Soul of Searing Steel

There was no point guessing. Joshua woke up from the illusion, regaining his senses. He shook his head and removed the dust from his body which was caused by the destruction of the carriage. Joshua did not care about the attention made towards the crowd and focused on the few Gold-tier personnel who were approaching rapidly. Joshua then went into a deep thought.

Previously, he had used the power of Azurite and the power of Order within his body in order to cleanse the unknown Chaos curse within him. Through the unknown [Flame Seed], he was able to awaken the inner potential hidden within the Azurite.

It was a power more than he could imagine. The power of Order surged exponentially and easily cleansed the curse which Joshua was unable to repel previously. No traces of the curse could be found after that.

Who does this power belong to?

Actually, it was not hard to make a guess at this moment.

Because the original name of the Azurite was [Sage’s Legacy Azurite].

Without a doubt, the power that helped Joshua in removing the curse as easily as wiping off dust with a piece of cloth was the remaining energy left by the Sage. This power slept deep within the Azurite during normal days. Once it encountered the power of Chaos which reached a certain threshold, it would once again activate itself to repel Chaos.

“This person within, could he be…”

At this point, Joshua was shocked for a moment there. He thought of some logical explanation about the happenings. It was quite unbelievable as well. This young warrior talked to himself, “Could he be the Sage?”

Within the white light as if the power of Order had taken the form of a human. Could that be the afterimage of the Sage?

Although Joshua was questioning himself, the fact was quite clear if he had just recalled the events a bit. Joshua confirmed that the black outline of a pale colored being was 90% similar to the image of the Sage. The unique scenery of the vast green land could be the Sage’s childhood. That time could be an era of peace.

Thinking about it, only the Sage had such terrifying power. Only with their gaze, they could easily eliminate the curse of Chaos, purifying a person and cleansing all impurities hidden within.

Just as Joshua was still sighing while his thoughts were unable to completely figure out the happenings within the illusionary world, there were two shadows speeding towards him from the distant street through the crowd of people gathering around him.After noticing their existence, Joshua turned his head towards their direction.

Both his weapons appeared before him.

The silver-haired girl and the black-haired young man stood in front of Joshua. After dashing there for quite a while, they were a bit short of breath.

Under normal circumstances, this distance would not cause fatigue up to this extent for both of the Divine Armaments. However, their nervousness became one of their main reason of exhaustion. After noticing, Joshua was safe without any harm, both of them felt relieved. Ling let out a sigh for a moment and proceeded to fix his messy hair, wiping off his sweat. His lip quivered for a moment. No one had any idea what he had spoken himself. Ying stepped forward and supported Joshua. Her cold small hand held onto Joshua’s palm firmly. She then asked Joshua worriedly, “Are you hurt, Master?”

Ying’s hair that was hanging on her shoulders was rather messy. Noticing both of his Divine Armament were worried, Joshua felt very touched. He extended one of his hand and fixed the messy hair of the silver-haired girl followed by a pat on her tiny head. The warrior then replied in a slightly nonchalant tone, “Its nothing, thanks for caring.”

His statement was a bit harsh, but it was the truth. The curse of Chaos this time was easily handled by the Sage’s power left within the Azurite but that does not mean Joshua had no plans against it. He could have utilized his power alone to suppress the curse only with the heavy cost of a deterioration in his combat strength.

The cost of it was indeed quite heavy. However, being able to buy time, he could have used other methods to solve his problem. Even if he could not solve it himself, he could always search for Roland in Moldavia and request for a holy blessing from the pope. Even though this curse came from the Aragami, this small amount could easily be cleansed by the blessing. It was even convincing when the Legendary-tier pope gave the blessing.

“Your master is not that weak.”

He highlighted this to both of his weapons.

