Soul of Searing Steel

Titan.

A creature so powerful they were known as demigods, existing within myths.

It was hard to describe the terrifying aspects of these leviathans in the plain languages that human used, but through some records of old tomes and sorcery books, people could understand a hint of what beings known as titans were.

Elemental summon was formidable sorcery mostly above Gold tier that called for creatures such as frost giants, molten giants and stone giants. All of them were, however spawns and simplified versions originating from magic—Legendary summon: elemental titan.

The most powerful puppet of mana construct that was dubbed the titan colossus. This grand-scale construct imitated some amount of a titan’s true power through metal and ruins, but just that little bit of ability would allow an alchemist to reach advanced levels in the Legendary tier.

As for combat specialists, techniques such as Combat Armor Steel Armor, Titan Body or Gaia Force were all varying methods that emulated certain special attributes of titans. All, without exception, belonged to the category of most powerful skills.

That was why titan meant pure power.

And now, a pure-blooded titan opened its eyes, spreading its arms that were buried deep beneath solid ground, and let out a ferocious roar that reverberated across all things.

That was why the mountains trembled.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The titan Urbandy, King of the Dark Creek straightened itself over the Xayar Mountains. Its every move was as if an entire mountain had crashed upon the land and unironically crumbled real peaks. In reality, half of its body was one-third of this lofty mountain range, although with a slight shake of its upper body that was hundreds of meters tall does upset the world.

At present, it could also be seen that what had been the core of the Dark Creek Forest had been merely a cluster of tissues over the titan’s chest. That gigantic treant was a mere incarnation that allows the giant to communicate with ordinary folk easily—its true body had stone and earth as muscle and bones, elemental mana as blood while roots of plants as its nerves.

The treant itself was about a bit of hair for the titan.

“Damn it. Although Number One did keep saying that Urbandy was powerful, he never mentioned that it was a titan that should already have been extinct!” The crystal puppeteer cried as it stood above its crimson crystal mannequin. He had already retreated to the summit of a nearby hill with his two companions, and was watching the sight worriedly.

Nevertheless, the spellcaster-whose-plan-was-ruined observed the situation for a while, before speaking with a curious machine-like tone as its upper and lower jaw clicked. “Wait. Its ability as not as powerful as we imagined.”

At a corner, the soulfire in the eye sockets of the archer that was also of skeletal form flashed. It nodded in agreement with the puppeteer.

Even the strength of an adult titan should be at least divine-intermediate. Despite that, due to their lack of fighting experience and extraordinary body sizes, most titans that recently matured would have a hard time defeating ordinary races that attained divine-tier by honing themselves in tough battles. Still, it was extremely difficult to surpass their natural gifts, for every single titan could control the weather, move mountains and shift entire landscape—their every move was unstoppable to mortals.

But now, the crystal puppeteer noted that the titan before him seemed to have its power severely restrained due to some unknown factor. Apart from not changing the weather, both its feet were still buried below ground—only its upper body moved.

If they had been facing a divine-domain pure-blooded titan at the peak of its powers, the Death Shade commanders would have turned tail and run without a word since their powers were limited too.

On the other hand, if their opponent was just a cripple that had its powers sealed and could not move freely, it was another matter entirely.

Urbandy, meanwhile, did not have the time to consider what its opponent was thinking. At the moment, the divine child of the land that was displaying part of its power reached out its mountainous hands, sweeping it towards the Death Shade army.

Boom!

The titan that appeared to have its strength suppressed did not use any extraordinary ability—it was using its physical power, which was of such monumental heights by itself. It left a conspicuous palm print amidst the Xayar Mountains and caused a circle of shockwaves spread like waves and raised level-eight earthquakes, forming a huge crater across the land.

As such, the Death Shades that had been near the palm print were all utterly destroyed without exceptions like ants. A single blow, and thousands of elite Death Shades at the fore were dead.

Through it all, Urbandy’s body was still incessantly assimilating the soil and stone around it, adding layers upon layers of shells over it as it became even more colossal.

If viewed from a bow, one could see that the entire Xayar mountain range was slowly crumbling due to the titan’s movements. Tons of boulders were torn apart by the millions, before floating and sticking to its body, as if becoming an armor formed entirely from rock layers.

Meanwhile, the dragon-winged girl who was being moved by roots urgently to the distance was left in speechless astonishment.

Titan! The learned Hillya certainly knew of this creature that only existed within myths. As direct descendants of Mother Goddess, the titans were incarnations that symbolized the mountains and the earth. Their brute strength was the purest and greatest in this world, but they should not exist in this world since Grandia has no gods and no faith in deities. That was why the Mother Goddess existed only within the pages of ancient tomes, just like its descendants.

