Soul of Searing Steel

Although Nostradamus did not speak with a heavy tone, Joshua noticed that the expression on the old mage’s face shifted a little the moment he mentioned the word ‘box’.

There were actually many explanations for that shift. For instance, he might be feeling awkward or frustrated. However, it was most likely that he was feeling troubled or worried.

Something that could worry a Supreme-tier mage was definitely not an ordinary box.

“Do you need help?” Joshua offered. The warrior reminded the old mage softly, “The black shroud has already spread into a small part of the city center. We need to handle it as soon as possible.”

“Yes, of course. The Mage Guild is not in an ordinary neighborhood.” Without the need to explain too much, everyone knew that whatever that is happening would be bad for the capital city’s reputation. Keeping the communication device, the old mage suddenly looked deadly serious. “That box is something really difficult to handle. Perhaps you might not know about this, but that box has caught everyone’s attention within the circle of the mage because of its strange and bizarre attributes… Let’s not talk about its origin first, but the box was initially under the care of a group of mages from the guild. Those men are quite powerful mages. However, an incident occurred during their research on that box. Now they are asking me to take care of that big problem for them.”

Nostradamus seemed conflicted. “Well, they have actually put down their egos to ask for my help.”

“So you really do need help.” Joshua shrugged. He recalled the memories on his past experience in his past life on encountering strange and bizarre items that were related to the black shroud. He could roughly imagine the situation they were facing at the moment. He calmly told the mage, “It’s a coincidence that we’re also headed there to look for someone, right? Let’s move as soon as we can and get it settled as soon as possible.”

“Now that I’ve thought about it, something huge also happened in the Imperial City during my last visit.”

As the warrior and the old mage talked, Ying nodded and muttered to herself, “No… not just that. Every time Master ventures out into the world, there seems to be something happening.”

“Not just that, my sister, not only when he travels.” The black-haired boy shook his head and shrugged. “Even when Master is drinking wine and reading newspapers, he would still be marked as the target of assassination by the demonic dragon. I’m going to assume that…”

Before Ling could finish his words, Joshua suddenly turned around and pressed his hand on top of the boy’s head firmly to stop the boy from saying another word. He did not want that boy to speak further than that.

“… Although it’s a little rude, please pardon me.” Dimore was silent since they walked out of the main hall. Suddenly, he broke his silence. His seemed to have calmed down. After hearing the conversation between Joshua and Nostradamus, he thought about it and calmed his mind before he said, “I still have some unfinished business to attend to… So I should not be going there to handle the problem with you.”

“No problem.” The old mage nodded with a smile. “The matter that concerns you are much more important than this. Go ahead and settle it.”

When Dimore was still at the Royal Library, it was obvious that he was there to handle some stuff. However, he had to amend his schedule because of Joshua and Nostradamus’ arrival. Now that everything was settled, it was about time he went back to sort out whatever he had to do.

Nostradamus nodded slightly. The second prince turned around and looked at Joshua in the eye briefly but said nothing and left.

“Do not disappoint your father,” Nostradamus said softly to Dimore before he disappeared into the corner of the corridor. When Dimore heard that, he froze for a split second before he continued to walk again.

After the second prince had left, the old mage sighed. Then he calmly said, “Then let’s get going now—Joshua, stay close to me, I’m going to teleport us there.”

“Didn’t the Imperial City have a magic circle that forbids the use of Teleportation?” Joshua was not surprised even as he asked the old mage. He told Ying and Ling to stay close to him. The three of them stepped up next to Nostradamus. “I thought it applies to you as well.”

“Well, I’m the main mage that modified the magic circle.”

Particles of radiating blue lights emerged around the body of the old mage as the air in his surroundings began to ripple like the surface of a lake. He smirked and said, “Which mage would actually pass on that big of an opportunity to plant a backup for himself? For Israel’s ego, I would normally try not to use it. But this is a special situation—get ready, we’re going now!”

