Soul of Searing Steel

Praise, the fire in the nothingness. Praise the fire in the light. Praise the light in the thunder!

After that, praise the worthy to be praised! The origin of life, the existence of radiance that shines upon the sacred in the world!

“Praise the sun!”

Raising his long lance in his hand, Joshua was laughing madly while cheering at the same time. Along with his intimidating roar, the Combat Aura that was blazing all around his body began to tremble and gather at a point. The warrior looked like he was holding tightly on a blinding light as blinding as the blazing sun right in his hand. Visible sparks were surging around right on his palm. The holy power that was enough to destroy everything was swiftly formed with the lance as the core point of the power source.

Facing the three Gold-tier daemons that suddenly ambushed him, Joshua had finally used his first skill ever since he entered the Dark Forest—

[Mastery, Sunlight Spear!]

As the winds converged, Chaos was unleashed. The light was condensed to the maximum and exploded. Setting aside the dragon’s breath, the warrior charged towards the gigantic dracopider right before his eyes without hesitation.

The remaining three purplish blue eyes on the dracospider were staring straight into Joshua’s eyes. There seemed to be sparks from the staring between both of them. However, the red eyes of the warrior that were blazing up like red-hot iron had no remorse at all. By ignoring the terrifyingly powerful attack from his back, Joshua waved his arm and brought out a swipe of gold right in the air. He threw out the blinding light lance that could not be looked at directly. The scorching golden radiance got shot right out and it plunged right into the wound on the dracospider’s head that was being burned by the hellblade’s flame!

Boom!!

There was no trace of any blood or torn flesh. Right in the middle of the blinding light that was flashing on, waves of impact that got emitted out circularly were beginning to melt everything as the temperature of each coming wave was increasing. Right on the ground, the dust was stirred into the air all into the surroundings. A golden radiating barrier that was in the shape of a half round bowl began to emerge, trapping the upper part of the dracopider’s body for over tens of meters long. After that, everything within the barrier became nothingness and ash.

Instantly, between the sky and the ground, in the middle of the Dark Forest, all living beings could not hear any sound, nor could they see any color. They could only feel a blazing and sizzling madness surging around the land back and forth, turning the solid rocks into dust and sand. Dirt and dust were flying all over the place like unsettling waves.

With the strike of ‘Sunlight Spear’, the dracospider, one of the three Gold-tier daemons had been eliminated. It was supposed to be a victory worth cheering for. However, looking at his current situation, Joshua had no time at all to rest; he turned around. The berserk daemons in the surroundings had already retreated out from the range when the frost butterfly was unleashing its icicle attacks on a large area scale. Meanwhile, the black Chaos breath attack was about to arrive!

The scorching magic wave had brought out a stream of golden lava along the ground. It was like a tornado, instant rolling along with endless magic power. The blast entirely engulfed Joshua who was unable to dodge for he had exhausted all his power a split second ago!

—While Joshua was killing the giant dracospider, on the hilltop.

A silhouette of a man was charging down from higher ground with unstoppable force. Wherever he passed by, there would be countless dark green gusts and waves of blood left behind. The regular berserk daemons had no way to survive even an instant when they got in touch with the dual blades that were wielded by the shadow. They were all instantly shredded into pieces of meats and broken bones. Only the more powerful Silver-tier daemons could die without having their dead bodies shredded. Threatened by such an immense power, the daemons nearby no longer kept their attention fixed on the battles between Gold-tier monsters and that Gold-tier warrior. Instead, they turned around focusing on how to surround the shadow that was so threatening.

However, whatever they tried, nothing worked.

Brandon was using his eyes to the their limit. The green vortexes were swirling rapidly in both of his eyes. He was breathing steadily. He was wielding his two blades streaking countless black lines in the air. Every single hit from his blade had landed precisely on the ‘rifts’ on all daemons in the surroundings. One instant after another, the Gold-tier swordsman had torn apart the effort of the daemons trying to surround him. He broke out of the siege from the daemons with ease. After charging forward for a while, he arrived at an empty small flatland.

Because Joshua and the dracospider had fought intensely before that, the trees had all collapsed onto the ground. The trees were rammed and crushed into broken pieces. Some were even burned into crisps. Meanwhile, the other daemons around had fled from the area all thanks to the magic attacks of the frost butterfly. The view was clear. Brandon could clearly see the violent battle on the battlefield.

However, he was looking at a scene like this when he arrived; the warrior with the red blazing Combat Aura used his golden spear to take out the entire head of the dracospider. Meanwhile, the Chaos breath that came at the warrior like a black tornado devoured the warrior entirely!

The chill that pierced down deep into bones rose from the back of his spine, through his heart and his brain before reaching the depths of his soul. Having not able to react to what he just saw, the Gold-tier swordsman could not help to feel a chill deep in his heart.

Joshua… did he die?!

