Soul of Searing Steel

With the delicate calibration of the ether flow inside the world and ensuing clean-ups accomplished, Joshua’s work was done for the time being.

With the template and construction design for the Ether Ring World now confirmed, Joshua could directly fill it with matter and perform Creation once the Seven Gods had finished adjusting and ascertaining the corresponding parameters as well. It was nothing difficult in the first place, but to compensate for Shadow, the recently discovered Extraordinary power, the Seven Gods who did not knew much about that ability could only slowly try it and attempt to understand the essence of that brand new power. Therefore, neither Joshua nor Nostradamus had anything to do at the moment, and so the pair left the hidden artificial realm and headed for the Zeta Ram system.

“By now, the representatives of those civilizations should know that the Evil Gods are about to invade and that the purge is about to come.”

To avoid leaving dimensional shockwaves that could be used as a beacon and expose the Ether World, Joshua and Nostradamus took a detour. It was halfway through the journey that the old mage seemed to have thought of something and said with a rather helpless tone, “Meme… we have hidden the information about Evil Gods over a thousand years precisely because of that unique perception. Now, however, we couldn’t care less about some feeling—the Evil God horde would come in decades, but to disseminate the information now so that every civilization would know is definitely not a bad thing.”

“Certainly. Being prepared would always better than being ambushed.” Joshua nodded in agreement with Nostradamus, and added, “The enemy would come anyway, it’s no loss exposing oneself by putting up some fireworks—there’s naturally nothing to fear if one could block meme perception, since not making any false moves means the Evil Gods wouldn’t sense them. Those who cannot don’t have to be afraid either—given that there would ultimately be a battle, wouldn’t the Evil Gods simply spare them out of ignorance?”

Leaving the matter of Evil Gods aside, those civilizations may not have even believed it. While the word regarding the World Eaters may have been the same as the Legends, no civilization would deny their existence. It was simply because the Multiverse was so vast that none believed that they would come to them.

That was the chief purpose of Mycroft’s General Assembly—to disseminate certain confidential information to every civilization in the Multiverse, in order for them to learn the truth that their neighbors were not their eternal nemesis, and that their rivalry was merely a struggle of profits between Order.

Only Evil Gods were the true foes of Order.

The Mycroft civilization did not care if they believed it, understood it, or were willing to co-operate. But if they proved to indeed believe, understand, and co-operate, Mycroft would assuredly have held nothing back and collaborated fully—in the face of the great threat, no civilization would sit idly by, and given that they could not fight alone for the time being, it was a choice to call upon allies and partners.

“By the way, Master Nostradamus.” Teleporting and warping from time to time to take a long detour before finally reaching a path to return, Joshua, for some reason, asked suddenly, “Do you remember Light?”

“Of course.” Unable to understand at once why Joshua would ask that, Nostradamus narrowed his eyes and replied quietly, “The World Will of the Bloodmoon Abyss… it’s a fine example of a world rebirth. I remember a massive blood-color fig tree and weird furry critters when I visited.”

And to be frank it’s those weird little fellows you’re rearing… by the way, how many non-humans has Joshua been raising? This man and his hobbies and interests…

Regardless of his power, Joshua could not see through the mood of another Legendary champion, and hence nodded at Nostradamus’s reply before saying, “I’ve previously mentioned this to you, but I’m not sure if you remember—Light had used a game bug in Continental War when it launched a few years ago, successfully creating the Will of All Life by artificial means… in other words, a Steel Python.”

“You’ve mentioned that before.” The old mage’s expression appeared calm in return, and replied with no hint of surprise. “It’s a World Will you raised after all, and being one herself in the first place, what’s weird about cultivating one? Furthermore, it’s common sense that Soul Cycle would help the world grow self-awareness—it would be weird instead to not know.”

“Not a World Will, but the Will of All Life to be specific.” Joshua prodded Nostradamus regarding the wrong term. “Steel Pythons are the will of all that lives and everything within the world, but they are not the world itself. It’s a common misunderstanding—some powerful Steel Python can indeed control the world, but that is simply because they are powerful enough. They are definitely not the will of the world.”

Joshua did not delve too deep into the topic, simply summarizing it before continuing what he had been saying. “In Continental World, the race that Light was grooming had become all there was in the world, which was why the Soul Cycle of the entire realm was equivalent to a single species’ Soul Cycle. Therefore, the Will of All Life born from such a Soul Cycle would eventually be the will of a single race… to tell the truth, it’s a very interesting and unique outlier.”

“…That also means that the will of a race was actually one with the Will of All Life… what a curious thing it is, the manifested consciousness of an entire race.”

Nostradamus frowned slightly at that, faintly discerning that there was something important but feeling uninspired as well… the old mage looked at Joshua, waiting for him to make a conclusion. Disappointingly, the warrior did not continue on that topic, but switched to another matter altogether.

Still, Nostradamus was even more astonished by the new subject.

“I’ve realized that the Steel Python can be created by artificial Means.” Paying no heed to Nostradamus’s shocked gaze, Joshua kept darting through the Void while his voice remained ever calm. “What Light made was simply by accident, and naturally-developed ones would take at least ten million years… actually, it wouldn’t take that long either since the soul isn’t as precious as imagined. As long as we can create some species with souls but extremely short lifespans such as an intelligent insect, a bacterium with collective consciousness, seaweed, or plants… they just have to develop a soul and growing a man-made Steel Python is entirely possible.”

“Moreover, Roland and the Confounder Demon General have recently discovered a special world in one of the greater Abysses of the Multiverse. That world had gone through multiple deaths and revival, and the first occasion of rebirth was due to the falling of a Void Behemoth into that world, its soul hence splitting into a brand-new Soul Cycle.”

What did that prove? It proved that not only could Steel Pythons be made artificially, but that it could actually be developed from the soul of a single lifeform!

“It makes evident a great many things, such as how the mysterious World Will isn’t actually all that mysterious.”