The moment he said that, a dimension rippled and the four of them vanished from the front gate of Morlaix Palace. The Emperor in the Glorious Main Hall sensed the rippling waves of the dimension. He laughed and shook his head.

—Imperial City, Royal Mage Guild, in the near of the Path of Truth.

It was already late at night. But, the screams echoed through the streets. Under the light of the pyroxene lamps, a dozen platoons of the city guard moved back and forth as they evacuated the civilians from that area. They attempted to clear the streets and set up a perimeter. Those soldiers wore armors and a cape, holding a sword and shield, tried to disperse the crowd who were there to see what was going on. At the same time, they shouted at the civilian, “Unauthorized personnel, please be advised to evacuate yourself from the streets as soon as possible and head over to the main hall of the church of the capital city to seek shelter. This is not a drill. We’re on high alert right now. The Imperial Kingdom will compensate all of your loss. I repeat. Unauthorized personnel…”

The soldiers’ voices echoed through the street. The civilians who were trying to get a glimpse of what was going on had noticed that it was not a drill. Something very bad was happening. The people of the city recalled the memory of the incident of the demon slaughtering the people in the city. And they had also noticed that the soldiers looked serious as they evacuated the street. So everyone started to leave the vicinity with an unsettled mind.

On the other side of the street, the black shroud rose behind the houses. It was extremely condensed and strange. The black shroud began spreading slowly from the Mage Guild and into its surrounding.

It looked just like any other ordinary shroud. However, the wind didn’t seem to affect its movements at all. Pure darkness was the only thing in the black shroud. Everything vanished the moment the shroud floated over it as if the shroud was devouring everything.

As time passed, the black shroud continued spreading in the streets, the signs and even the carriages that were abandoned. Instantly, sizzling sounds echoed through the air. Through the gaps between the shrouds, the road signs and the carriage melted like they were made of clay. Everything was reduced to a muddy pool on the ground.

The buildings that were built from rocks seemed to be standing despite the black shroud. However, houses built from wood collapsed one after another. By the road, the iron poles began to rust and corrode after coming into contact with the black shroud. Well, the pyroxene lamps remained, radiating light.

At the edge of this strange black shroud, many wizards were casting their spells, attempting to stop the spreading of the mysterious shroud. That seemed to be effective. They cast their spells one after another as the black shroud seemed to be dispersing and pushed back a little. However, they were at a disadvantage in terms of number. The moment after they pushed the black shroud back a little, the black shroud would swiftly fill the space or even pushed forward a little. Soon, the black shroud seemed to have adapted to the spells and began to push the spells back instead.

“This is no good. The power of the Chest of Erebus has exceeded our expectation. The shroud is alive!”

A middle-aged mage in blue robe unleashed a barrier force field as he shouted loudly to his comrades. He looked serious as cold sweat dripped down his forehead. “It knows our limit, and now it’s starting to push back!”

“This is the center of the Imperial City. We can’t just use any large-scale spells even if we want to!”

Another mage gritted his teeth and responded to him, “Damn it! All of my experiments are interrupted—this shroud cannot be blown away by the winds. It cannot be burned by fire. And it is absorbing magic energy! It also has a high corrosive attribute—where are the people of the second division of the research on the Chest of Erebus?! Where did they go?! Those imbeciles let the shroud out and left it to us to clean up the mess? Did they even come up with any solution to push the black shroud back?”

“If they had done that, would we still be struggling here, trying to push the black shroud back?”

A white-haired mage, who looked at least 70 years old, gathered nine magic nodes as a large magic circle emerged behind him. The white-haired mage narrowed his eyes, reached out his finger and pointed at the black shroud. Instantly, an invisible shockwave blasted out of the magic circle behind him. The impact of the explosion pushed the black shroud a little in the opposite direction.

The old mage suddenly lost his patience and snapped, “Where is Freyer? Where is his mentor?! Husk I is the one responsible for this and he did not show up for this?! Is he trying to hide and pretend that nothing is happening?”

However, no one responded to the old mage. The mage looked at the changes of the black shroud and instantly forgot his anger.

