Soul of Searing Steel

Intuition, spirit, Combat Aura, mind’s eye, and the movement of the flowing air. The gigantic thing moved through the air, causing a lot of noises. The metallic pair of the palm even absorbed the heat energy in the surroundings. The thunder even brought along the scent of the hostile attack that was about to arrive.

Joshua had many ways to evade that attack. It was too simple for him. As long as he wished to do it, there is not even a way that he might get hit by that palm.

However, why would he want to dodge that?

Joshua dismissed it the gigantic steel palm that was lunging at him. Soon after that, he lifted the Dragon-hunting gunblade he held dear in his hand and struck at the gigantic palm without turning back.

—Bam!!!

The razor-sharp edge of the gunblade, which was charged up with the warrior’s red Combat Aura, pierced right through the palm of the titan colossus. The raging Combat Aura was deposited into the gigantic palm of the giant monster as lightning energy that was surging in its palm was completely detonated. Instantly, a blinding light, followed by a strong shockwave appeared in the middle of the sky. Under the destruction brought by Joshua’s Combat Aura and the explosion of the Thunderstrike Magic energy, the gigantic palm of the titan colossus was pierced right through by the gunblade, shredded, and blown into tiny pieces of Magic patterned rocks and residue of metals by the explosion that followed right after.

“It actually survived my attacks before,” Joshua turned around as he spoke softly. His red eyes focused on the shattered palm of the titan colossus that was slowly moving backward, one heavy step after another, causing the ground to tremble. His eyes were filled with the glowing light of his Combat Aura as he nodded and said, “Puppets are truly much tougher than most of the living creatures.”

After that, the warrior descended towards the ground. He moved at a speed as quick as a lightning. Because of that, the titan colossus did not show even the slightest hesitation as it began to launch its attacks at the warrior. Without hesitating, the titan colossus began to charge up its Magic energy in the two bright eyes on its head. A brief moment later, two beam of lightning strikes were launched from the head of the titan. The powerful energy beams had even ionized the surrounding air, followed by a smell of something burning, one wave after another.

However, the course of movement of the warrior was strange and unpredictable. The red light was moving across the sky randomly. Sometimes it went forward, and sometimes, it went backward. The red light even went down towards the ground and then turned towards the sky again as it moved at rapid speed, making it almost impossible for anything to hit it.

Beams of lightning had missed their target. The shadow of the warrior had gotten extremely near to the titan colossus. As his target was already right before him, Joshua began to descend towards the head of his target at a rapid speed. As the titan was launching its next lightning strike, Joshua evaded the attack with a smooth movement. He even arrived at the top of his enemy’s head before he even knew it.

The warrior did not even use his weapon to deal with a gigantic half-bodied monster. Instead, he stomped on the head of the titan—with a loud crack that was as crisp as a snapping twig in the middle of night, a shockwave spread in the form of radiation, which was visibly seen with naked eye, as deafening sounds of metal getting rolled into a chunk of metallic ball echoed across the entire battlefield. Immediately, the shell on top of the titan colossus was instantly crushed into bits as the shattered fragments of the shell flew around. The structure of its head was completely destroyed. There were even metallic parts seen flying out of its head.

The red Combat Aura that was dense and thick was solidified as it was injected deep into the core of that puppet monster, destroying the structure of the titan from inside out. The titan colossus was terminated in a blink of an eye with a faint buzzing noise. The titan colossus shook its head helplessly before both its eyes dimmed down to nothingness as they were completely extinguished.

Standing on top of the wreckage of the titan colossus, Joshua took a few breaths and squeezed his eyes shut as he recovered his stamina.

With the blazing Azurite to provide him the vitality by the burning of the Chaos energy as fuel and the blessing provided by Father Nature, he was not supposed to feel exhausted so quickly. However, the number of his enemies was huge. If he did not seize the opportunity to rest while he could, he might not get another chance to rest anymore after this.

Joshua remained in silence as he recovered his stamina, the spirits of Ying and Ling stayed close the warrior as they whispered into each other’s ears.

“So what do we do now, little brother?” Ying seemed to be lost at what she should be doing. Her face was filled with worries and conflicts, “Our bodies have been fused into one. What on earth is going on now?”

“… It’s nothing, my sister. There’s nothing to be panicked about.”

Although he was in his soul state, he could still take a deep breath as he calmed his mind. Then he reassured the silver-haired girl, “There is nothing to worry about at all, my sister. I can sense that even though our real bodies have merged into one, for the time being, the situation remains under the will of master though. He wanted to merge us into one. But our nature will remain as different entities. When we deactivate our Divine Armament Transformation form, our real bodies shall return to their original states.”

Ying sensed her own body after she was consoled by her younger brother. She was convinced that her brother was right. The conclusion they made had calmed the two of them down for a bit. Both of them let out a long sigh. “Master has really scared the sh*t out of me (Us)…”

A few minutes later, Joshua was almost done resting and readjusting the status of his body. He charged into the battle again without fear.

