Soul of Searing Steel

Being torn by a thousand wild gales in the skies, or being underground as the subterranean reaches trembled ten thousand times—that was how the warrior felt in that very moment.

The extreme radiance and energy impact from Helm engulfed the entire Abyss. However, it surprisingly did not produce the genuine profound destructive force of a supernova apart from the blinding light and searing heat that melted stone islands. Even so, Joshua was still dealt a heavy blow.

His mind empty with only a strong sense of danger reverberating within, Joshua’s will was unhinged, as if being ripped apart by a tempest. The halo Helm turned into did not only affect him physically but also spiritually—the warrior’s soul, once sturdy without equal, was almost blown away from the physical form. If not for him having learned a little Soul-Substance Transition from Vahina so that there was a stronger rapport between his body and soul, Joshua’s soul might really have been gusted away from his body, scattering endlessly amidst the energy windstorm.

Fortunately, that did not happen, although Joshua’s soul was now so shaken he found it difficult to think. He now simply could not move rationally, and could only feel it as the cluster of light Helm mustered his full power to transform was cleaving his chest apart… Was it cleaving? If it was cleaving, he should have been cut into two halves—degenerate matter was not indestructible, and any sufficiently powerful attack could destroy that shell formed from White Dwarf substance.

‘What… am… I… actually… doing?’ A faint consciousness flickering in the depths of his mind.

‘Right… I am… fighting, enemy!’

Meanwhile, behind Joshua, the Demon General Saluka was just that far from having its soul broken, scattered into the wind. The Insectoid Demon sensed its soul had left its body, albeit without its link severed completely. Now simply having no thought to spare to trouble the warrior, it instead panickily attempt to reassemble its body and soul. If not for Joshua having taken the brunt of the blow, its consciousness would have been broken apart, leaving it as pieces of flesh without consciousness.

Then, having dragged its own soul back into its wound-riddled body, Saluka hurriedly augmented the link between them, having no thought to spare about what just happened… Helm had assumed a form he never seen before, and charged towards Joshua but was blocked. Still, its own ambush caused the warrior to slip in his defenses, while the demon itself lost most of its consciousness when Helm crashed into Joshua—until now.

“That human… should be dead now, right?”

Although Joshua’s body appeared unscathed, he had stopped moving. That gave Saluka the irrepressible thought that since Helm’s unknown attack could assault the soul, perhaps Joshua’s soul had taken a direct blast and scattered?

And it does not get better than that… If Saluka was given a second chance, it would never fight Joshua. The very existence of the giant god that caused despair was nightmare incarnate, and the Insectoid Demon General now simply wanted to return to the Sixth Abyss and advise Its Majesty the Demon King not to try anything against Mycroft. They would never touch that world with even one finger; they should learn the art of reverence.

But just as Saluka’s heart calmed, the Giant God of Steel suddenly moved.

“What—What?!”

The giant’s four arms suddenly shook. Soon, four mountainous arms that could crush the shell of Legendary aberrations regained mobility, and though rigid, there was no doubt that it could move. Saluka’s heart welled with despair and fear at once, it never once imagined that Joshua’s soul would not scatter beneath the might of that unnamed ray!

And in the very next moment, four arms flashed with fiery silver light, which soon began to burn upon those hands as if chainsaws.

Joshua had yet fully recovered his consciousness. His soul remained struck severely and dazed, the dizziness that made thinking difficult revolving around the depths of his soul… Any mortal would have fallen into an illusion of memory and begin to reminisce everything they remembered, falling into a trap their own soul created over centuries, never to awaken for all time.

Joshua was almost in the same state, and yet he moved. As Saluka looked on and shuddered, those four arms lifted, mustered power and swung down violently.

Even if he had lost consciousness, his soul shaken and not knowing anything, even if that faint awareness was but weak sparks in the spiritual sea, the warrior was still the warrior. His body remembered as the barest hint of consciousness flowed, allowing the body of Steel to remember its mission.

To kill the enemy.

Boom!

The fingers of the four arms closing to form knives, it determinedly slashed towards the halo. Even the powerful radiance comparable to supernovas could not stop Joshua’s onslaught, those knifehand strikes hitting the halo Helm had transformed to… and piercing it.

Hum!

As the halo trembled, an even more powerful ripple emanated. This time, Joshua notwithstanding, even Saluka felt its spirit emptying. When it regained consciousness, the Insectoid Demon could see that the skin up front of Joshua’s body was slowly peeling off, turning into burning Steel shards.

That attack, however, allowed Joshua to regain part of his normal reasoning ability. Staring at the halo that came striking at him without stopping, as well as the shards of his body that kept

It was a collision attack, intricate down to the level of particle acceleration.

Helm was burning its own soul. It had wagered that, along with its body and all its honor so that its Legendary physicality would turn into a pure particle accelerator, before it turned into a whirling halo that charged towards the warrior. In other words, Helm was using its body and soul as gunpowder, an irreversible act of suicide to trade for a tremendous maiming upon Joshua.

The moment the attack made contact, infinite Soul Particles belonging to Helm turned into ta empest that pierced consciousness, intending to blast away Joshua’s soul from his body and tearing it apart. At the same time, the substance particles accelerated to the peak that formed his body would strike against Joshua’s Steel body refined a thousand times over, ‘corrupting’ it.

Endless particles were colliding, splitting and fusing rapidly on a microscopic scale. They were transforming incomprehensibly, turning into a variety of heavy elements—indeed, the Steel Strength fragments peeling out from Joshua’s body was no longer Steel Strength, but gold, carbon, iron, palladium or lead, elements amidst this world! They were sprinkled like star clouds to the universe after a supernova burst, scattered to every corner of the Bloodmoon Abyss.