The black shroud began to speed up. It had already covered half of the streets. The sea of black shroud wavered. Layers of strange, shattered waves surged above the layer of black shroud and gushed towards the untouched area, one layer after another.

Yi— laa , Yi—laa—

In the midst of the gushing shroud, a strange voice echoed. It sounded sacred and graceful as if someone was praising something. Upon hearing that voice, the old mage knew that something was up, and it was not for the better. He immediately released more power into the magic circle before him. Instantly, an enormous energy came gushing out of the magic circle as it made its way towards the black shroud.

It was no doubt that the strength of that old mage was powerful. The magic energy of the city defensive spell was at least as powerful as a Gold-intermediate tier gathering and condensing under his command. The streets and the buildings in the surrounding were not affected by that power at all. The invisible energy had hit the black shroud but nothing seemed to happen at all.

To be more precise, something happened. When the black shroud was hit by that energy, it staggered for a brief moment. It showed a vague sign of being pushed back a little. However, in the next moment, the black shroud continued to spread as if the attack never existed. In fact, it started moving at a faster pace.

“What the hell is that?!”

The old mage was stunned. He was there during the great war with the orcs. He even survived the war and contributed a lot. Other than Nostradamus, his strength was the top five in the Mage Guild. That attack he had just launched was a fully charged attack called [Glanner’s City Shattering Palm]. It was a Gold-tier spell. If the attack landed on the target, even a giant dragon would be blown into pieces. A mammoth would be reduced into a pile of flesh. If that hit was unleashed upon the earth, it could even cause an earthquake. However, it could not hold the black shroud for even half a second.

“This thing definitely has an anti-magic force that sucks up magic energy while resisting all sorts of magic energy at the same time. God damn it… I bet that Husk and that bunch of people are actually facing a great danger… they must be trapped in there.”

They immediately noticed that second group of people, who were researching on the Chest of Erebus, were actually not hiding. Instead, they were trapped somewhere in the black shroud. The white-haired mage instantly sensed that they were all in great trouble now, “This is too much. The anti-magic force would only appear around the daemons that are living in the anti-magic zone. So how is it present in a mass of shroud? Is there any way to counter this black shroud?’

A mass of light suddenly appeared and answered his question.

Right beside that old mage, a silver beam suddenly appeared and shot straight into the black shroud. The black shroud was penetrated right through, leaving a large hole in the middle. Soon, more silvery beams shot at the black shroud. Those beams came from all directions and formed a network that completely suppressed the raging black shroud from spreading further.

The black shroud had found its nemesis. It began to back off as the buildings and objects that were corroded once again emerged from the shroud.

“It seems that the beams of holy light are effective against this thing.”

The voice of a man echoed across the street. The commander of the [Hammer of Freedom], Holy Knight Robzek stepped out of Morlaix Palace. He was charged up with the blazing flames of the holy light from top to bottom. He sustained the light web suppressed the entire mass of black shroud. Turning around and smiling at the white-haired mage, Robzek said, “There are specialties in skill. Against such abnormalities, you lot definitely lose out to our specialization.

The ambassador of the Church of the Seven Gods was not far away from the Royal Mage Guild in the Imperial City. Hence, it was obvious that they got to know of the strange incident and came to aid them.

The white-haired mage did not feel upset about it at all. He was no longer a young brat who would feel angry over such trivial things. Furthermore, mages should follow the way of righteousness and truth—the silver-haired holy knight spoke the truth. Of course one could not handle anything with anti-magic properties with magic spells. Clergy that could wield the power of holy light were more suitable to deal with this sort of things.

Just when everything seemed to be under control, some of the guards from the other side of the street screamed in terror. “Shroud! The shroud is boiling!”

“What?!”

Both Robzek and the white-haired mage were stunned. Suddenly, the silvery web that was created by Robzek shattered into small light particles that soon vanished into thin air. The sea of black shroud that was being suppressed gushed out into the surrounding and continued spreading like an unstoppable boiling wave.