However, Ying did not feel relieved even after getting assurance from Joshua. She sighed and recalled the terror they had felt previously. When they were slowly strolling in the streets, a strong tremble was felt from their psionic bodies. The core which sustained their life had traces of crumbling. The truth was their life had a direct link to their master. Unless the contract was dissolved under the agreement of both parties, the death of the master would lead to the doom of the weapons.

Such a symptom out of nowhere could only mean one thing, which was their master was heavily damaged or approaching death himself.

At that moment, both Ying and Ling saw the path towards their own destruction.

Yet, the silver-haired Divine Armament was not afraid of her own death. At that very moment, Ying only cared about Joshua’s safety. Although the situation had stabilized, she was still extremely worried and rushed towards her master with Ling.

Her worry was not much of a concern for Joshua initially. He had faced similar danger for many times in his past. At that moment, he was just slightly close to death’s door. It was nothing to be concerned of, yet Joshua felt that something was not right.

That was because he felt that his hands were drenched by something.

Without any sound, he felt that the grip on his hands loosened. Following up was a tight hug on his waist. Joshua felt a mixture of emotions as he looked towards Ying. He wanted to speak out, yet words did not come out. After a moment, his clothes were completely drenched as well.

He felt quite uncomfortable. When he shifted his attention, he saw Ling on the side. This black-haired boy was teary-eyed, worrying about Joshua. These feelings were quite unfamiliar to Joshua.

Joshua sighed without being able to understand the feeling within his heart.

Being a strong combatant up until this point, the existence of the warrior became the beacon of confidence for the people around him. He gave people a sense of security. During those days, he does not need any attention from others and no one would really care about his safety. That was because his name was Joshua. He was the symbol of invincibility.

Just as if no one would ever be afraid that the mountains would crumble one day, no one would really be worried about Joshua’s safety.

However, this time he had an unexpected experience of being concerned.

This feeling was not bad at all.

Even though Joshua used one of his hand to tap on Ying’s shoulder, the silver-haired girl still hugged him as hard as she could. Joshua could smile wryly towards Ling. Other than feeling the warmth that he gained from Ying, he also felt great anger.

After taking a deep breath, Joshua looked towards the northern direction. His eye seemed to be capable of seeing through the vast sky. His gaze slowly turned cold.

“Ying…”

The warrior spoke softly as if he was holding back his rage. When he raised his head, the wrath in his eyes burned brilliantly.

Just like how people always challenged mountains, a strong person like Joshua also faced numerous challenges in his life. He was already accustomed to the life facing assassination attempts and ambushes. This path of life could be considered thrilling at some time, but it was different this time around.

It went overboard this time.

On the streets of Ural Fortress, there was a riot. Led by a heavily armored swordsman, a group of city guards moved out to calm the crowd and retain order within the fortress. After giving all the necessary orders, the heavily armored swordsman moved towards Joshua’s direction.

On the other side, a dimensional fluctuation was detected. When the fluctuation ended, a mage who was wearing traditional robes appeared at the spot where the center of the fluctuation occurred. After checking out the surrounding, the Gold-tier mage also moved towards Joshua’s direction.

Other than that, there was an archbishop with a group of knights reaching the vicinity.

A strong Gold-tier aura could be felt from the leader. People with this aura and capability were arriving at this fortress at an alarming rate.

Every one of them felt the power of Order which pierced through the horizon. Some of them thought it was a phenomenon where an ancient item revealing itself in this world. Only the true champions knew that the all mighty holy power came from an extremely strong individual.

All of them wanted to go towards Joshua’s direction, but the warrior had stopped their progression.

Joshua lightly patted Ying’s head and guided the silver-haired girl to stand aside. Joshua did not turn his head towards the few Gold-tier warriors. Instead, he chose to close his eye to feel the energy within the atmosphere to gain intel about his surroundings.

The heavily armored swordsman thought that Joshua did not notice their appearance. When he planned to greet Joshua, a voice came out of a sudden behind the warrior, “Wait awhile.”

When the words were spoken, Joshua seemed to have successfully found something. His mouth curled into a ferocious smile. “Ha. It was indeed located here. It was not completely sealed.”

