Soul of Searing Steel

Minutes ago, in the guest room of the liege’s residence.

After Brandon had Vale Dani bring their two daughters to some distance away from himself, he took a deep breath and unsheathed the Dual Blades of Order, placing them above a desk in the guest room.

It was a sacred object passed down over centuries within the Kaos family.

Brandon had a complicated expression as he stared at the two blades that gleamed in dull silver and white. He stroked their scabbards, his movements gentle yet careful.

Though their origins were a mystery, the endowment of the Sage’s Legacy was traceable. For example, in the books that were long destroyed from the fires of war and migration, the primeval history of the Starfall Era was recorded, carrying documentation of the Legacies. The precursor of the Kaos family had precisely handed that part of history to his descendants, a fact that Brandon remembered only too well.

Around a thousand years ago, the perplexed pioneers who knew nothing stepped out from the underground shelters and faced a completely unfamiliar world and a dangerous environment that were now all savage forests. Against the endless onslaught of daemons, the pioneers could only strive to survive by relying upon divine shelters, an in that period, the Sage’s Legacy was first chronicled in text.

[The first person was ‘Suo’. The sun’s envoy, she holds the scepter of power and wields the power to command light and flames. The swarm of southern forest beasts retreated in the face of light from the searing sun, the draconic hordes of the swamp turned into ash from the inferno.]

[The second person was ‘Da’. Lightning incarnate, he brandishes dual blades and wields the speed and edge that tears all things apart. The snake demons’ blood flooded the West Mountain Hills, the talons of Ancient Dragons were sliced by it.]

[The third person was ‘Yi’. Master of the mountains, he stood aloft over the land and wields the power of imperishable body and will. The Northern frost wyrms were banished to the edge of the land, steel behemoths were defeated by its fists.]

Those three stanzas of heroic description were compiled as an anthology of psalms. It was easy to tell that those were the three Legacies left behind in the world of Mycroft—the first wielders of the ‘Bright Scepter, the ‘Dual Blades of Order’ and the ‘Azurite’. They were spread over different corners of the land and yet possessed a power that comforted the hearts of the masses as well as banished all corruption.

At present, the Bright Scepter of the Far South was now the regalia that every generation of pontiffs carried amidst a millennium of chaos. The Dual Blades of Order were lost to the mob as the Diamond Family led a great migration to the North due to torment from the warlock dynasty, but was finally procured by the precursor of the Kaos family who had a great passion for collecting artifacts. On the other hand, the Azurite gradually became anonymous no thanks to its special appearance and requirements for awakening—it was until the rise of Count Radcliffe, its current heir that it regained public consciousness.

Nevertheless, each had followed the human race through a long baptism of the river called time. Following the tumultuous shift of history, they were no longer merely weapons or Legacy objects left behind by the Sage—they were blades of glory, carrying the immeasurable labors in which humans conquered all nature and calamity as well as the will of bygone wisemen and heroes.

By what virtue and ability would I resonate with the Dual Blades of Order and inherit the true Legacy of the Sage?

The very thought left Brandon a little shaken inside, although it was quickly stifled by the swordsman. He grasped the hilts of both blades determinedly, the thick scabbards slowly pushed by aura and leaving the edges, finally dropping to the floor and displaying the body of the dazzling dual blades that appeared to be assembled out of light.

Instead of self-doubting out of past glory, why not take it and set accomplishments that precursors could never hope to compare. Brandon revered those heroes and wisemen, but fear and respect were two different things—he never believed himself to be any inferior than any single one of them, and what he lacked was merely time and stability, and was hence convinced that he definitely could make a Legend and feat that belonged to himself.

“Heed my call.”

Crossing the blades before his chest, Brandon closed his eyes and soon his spirit plummeted into a dark environment amidst the crisp sound as if glasses were broken. The dual blades too glimmered in an obscure radiance—two streaks of light arcs entered Brandon’s body to form two great turbulent streams of energies in the shape of Mobius Strips, the two colors silver and white illuminating the dark space.

Shone upon by the light, Brandon felt immeasurable calm and comfort—it was the power of order, the light which banishes or corruption and erosion. The swordsman felt that he never approached the essence of the Dual Blades of Order so closely, those two tides of Holy Light that flowed in an infinite cycle surged without rest in the dark, and at the edge where darkness and light touched was the hazy silhouette of a person.

Brandon’s breathing paused for the moment he saw the silhouette, his heart throbbing. In the dozen years past where he embraced the dual blades as he slept, he often dreamt of that silhouette albeit forgetting it every time he awakened. But now, every memory of it had been refreshed. An instinct as a Successor told him that it was the shadow of the Sage—touching him and talking to him would allow him to utterly grasp the dual blades, just as how Joshua mastered the Azurite.

The swordsman advanced with no hesitation. In an illusory spiritual realm such as this, advancing required not physical strength but stalwart will. Even if Brandon’s pace was slow it was immeasurably firm with not one step back or hesitation. As time passed, he slowly closed in on that illusory silhouette and saw that the Sage’s shadow had his hands clasped behind and his back to him as if he was suppressing and sealing something.