In that instant, Joshua finally understood the key to Creation: it was akin to building blocks in an extreme microscopic view.

Now, however, was no time for epiphanies. Having seen through his opponent’s attack, now was Joshua’s time to retaliate.

“Phew—Helm.”

Joshua let out a long exhale, feeling an exhilaration and fatigue in his soul henever felt before. His eyes shone with silver light as he clenched all four arms into fists, and begun to gather incomparable magnetic field and gravity—compared to a purely physical assault, this was an attack that could genuinely distort and destroy particle acceleration. Staring at the halo that was now completely devoid of self-awareness and simply relied on its last command, he mouthed words of praise.

“Demon, you are truly powerful—I admire your resolve.”

As he spoke, Joshua van Radcliffe spread all four of his arms and swung them heavily toward the ‘halo’ that had no name, no form and was solely an extremely accelerated soul and substance. Moving against light itself, the four fists stroke past thick shadows, breaking space apart—even so, what it would shatter was not the enemy’s attack but its very soul, its flesh and all resolve poured into it.

In the world where only light remained, there was a sudden sound of smashing.

Saluka sensed it all, still clueless about the essence of Helm’s attack. But just as it paused, stunned, the Insectoid Demon General knew that Helm’s blow at the price of its own death was ineffective.

That their enemy remained standing.

That they had failed.

And in the Bloodmoon Abyss, the powerful light that brightened everything dulled.

The searing heat that ignited all things gradually dispersed, leaving crimson spheres of magma floating in the air.

Nothing over hundreds of kilometers away from the battlefield was left apart from the heavy metal particles disintegrating from the surface of Joshua’s body. At the moment, the warrior’s Steel body and shrunk by one-third while bones were only left of his arms. This time, Joshua was considerably harmed from body to soul.

The Blood Moon hurriedly extended ten thousand beams that descended on Joshua—Helm’s blast had severed its link with the warrior, and so tried to help him recover was also able to see that Joshua was not in a fine state. The warrior, however, waved his hand to block those beams, shaking his head and refusing. “It’s alright, there’s no need.”

“I can’t stay here forever; I really can’t be your liege.”

“Ring?!” The Blood Moon promptly flashed once in return, withdrawing all beams after hesitation. It appeared to have been angered as well, but Joshua paid no attention—in his hand was a translucent piece of crystal, and before him were thousands of similar crystals afloat in the air that soon fragmented beneath the winds.

The image of a thousand-eyed serpent could be seen curling amidst the wind. Those were spiritual fragments left after Helm was incinerated, crystals inside of which the Demon General’s bygone memories flashed. In the Abyss, those were soul gem with the value of cities, containing the story of a champion’s life while also being the final crystallization gathered of its will.

Every finger mustering strength and crushing Helm’s largest soul crystal in his palm, there was only dispassion in Joshua’s eyes: it was precisely out of admiration that there must be destruction, for demon’s resolve were calamity for humans. So-called wiping out the enemy meant to give no quarter and leave not a hint, and everything from its spirit to presence must be wiped away in its entirety.

Three hands clawed towards the spiritual fragments left by Helm, while the other hand reached out and caught Saluka’s cocoon, its soul now scattered. The Insectoid Demon had been a sturdy foe as well, since no one could be so determined as Helm. Still, Joshua did not intend to kill it—instead, he would catch it and have William draw its soul and interrogate it about secrets of the Sixth Abyss. But just as he was about to reach, a dark spatial ripple flashed: a silent and raging will had come, transcending space itself and snatching Saluka away from Joshua’s grasp. Not satisfied, it started to surge towards Helm’s remaining spiritual fragments.

Having been maimed both in soul and flesh, Joshua had blanked out for the tenth of a second at first. Though it appeared brief, it was enough time for Legendary champions for several exchange of blows, allowing Helm the opening to gather most of the spiritual fragments with that pause. Still, Joshua eventually reacted!

“You! Goliath!”

There was no question that it was the Lord of the Sixth Abyss, the Gluttonous King of Demons Goliath! With some unknown method, it had broken through the interference of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds, and arrived defiantly to the Bloomoon Abyss and took the Insectoid Demon General off Joshua’s hands! It even intended to plunder Helm’s remains!

But would Joshua allow an opponent plunder his spoils of war so easily? In an instant, the warrior had resumed his combat form and strode forward, lashing out with a fist across thin air and chase the Abyssal Liege’s damned tentacle back whence it came. However, a beam struck, faster than Joshua’s fist!

“—!”

In the Blood Moon, the colossal luminous figure of a giant made an indescribable sound. It was enraged beyond measure for a Will from another Abyss had invaded into its territory, a far more infuriating thing than Joshua refusing to become its liege.

The beam descended from the heavens, directly striking upon the dark spatial ripples. The dimensions trembled at once as huge sheets of space shattered, cracking the world in spiderweb patterns.

“—You win this time!”

A dull snort echoed from the other end of space. Even the demon king could not stand toe to toe against the Bloodmoon Abyss’s will and another Legendary champion that stood behind the dual layer protection of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds and the World Barrier. A portion of cocoon and a portion of spiritual fragment hence remained—while the luminous human figure did not completely stop the Demon King of the Sixth Abyss, it left considerable spoils.

The fragments of light danced in the air as the Demon General’s memories floated with the wind. Staring at it all, his form gradually shrunk to ordinary human size.

The warrior took a deep breath, before letting it out slowly.

Such was war.