Chapter 146: Army Assembly, the Bell Tolls

"Paradox Engine... an artifact capable of using Magic and psionic energy to freeze time across an entire planet."

Looking at the mountain-sized, humming, massive steel construct placed at the edge of the Old World, everyone could not help but reveal expressions of heartfelt awe toward that terrifying product.

That was a true artifact transcending all things, forged in a short time by the Chaos Four Gods in coordination with the most outstanding mages among intelligent beings, utilizing the great divine power of gods. The system alone was the size of a small mountain, and countless mages and voluntarily sacrificed warriors were exhausting their lives and magic power within, continuing to create a window of respite for the frozen world, preventing the power of destruction from spreading completely.

Subspace began to operate and compress within the ritual sites of the Chaos Four Gods and countless sorcerers across the world; for the first time, the reverse side of this world underwent slight changes and alterations under the combined efforts of internal and external forces. Because the greatest, most terrifying, and most cruel ritual in history was unfolding on this planet.

A drama called Destruction and Rebirth was being staged; unreasonable natural disasters were attacking various nations, and even demons and nightmares had to join forces to resist that unspeakable terror, eventually engaging in a decisive battle in the Old World.

Yes, the Old World, that is the location of the final decisive battle.

From the moment the Ancient Ones descended and brought life to this world, to the prosperous myriad nations of today, and then to the second descent at the Landing Site and the kingdom of heaven he promised, the Old World had already borne too much from the concepts of religion and mysticism. Now, the ritual of Destruction and Rebirth was taking place here.

That was an impossible ritual, the primal concept of Chaos, the concept of destruction that had existed since the birth of all life but could never possibly appear. Even the Chaos Gods could not figure out where that monster had popped out from. Even players could understand the value of life, and even players could not unearth this kind of pure destruction. Because the requirements of this ritual were, in fact, a paradox.

Choosing to destroy oneself and everything in the world while acknowledging that oneself and everything in the world are one. One could not even harbor any desires or thoughts; only by destroying for the sake of destruction could one touch this pure ritual.

And then that freak did it.

He was uninhibited, fearless, believed from the bottom of his heart that he loved everyone in this world, and then opened this final ritual without hesitation.

The Great Vortex had disappeared; as the price for the Tenth Impact, the island of that ritual had vanished. The product that once served to seal the concepts of demons and Subspace had completely disappeared from the world in terms of the ritual's concept; there was only a dried-up void in the center of Ulthuan.

And replacing it was the pure golden radiance filling the sky. This brilliant light meant that the master of this will was an unstoppable and incomprehensible monster. Perhaps even he did not realize what kind of cruelty his actions could bring. He had cognition of everything in this world, yet he did not belong to any corner of this universe. Once this contradictory ritual was generated, it could only be stopped by using everything the Four Gods had.

"... Thirty seconds remaining until the end of this round of time-stop."

"Li Ang's anchor pod has already begun to fail; the destruction is unstoppable, and we simply cannot block his actions. I fear there is no next round of time-stop that will allow us to act freely."

"Even so, the current situation can be considered acceptable. We have at least assembled a considerable number of troops; no matter how you look at it, at least we still have the right to choose. It is just a pity for those city-states directly beneath the Old World; they originally possessed exquisite teleportation technology, but they were destroyed in the natural disaster."

"All of this is ordained by fate; everything is the result of fate."

Countless compound eyes looked toward the possible future, and the pale blue figure folded his hands, looking coldly at the surging crowds below.

The Chaos Gods naturally could not believe in or love any ordinary Human, but they were also very clear that if they relied solely on their own power, resisting the true Li Ang was simply impossible. Subspace was retreating step by step, let alone that freak whose physical body was still in the Material Universe.

Because his concept was the natural enemy of the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods were at least birthed from all desires and hopes. But that Wonder of destruction represented the opposite of all desires and hopes, a point carved into life that no one would ever face squarely. That is the desire for death of intelligent beings. Their self-destructive desire had never had a carrier, but now they had one.

Compared to countless complex interests and thoughts, what the desire for death pursues is naturally very simple. What he pursues is merely death. Other than that, there are no other requirements.

And if one does not want to die miserably, does not want to die so lowly, then one must live uglily, live by any means necessary.

But sadly, this is exactly the opposite of the desire for death.

No matter how one struggles, the destination of a person is death and despair. Even gods are no exception. All suffering, sin, and desire are triggered by the concept of life. But the pure destruction on the opposite side is nothing at all. In a sense, he is even the opposite of Subspace.

Because he opposes the existence of the Soul and is even gradually dismantling and extinguishing Subspace itself. As the reflection of the world, even the Sea of Souls—the Subspace of life's souls—must inevitably have the existence of the desire for death.

The judgment piled up by millions of years of desire, can it really be killed by the Phoenix King?

Perhaps it can, perhaps it cannot. But regardless, life must transcend the stage of seeking self-death in order to grow more rapidly, and in order to curb this desire for death from going further.

Life without a Soul, life without spirit and magic, can that still be called life? At least the Chaos Gods do not think so. Therefore, these enemies whose original differences were unimaginably vast began to join forces, gradually crafting such an engine that violates the laws of the Material Universe.

With no other requirements or thoughts, they extracted the top one percent of all mages in the world and sent them here, all to buy that final time for strategic transfer. Amidst the tide-like blue light gates, soldiers wearing armor of various styles filed out from the portals, and under the guidance of the demons' supernatural flames, they stationed themselves at their respective positions and locations.

