Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Most of the Mad Lord’s powers, including its existence and its powers, were formless. The massive twisted dimensional structure was just a phenomenon created by it, and the tide of minions was nothing but projections that it had created under specific conditions, and the attacks that the Petrachelys was facing at that very moment… that was something distantly linked to the Mad Lord itself.

Yet it was totally undetectable, at least to the naked eye.

The starship was being attacked relentlessly, and the massive fluctuations of the shield system were the best indicator. Even without any physical contact, all sensors were wailing signals of ship damage or imminent danger. This bizarre scene was disconcerting but in Hao Ren’s eyes, he could see another view altogether in this part of space.

A sticky, dark “material” filled the dimensional structure, and was sticking to it like mist. That was the ultimate void, and every normal, logical, orderly information would quickly disintegrate upon contact as materials will be reduced to base atoms, and base atoms being turned into quantum fluctuations, and quantum fluctuations will be rendered into meaningless information clusters, and that sticky darkness was actually the Mad Lord itself.

An “information expression” representing the destruction of all life that was created alongside the birth of the universe.

The starship was flying through them, and could not avoid making contact, and the starship which has ordered information would be destroyed by these things.

Hao Ren knocked on the control dais. “How are the shields holding?”

“The recovery speed is able to keep up, no worries there.” Nolan sounded very confident. “This ship can fly even in the void. This little speck of chaos is nothing.”

“I remember the first time I fought against the Mad Lord.” Rheia reminisced. “That was… tens of millions of years ago I think? I got pissed and led an army right into here with no understanding what the clash of rules meant, and how to deal with the chaos here. The first unit was almost totally wiped out, and I had to learn on the battlefield how to survive in this sort of environment, and then reorganized my army. I fought for many hundreds of years in the heart of darkness, and only to find that this thing did not even have a body… It was really demoralizing.”

“So you tried to find a way to give it a probably ‘solid core’,” Vivian said. “You sure held on to that grudge.”

“Yes… I did indeed…” Rheia sighed. “It is probably a grudge, but not just my own. It belongs to all life, to every life that had lived and died, to the entire universe.”

She looked up and watched the images sent back from the sensors outside and started mumbling, as if to herself, but apparently also to Hao Ren and Vivian, “There was this period of time, where I doubted the meaning of everything and wondered if the struggle of all life is worth it. The universe is not eternal, and I realized that a long long time ago, and even the most ancient galaxies have a limit to its lifespan. All stars will die off, and the dimension itself will crumble. Before this ultimate, yet equal destruction, most of the fires of civilization were simply just too minuscule…

“Regardless if it was a famed royal knight with countless of laurels, or an intergalactic empire spanning the stars, all could not stop the death of the universe, and when it comes, all are equal before it, and the Mad Lord… is probably the way this universe welcomes its doom. It is a natural, normal process of this universe, and compared with the universe’s destiny, the gardens I created were probably abominations. Life and order, and the will against death that comes with it, is just the opposite of the fate of the universe dying…

“Now, I finally understand. All those questions and doubts I had… were all meaningless.

“All life is born to order and shall return to order. We have lived in this universe and will face death in some form, and that is part of the order. Perhaps the universe has its own predestined fate, and all life will be destroyed, but this is not an excuse to not take a step further before the chaos…

“Resisting and surviving is a part of nature after all.”

Hao Ren listened quietly as he saw the starship fly through one-dimensional rift and twisted celestial structures after another, the stars in the distance had totally vanished, and the influence of the Mad Lord had already seeped through the shields and hull armor, into the interior of the vessel, but with the protection of the divine powers, his mind was exceptionally clear and not affected at all.

Before the Overwatch Bastion, the minions of chaos had totally overrun an echelon of droids, and the defending guardian fleets had to reposition due to the flanks being heavily damaged. Reserve units of droids immediately launched from the base and managed to take back the space sector that was taken by the minion of chaos, but yet, the defensive line had once again shrunk.

Several blinding beams blasted out from the Overwatch Bastion and formed into a massive energy confluence in space, the absolute destructive power of the Annihilation Lance had finally checked the speed the minions were expanding, but at the price of a control tower near the Annihilation Lance array getting evaporated in the blast.

