Soul of Searing Steel

Joshua was not sure how the others reacted… since he himself had felt a chill that cut into his bone and a shudder in his body back when he first made that conclusion.

Therefore, at present, the warrior patiently waited for everyone’s reaction.

He simply wanted to know how his friends and his comrades would actually react to the information—reactions would suffice, and it was acceptable even if they complained why he would tell them about such unsettling and despairing news.

As long as they did not throw their hands up in the absence of hope, it meant there was no grounds for an overturning.

But unlike what Joshua imagined, he quickly got his answer.

As dimensional ripples flickered, Nostradamus appeared before Joshua with a sour face, ‘I’m not happy’ virtually written on his face.

“You bastard!”

The old mage had at once sought out Joshua with the address he had left. Nostradamus bellowed as he charged at the warrior, and though he wanted to catch Joshua by the collar and shake it, the warrior’s weight in clothing to body mass was exceedingly rugged that the mage realized that he could not sway Joshua an inch. Reluctantly lowering his hand, the mage then pointed at Joshua’s nose while scolding, “I’ve just read the report and was happy with the Empire’s growth rate of Extraordinary adepts in the last few years, and then you suddenly send me such a disgusting clump—Radcliffe, are you unhinged?”

Joshua did not react angrily to his friend who addressed himself by his last name, even happily asking the very angry mage, “Well, Master Nostradamus, what do you think about this news?”

“Bullshit.” With no class of Legendary champions, Nostradamus burst out in an expletive unsympathetically, before seething viciously, “Did you feel terrible after learning about such news alone, and so have to drag others into feeling terrible with you? Well, let me tell you this: don’t even think about it! I—don’t—feel—terrible—at—all!”

Nostradamus’s words and his making of a crude hand gesture that was out of place for a Legendary mage but only Imperial troops of the last generation, Joshua smiled and shook his head, pretending that he saw nothing.

Then, whether Nostradamus had started a trend, the next Legendary champion—to be precise, two Legendary mages arrived.

Partners Barnil and William, coming with teleportation from the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds with the same gloomy faces swiftly reached him, and the two mages also wanted to point at Joshua’s nose and scold him loudly about how he was inhuman and insane. However, having caught Nostradamus at a corner, his anger yet to subside, they simply relaxed albeit unhappily to save their faces.

Even so, they did not shut up.

“Can’t you have wait for decades later until we beat up all those Evil Gods that would come from who knows where before telling us all his?” Barnil angrily reprimanded Joshua’s foolish order in announcing news. “Don’t you know that I don’t even feel like updating the main Mana Net Server after hearing that, and simply wanted to run here and scream at you!”

“Dealing a blow to our hopes before the fight… Really, Radcliffe, did you really lead men into battle before? Who would mobilize so idiotically before the war itself!” William belittled Joshua’s logic from a psychological perspective. “Do you know what is the sequential approach? Little targets after little targets? Who announces their final objective during the opening? You are really…”

Before William finished, the fourth-dimensional rippling appeared. This time, it was the expressionless Vahina, the Sage of the Oceans who stepped out of the portal.

She was holding a cup of magical potion, which she took a sip from before glaring at Joshua. She then glared at Joshua once, before taking another sip and resuming her glare… She had no intention to say anything at all, and appeared intent to glare Joshua to death.

Soon, the arrival of Legendary champions went in unbroken succession.

The Murloc High Priest, Barbarossa, Nature Magister, Elven Queen, Sword Saint, Psionic King, and the four Fairy Queens who floated toward him in puffy annoyance—the latter four all blasted Joshua with an elemental spell. It was naturally to vent their gloominess, and there was not much not force in that blow since it did not even pierce the warrior’s sleeves.

The Elders of the Council of Seven, the Dragon Whale Empress, even Shaggy—the Nature Magister’s friend had come to him. The divine dwarven craftsman was the last to reach, and he had brought along a bucket of ale which he carried while drinking, which appeared to be the reason for his slow arrival.