In the frozen world, countless armies and supplies were being assembled; to an outsider, it would likely seem that in an instant, a continuous construction site capable of housing tens of millions of people was forged on the periphery of the Old World.

Time-stop, this ability of gods, had finally descended upon the earth. But in reality, this concept was a shortcut; essentially, there is no such thing as time-stop. Instead, it is relative: individuals and constructs affected by magic power accelerate time. In that instant, it was accelerated to an unimaginable degree. Unilaterally accelerating time by tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of times, is relatively time-stop. This is the essence of the Paradox Engine created by the Chaos Gods using divine power. These powerful Chaos Gods, in order to help these intelligent beings gather their strength, truly exhausted all their abilities. Even now, they were hanging at the very top of the Paradox Engine, using their infinite magic power to charge it, resisting the golden lines spreading in the sky.

"This world has five gods... now four are helping us."

"But the fifth one we are opposing is crazier than these four. Even a power that can use time-stop on a large scale is useless in front of that mad god... What kind of nightmare am I having?"

Looking at the sky gradually spreading and diffusing, beginning to dye the black and white space with golden color, even a complete magical illiterate realized that the situation seemed to have become a bit unfavorable. Those golden Veils were pervasive, and lines transcending the concept of time reached deep into Subspace through super-dimensional means.

At the very beginning, the Chaos Gods still managed to maintain it, coordinating those sealed secret occasions with the leaders of various races used for acting, to build a lifelike conference room for Li Ang. They were certain that Li Ang's primary mindset was a contradictory individual with a twisted sense of humor, who liked to observe the postures of the rebels when he had the advantage. It was precisely this arrogance that gave everyone a window of respite.

After all, if this guy had launched the ritual stealthily, everyone would likely have been kept in the dark. If it weren't for the fact that these treacherous players were still of some use, the Star-Bearer would have already completed the final ritual of destruction by now. It wouldn't be their turn to act.

But even so, those golden supernatural lines still keenly captured the disharmony in the flow of the world and began to spread in this relatively accelerated space. The individuals who had originally been moving at hundreds of millions of times the speed began to gradually slow down.

Although their own movement speed had not changed at all, and they were still moving and building with great speed, their interference with the outside world was becoming increasingly massive.

From the original speed of hundreds of millions of times that would not cause interference with the outside world, to now tens of millions of times, millions of times, step by step accelerating, step by step breaking through. Until at a certain critical point, people suddenly saw the colors of the world and heard the sounds of birds and flowers outside the boundary.

Those birds and small animals looked in terror at the fortresses and countless soldiers that appeared in the blink of an eye, chirping in panic, and fled madly out of the steel jungle.

But the entire land had been reinforced by earth-and-wood workers and mages into a fortress cast from anti-magic steel plates. This carefully crafted fortress, specifically targeting the ritual of destruction, was engraved with Runes to dissipate psionic energy; in front of these marks and metals that opposed magic power, even the most elite mages could not cast even a tiny bit of magic. And likewise, the Elves before the boundary also looked at each other in confusion.

They could no longer feel the consciousness link from Li Ang. Not just the consciousness link, but even their thoughts seemed to have been interfered with, filled with a strange noise and clamor. It was as if they had gone from an extremely noisy place to an absolutely quiet one in an instant, with some echoes of noise still in their minds.

Just by watching the actions of those Elves on the fortress, everyone realized. That Phoenix King Orivien had not lied; it was indeed possible to use various props to interfere with the Star-Bearer's psionic link.

But they were not happy, and there was no time to be happy.

They saw that the golden lines that tore apart the black and white space began to descend slowly, condensing into a white-gold humanoid figure in front of them. The Star-Bearer Lord had appeared publicly before the world for the second time.

Only, compared to the righteous performance when facing the Chaos Demon for the first time, although it was still facing the Chaos Demon and still righteous, everyone was filled with fear toward this Star-Bearer Lord who looked like he hated evil. They silently gripped the weapons in their hands, looked at the phantom presented in the sky, and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"... A very good strategy, so that's how it is. Does my psionic communication have such a weakness? Even I didn't know."

The golden figure said with a smile in mid-air.

Although it was just one sentence, the sound of their own mother tongue was transmitted into everyone's mind, allowing everyone to clearly hear the exclamation made by that golden monster.

"However, this time-stop of yours is really a bad move."

He said.

"I don't care because although time can be stopped, it cannot be stopped forever. Although you yourselves feel that after time is stopped, there is infinite time to slowly assemble an army, you have not remembered one thing, and that is that your emotions will also accumulate infinitely."

"What I grasp is the concept of destruction; the more you fear, the more you cognize, and the more you act, the more it will stimulate my development. So if you were to line up and fight me, you might still have a chance of winning."

"But because of your own arbitrary actions, the fluctuations of Subspace have already begun to tilt toward my side in every aspect."

"The Chaos Four Gods are all fearing power, and I am the only monster capable of killing gods in reality, that is how you perceive it, right? Then this has already become reality."

"So you see, it's all because of your reckless actions... the Shiyici Chongji is about to begin."

Smashing through the void space, looking at the horrified crowd, Li Ang smiled and pointed his finger at the sky.

A rainbow light flashed across the horizon, and the next instant, the whole world turned into the purest white. Even in the ears and eyes, no other colors could be seen, only that most terrifying pure white.

(End of chapter)