Chapter 173 - Final Confrontation (II)
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After opening his eyes Edward waved his hand to manifest a hologram showing the spread of the virus in the past 50 years. By now, every corner of this world has been infected.
The virus stayed in people\'s bodies without harming them, then was passed down to their descendants through genetic. And this virus did not only affect humans but animals as well. As long something has a consciousness–no matter how low it is–the virus will enter their bodies.
After checking the map, Edward headed to the main room in the manor. Inside was a tall tower with two floors. One floor contained a room full of enchantments with a Philosopher\'s Stone the size of a basketball.
The second floor contained one of Morgana\'s servers. At the top of the Tower, where Edward stood up holding a magic staff. The Void Shield that surrounded the manor was removed, he used the staff to channel the massive mana in the stone.
A powerful wave came from the tower and immediately traveled throughout the entire world; the manor was destroyed in the process, revealing the tower. Additionally, the clone of Truth immediately noticed the changes in the shield and the wave.
However, before he could react and alert his main body, things started to change.
The virus inside all the people suddenly activated, turning their eyes white like they did not have any pupils. Then, in a robot-like voice, all the people in the world said in unison: "Consciousness is Link."
All the thoughts, ideas, emotions, and even memories of these people became linked together like a hive-mind with the main consciousness or the queen of the hive-mind being Edward.
With billions of thoughts and memories rushing to his head, Edward felt a massive migraine; he felt like his soul was slowly collapsing, and it was. He could hear so many people talking to him at the same time; all the murmurs were driving him crazy.
"Morgana," he groaned in pain.
"At your command."
Using her soul connection with Edward, Morgana took control of all these consciousness with her massive super-computing ability.
Finally, under her control, all the people of this world started to mutter at the same time:
"We reject the being known as Truth; his existence is nothing but a parasite of this world."
"We reject the being known as Truth; his existence is nothing but a parasite of this world."
"We reject the being known as Truth; his existence is nothing but a parasite of this world."
All the billion people repeated this phrase over and over like they were some mindless zombie. As these people repeat this phrase, a weird energy came from their bodies to rush into the sky.
The energy then slowly turned into a gate.
Edward and Morgana controlled a large number of Alchemists and have them clapped their hands together before placing them on the ground. Since each of these alchemists was in a specific place, transmutation light flashed across the world forming a circle.
A second Gate appeared floating above everybody\'s head: it was the Earth Gate. However, unlike Father\'s Earth Gate that was only as large as the country of Amestris, Edward\'s Earth Gate covered the entire world.
Additionally, Edward did not fuse with the planet\'s consciousness or will like Father did. Instead, he controlled it like everybody\'s else through the virus.
After the Earth Gate opened, a colossal black entity came out of it; it was the physical manifestation of the Planet\'s Will. The black being punched the Sky Gate to open it, then pulled someone or something out: Truth.
After being dragged out of his Knowledge Dimension, Truth immediately realized what was going on. As an entity born out of the consciousness of all living beings, once they began to reject his existence, terrible things will happen.
His vision looked at the planet underneath him; his vision seemed to ignore time and space as he looked at Edward on the tower.
"Wizard, is this all your doing?" Usually, Truth has no expression, so it\'s difficult to decipher his emotions. However, now, his anger was easily noticeable.
Although Truth was still in space, his voice echoed throughout the world, so Edward could hear it.
Immediately, Edward\'s felt a feeling of danger. His Cosmic Awareness activated and he learned some information about Truth. For example, the previous Tier 11 now displayed Tier 9 and was slowly decreasing.
\'Well, I guess I\'m not lucky enough to render him completely useless,\' thought Edward. He never believed that this plan would completely get rid of Truth\'s power. However, a small part of him hoped that he would be lucky enough to succeed after one try.
"Why are you doing this?" asked Truth. "I\'ve never done anything to hurt; I even let you gather knowledge in my world."
"I\'m truly grateful for that," replied Edward calmly. "However, what about the spiritual hint you place in my mind?"
Truth was momentarily silent, "It\'s not like you would be hurt. My only purpose in doing so was for you to spread Alchemy in your world, and in exchange, I would receive more knowledge."
Edward shook his head, "If you truly only wanted knowledge, you could have spoken with me. We could have agreed to establish an exchange between our two worlds.
"The truth of the matter is that you never treated me as an equal; you just wanted to use me as a pawn to further your goals. It\'s ironic how someone who punishes people for breaking the Law of Equivalent Exchange did not practice the same concept."
"Enough with this nonsense," roared Truth. Its hand turned into a gigantic one as it descended towards the planet to kill the culprit responsible for all this annoyance.
As for Edward, he suddenly felt like his body could not move; space and time seemed to freeze, and even his mind stopped working. Even the mana inside the clone\'s body suffered the same fate. Even little Morgana was not spare.
Luckily, Edward was prepared for such an occasion. A small Void Shield surrounded him, blocking Truth\'s influence on him.
Horror flashed through Edward\'s mind as he realized the difference in strength between Tier 5 and Tier 8–which was the current strength of Truth as it stopped decreasing.
He raised his head to the sky and said, "Truth, why don\'t you see what I have in my hands."
The gigantic hand stopped descending before disappearing. Then, Truth said with gritted teeth: "You would not dare."
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