Virtually all Legendary champions of Mycroft had come—even the eyes of the gods had been projected at him. They did not show themselves, but their wills were there with everyone.

In return, Joshua started as if wanting to say something, but ended up only curling his lips in a smile.

Whether it was rage or hopelessness in their hearts, dejection or doubt, they ultimately believed the information he delivered—whether they believed it was not important, for they would voluntarily come over the future of their world and civilization, intent on obtaining an explanation.

In the face of darkness and despair, they did not cower in their lairs or palaces, wandering and never advancing. Nor did they found the matter too far from themselves, completely ignoring it.

Instead, they made a decisive choice—to confront it.

Joshua believed that that alone was enough.

If the Legendary champions were unmoved in the presence of the terrible existence that approached incessantly from the cruel Multiverse, such a future would be one of genuine darkness and despair.

The warrior had originally imagined that even if the Legendary champions did not crumble, they would at least need a day or two to make a choice at the prospect of the Initial Flame shrinking and detaching, and that the Multiverse was about to fall without any hope for the future. Now, however, it appears that he had far underestimated those champions—these old school legends who had become superior beings without the Unified Archives or the Mana Tide certainly never ascended through luck or coincidence.

Though their resolve would never be as pure as Joshua’s, though they fight fear, be perplexed, their sheer fortitude did not lose out to the warrior. Their splendor was no mere appearance, and it was the same inside out.

“Joshua, there must be still something else you want to tell us with the address you left in this planetary system.”

Having seen that almost everyone had gathered, Flo Ironfinger the divine dwarven craftsman stepped forward, raising a jug in hand as he grumbled. “Tell us with haste if there is, this old man wants to return soon and drink myself off my troubles. I don’t have the time to waste with a bitter little rascal like you!”

One could tell from his voice that the dwarf was in a repressed mood—anyone would be, especially with Joshua communicating through Steel Strength, packaging a pile of compressed documents and stuffing it into the addressee’s head.

If they were not Legendary champions, it would have been possible for mortal minds to burst from the terrific load of information. Still, a brief daze was unavoidable.

In response, Joshua had wanted to explain at once. There were so many details he had to say, and it would take a long time just to prepare. That naturally includes the strategy to confront the hordes of Evil Gods that would arrive in decades, but when he was about to speak, the warrior realized that two of his oldest acquaintances had not come this time.

Israel Diamond, Emperor of the Northern Empire and Igor, Pope of the Seven Gods Church were not there.

Joshua’s heart sank upon that realization.

Israel and Igor… were they really not coming?

Indeed, if they really had been felt down after receiving his message and were left troubled, at a loss… it was not a bad thing since they would at most be a little late, even thinking things through and being prudent. But if they had been left dejected due to their hopes being shattered…

No, it was impossible.

But just as Joshua was still thinking, bold laughter suddenly transcended time and space, resounding in the ears of all.

“Hahahahaha—And I thought there would be certain despair. Joshua, do you really think that it is something worth fearing!”

Israel’s low pitch that echoed heavily seem to ring infinitely clearly beside the ears, “Even the sun dies, and the galaxy was naturally so. Instead of fearing the coming of that day and the entity that kills suns and galaxy, why not give it our all to overturn it all before death comes!”

At first, Joshua instinctively looked around himself to see if Israel had come, and was simply hiding in a corner.

But soon, he remembered another possibly.

Hum.

With the sound of Steel Strength activating at full capacity beside the Silver Sky Brilliance, Joshua directly turned on his Steel Strength vision at the highest frequency. He looked up towards the world of Mycroft, his gaze piercing world and Void as if it was the most powerful observation spell to directly transcend its World Barrier, projected unto the skies over the East Barnett Highlands of the Northern Empire!

In the single second the warrior leveled his gaze upon that place, he saw a dazzling light of crimson gold.

Immeasurably bright and firm, like the sun that illuminates the land over the heavens, it was a divine golden-red radiance that destroys all darkness and injustice.

It was the godly light known as Might and Justice!

