn even stronger. The entity himself actually appeared to be a blaze burning fearsomely upon the Void, the brightest of torches there was.

From every single corner across the Piroth galaxy, that torch could be personally witnessed.

That being said, if one were to describe Joshua as a flame, then all Evil Gods were moths lunging at the flame. In comparison, those moths were of far greater magnitude than what worlds could imagine, in both numbers and proportions.

Thus, one would see that every single Evil God in view were turning their headings within the Silent Void, after having discovered a being more 'eternal' than the sheer permanence of any being or civilization that might have existed in the entire cosmos. That exceedingly bright flame was indeed like a sign on the road, a guide that kept the sight of every Chaotic being focused on him.

In fact, there were actually champions who were engaged in fierce battle against the Evil Gods in the Forerunner Fortress Chain who began realizing that their opponents were suddenly ignoring everything, even showing no concern about every champion's attack in their lethal skirmish. They simply and quickly turned and left, leaving the champions to assume that the Evil Gods were actually running. When they turned their attention away from battle and noticed the dazzling light just ahead of them, however, every champion thus realized why everything had unfolded as such.

In the perimeter defended by the Mycroft civilization, the God of Love and Death stared solemnly up front—the Evil God of Distortion, with powers reaching Ultimate Legend and surpassing the combined might of multiple True Gods, had just withstood a combined strike from all of the Seven Gods, and was even able to escape their encirclement despite its critical injuries. In spite of all that, it did not hold any sort of grudge, retaliate, or dish out any form of payback, instead just leaving them and bounding away towards the direction of the radiance.

”Give chase!”

”Do not let them trouble Joshua!”

Without sparing many words and taking a moment to recover from the divine power recoil in their bodies following their combined strike, the Seven Gods turned into light and pursued the Evil God of Distortion, continuing their battle against them.

Meanwhile, on a perimeter closer to the fringes, another powerful Evil God, which had been rampaging inside the defensive zone and fighting another Ultimate Legend, suddenly paused for a split second, allowing its opponent to slash down with his blade and slice off half of a wing.

The Evil God was so beautiful in appearance and would not even have resembled one, if not for the excessive thick presence of Chaos surrounding it. Its entire body was emanating a faint golden splendor and resembled a sphere covered under innumerable pure-white feathered wings. Despite that, the champion showed no delight in being able to hurt his opponent by managing to cut off half of a wing, but the expression on his face changed at once instead, with the champion himself retreating swiftly.

[La~]

The feather-winged Evil God suddenly broke into sonorous song. With the spreading of pale golden light, each of its tightly folded wings spread itself, revealing the innermost layer of twisted halation which had been covered under those countless wings—a most unusually ancient presence unfurled from the inside, bursting away like a tidal wave and unleashing a surging divine power!

”Pure divine power? How is that even possible?!”

The expression on the champion contorted. Having studied extensively the path of the gods, he was able to notice from the sensation of the extremely ancient divine power that there had not been any sign of it in the following eons—meaning that the Evil God had came to be in a time when not even Psi existed!

And from the way things appeared, could it be that the Evil God did not actually plan to attack in the first place, and would merely withstand the champion's own harassment and its instincts to retaliate?

Unlike the Seven Gods, he could barely keep that Evil God occupied in a melee. Their previous fight was only to delay the Chaos entity from advancing as they waited for reinforcements to arrive and destroy it. But now that the Evil God had exerted its full ability, he could not even slow it down for moment, and was only able to watch as it kept singing its odd song while whistling away.

At the moment, the entire Void was like a saucer with endless dark shooting stars whirling, darting towards the center of the saucer, and descending. The center was also incidentally where the four-armed Giant God was fighting the radiant wheel which was assembling itself, the fearsome exchange of blows causing the surrounding Void to rumble resoundingly, forming a circle resembling an event horizon.

