Soul of Searing Steel

The Crisis Handling System—Joshua van Radcliffe, otherworld champion of the Lost Galaxy and top martial force of the Mycroft civilization, a being who could stand up against Imperator Amos, had awarded such an item to Creed.

Still, Elma did not understand the world behind 'System', for it was a term that only a certain person from Earth would understand.

Indeed, although Ying, Ling, Zero Three and other beings such as Creed were graced with the presence of the System, all of them did not understand too why Joshua would call it that way since it was 'blessing', 'power of divine providence' or indeed 'boons'. However, since Joshua preferred to call it such, the others had to accept it.

Elma herself had personally seen the power that the Crisis Handling System granted Creed. It allowed him, who was essentially an insect to Elma, to become an Extraordinary individual she would have to treat seriously, but who also gave her and headache—after Equipping, Creed was essentially a different person whose ability became mysterious yet powerful.

But that was also the precise reason Elma ignored it.

How could she trust in some bizarrely powerful thing given by an otherworld champion who was originally an enemy? Simply using it would certainly have allowed her to be fully controlled by another.

In the end, she doubted even Imperator Amos and had set her mind on defiance, so why would Elma have so easily put her faith in the supernatural object made by an alien?

"…As I've thought, I don't really trust it."

Taking a long look at Creed before her, Elma saw no suspicion from his eyes but only tremendous pride, expectation, and curiosity. She could certainly see that he wanted to know what power her system held, and truth be told, she wanted to know as well.

The massive Void warship—Elma's true form—looked up at the titanic colossal Ultimate Entity before her. She could see that the aberration that carried a snow shell, even as its physical form kept mutating inwardly, was also staring at herself with a greedy, malicious gaze as if she was a roadside ant or some dessert within reach.

"But I know that now is not the time to hesitate," Elma said quietly, and put a hand on the gem before her chest.

Because hesitation meant defeat!

A light burst forth!

[Crisis Handling System activating!]

"Equipping Extraordinary plugin—Phantom Gold!"

[Crisis Handling System activating!]

"Equipping Extraordinary plugin—Azure Blue!"

[Equipping complete—Are. you. ready?]

"Equip!"

"Equip!"

At that instant, both Elma and Creed activated their respective systems simultaneously. The light of the Phantom Gold burst out and covered the human's entire body, just as azure radiance combined with gusts of chills that froze even molecules partially, forming icy vapors in the space that covered Elma's warship form!

Azure light thus flashed visibly within the white mist, abruptly expanding before shrinking again! On Elma's hull, steel armor that was a mix of blue and white appeared on her body, along with a pair iron wings!

[Divine Radiance of the Glorious Skies]

***

Outside the sealed realm, the Ultimate Entity that had barely escaped the supernova explosion and was reveling in its fortune of dodging that particularly oversized bullet suddenly sensed danger. He—or indeed, it—had felt a long, sharp lance where the small 'insect' had been gathering. Once thought of as some snack that could be flattened in passing, it had turned things around and changed into a fearsome beast!

Looking up, a huge eye abruptly appeared over the face of the flowing grease which was distorting unevenly and shifting without stopping. It could now see a bizarre silhouette even amidst the frosty mist that stirred and spread even in the Void: a radiant warship, flapping both wings and rapidly charging at itself!

"Skreee!"

In the Void, the thirty-three sealing formations of the sealed world had all broken into pieces due to the supernova explosion. Their matter and mass wafted around the Void, crafted by advanced technology and never disintegrating, and yet, everything began to shatter under the shockwaves from the radiant warship that flapped with two wings with a deafening reverberation of rotations!

[Special Edition of Mister J System equipped and activated… Linking with Crisis Handling System and commencing modularized processing… Extraordinary steel armor, Divine Radiance of the Glorious Skies now fully activated.]

"Energize, Blazing Raptor!"

With a raging cry from Elma, a brilliant light appeared as thousands of pale-white beams shot away from around the warship like meteor showers, making a beeline towards the joint where the Ultimate Entity had yet to detach away from the shell of its cocoon. At the same time, sensing the great threat, the Ultimate Entity shrieked as a translucent energy shield appeared around its body, colliding with the beams of energy streaking towards it to explode in a burst of blinding light amidst the Void, the entire cocoon form falling back while its shield shattered directly!

