Soul of Searing Steel

Unlike humans, Black is very simple-minded. Even though it did not know where the voice came from, nor did it know who was speaking in that voice, Black simply responded to the voice when it was asked a question.

—Yes.

There is nothing to be concerned about in such regard, nor is there even the slightest hesitation about its answer to that question. Currently, the huge Thunderous Mountain is trembling steadily in the distance. It was no longer blowing out attacks out of its peak as it did awhile back. The mountain seems to have gone completely dormant. It seems to have shifted all of its focus on getting rid of the warrior now.

If anyone or anything could provide assistance to Joshua at a crucial time like this, it would be like offering fuel in snowy weather.

“Embrace this legacy and get going.”

The mysterious voice did not sound chatty at all. Right after Black responded to it, the mysterious voice went quiet. However, the draconic horse felt as if its head and mind were being weighed down by a huge amount of information and knowledge that were unknown to it.

Not far from where it stood, Roland was luring the stone giants in the surroundings as he moved around in circles, trying to intercept these giant monsters from interfering the battle between the Thunderous Mountain and the warrior. Black is also tasked with the responsibility to lure the stone giants away from the location of the Thunderous Mountain. And because its head went heavy all of a sudden, it staggered. The stone giant right behind Black immediately caught up with it and crushed its palm to the ground, attempting to crush the draconic horse with a powerful slam.

However, right before the palm could crush its target, the draconic horse instantly turned its head around. Though it was feeling a little dizzy after suddenly being given so much information and knowledge, Black has also obtained more battle experiences. It did a backflip without much effort as it agilely evaded the slam. Before the palm could completely slam into the ground, Black lunged forward as if it was taken over by its own instinct. All four of its limbs hung on tightly onto the surface of the rocky arm as the horse began to sprint up towards the body of the stone giant along its arm. It moved swiftly and smoothly as it made its way to the top of the stone giant’s shoulder.

When the stone giant noticed the presence of Black right on top of its shoulder, it immediately activated the functionality of its body and instantly moved its arm around, attempting to throw the draconic horse off. However, with its draconic claw, Black plunged into the rocky surface of the stone giant. Its attempts to throw Black off of its shoulder were futile regardless of how hard it tried to shake its body. While the stone giant was spinning and shaking its body, the draconic horse searched for the weak spots of the stone giant. It did not take long before it found the weak spots that were well-hidden.

Each of the stone giants was born from different levels of golems merging themselves into one. Hence, their weak spot, where their core energy is located, would be different. Some have their energy core hidden near to their hearts and some hidden right next to their brains. And some of the special ones even hid their energy core by the spinal cords that were located in their backs. Judging from the flow of the magic energy across its body, the stone giant in front of Black has hidden its energy core within its head.

Having so much information in its mind, Black adjusted its body from head to hoofs as an intense quiver ran across its entire body. It used its own core to aim at the brain of the enemy. Even though it has absolutely no reason for its action, its instinct has driven Black into performing a series of decisions and actions. The core in Black’s chest is already charged up with an extremely intense radiance. A beam of golden light launched straight out from the core and landed right on the head of the enemy as the surroundings and the atmosphere trembled violently.

Along with the forceful explosion, the gigantic stone giant slowly shattered into pieces of rocks and gravels as they scattered around the ground. Black leaped back onto the ground before the stone giant crumbled into a pile of dust.

The draconic horse twisted its neck and began observing its own body. Black noticed that endless battle strategies and knowledge and even the ability of its Inheritance flooded its mind. It was also overwhelmed with the methods of using its dragon’s breath, the methods to employ the natural strength of its own legacy, and also methods of using many other extraordinary abilities that belonged only to the dragon race… Not long after, it turned around and looked at the Thunderous Mountain as it let out a roar filled with excitement.

—If this was the power I can wield, I might become capable of assisting Master!

Meanwhile, deep within the Thunderous Mountain.

Joshua has breached the outer protective wall of the energy core. He arrived at a huge cylindrical space that was filled with the rumbling sound of a tidal wave. That was the sound of the enormous amount of magic power surging all around the place. The magic energy is passed to every single part of the Thunderous Mountain through multiple caves and tunnels all over the body of the hill itself, acting as the energy source that kept the largest puppet in the entire history, moving and attacking.

At the very center of the cylindrical space, there was a mass of dazzling light with a diameter of more than twenty meters. It is constrained in the center by several concentric rings as it was adjusting and streaming an amount of magic energy that is possibly high enough to power an entire city for months. The true form of the light mass that Joshua saw before his eyes—that was actually a sphere of silver-green liquid that kept shifting its shape under the influence of the magic energy around it. At the same time, under the constraint of the concentric rings, the liquid maintained at a relatively stable form. The greenish-white lights of the lightning were visibly surging out from the liquid as it shifted its shape at an irregular pace.

The warrior took in a cold breath of air.

The titan’s heart is actually so big!

Even though Joshua has a will tougher than steel, his mind went blank for a moment he stared in shock at the huge liquid metal—his heart filled with a sudden surge of desire!

That was the ‘titan’s heart’ over there! That was one of the most powerful magic energy cores in the entire world! It could spontaneously capture the energy of all things. That included the energy from the void as well! It could perform with the effect of the highest form of magic for almost an eternity! In his previous life, he wanted his guild to activate the Titan Colossus. So he brought a group of people with him and cleared three lairs of the Draconic Lich in the Dark Abyss before they could obtain enough quantity of the ‘titan’s heart’. And now, the ‘titan’s heart’ right before his eyes could actually fill up the space of an entire house!