Neither the host of Evil God spawns or the Evil Gods were even able to approach the circle as the shockwaves on the outer rings stopped them, but the feather-winged Evil God was different. Releasing a radiance that could eclipse every galaxy and world around it, it shot towards the circle which felt unusually hardened even to other Evil Gods, cutting into it rapidly and leaving a luminous scar. It felt like nothing more than paper to it, and was bypassed ever so easily.

But suddenly, a fist burst out from within the circular space and collided with it head-on, handily pressing down the rapidly flying feather-winged Evil God in place and stopping it at once!

[Shhh~]

The odd sonorous song resounded once again, but any person was able to discern a feeble tune this time. At the same time, the feather wings of the Evil God were falling off, its infinite feather and wings igniting into silver sparks while its entire body was caught tightly and turned into a burning fire shield, as Joshua kept the feather-winged Evil God in front of himself to block any other fully-powered blows launched by the Evil God of Cohesion.

”An Evil God that controls divine power? And such an ancient presence…could this be one of the original Evil Gods that the Mastermind had created after his own era, but also before the time of the Wise One of Psi?”

Even if the feather-winged Evil God certainly held great value for research, Joshua simply did not have the effort to spare in studying its origins—more than that, so what if he did study it? It would do nothing other than provide him more knowledge regarding the method with which the Mastermind had created Evil Gods, and would not have actually affected anything.

After all, the other Evil God which was right in front of him was a Demi Saint!

”So there are other Demi Saint Evil Gods that exist, aside from Fertility and Upheaval. I've thought about that a long time ago, but not even I would have imagined that you would actually appear so soon…”

The Silver Giant God gazed in front of himself serenely, whereas the core of the rotating wheel of light kept up its barrage of charging and discharging, seemingly preaching some Truth as if between life and death…in reality, that was assuredly the Truth of a certain path, since every Evil God was the equivalent of a central point to all probabilities embodied by a civilization. They were hence a condensation of the civilization's most profound developments, and should any psionic individual be able to glimpse the true form of the Evil God of Cohesion, they might truly understand some powerful path of cultivation.

But that would be a mistake, just as they would assuredly only ever cross that diverging path to a dead end of despair. In fact, one could describe it as a path where their journey would definitely be interfered with, a path where they would never be able to advance.

”The Evil God of Cohesion must be another entity who had come to existence after the Wise One of Psi, but had likewise almost reached that same threshold.”

Raising a hand and twirling it in a circle, the distorted dimensions turned into a shield in a manner most natural, parrying each discharge of bizarre bolt. After having become an existence who had already seen through the essence of Evil Gods, Joshua could at once see the precise origins of every single Evil God. ”I had theorized in the past that a single path allows the presence of more than one Wise One, with the successor being able to advance the path towards a whole new level—but it now it appears that it would not work.”

”And that is because compared to all these 'juniors', it was really the Mastermind which had assumed the path and reached its limits after the Wise Ones.”

As long as the Mastermind was still in existence, the preexisting paths would be completely sealed shut. Regardless of the greatness of talent or the staunch will to progress an existent system of ability to the next level while also ascending as a Wise One, any being who attempted such a thing would be absolutely struck by the cloaked hand of the Mastermind, finally ending up as a Demi Saint Evil God akin to the Evil God of Cohesion, molded into a tool at the Mastermind's disposal.

It was only by establishing a brand-new path and transcending all existing probabilities that such a threat could be avoided.

”It seems that the Evil God of Cohesion would have arrived upon the perimeter of the fortresses in or around half a year if I had not managed to progress my level…it is much earlier than I had imagined, and it is also a lot worse.”

Because that would mean that there would not have been just one Demi Saint Evil God in the oncoming assault.

***

At the same time, in the gap when Joshua contemplated many things, the Evil God of Cohesion had rotated to a full circle. The dimensions thus began to reverberate gently while luminous circuits began to appear one after another over the body of the Evil God, just as Joshua distinctly felt that the power rate of output in its attacks had risen to another level. Thought Joshua could still block the luminous shroud, the impact still extended and destroyed many fortresses behind him, not to mention that the spawns of other Evil Gods and actual Evil Gods caught by the barrage were all being gathered and assimilated as a part of the Evil God of Cohesion.