Beside it, after completing her transformation, the Elma warship which had now a pair of wings on its back paused briefly, seemingly startled by her own power.

"Such—such power?! I've actually passed through the boundary of Commander Class so easily and arrive upon the threshold of General…"

"Damn it, a lurking General?!"

The Ultimate Entity, which was sent flying, was at once stunned and enraged, having assumed that it had no match after refinement except for the Imperator across the entire Court, since it could just run away from those so-called Generals. However, it never expected to first take the brunt of the supernova explosion in the sealed realm, before being given a beating by the Elma it considered as negligible as a mere ant.

"Wait, I'm on your side—"

The Ultimate Entity communicated telepathically and attempted to buy itself some time by communicating, only to quiet down before it finished. It was not even voluntary, but the exceedingly profound waves of energy had suppressed all excess vibrations in the surrounding Void, preventing it from conveying any words or transmit any messages. In fact, just as the Ultimate Entity hesitated between attacking directly or trying to delay its foe for recovery time, it lost all preemptive openings and chances to retaliate, as well as any chance to claim a victory on its own terms—for it saw a vast light from Elma's bow, roaring as she streaked towards itself.

The Light of the Blazing Saint had reached it!

Boom!

A rumble exploded out of the tides of energy even in the Void, with freezing vapors filling the Void with that single flash of light, leaving all things in ice and glaciating even the radiance of the Great Mana Tide. In the face of such an edged radiant coldness, the Ultimate Entity did not hesitate to conjure a barrier condensed from fire elements: energy gathered from the depths of planetary cores had condensed into a semi-spherical magma shield, firmly blocking in front of itself. 

But was it really a frost attack just because it was brimming with cool air?

It was a huge mistake!

The full power blow of the Extraordinary steel armor, Divine Radiance of the Glorious Skies, was a pinnacle skill that had drawn in all heat and energy from the surrounding space. The Light of the Blazing Saint, an ultimate skill of arcane, could have even plundered every bit of energy around it and unleashed superheated rays in an environment that was nearing absolute zero! Reaching up to 450 million degrees in temperature, if the combat environment was not space but an ordinary Extraordinary realm or perhaps a fire element realm instead, its temperature was likely to have reached beyond a billion!

At the center of the icy blue mist were platinum-hued sub-lightspeed particle flows of extreme temperatures! Behind the beautiful colors was light that would decimate all things!

The Azure Blue Divine Radiance of the Glorious Skies was the greatest arcane item designed after Joshua had asked for pointers from the various Legendary mages, boasting power that could be considered magic of divine retribution that ignited the cerulean of the skies and had radiance illuminate the blue yonder! In turn, Blazing Raptor was an enchanted projectile of supreme power which assembled energy around itself that tracked its target independently, repelling the enemy and unleashing a terrible explosion of light when reaching the enemy.

And as described before, the Light of the Blazing Saint could cool the surroundings of its core ray to absolute zero degrees, whereas the core energy beam would reach high temperatures of a billion degrees. It was a twofold blow of ice and fire with the power to destroy all things that possessed shape and from!

Moreover, Elma also noticed that she still had with her the Concussive Photon Bomb and Extraordinary Seal that could destroy the constitution of an enemy or shut down the energy circulation inside a foe's body, but now was not the time to think about such things.

Absolute heat and chill had arrived at the same time—a cannon blast destructive even to Legends easily pierced the barrier of fire elements, striking heavily at the body of the Ultimate Entity even before it had the time to withdraw inside its own shell.

One could see that the chill had instantly frozen the body of Ultimate Entity before the heat incinerated it into elementary particles, its once sturdy body dented inwardly in the very moment it was struck by the high-powered sub-lightspeed particles while its flesh split apart. Even so, the broiling heat swiftly extended along the cracks of meat and blood, igniting and burning the front half of the Ultimate Entity's body and bone.

"Aaaargh!"

Everything occurred in such a brief instant that the Ultimate Entity could barely feel its head completely destroyed within one fleeting second, while its body was sent spinning across the Void by blast from the enchanted photon canon. Half of its shell, which was sturdy enough to directly withstand long periods of heat emanating from a star's corona, had also been crushed by the shockwaves.

