Soul of Searing Steel

It was most pointless to battle a colossal beast. They do not know about one’s highly mastered skills or how hard one trained in order to get those skills. They only knew the simplest ways to attack. They would only use those simplest skills to fight until one remained.

However, it was also the highest honor to battle a colossal beast as they were born with immense power and had the power of the bloodline. Because giant beasts were pure, so if you can hunt them and kill them, that would mean that your power could be unmatchably powerful.

The dragon was deemed as the most powerful among all other giant beasts. One could become an artistocrat if he or she was capable of slaying a dragon.

Upon waiting for the impact of the crashes to calm, there were only gray smokes riding into the sky from the ground. There were two smoke columns, one big and one small, rising into the sky above in the middle of the Dark Forest.

Because before they fall to the ground, the red light was emitting an oppressive power wave while the black light was emitting a faint scent of a Berserk Dragon. As the two intertwining lights were falling down with intimidating waves, the daemons in the surroundings were retreating in attempt to avoid from being caught in the middle of that battle. None of them dared to get near. With the two lights as the center point, there were no daemons at all within the radius of a hundred meters.

—Because, right there, that dragon was their ‘king’.

Kachak…

At the source point of the rising smoke column that was smaller, right in the middle of the crater, a soft sound was heard. There was a visible shadow of a man and a silver greatsword with a reflective blade.

Opening his eyes swiftly, two red lights were visible. When Joshua woke up from a short-term concussion, he could only feel that his two ears were buzzing insanely. All sorts of noises were overwhelming his mind. He felt chaotic at the moment.

He looked at the surroundings instinctively. However, he noticed that everything around him was just dark. Sand and dust were flying all over the place. There was a miserable roaring sound coming from afar.

The ground began to rumble. That was the sound of the Dark Tide charging forward. The warrior immediately reacted to the situation he was in right now.

“It seems that I could not fully nullify the impact of the fall. What a bad fall.”

Muttering softly to himself, Joshua shook his head for a bit and wiped away the blood that was dripping down from his forehead. Meanwhile, a large amount of data appeared right in front of his eyes.

[Unknown Martial Art Posture: During first engagement, Strength, Agility, Endurance +15 Points]

[Unknown Power Surge: Within two minutes, Strength, Agility +20, Endurance -15]

[Divine Armament Transformation Level 2: Outburst State, Strength, Agility, Endurance +10, Spirit Sense +5]

[Guardian’s Strength of Inheritance: All Attributes permanently +20. For each Chaos Daemon slain, all Attributes +0.01 (Upon death, appoint a bloodline to inherit this power. The Inheritance compatibility differs based on individual quality)]

[Berserk: Agility +20, Strength +15, Endurance -20]

[Steel Armor Kokyu-ho: Reduce Physical Damage received…]

[Left arm heavily wounded…]

Martial arts, Combat Aura, Skills… all sorts of enhanced status, enhanced abilities and passive skills, everything had been added onto Joshua. These enhancements were enough to improve his entire attributes by almost two times. Furthermore, the drastic increase in his level before this had boosted the quality of his body by a lot, leading the warrior to become capable of waking up from the concussion from the impact of falling almost instantly.

Using the silver greatsword that he had been holding on to since the beginning of the battle to support himself, Joshua stood up on his feet in the middle of the crater that was formed from the impact of his own fall. At the same instant, regardless of whether it was his bones or his muscles, his skins or his internal organs, every single part of his body from the top to the bottom, from the inside to the outside, the warrior was suffering the excruciating pain that could torment a grown man into surrendering his life and die. However, Joshua was not bothered by that.

If heaven was on the left, the warrior would go to the right. As a legendary warrior in the previous life, he had experienced countless battles. He survived far more battles and more fatal injuries than anyone could imagine. So these injuries that he had currently were just like mosquito bites. Compared to the injuries he had while he was crossing into this time, his wounds were not really that bad.

He could still fight.

Taking one step after another walking out of the smoke that was beginning to disperse, the strength of the Gold-tier warrior was slowly recovering over the time. His wounds were slowly recovering. Although the injuries to his internal organs that were caused by the falling impact could not be healed for the moment, all other wounds and injuries that were minor had been sealed shut. The purplish bruises were also slowly fading away. By the time Joshua walked out of the smoky area, other than his left arm, every single wound and injury on him had completely healed.

Of course, the bones that were shattered in his left arm could not be healed within such a short period of time. That was the cost that Joshua must bare for making a slight miscalculation in his judgment. He misjudged that he was battling a dragon. However, he had not imagined that this dragon had already mutated into god knows what kind of monster.

“I should have noticed this earlier on. The dragon-slaying stone did not have any intense reaction in the first place. This is a pure-blood dragon. The outcome of the reaction was just similar to the reaction when the stone was exposed to the half-blood dracospider.”