Hillya had also always believed that the various deities and legends described in the classics were just imaginations or fantasized existences of previous generations. Titan, too, may have been an exaggerated description of the many elemental giants in this world—that was why she never expected that all of it was real.

“Lost souls, return to eternal slumber. ”

Just as the girl had been moved to a faraway place, the lungs at the upper body of the giant reverberated louder than thunder. Then, a violent gale imbued with the power of lightning exploded out of the titan’s move at speeds over three-hundred meters per second. The storm that carried sparks of genuine lightning pulverized a great number of Death Shades with relative ease while blowing a large crater in a neighboring peak.

Still, even as ranks of the Death Shade army fell into chaos, three radiances ignited. The crimson, purple, and brown light then turned into a beam, streaking head-on against the gale towards Urbandy on a straight line.

Though the three crystal puppets were hardly the size of the titan, they were still the most powerful of mana constructs. Under the control of their master, the crystal puppets worked their magical energy core in their body, bursting forth an incredible power from their Jewel Seed.

All three projectiles struck the titan’s half body as if meteors.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The swift and resounding collisions akin to a plummeting meteorite became a single rumble. Once struck, the titan’s stony outer shell rippled like water before breaking off entirely—its body made of stone, soil, mana, and trees were like paper, torn apart by the three sturdy crystal puppets that flowed with three varying special energy over the surface of their body.

The crimson radiance symbolized the power of flames. The scorching heat that this red puppet blew out reddened its entire body, turning mud and rock around it into lava even as lightning snaked around its outer shell. Those pure elemental energies then turned into streaks of rainbow-like chains of light, moving towards the titan’s body and wrapped around its wounds, incessantly burning to disturb its opponent, causing the titan’s absorption of stones around its body that augmented its body to stop.

The purple crystal puppet in turn display horrific powers of corruption—clumps of purple-black dark shadow strength were shot out like cannonballs that corroded huge cavities over the titan’s body.

As for the brown crystal puppet, it merely stood its ground. Soon, however, countless mass of gravel and rock flew towards it—just like the moment the titan assembled its body, a giant stone puppet that was also almost two-hundred meters tall appeared in the heart of the battlefield. With the hum of a working machine, it advanced ferociously, blocking Urbandy’s attack towards the other two large crystal puppets.

The three huge crystal puppets each applied different functions of control, assault battery and tanking, their synergy stopping the titan’s assault in an instant. They managed to force Urbandy to focus on the three annoying constructs as they denied the Dark Creek King time to sweep away the other Death Shades, but the crystal puppeteer did not show a hint of delight.

Instead, it stood in a faraway corner, a tricolor radiance shining over its body as its soul went into overdrive. While its spirit manipulated every movement of the puppet, it had no time to care anything else at all.

Despite that, it still noticed something—for some reason, their enemy had melded with the earth, and its lower body therefore could not grow out.

Having ascertained the fact, the puppeteer finally sigh in relief. However, the tables are not turned yet—Urbandy’s power may not be strong enough to make them despair, but it was not something each of them could face alone.

“Eramos!” The puppeteer called out a name loudly. “It’s your cue.”

Hearing those words, the skeleton archer that stood beside him raised its longbow determinedly.

It was longbow that was plain and undecorated, as if it had simply been picked out of a cluster of antiques. The weapon did not even have a bowstring, and one would have thought that it was just a curved steel stick from its appearance alone.

But the pile of bones known as Eramos merely extended its skeletal fingers and softly bounced over the bow, and a golden belt of light that resembled the sun’s rays appeared where the bowstring should be, its energy cascading towards all direction like water ripples.

“So it’s you, Eramos of the Divine Sunfall Arrow!”

Although Urbandy, a being more ancient than most heroic spirits had been kept busy by the three crystal puppets at the moment, it still noticed the enemy’s movement in the distance. The titan bellowed angrily at once—it was able to pick out that divine arrow assembling itself in the air, an arrow that legends had described as capable of killing nation-breaking giant dragons, blow holes in sea king behemoths, and as powerful as a falling sun.

With a fist, it sent the earth crystal puppet flying. Then, with a single move, the titan caught the red crystal puppet that was still trying to shackle its body with flame chains, before flinging it at the purple crystal puppet as if throwing a pebble. Freed, the titan stabbed both its hands into the land, summoning a thick layer of stone that was several hundred meters tall before itself, shaking the earth as it rose.