Meanwhile, beside that blinding divine light was a circle of formless and incorporeal light that would not be noticed if not observed seriously. However, Joshua was very familiar with that radiance—he knew that it was Igor, pontiff of the Seven Gods Church, who was escorting Israel!

“The battle of life and existence never required purpose—Joshua, it was what you’ve told me before, that you are a simple person, that is the life you chose.”

Joshua could hear Igor’s voice wafting from the other side of the world. There was a hint of mirth in the voice, and yet it was infinitely determined, “And now, I will tell you—it is the life I have chosen as well! I had already sworn that my life would illuminate the path ahead for all life on Mycroft!”

“If we gave up from the start, there is no chance that darkness could be unraveled in the future. That is why even if it was a meaningless battle and the end was fated, there is nothing wrong with a fight we would lose, is there!”

There was no space for Joshua to reply, for the infinite light of divine force shone over the soil of the Northern Empire.

Everyone—all who lifted their eyes towards the skies and were protected by the Skynet system, tramps with nowhere to go, civilians freed from greedy merchants and shameless nobles, everyone cared for by the most recent policy of the Empire and hence obtaining education and the chance to enlist in the army, normal humans with a specialty… all of them subconsciously looked up at the skies.

Every soldier once guided by a certain Emperor who defeated countless orcs forces, troops that succeeded in utterly wiping out that nemesis of man all raised their eyes, watching the scarlet-golden sky that abruptly appeared in the night sky.

In the Morlaix Palace of the Triplet Mountain Holy City—the capital of the Northern Empire, Dimore the Second Prince looked up with a troubled expression. Every prince and princess across every corner of the world looked up together to see that sacred light, wafting hundred thousand meters above and was about to enter the Void.

Beneath that illumination, even the world and dimensions shuddered violently. Glaring, eye-catching sacred illumination gathered within that light, as if morphing into a virtual sacred crest of a sun!

Even if the divine titles and ideals were identical, gods were essentially different.

If Zinsen, the God of Might and Justice saw his own Order as being justice without light and his sacred crest being a black halo, Israel, who was now ascending as a god saw justice as a sun that hangs high above with absolute power, vanquishing all darkness!

What was Justice? It is so that the upright could raise their chest and hold their heads high, and the vile would be reduced into cinders!

An eye-catching streak of golden red beam rose from the cluster of divine light, puncturing the dimensions and shot straight into the Infinite Horizon. At the same time, a star of the same color slowly appeared over the Mycroftian World Barrier!

Within that light, Israel’s form was no longer visible. The Empire at this moment was utterly surrounded by a cocoon made of light, within which was divine light of seven colors, the most distinct being black divine light that originates for the former God of Might and Justice. Before that perished divine being had chosen to destroy himself, he had left enough strength to his own Divine Evoker in anticipation that Israel would one day raise his own banner of Justice once more after his passing, waving it upon the peak of Mycroft’s civilization!

Meanwhile, Joshua’s low but determined voice resounded once again.

“I shall raise my divine throne over the skies!”

[But it is not to transcend life, for I too had come from the ground.]

I am simply taking a step head to the boundless peak, climbing onto its summit. I had only become a champion out of duty, for I have the duty of guiding you forward on the right path.

I shall lead you towards tomorrow!

Watching it all beyond world and Void, Joshua could not help drawing in a deep breath. He had wanted to make a solemn expression, but the warrior, whose physical being should be fully obedient ton his will had unwittingly made a warped, rigid but immeasurably earnest smile.

“Do you still have the courage and hope?”

In the face of the distant despair, darkness and sight of near nothingness… would anyone still keep fighting?

Those were two questions Joshua wanted to ask all Legendary champions.

But now, be it every Legendary champion present or Israel or Igor, all of them had given their perfect answer with genuine action.

Indeed.

If they were to fight for the distant future and tomorrow, the battle would definitely have to start—not when the crisis comes in the future, and naturally not during the many tomorrows.

It was here and now.

It was at this hour and this very moment.