Suppressing? Sealing?

Somehow, Brandon became vigilant at once as the two words flashed in his mind. He took a look at the darkness around him and found in astonishment that traces of dark yet malevolent fog rises from the ground with every step he made. Now, he was just a few paces away from the silhouette of the Sage, and yet the spreading and corrupt black air had occupied more than half the illusory space, obscuring even the light emanating from the Dual Blades of Order.

Even as he was left in shock, Brandon promptly noticed that the dark fog did not exist as a mirage in the illusory realm. It was spreading towards the real world with him as the source, and as such he widened his eyes, sensing that a cluster of the dark fog had assimilated with the air around and extended towards his two daughters who had just awakened even as Vale Dani looked on doubtfully.

“Damn it! Stop!

Turning towards the darkness with no pause and stopping his approach to the silhouette of the Sage, Brandon clenched his fist in the mirage and bellowed as he focused his spirit to bind the unknown fog that was spreading from his body. Though he knew not what the essence of the fog was, its evil and corrupt presence definitely was nothing good. As a father, the swordsman would never easily allow that thing to touch his children!

It was assuredly effective. The dark fog paused for a moment; it kept spreading albeit ten times slower. Brandon, however, did not relax because Vale Dani and the children had not left the building. His wife was even frowning at the abnormality, putting down the two girls and prepared to approach and have a look.

Don’t mind me, run! Brandon’s heart roared sonorously but it was of no use. He did his best to control his body in the real world from the illusory one so that he kept his distance but the effect was almost imperceptible—it was the same principle that no one dreaming could deliberately control their body. But just as Brandon was about to give in to despair, a figure wearing a black trench coat crashed through the wall and appeared before him.

Joshua. Brandon’s heart was infinitely relieved when he found out who came—even if that fellow in front of his eyes had no taste at all as a man and stayed clothed in the same style for years, even if that man never understood the pleasures of life, Joshua was unquestionably the most reliable warrior in any moment of danger.

As expected, as Brandon now looked on with ease, Joshua had one way or the other moved Vale Dani and the others away within a single breath and briskly sent himself flying over twenty kilometers away with a kick and a punch.

It was really fucking painful but well done!

Though strictly speaking it was being walloped by another person with one punch and a kick, Brandon was earnestly praiseful over Joshua’s decisiveness. Without any restraint, he could now calm his mind to study the origin of the fog meticulously and the reason it appeared in the Sage’s Legacy.

On the other end, Joshua flew across the air and headed rapidly towards where he sent Brandon flying.

While he was not sure what happened, he acutely sensed in those brief seconds that the corrupted presence streaming out of Brandon was very similar with something he was very familiar with—the condensation of living vengefulness!

Joshua was incomparably familiar it since his body was tangled in endless vengefulness, with hundreds of thousands of soul shards carrying their final wails and encircling him. There had also been another batch added recently—curses from the tens of thousands of demons from the Sixth Abyss. If any Medium wanted to contact Joshua through his soul, they would be eroded by the vengefulness in less than one second and become mentally aberrated if they were not Legendary.

Joshua could only do his best to hold back his presence no thanks to that vengefulness, otherwise every place he went would fall and become a region of absolute despair and madness, to say nothing of interacting normally with ordinary folk. Everyone would go for each other necks amidst the fear and hysteria or cause stampedes as they fled.

And yet, that incredible vengefulness did not compare to the corrupt presence presently wafting from Brandon’s body.

It was the same difference when comparing a mountain and an entire mountain chain.

Arriving where Brandon was, Joshua watched the ground below in the sky. It was a vast ice plain that was covered in snow, with a swamp-like dark domain rapidly spreading. Shadows, unnamable yet extremely twisted were struggling and climbing out from the black swamp. There were ancient evils formed from endless limbs that surround it, ferocious giants that had human bodies and squid-shaped skulls, along with nightmarish squirming things that were composed of viscous liquid with indeterminable shapes.

The ancient evils that vengefulness alone radiated residual vengefulness were roaring silently in the dark swap domain, with Brandon’s motionless body at the center of it all. The once dazzling Dual Blades of Order were now enshrouded in misty darkness and slowly losing their luster. Then, a sight made Joshua inhaled sharply, for he saw a few familiar shadows from the illusion.

Dull crystalline shells, savage bodies that resembled huge insects—those were precisely the minions of the Evil God of Famine, the Crystal Insect Yurmadais! The vengefulness of those Aragami curled their joints and mandibles, unleashing terrible pressure, and undoubtedly had a Legendary ability in life at a bare minimum!

Without hazarding any guess, Joshua could now be positive. Despite not knowing why they would hide within the Dual Blades of Order, these spreading vengefulness was part of a remnant from the many Evil Gods’ creatures that the Sage had slain all those millennia ago! And those terrible shadows were the minions of the many Evil Gods back then, even part of their true form!

Knowing that, Joshua dove downward, prepared to help Brandon—only to pause again just as he prepared to accelerate.

A mild voice that was at once familiar and unfamiliar appeared in his mind.