Hesitation was defeat!

The moment to claim triumph lies within a single moment!

Seizing the advantageous moment to secure victory, Elma did not even spare a second to observe her own good work. After using her body's entire strength to unleash the most powerful blast, she did not hesitate to muster her power once again—the wings of her Extraordinary armor convulsed and shrank into a rocket nozzle, and momentum from the forceful nuclear fusion sparks igniting and exploding within launched Elma's large warship form ahead!

Dimensional turbulences appeared even in the Void, parting the halation of the Great Mana Tide as well. Elma's body also vanished like a phantom, catching up with the Ultimate Entity although she had moved later.

"Die!"

However, beyond everyone's expectations, the Ultimate Entity abruptly burst out: its shell, which was half-destroyed, had suddenly streamed with dozens of spiked starfish-like tentacles stretched out rapidly in the Void, as if bent on catching her even as she rushed towards it.

Its head was not a vital point at all—the entity that had evolved to the boundary of what was possible had a vital point in every part of its body, and could thus abandon each like a lizard splitting its tail!

Meanwhile, light of keen edges flickered upon the tentacles. A layer of energy sharpness built of lifeforce was whirling at the rate of 130,000 radians per second, and if struck by the fifty or more tentacles, even a planet's core would have been sliced apart, much less Elma's body!

"Leave it to me!"

In that very moment, a faint shadow covered the surface of Elma's hull. The two powers energized at full might by Creed, known as Spectral Wasteland and Sunfire Refract, fully buffed his companion. Hence, a Shadow subspace that consumed even light directly repelled the cutting tentacles that was striking directly towards them, an indestructible wall that caught and held the Ultimate Entity's assault firmly.

Then, in the next second, Elma accelerated to a tenth of the speed of light with explosive nuclear fusion, hence embodying the momentum of a collision that could cause a major extinction, crashing unto the Ultimate Entity's shell powerfully even as the abomination made a face that resembled panic!

It was not as if the Ultimate Entity had no way of fighting back. It had certainly executed all countermeasures: summoning an energy shield, reaching out with a frame of appendages to repel the collision onto its shield even while it kept retreating towards the rear, doing all it could to escape or divert Elma's collision force.

Nonetheless, in the haste of the moment and with Elma's violent and unhesitating assault, it could only feel its appendages being pulverized within a second, its shell shattering while its murky body fluids of black-brown grease sprayed away before freezing, its massive warship-sized body once again blown away by Elma as easily as a paper plane!

However, that was when the unexpected happened.

"Hehe, now is my chance to escape!"

Even as it was sent flying back for the umpteenth time and having recovered from the last strike, the Ultimate Entity realized that Elma was far inferior than itself, which had gone through superior evolution. At present, she was utilizing some Extraordinary item to burst out and give it an utter drubbing after it was weakened by the supernova explosion—it did not have to fight her at all, and could run for now before eventually exacting its revenge!

The Ultimate Entity, which had never valued honor in the first place, guffawed and used the force of Elma's collision to turn, speed up, and flee without a pause. It had certainly been maimed by Elma's chain of fearsome attacks, but had also broken off from the remaining part connecting it to the cocoon. Now that things had come to this, the speed of the Ultimate Entity that was freed of all restraints and refined to what was possible was naturally beyond what Elma who had just reached the domain of Legend could achieve, not to mention that its momentum contained a part of Elma's own strength.

In less than a second, the Ultimate Entity had covered half the planetary system, with a halo appearing before it—the early sign of a short-ranged warp. The creature was clearly intending to shake off Elma's pursuit with it, in turn securing time for a longer ranged warp.

However, despite clearly seeing that her opponent was running, Elma did not appear worried at all, even if the gem before her chest that should have been sky blue was flashing in dark red light, signaling depleting energy.

Instead, she relaxed from the collision, even appearing tranquil as she remained where she was, gathering the energy streaming in the Void around her, engulfing a part of the planetary sector in the blurred, icy mist.

The energy of the steel armor is almost used up—it is time for the final strike!

***

Activating warp!