However, those thoughts merely flashed across his mind. Joshua lifted the greatsword high up as the dark-red Combat Aura spread through the blade of the greatsword. The mighty life force was so powerful that even the magic energy in the surroundings was repelled, causing a red space to expand in the energy core inside the Thunderous Mountain.

Although it was regrettable, a battle remained a battle. Joshua is not granted the time to undo the locks and shackles over the enemy’s core in order to obtain the ‘titan’s heart’ that contained what he needed. All he wanted to do was to bring down the Thunderous Mountain.

As he scanned across the area, many information began to flash across the mind of the warrior. The level of the item before his eyes, its shape, its weight, its density, the electrical surge that was overflowing and the flowing movement of the energy. The warrior could see through basically everything right before his eyes. With just a glance, he has swiftly found the most vulnerable spot of the energy core.

It was time to get the job done. He swung his sword straight at the weak spot as hard as he could.

The air seems to have solidified, blocking the huge silver greatsword from fulfilling its task. Half of the armors on Joshua were instantly damaged by the rebound impact from that strike, especially the armor parts on both of his arms and his shoulders. They were all shattered into complete dust by the shockwave of the rebound, revealing his tough arms.

With a swing of the sword across the invisible blockade, the Combat Aura on the sword detached as the strike formed an air pressure so powerful that it struck straight towards the energy core like a powerful air blade as it split through the magic energy that was flowing violently around the energy core. That air blade strike has even pulled out a semi-circular line of light behind it.

After swinging his sword, Joshua instantly kept his greatsword back as he immediately turned around, ready to retreat. He moved as swiftly as he could towards the exit. He did not even pause to see what level of destruction he has done to the energy core. The warrior was absolutely confident that his precision was perfect. He believed that the air blade strike that he did with his greatsword has landed on the targeted spot. And because of that, he needed to leave the vicinity of the central core as soon as he could before the explosion happened.

Even the mighty warrior would not want to get caught in the middle of the explosion caused by the self-detonation of the ‘titan’s heart’ in the Thunderous Mountain.

The gleaming light of the air blade strike was flying straight at the targeted point at an unhurried speed. A few seconds later, the solid light blade accurately hit the weak point of the ‘titan’s heart’.

Time seemed to have stood still for a moment.

Suddenly, a violent surge of magic energy followed with a deafening explosion happened. In just an instant, a horrific amount of energy erupted right from the ‘titan’s heart’ like a volcano eruption. Greenish white lights were seen moving back and forth in the central core right before it exploded. It engulfed the magic energy that is already severely contaminated with the Chaos energy as the explosion formed a huge wave that looked like a tsunami wave. Everything in the interior of the Thunderous Mountain began to collapse as they were destroyed all along with the impact waves that engulfed everything that came into contact with them.

Joshua passed through the cracks that he created earlier on. He swiftly circled around as he got past the thunder elementals that were still out of control, destroying everything in their surroundings. Those monsters did not attack the warrior, they simply stared at him. The warrior seized the opportunity and charged rapidly at the route where he came in from. The impact wave that engulfed and destroyed everything was right on the tail of the warrior. It devoured every single thunder elemental along the way without mercy at all. And its next target was Joshua.

On the outside.

Black and Roland are engaged in fierce battle with the stone giants.

After being entangled in the battle with the stone giants for a very long time, the both of them roughly memorized the patterns of movements and the behaviors of the stone giants. So the two of them used their battle experiences and the agility of their bodies to their advantage as they took out quite a number of stone giants. However, the Apocalyptic Circle kept showering meteors, sending more new golems to earth. It seems as if the Apocalyptic Circle is planning to kill them with a slow and torturous death with endless waves of monsters.

The both of them were still attacking the golems with their full strengths. However, a deep and heavy explosion from afar had caught them by surprise. Their eyes darted towards the direction of the explosion.

The gigantic metallic mountain slowly crumbled into millions of pieces. Lightning was seen surging out of the mountain cracks, tainting the entire sky greenish-white as each of the lightning was blindingly bright. The wretched and evil appearance of the mountain died down at that instant. The mountain no longer has the power to launch any terrifying light beam attacks.

“Joshua has done it!”

—Master has succeeded!

The hearts of Black and Roland are lifted at the same time as they witnessed the fall of the Thunderous Mountain. However, the excitement and joy did not last for long. Because the mountain instantly burst out with a violent explosion along with the surging of lightning around its body.

How powerful could the self-detonation of a puppet, that was a few hundred meters tall, be?

No one knows that for sure because the scene that unfolded before their eyes was a scene that has never happened before.

At that very moment, the holy knight and Black felt as if they had lost their vision as their eyes are momentarily blinded by the light that penetrated the heaven, the earth and everything that existed. When they have regained their abilities to see again, a thunderous rumbling was heard. A wave of dust is violently hurled into the air, forming a gigantic mushroom cloud. The mushroom cloud began to expand in all directions. The lightning was seen flashing vigorously in the clouds they even shattered the void.

Suddenly, they felt extremely uneasy.

—Can Joshua survive that sort of explosion?