Soul of Searing Steel

Sky Fortress.

That was just a name that Joshua and his friends gave it out of convenience. To be more accurate, it should be called the ‘Purging Core Airborne Unit’. They were basically the World Harmonic Circles that was tainted by the Evil God and remolded into the form of terrifying fortresses that floated in the sky, used to eliminate lives in all the worlds.

It appeared in a regular hexagonal shape. There were six runes engraved on its base which had the ability to ‘absorb’, ‘charge’, ‘convert’, ‘unleash’, ‘enhance’ and many more others. Under the operation of those runes, the sky fortress could endlessly utilize all sorts of horrible spells, where the magic energy was infinite, to bombard their enemies until they are completely annihilated.

Those existences were strategic weapons of a nation even on the Mycroft Continent. Their powers were equal to the power of a Gold-tier. Their importance might even be the same as Supreme-tier champions. Any fortress which possessed such technology were labeled as impregnable fortresses.

However, one of the powerful fortresses of such was currently crumbling to the ground.

The Dragon-hunting Gunblade that was thrown out by Joshua with his full strength had crossed the sky like a blazing meteor as it crushed straight into the sky fortress like a strike of lightning. It lit up a great fire that could even scorch the sky. The red light dot was seen moving against the flowing course of the magic energy higher into the sky as it turned the gray clouds into a sea of blazing flame.

With a tremendously loud crash, the enormous sky fortress burned as it slowly descended towards the ground. The six runes on its bottom flashed rapidly with blue light. That was the sign that all Runes were operating at their best. However, the center part of the fortress had a gigantic hole on it. The magic energy that went berserk had turned into lightning as they spread from that hole, causing the surface of the fortress to be scorched by an intense fire that was growing bigger. Eventually, the sky fortress disintegrated one part after another with deafening scream of the siren of its alarming system. It was scorched and completely destroyed.

Roland witnessed the whole thing from a distance. He could also see that Joshua is heavily wounded as his body is covered in cut wounds caused by the lightning strikes. He also saw that part of Joshua’s body was severely burned as well. He looked at the warrior who flew across the sky as he attempted to catch his falling weapon.

At the same time, the holy knight wielded his heavy hammer and swung his weapon at the horde of olems in front of him, hurling up strong visible current of winds. A gigantic golem with a height of at least fifty meters was hammered with a hole through its chest and split into half. Because of its huge body size, the hammer strike that Roland struck right in the chest of the golem looked impactful.

“Joshua…”

The holy knight, who was surrounded by aerial golems, sighed loudly while he was engaged in a battle with those golems.

Roland recalled the names of the famous champions one after another and because he could access to the information network of the Church of the Seven Gods, he knew quite a lot of champions and prodigies who chose to remain in exile, rendering them known to only a few in the entire world.

The Radcliffe family was the family that took up the role as the Chaos Guardian. Naturally, Roland had also come across information about them. However, that family had never been known to be a ‘powerful’ family but ‘tough’.

They had firmly secured the northern land where the Chaos is sealed without making even a single mistake. Within 400 years, many owners of the family had died in battle. However, they had never made any significant mistake that would bring the Chaos or the other Chaos daemons over into their world.

Truth to be told, even the Order of the Knights under the Church of the Seven Gods had to take turns over a few rounds before they could push the Chaos back into the seal in the Plagued Land. Although the special attribute of the plague made the plague much more difficult to be handled and they were not to be compared to the ‘toughness’ in ordinary means, any ordinary person would be able to see the difficulties of the task to subdue the plague. And because of that, the Guardian Families are usually respected by the people across the entire continent.

However, ever since the passing of the Chaos Guardian of the previous generation, everything changed when his son returned and took over his place as the new Chaos Guardian.

Joshua Van Radcliffe was a man so powerful to the core that his strength was unparalleled. His presence took the resemblance of a giant dragon. He was capable of crushing every single obstacle that is presented to him with his strength. Unlike his ancestors and predecessors, his strength was advancing at a quicker pace than anyone could have imagined. His power seemed boundless. In just six months, he rose from a Silver-advanced all the way to the Gold-advanced tier. He even annihilated the Dark Tide face to face and sealed the dimensional door as he destroyed all of the Chaos daemons.

Another year had passed. Now, he had attained a whole new height by entering the threshold of Supreme.

That was not a strength of an ordinary man.

He appeared just like a monster that suddenly revealed himself to the world and performed at a pace that no one could have predicted. Even though the people who knew the story behind it spoke their mind believing that it was simply because he had obtained the Legacy of the Sage. Roland, who had witnessed how Joshua was in a battle, knew better than the others that the truth was definitely far from what they thought to be true.

