Soul of Searing Steel

In the Galaxy of Bloodbath within the Multiverse, the change that Joshua brought about began to spread from the nodes where he distributed the Restoration Beams. That was no exception for the Galaxy of Bloodbath where Creed and Elma were, both whom possessed the Crisis Handling System that Joshua especially crafted for them.

Four streaks of Emotional radiance swept past the fringe stars of the Amos Court and brought forth endless ripples. In that single moment, all intelligent life felt the call of a profound will, and that their bodies' most distinct and active emotions were ablaze, gaining abrupt epiphany of their true intentions and seeking the most earnest motivation from the depths of their hearts.

For worlds that relatively valued sentiments, their Extraordinary individuals would have gained collective epiphany or even ascension, since from a certain perspective, it was a direct promotion originating from an ultimate champion.

Nonetheless, no one in the Amos Court was able to awaken Emotional power.

That naturally did not include Elma and Creed, who were closest to the impact and had certainly gained some benefits such as tapping into their psionic potential. If they could cultivate Psi or spiritual power in the future, this particular experience would have helped them significantly.

But that was also all there was to it—neither were beings specializing in Psi or lifeforce, and while Creed had some training in combat aura, he had yet to reach the stage where he could revert the derivative Extraordinary power to its essence.

And if that was the case for the duo who were source of the change for Emotional power in the Galaxy of Bloodbath, the other Amoses were not worth mentioning. Ultimately, this was not the world of Mycroft or a colony where Joshua had kept many Restoration Beams, the warrior himself was not present personally, nor were there the Psyweb of Stellaris or Restoration Beam that could rapidly transmit information to disseminate some popular science like Emotional power.

The flash of divine could not be used practically as a power, as most of the emotional radiance would have only caused a moment of stirring in the hearts of the Amos, but without any change other than granting them a base to train in Emotional power in future. Just like how the Sage had previously created Holy Light and tried to spread it throughout Mycroft, the only individuals who could have really trained it were the dozen apostles and confidants beside him.

Moreover, the Amos Court could barely fend for themselves now.

Though the change of Emotional power seemed to be making waves, it did not, in fact, hold a candle compared to the rapidly spreading and extremely threatening super plague Ultimate Virus.

Avoidance, quarantine, treatment, and eradication of that plague was what the Amos Court emphasized now.

***

Within the assembly area at the central quadrant of the Amos Court, in the Galaxy of Bloodbath, sometime had passed since Creed and Elma unraveled the mystery about the current state of the Amos Court in the fringe systems, while learning about the Ultimate Virus's presence. After that, they were demanded by the Imperial Guards to assist in moving infected buildings to another safe zone.

And as a General Use-class Amos with commander ranking presently, Elma had been formally conscripted by the authorities of the assembly area to continue moving and teleporting infected buildings and even entire zones.

On another note, the assembly area was one of the few Thought sectors in the Amos Court protected personally by their Imperator's power. Most residents in this zone were in charge of thinking, scientific research, and experimentation. The dozens of worlds there were all large laboratories and affiliated factories, places where raw materials were procured and warehouses, the very Brain of the Amos Court.

Elma had been a Thought individual who worked in this sector as well, and was specifically temporarily enlisted as a member of dangerous item movers when she was noticed by a former leader. She now headed to various sectors, moving various infected buildings to the assembly area where they were to be sealed, observed, and studied.

"Really, having the elite rebel is most terrible…"

Inside Elma's body and sharing her senses to personally witness how she was in lively chatter with her old boss, Creed could not help but murmur in awe. "Just look. He knows nothing about your treachery, instead informing you about latest intelligence of the plague, even granting you advanced authority and a free pass from any sentry!"

"No wonder there's the saying back home: a hundred spies' sabotaging is weaker than an enemy's leader's choice!"

"Firstly, I'm not a traitor, I'm not double-crossing the Amos and not destroying anything. I simply wish for independence from the Imperator and to live for my own sake."

