Soul of Searing Steel

With the tall human-like being with two heads reflected on top of the white crystal layer, the shroud stopped moving before slowly converging toward it.

The flowing water suddenly condensed into black ice. The Divine Dungeon Shroud, which was formed through thoughts, could not think on its own at first. But suddenly, it gained its own will, consolidated itself and formed its own skeletal frame.

Next to the Avenue of Truth, Nostradamus sighed. He understood that the changes of the shroud and the meaning behind it. The white-haired mage took out his staff and cast a spell. He frowned and murmured, “The chaotic thoughts are forming into one entity. Now, the exact space coordination still cannot be forecasted. However, when the phenomenon is compared to the chaos that was created previously, this seemed to be born from the concealed mind of a person.”

“What has Joshua done?”

The nun at the side also noticed the abnormal occurrence.

Saya was the Great Nun of the Second Regiment of Battle Monks of Glaydon Abbey. Despite being not very popular, those that knew of them still respected them no matter how much they hated the church.

Regardless of the past, the most recent dragon invasion was almost completely annihilated by the flying squad [Glaydon Sacred Chorus], which was the first regiment of Glaydon Abbey.

This was an organization that does not get involved with human matters. They were a team which focused only on the issues regarding Chaos daemons and the Dark Tide. They had contributed a lot in the expansion operations into the Dark Forest with the kingdoms in the Far South and the nations in the West Mountains. Whenever a Dark Tide could not be handled by the local authority, they would ask for their assistance.

Saya led the second regiment around the young age of twenty as her gift was exceptional. Nostradamus excelled in the dimensional arts, thus he could easily deduce the nature of the black shroud. His sister’s capabilities were far from his, yet she was able to utilize her spells and gift to sense the changes in the shroud.

“A divine being has appeared?”

Her eyes were blindfolded. However, with her gift alone, her field of vision was greater than a normal human. She was able to ‘see’ the movement of energy, thoughts and the color of life.

Red represents anger; blue represents calmness; black represents despair; green represents happiness. The life force of normal human was dim gray. When their life force is stronger, they glow brighter. The lights of the city guards were dim orange which means they were not strong in the first place and were nervous and excited at the same time. Nostradamus was covered in blue light which represented his current calmness.

There was a golden light shining brightly like the sun from Morlaix Palace at the center of the Imperial City. The light covered the Avenue of Truth. This meant that although the emperor was not there physically, he could still look over the Kingdom. If anything bad were to happen, he could immediately try to solve the issue.

But the light beneath the Royal Mage Guild was even more special.

In front of the bright blue light which represented Joshua, there was the light of chaos of unclear color. It seemed translucent. It felt like it did not exist in the first place. Saya knew that it represented divine power. She was powerless against this. The bearer of the divinity had some resistance towards her power. There was this trait within Joshua, yet the existence in front of him was completely different.

It may be the existence which escaped from the Chest of Erebus.

Saya did not think any further after wondering about such possibility.

Joshua was extremely calm when faced with such existence and she, on the other hand, had no reason to be flustered. The ancient divine existence had been sealed within the chest for at least a thousand years. It was no doubt that its power was at its weakest. In addition to her current status as a gold-tier apostle instructor, she was capable of protecting herself from any danger. After knowing the nature of the black shroud, she did not charge in blindly like Robzek.

“Hmm… Are they… Are they communicating with each other?” Saya was shocked to learn that Joshua had already established communication with the unknown divine presence. There was no sign of combat between them.

In the second underground experimental room of the Royal Mage Guild.

“A short awakening… Such a nostalgic feeling.”

The coarse sound reverberated within the experimental room as the black shroud condensed. Behind the white crystal layer, a twin-headed giant appeared in front of Joshua. He spoke to Joshua, “Who would have thought, after I have left this place, I could once again smell the scent of my homeland.”

A being which was over than ten meters tall appeared before Joshua. The giant looked like a huge iron tower. He had blue skin, coated with densely packed runes and tattoo which shone in divine radiance. All of its four limbs flowed with destructive power and energy.

This giant only had four fingers on his hand. Each of his finger the thickness of half a human. The giant then focused on Joshua.

All the black shroud was absorbed by the twin-headed giant. The warrior could finally see the true form of this being.

Joshua was stunned for a moment.

He realized that one of the two heads was real. The other head was just a shadow of the other one but without any facial details.

The real head looked normal, yet it was still a little strange.

The face of the giant looked human. However, he had two huge canine teeth. His hair was completely white and his skin was wrinkled. He had a majestic vibe which did not really match his healthy and sturdy body.

He had a pair of dark golden eye filled with wisdom. He looked at Joshua and evaluated the warrior. Joshua, in turn, evaluated the giant too. Eventually, the giant spoke, “Human, are you the one who had woken me up?”

At the same time, he observed and analyzed his surroundings. Joshua did not really pay any attention to the giant’s question as he was trying to go through his own memory to check if he had met with such a being in his past life.

“Twin-headed ogre?”

He murmured to himself doubtfully. He thought that the God of Fortune and Despair was just some insignificant god which he coincidently did not know anything about it. However, the ogre’s existence had proved that there were things he had not encountered in his past life.

That was because there was no ogre in the Continental War.

Within the Mycroft Continent, there were many races. Dwarfs and elves were considered to be a sub-species similar to human. Even the scholars were not able to confirm the roots of these different races, but they were sure that there were more than ten types of races which were considered human sub-species. However, in the database, there wasn’t any race which was similar to an ogre.

Lizardmen, centaur, and harpy were races which also did not appear in Continental War. The game developer had explained that those were the races that had extinct way before the players started the game. All they could see were ancient remains and relics of them. In fact, some players had confirmed the existence of centaurs and harpies based on the evidence gathered in the Tartaros Highlands and Sleeping Forest.

Joshua did not care about these. He did not know whether the relics of ogre had been found. However, it seemed that the Empire had already found a few sites of the ogre’s relic yet have not retrieved any of their divine relics.

“Ogre? Are you referring to me?”

The twin-headed giant turned towards Joshua and laughed. ” Human, what are you saying? We may look like savages to humans but we do not eat people, unlike those Chaos daemons . We as intelligent beings do not eat other beings with intelligence. ”

” So many years have passed, ” he said while shaking his head. ” Has the world now forgotten the existence of Ougels ? ”