The strength that warrior wielded was purely from the strength of his Combat Aura, his physical strength, the Order energy that was provided by his Azurite. The holy knight only experienced it once when the warrior was using all his strength in handling the Chaos daemons—if the Legacy of the Sage could the body of a person stronger, Roland would have believed the rumors spread among the people across Empire as well. However, the fighting spirit that was ablaze like the fire and the soul that was as tough as steel was absolutely of one’s own to possess. They were trained from the steel of fire.

From where exactly did he get such immense power then? Roland was unable to make anything out of it. That man was just so free and so casual. He was kind and friendly to the people on ordinary days. However, he could also turn into an unprecedentedly malicious demon when he was in a battle. Even though the holy knight had been staying over at the territory of the warrior for quite a while now, he had yet to find the warrior’s reason for fighting. How could he remain so powerful all the time with his unwavering will to battle?

Because the fate of his family was to eradicate the Chaos? Or did he believe in the notion that he was saving the world?

As he swung his hammer backward towards the other direction and struck the golems that approached him from behind like a tidal wave, Roland shook his head and removed the troubling thoughts from his mind.

—There is no need to overthink things.

A warrior craved for battle, while a holy knight craved to get rid of the Chaos from the world. Those were the order of nature, how things were meant to be. A reason was completely unnecessary for them.

Explosions were seen flashing bright on the horizon. The dark clouds were being pushed away by the impacts of the explosions as sunlight shone right onto the world from behind the clouds. However, the lights were fluctuating and blurred by the hot winds that whistled.

As the red light continued breaking through the dark clouds, the remaining two fortresses were struck right through by the ferocious flying gunblade that Joshua launched. Huge holes were left in the center of their bodies as they were left desecrated by the gunblade. Soon after, both the sky fortresses slowly collapsed to the ground. Before they could hit the ground, the fortresses exploded.

Many aerial golems were caught in the impact of the explosions and were shattered into pieces. Instantly, the sky was filled with dust and fire. Scattered rocks and the magic energy tainted with the Chaos flew all around. Dust was torched causing a second round of intense explosions. Half of the sky was instantly turned into a sea of fire. The turbulences distorted and turned into a violent current of wind, blowing in all directions.

On the battlefield on earth.

“Rawgh!”

Black spat out a breath of intense fire making it look like a fire dragon. The shell on the Black’s body looked like it was burning with fire as the shell slowly melted down under the high heat. It was being remolded into something tougher than before. Its core occasionally flashed with the light of the fire as it launched its dragon breath towards the golems that were of much more superior tiers, blowing them into tiny pieces.

However, the draconic horse suddenly felt an imminent danger. The intense sense of danger that it felt spread down its spine. That cold fear forced Black to give up on the battle and turn around to run in another direction. The decision it made had undoubtedly aided it in a great way. A huge shadow covered the area where Black initially stood to fend off the golems. The shadow was cast by one of the falling pieces of the sky fortresses that were collapsing in the sky. It traveled in the air over a long distance and crashed like a meteor at the exact spot where Black stood. Dirt and dust were hurled up into the air by the impact of the crash. The powerful impact of the crash had also crushed quite a number of golems.

—What the hell just happened?

Black was immersed in the battle and did not hear the sound of the explosion that happened a few moments ago. It looked up, puzzled, at the sky and wanted to know where the wreckage came from. The dark clouds had dispersed because of the explosion. Black’s vision became crystal clear. At the moment it noticed the whereabouts of its master, it also noticed something else that was extremely dangerous.

Right above the earth, a crippled titan colossus with only half of its body left, stretched out its huge steel palm in an attempt to grab Joshua who was levitating in the sky!

It survived the strike that Joshua launched at it and hid in the dark dust to conceal itself. However, now that the dust and mist had been blown away by the impact of the explosion, its attempt to ambush had been noticed. Now, it no longer hesitated as it sped up to grab the warrior.

Boom!

Everything happened so fast. The gigantic palm that was charged with lightning pressed down on Joshua like a mountain falling on him.

The body of a titan colossus was a few hundred meters tall. Its palm was also more than ten meters in diameter—the size of an ordinary house. The golden shell in its palm was extremely heavy weighing about a few hundred tons. The magic energy that was flowing like a stream of current was fuelling its large movement. The palm was also charged with powerful lightning magic energy. That hit was capable of melting and collapsing an entire mountain, turning it into a pile of shattered rocks.

Judging purely on strength, Joshua would not be able to match that sort of strength even after he had been blessed with the support of the Divine Power provided by Father Nature. If he ever got hit by that attack, he might be badly wounded or even die.

However, Joshua had already noticed the gigantic palm that was approaching him from behind him. The operation between metal and magic energy of this sort of gigantic puppet possessed a unique charm. But, the method of how the power was operated was just too sluggish and predictable. Even though its power was great, it did not possess any variation in its movement pattern.

For the warrior, the titan colossus did not pose even the slightest threat to him.