Soul of Searing Steel

The fall of Black Dragon turned into the Dark Tide and plunged the Empire into chaos. Along with it, came the Berserk Dragon’s plague that causes mass hysteria throughout the Empire. As Chaos lurked in the North, it opened an invisible dimensional rift. From it, the Aragami began to emerge and they would turn this frozen land into a domain filled with chaos.

This occurrence was nothing new as it was the norm for Chaos to lurk around and overtake the land. The folklores even comprised of stories that depicted the invasion of chaos. However, there was still something strange about the whole incident.

It all happened too obviously as if someone was in the background, guiding them to cause all the occurrences.

…

As the dimensional rift broke down bit by bit by invisible corrupted magic, the massive Aragami started to struggle. It knew that the dimensional pathway was collapsing. With sheer brute force, the Aragami tried to shift its massive body. All it wanted then was to squash the little black bug.

The struggle was in vain as half of its body was in the dimensional rift, rendering it immobile. It let out a furious roar and shot out countless death rays from the top of its head. The rays that blast out were blatantly fatal as the magical power rips the air apart as the rays homing towards the warrior.

What if, all that happened in the North… was nothing but a huge conspiracy… However, that wasn’t the truth! The truth is laying right there! Whatever that lies behind the Aragami would be untold secrets!

So what?!

It was the time nor the place to have such thoughts.

Joshua’s body glowed as if he was teleporting. He evaded countless magic death rays and carved his way out, destroying another one of the many seals.

There were only one-third left.

The warrior was not concern of the remaining death rays that were still chasing after him. Such an attack was too simple for him. He could even close his eyes and dodge it if he wanted to. Instead of wasting his concentration on the attack, he was calculating how to strike the seals on the dimensional rift.

At that moment, Brandon loosened his grip on the artifact that was in his hands. The power that the artifact, the power of Order that was constantly released has started to diminish. Inversely, Chaos power that was being suppressed had started to filled the battlefield. Like beating pulse, waves of Chaos energy bombarded the warrior, reducing his mobility.

That was not enough to slow him down. Joshua, without hesitation, charged up his Combat Aura and coat his entire body with it. That allowed him to maneuver around and strike his target without being affected by Chaos energy.

Chaos magic, to put it simply, was a term coined for easier understanding. In reality, Chaos energy and magic power was as different as the sky and the earth.

Magic was born from the residue of the Initial Flame. It represented Soul and Wisdom; Combat Aura originated from the condensation of the Primordial Steel. It was the crystallization of both Life and Belief. Both of these powers could be trained and they are the power of Order.

However, it was different with the power of Chaos. As the name implied, it is a power that was meant to cause disruption. An eternal presence. The kind of power that no living being should be able to wield, much less train in it. Those that stray too close to the power of Chaos will eventually be consumed by it.

The seals that were keeping the dimensional rift intact were made from Chaos energy. Hence, due to its nature, it was extremely unstable and could be easily destroyed.

In the red fiery eyes of Joshua there were 109 seals which shone brightly near the dimensional rift under the black pillar of light. Two-third of the seals that had been destroyed stopped glowing.

The seals were like an anchor that linked the Mycroft Continent and another world together. Although it would not sever the ties between these two worlds, it would surely affect passageway.

That should be enough time.

The warrior bit down his pain as the surrounding pulse of power of Chaos reached its peak. With effort, Joshua moved towards the last of the seal to destroy them. Due to the destruction of several seals, the strength of the rift was compromised, making the other seals that were still anchoring both worlds weak and fragile. At the start of the battle, Joshua would still needed to summon his full strength to destroy the seal, but now, all he needed to do was lightly tap the seal to break it.

Without the protection of a Gold-tier Aragami, there was no way for the Greater Aragami to exit the rift! Not even a Abyssal Demon would be that stupid.

Too naïve!

“Crawl back to whichever hole you crawled out from!”

“Hah—!”

A silvery-white light gleamed with brightness as the sword sliced through the black ink-like smoke that were gushing out of the rift. With a powerful blast of black pulse, all the remaining Seals were destroyed.

[Shockwave Slash]!

In the end, all of the shining lights faded into nothing.