And in the very next instant, the belt of light curved as energy condensed. An energy arrow of light that was almost ten meters long appeared out of thin air under the manipulation of the skeleton archer, and shot straight towards the center of the titan’s chest by ten folds the speed of sound.

Boom!

Boom!

Two resounding reverberations echoed at almost the same time—the arrow of light penetrated the rock layer raised by the titan as well as the its body. But thanks to the resistance from the stone layer, the arrow did not strike true at the center of the titan’s chest where its core was—the single weakness the divine child of the land had.

However, a monumental explosion appeared over its left shoulder too—with the intense light akin to a sun and the spread of terrible heat, a mushroom appeared over the titan’s body and rose towards the black clouds in the sky.

Such was the astonishing force in that single arrow akin to a falling star. Its shockwave had melted stone within thousands of methods, while the skeleton archer too instantly broke apart, dropping to the floor into a pile of bones—at that was left were the two weakly gleaming soul lights in the eye sockets of its skull.

Heroic spirits assuredly did not possess all the power they had in life. At the peak of his powers, Eramos of the Divine Sunfall Arrow was rumored to be able to shoot Sol’s Arrow ¹ nine times and destroy nine kingdoms. Now, as a revived Death Shade commander, it could only unleash its full power offense once on each occasion, after of which it would need a dozen days to recover.

It was the same for the crystal puppeteer. At the height of its powers it had been able to control mountainous crystal fortresses—these puppets it controlled now had but been door guards of the fortress, but that was just restrained Death Shades were.

Nevertheless, according to the Grand Commander’s plan, they would soon recover and regain their full-powers, reviving even their flesh bodies.

In the distance, the heavily injured titan that was covered in lava bellowed angrily. It had lost temporary function of its left shoulder after a hole was blown into it.

It was not as if it could not block the arrow of light—a humongous horror appeared behind it when it was ready to adjust its body power to defend itself. Instinctively sensing that the formless existence was prepared to attack its core, Urbandy had to shift the bulk of its power to protect its own weakness, giving up its left arm in the process.

At the same time, the human-shaped fog returned beside the crystal puppeteer. Lifting the bones and stick of the skeleton archer, it uttered a few lines with a voice that nobody could hear.

The puppeteer merely nodded and replied, “Alright. I’ll have the puppet go into overdrive immediately, covering your advance for a fatal blow.”

But just when the Death Shades were prepared to combine and kill the titan before them, an intelligent secondary commander of the Death Shade army hurriedly ran to them.

“My lords!” He promptly reported, not even having the time to salute his superiors. “There’s a high energy reaction rapidly closing in from afar! The outer perimeter scouts had been completely wiped out, its estimated ability is at heavenly pinnacle!”

“What?” The puppeteer looked up towards the direction where the common Death Shade pointed at. It was the southeast of the Grandia Continent, a region where the Death Shade army still had weak control.

And on the sky over that region, a crimson figure and shapeless hotness appeared. As if the glow of sunset, it briskly dispelled the surrounding black clouds and returned the sky to its former state.

“Is that the titan’s reinforcement?” The crystal puppeteer mumbled with immeasurable fear, while the human-silhouette fog too shifted slighted. As former zenith champions of this world, they could naturally detect the lifeforce ripple over the newcomer’s body that was like the sun’s own rays.

“To think that it would have a heavenly-pinnacle champion as backup… as expected of a divine child of old.”

Taking a long, hard look at the titan that was hurriedly assembling the surrounding rock layers to heal its shoulder wound, the soulfire in the crystal skeleton’s eye skeleton flashed quite a few times as if calculating losses. Then, glancing towards the utterly shattered skeleton archer and remembering the true mission it was here for, it firmly issued an order.

“Retreat!”

Some distance away, the body of the three crystal puppets flashed in radiance. The brown stone puppet had blocked the explosion before—now, they quickly ran, returning to their master at its order and carried off the Commanders into the air while leaving the Death Shade army on the ground.

One way or the other, the titan had already been severely damaged and lost its ability to influence the stage now. With the further confirmation that it had been bound to this land for some reason, it would have no way to disturb their plans no matter how powerful it was. Conversely, facing an unknown but formidable heroic spirit or living champion was not worth it.

As Urbandy did its best to regenerate its injuries, it did not notice that its enemy had already retreated for some reason. Heavily maimed by the incredible explosion of Sol’s Arrow, all it could do was stay vigilant against all energy signatures around it.

Not long afterward.

Joshua, who rushed here after sensing the incredible energy signatures while handily destroying all the Death Shades along the way, arrived at the Xayar Mountains.

Having sensed a presence similar to Sol’s Arrow, the titan welcomed the warrior with a fist swung out in rage.