After reflecting on his own mistakes for a brief moment, Joshua sighed. Because he had not slain a dragon for so long, he got carried away and forgot how terrifying the Chaos corruption could me.

Once Chaos invaded, doomsday would follow. That was the Chaos that came from the void, a world that did not belong there. Chaos would corrupt and invade on a worldwide scale. Its existence was purely dreadful. It was deemed to be the eternal enemy of the world order, also the only ignited flame of the origin that existed in the first place.

Its corruption… how could it be possible that any living things would be able to maintain their initial attributes? In other words, the appearance of the Corrupted Black Dragons that spread the Berserk Dragon viruses looked too much alike as the regular Chaos Daemons. That was why Joshua was under the impression that he was still battling a dragon.

After all, it was just like a virus. The destructive dragon that was born from a corpse really matched Chaos too well.

“Hiss rawgh—!”

Along with the howling winds, an unusual roar came from the large impact crater not far from Joshua. Along with the iconic dark purplish mist of the black dragon that rises into the sky, a black shadow slowly emerged from the smoke. It went out of the gray smoke and dust there were flying all over the place, walking towards Joshua while staring at Joshua with its one and only golden eye from afar.

The black dragon was not dead yet.

Just like half a month ago, it was just similar to what Joshua saw in the distress letter that Vale Dani sent to him. Half of the body of this dragon was white-golden while the other half was dark as night. The golden half of the dragon had a horn that grew upward whereas the dark half of the dragon had a horn that bent downwards to its neck. While obvious, the dragon eyes were different. The dark half of the dragon was missing an eye while the golden half of the dragon had its eye shut. This duo-colored dragon had big and wide wings with powerful sharp claws on its edge. Each of its limb were filled with muscles that rippled with power.

However, now, because of the corruption of Chaos, that half body of the dragon that was golden-white had been contaminated with some dark purplish color. Something… perhaps with a conscience had corrupted it and started an uncontrollable mutation in the dragon. As a result, the dragon was unable to maintain its original form.

Right before its chest, because Joshua had struck its chest with a blast of [Sunlight Blade] and intimidating power of the dragon-slaying stone, there was a huge wound that was still dripping with liquid. However, the liquid that was dripping out of the wound was no longer blood. It had become some sort of unusual mucus. When the mucus dripped onto the ground, the surface of the solid ground decayed, leaving holes and some strange foul stench in the air.

Meanwhile, there were countless small tentacles wriggling all over the wound on the dragon’s chest. They were combining into strings of granules before combining altogether. It did not take long before that long wound that was cut open on the chest of the black dragon to heal and leave behind a long scar. There were signs of glittering black red lights around the wound though.

As the cost of healing, the Corrupted Black Dragon’s half white-golden body had now completely vanished. The entire dragon had completely become a black gigantic daemon. It no longer emitted the scent of a dragon, instead, it was rippling with pure Chaos waves.

“Rawgh… rawgh!!!”

Roaring in a low and miserable voice, Joshua who had been looking into its eyes since the beginning could tell that the black dragon would not give in before it was completely corrupted by Chaos.

It was still not willing to let go.

One moment right before the Corrupted Black Dragon could scatter and disappear, the only thing that it could recall was that scene.

Life was defined by that scene. The dragon that was halfway going through metamorphosis had been ambushed by one of its same species which managed to do it a little faster than it could. So the dragon had no choice but to stop its awakening process that could only happen once in its entire life. Meanwhile, right after that, endless pain and suffering was oppressing its mental state, causing the dragon which once roamed across the Dark Forest freely to fall into the corruption of Chaos.

“Chaos is the enemy of Order.”

Upon taking a deep breath, Joshua managed to recover himself almost back to his former state. He gripped his weapons tightly. His Combat Aura was once again blazing around his body.

Upon seeing the black dragon’s body changing and mutating drastically, the eyes of the warrior looked tired. He lifted the silver Divine Armament in his hand and aimed the tip of it towards the daemon that was looking at him with its purely insane eyes.

“Poor Berserk Dragon… You have met your doom before you could complete your awakening process.”

So, just die.

“… Hiss! Rawgh—!”

Not understanding the words of the warrior, this daemon was merely hating the living being that was emitting out waves of Order.

Upon roaring out loud in rage, right in the middle of the berserk sound waves that was trembling the entire atmosphere in the air, that was a complete mutation. That Chaos dragon had mutated into something that had a pair of huge wings with six arms. It possessed a strange and immense power. Its six limbs were distorted. After reaching them all out ferociously, the dragon directly leaped into the air from the ground. The giant body that was tens of meters tall rushed towards Joshua along with the dark purplish Chaos mist surging around its body.