All the seals were destroyed!

Boom! Boom!

Loud explosions could be heard with the destruction of all 109 seals. The unstable dimensional structure crumbled down and the energy flow went haywire. A chain reaction of magic rapidly condensing and expanding caused a string of continuous explosions.

Boooom!

The first explosion started and shattered the dark sky, driving away the dark clouds, allowing the sunlight started to shine down.

Booom!

The second explosion could be heard with the reater Aragami’s body slowly fading away. As it gave out a ferocious roar, the dimensional rift closed off and its body disintegrated, turning into bright light.

Booom!

The third explosion blasted, the black pillar of light started to twist around and crumbled away, disappearing like smoke like it never existed.

…

Starfall Year 831, 21st of December, Morning 7.09 a.m.

The North of Empire in Moldova Forest which had over 200,000 Daemons, caused the Dark Tide due to the unknown dimensional passage from another world. According to the [Empire’s Level of Catastrophe Manual], it was the highest level of “Catastrophe”.

…

Starfall Year 831, 21st of December, Morning 11.12 a.m.

Four hours after the dimensional rift was open.

Due to the destruction of the seals, the dimensional rift collapsed and could not be restored within three months. That marked the end of the calamity.

…

The golden rays of the sun shone down to the earth, the sky getting back to the way it used to be. There was a big deep pit at what used to be a dimensional door, and some black smoke could be seen rising from within.

Natural dimensional rifts were not easy to destroy but at least in these few months, there was enough time to send strong mages from the Empire to seal off the place. This was all thanks to Joshua for destroying the seals and rendering them useless and unable to gather the magic to open the dimensional rift.

The warrior slowly descended down to the ground; the dark aura disappearing from his body like a burnt out flame.

“Hooh.”

Joshua breathed heavily as his body was exhausted from the fight; his breath formed a white vapor as warm air merged with the cold surroundings. Although he was worn out, a smile could be seen on his face, feeling satisfied with what was done.

Although it was not a battle, it still felt so amazing!

A flash shone through and the silver-white greatsword in his hand transformed into a silver-haired girl. Ying’s eyes were filled with worry. She held onto the warrior as he wobbled and seemed like he might fall down any second.

“No worries, I’m just a little tired after a long fight.”

This journey had been quite a fulfilling one, go through the daemon hordes, slaying the dracospider, bringing down Alatreon and cutting down the Chaos beings from their bodies. Finally, Joshua used up the last of his energy to ward off Chaos, destroying all the seals. Even with Azurite’s healing power, it seemed like Joshua’s energy was completely depleted.

“Ying, I’m going to sit here and rest. Wake me up if something happens.”

The warrior found a nearby boulder to sit on. Facing the bright sky, he closed his eyes and his head slowly drooped as he fell into a deep slumber. His body was healing up through Kokyu-ho.

Ying bit her lip, wanting to talk to her master but did not want to disturb his rest. She sat beside him quietly and kept watch of the surroundings while he rested.

Up in the sky, a dark green light shone through and crashed into the Dark Forest not far away, causing a heap of dust to rise in the air.

That must be Brandon after he used the Shrine Keeper’s Dual Blades of Order, which took a tremendous toll on his body.

Releasing the divine item is not something a Gold-tier swordsman could handle; the temporary boost of energy had now caused him to lose his energy for a while. Who would care about that little rascal… The silver-haired girl checked the surroundings. There is not a single Aragami or daemon near the dimensional tift, and it was now safe.

Time passed quickly with Joshua’s breathing becoming steadier and his wounds were also slowly healing up. At the other end of the sky, a magic light shone through and someone was rushing towards the fortress.

“It must be that woman.”

Ying mumbled in a low voice as she lifted her head to the sky looking at that bright sun. Her eyes glittered from the sunlight and then she looked at the direction of the dimensional rift.

“Hmm?”

The female Divine Armament sprang up as if she found something.

Beside the big pit, there was something shining.

She looked at Joshua who was resting and after she made sure her master’s condition was stable, she ran towards the bright light.

She bent down and lifted her white tiny hands to pick up the strange item.

A reddish-black light was coming out from the crystal-like object. It looked like a star.