On the other end of the dimensions, the Ultimate Lifeform sneered even as it ran. It was certainly ignoring how terrible its enemy could have been since it was about to escape the battlefield, but just when it was ready to warp away from the planetary system, it realized in astonishment that it was completely immobile, its body unresponsive.

Warp failure?!

That was when the Ultimate Entity seemed to hear a rather bizarre accent from a foreign world appearing inside its own body!

***

"Here, Elma. Aim at my position and attack!"

Within the Ultimate Entity's body where the shadows between innards crossed, Creed spoke with a nervous yet distinctly thrilled voice in the Shadow realm, shouting loudly even though he was connected to Elma in spirit, "Shoot me!"

When did he get inside me?!

Despite the Ultimate Entity's augmented central nervous system and its cognitive abilities, it could not at once tell where Creed had come from. But soon enough, it understood—he must have had infiltrated its body with Shadow in that single moment when it had extended its tentacles and attempted to slash Elma's body apart, which was also the instant its tentacles touched the Shadow barrier!

And the reason that it could not warp away was because Creed had been there as an anchor from another dimension, keeping it fixedly sealed where it was!

Still, thinking only claimed whatever time one possessed, just as hesitating would.

Therefore, the only chance for the Ultimate Entity to claim victory, or indeed hang on to severely, was completely cut off.

Boooooom!

Without hesitation or a single word, Elam focused all her power and directed everything to a single point that abruptly detonated. Exceedingly concentrated high-energy particles quietly shot out, illuminating half the sector. Then, every Amos Thought individual who had yet to evacuate saw it: a blinding arcane beam that, like an eraser, shone upon the Ultimate Entity's body even as it tried to parry the attack, only to be wiped cleanly away as if it was mere scrawls on a piece of paper!

But even before all that, Creed had already used his Phantom Trail ability to escape the insides of the Ultimate Entity, running and dodging so that Elma's full-power blow did not touch him at all. He instead got to witness the great power that was the Divine Radiance of the Glorious Skies, leaving him in unrepressed awe.

"Such power, Commander…"

There was no question about the Ultimate Entity's might. Being a creature that consumed cosmic forms, if it had not been severely harmed by the supernova blast inside the sealed realm and suddenly ambushed by the armor-equipped duo, it would not have been destroyed so senselessly. In fact, if it was not for him working alongside Elma against their mutual foe, it simply had to retaliate once to directly kill Elma in return, despite her seeming advantage.

Even so, now was not the time for such thoughts.

After all, they had won.

With that thought, Creed looked up above him as he floated around in the Void. There, a massive translucent warship was reaching out to him with a tentacle. The tentacle did not directly wrap around Creed or approach him carelessly, but hovered in front of him instead, as if waiting.

The young Mycroft captain shrugged, leisurely leveling gazes at the biological warship and sharing a smile before reaching out on his own to touch Elma's feelers, allowing her to bring him inside her body.

The Ultimate Virus incident hence concluded for the time being at the Galaxy of Bloodbath. The Amoses' and the Takurians' purging war against the Ultimate Entity was being carried out like wildfire, even as the plague which struck from within and spread to the entire cosmos had left trillions or more intelligent life dead.

But it did not mean that the plague of incomparable oddness would have only appeared unto the Galaxy of Bloodbath.

Curious coughs sounded from several galaxies nearby the Galaxy of Bloodbath and a few relatively unknown planetary systems of small Void civilizations. Families and shops were closing for the day, workers calling in sick, students taking leave…

Eventually, there was no sound at all.

Thanks to warps, portals, and various developed transport systems, some object with neither form nor substance was spreading far faster than any creature could have imagined.

Death was spreading to world after world, wreaking incessant silence and havoc.

***

In Stellaris, a series of hidden ripples from an unknown source was spreading throughout the realm. It was faint, seemingly nonexistent, and imperceptible to people, with its purpose impossible to be deduced.

Even so, creatures of Order seemingly had no sense of it in places where the ripples reached, but the spawns of Chaos, as if receiving some instructions, gradually retreated from their previous strongholds. They left ever so quietly that not even the Stellar Guard Alliance, who were their enemy, felt it.

Hence, Pestilence spread.