That was its ability.

Even so, no one knew the limits of the Evil God of Cohesion, because there had perhaps never been any being that had compelled it to exert itself to the limits of its own power.

Shouldn't continue the fight here.

In the instant that the idea crossed his mind, Joshua had moved and left, not only to better protect the others but also to deny the Evil God of Cohesion the opportunity to multiply and strengthen itself. Directly vaulting past the Silent Void, the warrior mustered his own body to shine in great light as he headed for another dormant galaxy. The endless Evil Gods hence chased after Joshua, and though the numbers left were actually considerable, there was no Evil God spawn left in the Piroth galactic fortress.

The Evil God of Cohesion certainly kept up the pursuit as well. It was neither capable of thought nor able to react intelligently because it was just like a tool, a weapon that attacked automatically to unleash total decimation to any target which met its condition. And now, even while the Evil God of Cohesion continued with its assimilation of Evil God spawns and the other weaker Evil Gods, it was also spreading itself incessantly—at the center of the radiant wheel, which was several times more massive than an ordinary world, a black core and a white core were being materialized and reversed, absorbed, and released.

With a silent quaking, as if to stop Joshua from escaping, the materializing black core at the center of the Evil God of Cohesion suddenly closed itself, rather resembling the image of a massive radiant eye losing its own pupil—then, within seconds, the white core opened itself up, with a glistening rain shooting away with unending dazzle, sprinkling down upon Joshua and the dimensions around himself.

Each bit of radiant rain was like a bulky streak of lightning, piercing the Void and stirring erratic dimensional storms. Nevertheless, the raindrops could even splash the faintest of ripples when they hit Joshua's body, at most slowing him down by the tiniest of fractions, although whichever raindrop that had fallen unto a world would detonate regardless of the size of the world.

There would be a cross-shaped light visibly penetrating the realm itself, shooting deep inside with endless falling raindrops, stabbing crosses unto those uncountable worlds just like the countless tombstones within a grave. Then, as the light would contract, the frame of the luminous crosses that had cut into the world would pull themselves out of it, fusing into a smaller shining circle but resembling the Evil God of Cohesion itself. Thus, the world which had been struck would crumble amidst the tremors, its World Barrier breaking apart into fine dust.

And more than that—if there were civilizations of life in that world, the gathering radiance would actually turn into a genuine, rapidly-growing Evil God Embryo.

The purpose of the release was to improve cohesion.

Joshua stopped in his tracks. He was unwilling to involve other beings, but this was already the galaxy nearest to death. In comparison to allowing the Evil God of Cohesion absorb the legions of Evil Gods and empower itself, such a place, which was more dormant, was more suitable for battle.

Ooom—millions of worlds were reduced to bundles of lights after their destruction, and gathered like rain at the direction of the Evil God of Cohesion. At the same time, the Evil God Embryos had also completed their metamorphoses one after another, and hence began to roam the stars.

After a single blow, the power level of the Evil God of Cohesion had progressed a step further as well.

However, when they had finally arrived at the battlegrounds of the warrior's choosing, the Giant God also turned and began to retaliate. With nary a change of expression upon his face, he began to simply claw out at the Evil Gods which had come after him in pursuit of his light as well as the Evil Gods which were cultivated by the Evil God of Cohesion—they were the best raw materials for him, with the warrior catching a single newborn Evil God with each extended grasp. The presence of Chaos spread away from his palm, and then as the patterns over the surface of the Giant God's body ignited, the entities were turned into various weapons and illusory images, including shields and armors.

Boom!!

Another world was bursting apart—it was a larger world wherein stars circled within, but because Joshua and the Evil God of Cohesion had moved their battlefield over, its World Barrier crumbled as if it was nonexistent while both the radiant wheel and the Giant God bounded within, rampantly unleashing their powers that darkened their skies and wrung the dimensions.