With that thought flashed across his mind, instantly, his thoughts in his mind got scrambled. Brandon’s instinct had led him to think quickly; now that the dracospider had died and there was no way of telling if Joshua had died or not. However, it seemed that Joshua would also be fatally wounded even if he survived that. If that was the case, it would be wiser to retreat at once and focus on the defense at the wall. Just like what Vale Dani said, even though the Empire was currently occupied with suppressing the Dark Tide in the south and center, however, the north was known to be the land that sealed the dimensional rift. It would not take long before more Mastery strong beings would come to their aid.

As for the dimensional passage, although it was unfortunate, one must not feel frustrated over things that cannot be done.

“No, once the dimensional rift is unsealed and opened, there will be nothing left to defend!”

Clenching his teeth, Brandon suddenly understood. As the enemy of Chaos and one of the Guardians of Order, he was well aware of the consequence if the Evil Gods ever reached their hands into this world. Meanwhile, preventing that kind of fate from becoming real was his duty and his fate. In an instant, he abandoned all of his cowardly thoughts and walked right back into the battlefield with the resolution that he would only give up defending after drawing his last breath.

He would never let Vale Dani die in front of him. He would not let Joshua’s death be in vain!

—Far in the distant clouds.

The black and golden dragon that was spreading Chaos mist into the surroundings was flying fast across the sky, arriving at the location where its breath attack landed. It was looking right at the mess that it left on the ground with its only eye left; the ground of the Dark Forest that was once covered in dirt and rocks had now become a giant golden red hole. Inside the hole, there was boiling lava pouring out. In the meantime, golden red sparks of fire were slowly filling in the hole.

Right above the hole, there was the thick dark purplish smoke slowly shrouding the sky as it rose into the sky. In between the smoke and clouds, there was some dim lightning flashing in the air.

The black dragon had waited for a long time, gathering all the Chaos magic power from the mist in the surroundings to launch a devastating blast of breath attack. Under that devastating blast, the Dark Forest had completely been destroyed. The dirt and sand across hundreds of meters of the land had been completely blown apart. Countless dust and dirt were stirred right into the sky and into the clouds, shrouding the dimmed sky darker.

Is it over?

The black dragon knew that the dragon breath that it launched was devastatingly powerful. It might be even more powerful than the ultimate spell that a Gold-tier mage that was on the pinnacle of Gold-tier realm could perform. It was enough to level down hills and burn rivers. It could even potentially be enough to change the geographical terrain of a land. That blast completely destroyed the gate of the fortress not far from it. Theoretically speaking, with its current level, the black dragon should not possess such an immense power. However, the black dragon could already control the power like moving its own finger. There was no sign of any recoil or exhaustion on the dragon.

However, could that tremendous attack really kill that warrior?

The black dragon could remember clearly about the situation when it was roaming around above the wall of the fortress. It could remember the red long lance that pierced through the sky to penetrate the magic barrier around it before plunging into its body. At the same time, the dragon had returned greeted that attack with a dragon breath attack of its own in rage.

Although the black dragon did not have that long time to get that blast of dragon breath ready, it would not have been as powerful as this one even if the dragon was given enough time to charge up the attack. However, it was still a dragon breath attack after all. Other than the impact of it, that dragon breath and this one had no difference in term of the nature of the attack. However, that warrior with the red Combat Aura could actually take the blast of the dragon blast head-on with merely his own flesh!

“…”

Right in the center of the hole, the lava was boiling hot. There was nothing strange about the situation right now. That had wiped off the doubt that the black dragon had on its mind.

Even if the warrior could kill the dracospider, that powerful spider daemon that could sometimes be hand for it to handle, but the warrior was merely a human after all. He would not be able to survive that sort of attack. Even if he barely survived that attack, the warrior should not be able to withstand the scorching lava from burning him to his death.

He must be dead now.

The black dragon felt relieved and turned its head over looking at the lower side of the hill underneath its body. A dark green speck of light was crossing the battlefield at a faster speed than the speed of sound. Wherever it passed through, that light left an empty passage in between the dust. It was heading straight towards the dimensional rift that seemed to have ceased functioning at the moment.

It nodded lightly and fluttered both of its wings a little, spreading waves of scale power into the air. The dragon then blended itself into the cloud and the black smoke, making itself disappearing from sight. Meanwhile, it gave a mental command to the frost butterfly that was already infected by the seed of Chaos. The frost butterfly that was completely corrupted and controlled by the Chaos began to manipulate the frost again. The blizzard that seemed to have become lighter instantly became strong again. The chilling winds cooled the battlefield that was blazing hot as hell in almost an instant.

The green light dot was the power of Order. The instinct told the black dragon that this was another very powerful opponent. It needed to be ready and be cautious. It needed to handle the opponent seriously.

The two of them had switched their attention to elsewhere. There was no one who still minded about that piece of land. The dracospider with a golden shell which only had half of its body left on the battlefield was slowly buried in snow. The lava in the surroundings was beginning to cool down.

However, right in the middle of the lava that was cooling down and solidifying, a sound was heard.

Thum!

There was a pulse.

Thum! Thum! Thum!

A series of intense heatbeats was suddenly heard.