Right above in the sky, a humanoid light form that was formed from many masses of lights gazed upon the battlefield.

It was one of the members of the many Harmonic Cores. The Harmonic Cores were being used to control gigantic war puppets like the sky fortresses. However, in other times, they were also used to command a large number of other puppets of lower tiers. Currently, it was used to control the golems in the sky and on the ground to march towards the ancient tree and destroy it.

Logically speaking, that was not a difficult job. Having many hordes of golems under the command of the Harmonic Core to desecrate just one ancient tree should be an easy task that one can handle without much of a problem.

However, its offense was completely intercepted and stopped.

The two human beings below and a gigantic living being possessing a strength far more powerful than the strengths of the titan colossus—they had become the obstacles that caused the golems to fail their mission.

Especially that one particular human being.

Having its eyes fixed on Joshua, the Harmonic Core was beginning to operate its mind at a rapid speed.

“Battle plans and strategies in calculation… target, humanoid living being. Power level, unknown. Predicted number of Spells required to destroy the target, unknown. Top destructive power, instantly destroyed 892 titan colossus, instantly destroyed the sky fortresses with a throw of his weapon. Battle Power Level deemed to be ‘Calamity’. To prevent resources from being wasted, all puppets and Harmonic Cores are advised to stay away from the target as far as possible. Safe range deemed to be 35,000 meters.”

“Denied. Target must be eliminated. Reinitiate battle plans and strategies… Lacking information. Unable to identify the weakness of the target. Unable to identify skills and styles of the target in battle. Unable to perform prejudgement and rehearsal.”

“Battle plans and strategies calculation failed. Error.” The Harmonic Core seemed to have descended into an endless loop with no solution in it. However, it suddenly changed its course of mind, “Initiating final plan.”

“Activating the Critical Overclocking Protocol.”

With both hands holding on the new weapon ‘Dragon-hunting Gunblade’, perhaps Joshua is less efficient in slaughtering his enemies as he could have done it faster if he was wielding two weapons at the same time. However, his power had been focused on only one weapon now. He took much lesser time to destroy those powerful gigantic golems. Simply said, his efficiency had increased.

Roland, who saw the warrior shoot down three sky fortresses shot, was speechless. He remained in silence as he continued to slaughter his enemies. The radiating light of holiness was glowing bright on his hammer and his giant shield, causing the holy knight to appear like a god who descended from the heaven when he unleashed his power upon the massive golem army.

Black was responsible for wiping out as many golems as it could. It was able to wipe out the enemies much faster than both Joshua and Roland–after all, those two were just warriors. Even though they were also equipped with many skills, they were not able to utilize their skills of high levels all the time. As the descendant of an Elder Dragon, the draconic horse was able to casually spit out its dragon breath that covered enough ground to blow up an entire area. Other than the Adamantine-tier golems, the other golems were reduced into a pile of shattered gravels if they were to make contact with Black’s dragon breath.

However, even though everyone was fending off the enemy forces with everything they have got, the situation on the battlefield did not seem to be improving, not even by a bit.

In the distance, the dust clouds and the mist that were pushed away by the warrior’s attacks had once again emerged back into the sky. They had once again formed into thick and dense mists. In the mist, one could see that there were many more stone golems emerging on the horizon in the distance as they were reformed from the golems. There were also traces of new sky fortresses behind the dark clouds.

The sky and the earth were filled with massive army of the golems again. They were surrounding the warrior and the others from all directions. With just the three of them, Joshua, Roland, and Black, fending off the golem army, there was no way that they could have completely defended against all of the golems. A few golems that could slip through the defence line.

However, the golems that managed to slip through the defence line would be greeted with the presence of Father Nature the moment they set foot within the effective area of the sanctuary. When the golems came into contact with the gentle breeze of Father Nature, vines grew from their bodies and they would be completely entangled in the vines. Once the golems had lost their abilities to move, they would either fall to their own demises from the sky or get dragged into the ground and be buried for eternity.

The sanctuary of a god was never easy to break through.

After seeing that, the two human beings and the draconic horse were instantly relieved. Joshua instantly switched the strategy he was using. He loudly assigned his two comrades with new missions —he had prioritized to destroy the powerful gigantic golems. He had Black take care of the weaker golems and Roland would be responsible for keeping the golems occupied and destroying the golems that managed to get through the defence line.

With the three of them working together, they became much more efficient and stronger than before. The golems that still managed to slip past the three of them would be dealt with by the power of Father Nature.

However, even though that was the case, the pressure on the battlefield had increased tremendously along with a new batch of titan colossus and sky fortresses.

The battle lasted until a wave of green and yet sacred light appeared in the middle of the battlefield, with a voice that sounded old and gentle. The sacred gentle voice echoed across the sky and earth.