In return, Elma's clone inside her own body which resembled a translucent human reminded him, "Secondly, that pass is not useful—we must still complete the mission, and have not much time to use it for exploring… and to be exact, I'm executing the missions while you stay inside my body and feed on my secretions. In Mycroftian terms, you're living off a woman."

"Well… is being partners 'living off'?!" Creed flushed and retorted loudly. "It's called helping each other!"

That being said, Creed had indeed done nothing in recent days after Elma's conscription. All he could do was stay in her body and live free of charge, although he blushed, but not out of embarrassment—as he had put it, what was there to be embarrassed about with partners helping each other?

The blushing was instead because he remembered something else which was exceedingly shameful…although Elma was a special case in his mind, she was of another gender and the food secreted out of her body resembled milk.

There was nothing much to say to that—Creed's face would scrunch up in embarrassment whenever he remembered that the warship was Elma's body and that he was drinking milk. Such an alien way of nursing was undoubtedly too stimulating for a hot-blooded Mycroftian youth.

***

At the moment, the Void warship that was Elma's body had just teleported back from another fringe sector, bringing along a small infected Void settlement and moving swiftly through the assembly area.

Most Thought individuals living in the assembly area now had ceased their projects concerned with combat and weapons development, instead studying the malignant super virus originating from their neighbors. After all, even despite the supreme authoritarian policies of the Amos Court, they could not maintain a long-term lockdown of transportation between sectors.

Due to development down to its limit, most worlds had to import resources from other worlds. Therefore, with some worlds lacking farms, processing factories, resource allocating programs inside the Court, or travelling merchants, they fell into a shortage of key resources which would have troubled even Extraordinary individuals in the short term. In turn, it would have been a disadvantage for a major Void empire.

Hence, three months at most was allocated for the assembly area. After that, the quarantine orders would be rescinded, normal resource logistics and trade would resume, and the risk of infection would drastically increase.

One could see a tentacled creature hovering past in the Void, dragging an entire settlement quarantined by multiple runic circles. The outer layer of each world had dozens of rainbow radiances engulfing the sector as the creature moved along—the creature herself being Elma, who was bringing along her objectives and research materials to the Thought individuals and advancing towards the assembly area.

Recently, the major epidemic that the Ultimate Virus had wreaked had reached 136 planetary sectors. That by itself did not sound much, but if one were to provide more numbers such as 1700 inhabited words and over 400 billion people, then anyone would have comprehended the horror.

The Amos were not people who triumphed through numbers. Their bodies were massive and their abilities formidable, and individuals born who passed the first trials would have obtained great combat ability. Such individuals would have been local Tyrant-class (huge-sized Gold-tier) if dumped at some non-Void civilization to grow and mature—though normal living worlds could accommodate billions of humanoid inhabitants, only several hundred million Amos would have survived at the same places.

Nevertheless, the Amoses possessed an advantage of remarkable adaptability to survive in all environments, even building settlements in the Void. That was why a dozen or even dozens of worlds in a single planetary sector would have simply worked as Amos colonies, with living planets being unnecessary. 

While the Amos's dense population had been an advantage before, it was a significant flaw with the epidemic: one infected world meant quarantine for every world in a single sector.

In fact, the infected settlement that Elma transported was from a large resource transit sector—in other words, a trade center. More than three billion Amos lived within, directing and transporting resources for dozens of sectors around them, and there was no question that long-term lockdown would have caused them great trouble.

"Thank goodness the Takurians are worse off than we are…"

Creed could hear Elma's quiet complaints. "No more Sanctuaries left, their core sectors all infected…thank the stars, or with the Court being as it is now, a few Starherder Void Behemoths invading would claim our heads."

As she spoke, the warship that was Elma's body had moved the infected settlement beside a world which was armed with 33 different layers of independent quarantine spell circles. There was a large portal on the outer layer of the world, and Elma dragged her cargo and sent it inside, watching as it vanished before breathing a sigh. "I hope those big brains can develop some vaccine as soon as possible."