“The third ventilation tower has been destroyed!” a guardian officer exclaimed. “All Annihilation Lances entering forced cooldown mode!”

Salaman then contacted the front line vessels. “Brothers and sisters, the Annihilation Lance Array can only fire after another hour. The defense of the line falls to you now… Don’t forget all the lives behind us!”

“For Mother, For all life!”

…

A few billion light-years away, Collow, the Barrens on Ansu.

A golden flame streaked from the side and blasted a ball of twisted flesh clean out of the air, spraying rotten blood and chunks of flesh all over, some over Veronica’s arm.

Veronica pulled her long sword out of a monster’s corpse, and it soon reduced to black dust, and as she looked up, she nodded in thanks to the Einherjar warrior in a radiant glow. The latter’s help allowed her to escape a fatal blindside.

The Tarosian battle princess was clad in armor, and her light purple hair was stained with fresh blood. It was red blood, human blood, but she had no time to find out which brave soldier’s blood was it.

After two years of fleeting peace, Collow was in a state of war again, and the enemy was their old foe, the monsters of chaos and nightmares.

There was nothing bad about this, Veronica thought as she swung the blood and rotten flesh off her blade. Collow was once a prison, and everyone in this world was a warden. Fighting against the evil monsters was second nature to everyone on Collow, and while Lockmarton was vanquished, if the origin of chaos wants another war, then a war it’ll get.

Even without the goddess’ warning, or the ‘heroic spirit’s’ notifying them, the diviners and sages of Collow could smell the scent of chaos resurfacing, and a few months earlier, men of this world had prepared for this, and the goddess’ commandment simply allowed everyone to better understand the origin of this war.

“Your Highness, the monsters have been vanquished!” A knight of her personal guard came before her, and the knight’s chest plate was stained with tainted blood. “Word from Darkshadow Thicket, there are new breaches there!”

The origin of chaos in the heart of the universe had broken free and was launching a full-scale assault against the worlds of order. The goddess and her allies were now fighting tooth and nail against the monster in the deepest parts of the star. Meanwhile, the monster’s aura had bypassed the defensive line and brazenly tried to corrupt and consume the mortal realms, using the flesh and soul of the mortals as its fuel.

So many tainted areas called “breaches” had appeared all over Collow in various sizes, and the familiar once destroyed monsters were making a return.

However, the people of Collow were not afraid of them.

The people of Collow had been fighting them for ages.

Veronica nodded at the knight. “There’s the beastmen army of the tribal nation of the Hallowed Wolf there, we don’t have to worry.”

“Those… beastmen, huh.” The knight’s expression was slightly weird as he looked into the distance. “Honestly, they actually formed a nation of their own…”

At the edge of his vision, there was a unit that was totally different from the army of the human kingdoms. That was the reinforcements sent by the nation of the Hallowed Wolf. They were an allied army made out of all sorts of beastmen and demihumans, clad in all sorts of broken armor, and their weapons were of all kinds as well. With the recent victory, the soldiers were cheering around a massive flag, and on the flag, was an imposing giant white wolf.

That was the totem of the tribal nation of the Hallowed Wolf, and the symbol of their leader, the Alpha Wolf.

Based on what Veronica knew, the Hallowed Wolf nation only had one highest leader, and that was the Alpha Wolf that had led the beast tide across the chaos and into civilization. The Alpha Wolf’s position was eternal, and a representative tribal council called the Ring of Beasts would rule the nation while the Alpha Wolf was away.

Until today, many nations of men on Collow would not believe that a group of beastmen and demihumans were able to build a nation., and the Kingdom of Taros which neighbored the Kingdom of Beasts had established diplomatic contact with the new nation a year ago. One reason was that they had ascertained the intelligence and rationality of the beastmen and demihumans, and another reason was that the kingdom knew and was familiar with the Alpha Wolf.

The sages of Taros suggest that it was probably due to the divine influence of the Alpha Wolf that the beast tide that she had led through the chaos had attained some sort of ‘evolution’, and compared to their distant cousins in the forest and barrens, they were smarter, more rational, and more capable of controlling their bestial nature.

So, Collow actually had a nation built by the beasts…

“They are also intelligent beings.” Veronica shook her head. “And before the chaos, all intelligent beings are natural allies.”