The previous curse attack came through the dimension, which was capable of invading his body while ignoring the distance between the attack and the victim. It was an attack that had utilized the power of the dimension. Before this, the power of Order from the Sage followed the path where the curse was delivered back to its source. This had allowed the small tunnel to be enlarged into the state where Joshua could notice.

This was more than enough for Joshua.

Joshua extended his right arm. The Combat Aura accumulated in his hand burned brightly. The red flame slowly changed into a black aura. Joshua aimed it at a fixed spot within the vast sky and hit it with his attack. At that moment, a blue light shined. The dimensional pathway, which was not completely closed, was once again opened by Joshua.

“Ignorant fools, you shall face my wrath.”

On an island in the far South.

“That holy power a while ago…”

After being purified by a strong holy light, the two demon dragons had completely lost their strength and the power of their bloodline. After struggling to crawl up, they had tried to differentiate the power between the holy light and the power of Order. Yet, they failed to do so. Both of the power came from the same origin, which was the power of Sage. When it comes to details, the holy light was more powerful, and the power of Order was purer. It seemed that both of the powers were born based on different requirements.

For example, based on the explanation from Pope Igor, Joshua’s power of purification depended on one killing Chaos beings to recover this combat strength. This was a unique power even within the Church of the Seven Gods. It was a natural combat ability that was given to Joshua ever since he was born.

Yet, these creatures did not understand all these problems they were facing. After escaping from death itself, it was not pleasant for the demonic dragons. When one of them tried to turn its body, a sharp pain spread throughout its nerves. It breathed heavily and asked, “That level of holy power, is that from the pope of the Church of the Seven Gods?”

He thought that such terrifying power would only originate from the pope himself.

However, his comrade refuted the statement, “Impossible. The Sacred Mountain of the Distant Sea is surrounded by nine sea dragon. There are two dragon kings patrolling that area as well. The pope would be busy protecting the safety of the holy land, rather than saving another human who is far away on the mainland.”

There was also some other statements, which was still hidden within his heart without voicing to his comrade.

He regretted performing this curse attack. It was a normal dragon slayer only; there was no reason for him to spend so much effort on it to guide the Aragami power in releasing this curse. An assassination attempt was sufficient enough, there was no need for them to do so much to take care of one person only.

But he had no other choice. This human had raided the White Dragon’s lair. He even took away the dragon eggs, preparing to hatch them and enslave their younger generation.

It was no longer an issue of a single dragon or the white dragons’ revenge. At that point, it was the battle of dignity for the Pentashade Dragons. This despicable warrior had issued a challenge against the dragons. They had to respond to it.

If that’s not the case, how could they protect their own dignity?

“Too bad, this is… a bad choice.”

Leaning on the purified wall without a single trace of Chaos energy, the demonic dragon could barely stand up with both his own remaining strength and the support of the wall. He tried to extend his arms to help his comrade as well.

After resting for a moment, they had prepared to leave the sacrificial hall. All the equipment within the hall had been purified by the strong power of order. All of them were rendered useless.

Even though they might be punished by the lord of the dragons and suffer from the rage of these lords, they were still happy about the fact that they were still alive.

However, good moments did not last. When they tried to leave, a small blue door was forcefully opened in front of their eyes.

A hand was extended from it.

It was a hand of a human. It was strong with sufficient power to provide a threat to them. Each of the details of the hand could be clearly seen, from the structure of his bones to the green veins on top of it. Within his bloodstream, a destructive power was being channeled.

The fist held firm with a reddish-black power circulating on top of it. Within the dark fog released from his fist contained numerous shadows of daemons and monsters. They were struggling from within, unable to gain peace.

The aura, which represented the power of death and murder, gave both of the dragons a chill up their spines. They tried to distance themselves from it, attempting to hide from danger.

A strong firm voice of a brave man spread through the dimension.

“Die, monsters.”