Creed looked on. His partnership with Elma enabled him to personally see the strictly sealed realms that seemed to be wrapped multiple times in enchanted rainbows. He also learnt what it was for: a special world, modified by the Amos to study the Ultimate Virus.

There was also a blue star at its critical point inside the sealed world, along with twelve temporary research realms fixed into position by its tides. Everything infected from the start until the present were piled around those realms, with many Amos Thought individuals who had volunteered themselves entering for a closer examination of the secrets of the virus and attempting creating a vaccine, or a method of eradication or keeping it at bay.

There was only one advantage in researching within such a world: assured safety for worlds beyond. If something were to happen, such as an experiment going awry or the virus mutating, the Amos could immediately trigger a supernova explosion in the blue star and directly destroy every physical existence inside that world, readjusting the sealed realm. For 99.99999% of all scenarios, it was a measure of absolute safety.

Still, the present research progress was not going well. The Ultimate Virus's genetic information had been encrypted by forces that applied lifeforce, mana, elements, ether, and even a portion of Psi. It was essentially five times the difficulty of unravelling the mystery of one Extraordinary power, or perhaps more.

"That super plague…it's just horrible."

Even having learnt from Commander Radcliffe's Crisis Handling System that the Mycroft homeworld had been informed about Pestilence, Creed still shuddered despite not feeling cold—in his time here, he had witnessed the many terrible sights the Ultimate Virus had caused: everything alive in a planet from bacteria, planets, to Amoses and indigenous species were all withered to dry bones, none of them spared from the decimation of the Extreme Virus. Even a majority of the planetary quadrants had darkened, with all life going extinct to the point that the worlds were decaying.

Creed was no saint with excessive compassion to feel sorrow over the death of other civilizations, but the horrors of the Ultimate Virus transcended race. It was something that all life should have feared, and with both the Amos Court and the Takur Ruin Cult ceasing hostilities despite their bone-deep grudge at such pestilence, what about the Mycroftians who had never fought much?

"How did the Takurians get their hands on something like this?" Creed could not help but to feel puzzled at the thought, scratching his head as he asked Elma who stood beside him. "They have been using Psi to link up with other worlds day by day—had they never thought about running into such scenarios?

"…They had indeed thought about it and prepared against it. We actually know that," Elma slowly answered after a moment of silence. Even if she had sworn to betray the Amos Court, she appeared solemn, and she quietly added, "However, it is clear that the world they had connected to holds a great force beyond their knowledge."

"Creed, don't you know? Our galaxy may appear infinite and vast, but it is far from everything the Multiverse has to offer." As she went on, Elma suddenly switched topics and delved into it, intent on ending her recent tasks—she turned, and spoke to Creed in fluent Mycroft common tongue with a serious air, "Indeed, one should say that all that we see now are merely old fragments and excesses of the Multiverse, and our galaxy is simply a larger chunk."

"…I…"

Creed had wanted to say he knew, since the leaders of Mycroft had deduced that fact while the Million Steel Dragon's voyage verified that truth. In other words, the Silent Void beside their present Multiverse had been a combination of innumerable galaxies in the past, and if the presently visible Void contained worlds back then, then the real Multiverse must have been far vaster than their present Multiverse.

But before Creed could speak, Elma continued regardless, "Us Amoses have never been concerned about excessive size. We cared for practicality, and yet those Takurians would study even the most frivolous, with their race having encountered certain… bizarreness when they were studying Psi, some weird incidents that cannot be explain with our present logic. That is why their entire race believes in the prophecy that the final end is coming."

"They are convinced that our seemingly eternal Multiverse is destined for ruin, and before that day would come, they will gather all energy and forge a shelter for their own species—a way out, which allows them to live normally even when they have retreated from this Multiverse."

"Now, I feel an unprecedented threat from that Prelude of Destruction, even if it is a little self-inflicted."