Soul of Searing Steel

Under the snow-capped mountains of the dragon lair, the two Divine Armaments who were just thrown out by Joshua were tumbling across the soft surface of the snow, before coming to a slow halt. Just when they were complaining all about it as they were ready to get hold of themselves a little, they heard a series of thunderous rumblings coming from above them.

Regardless of whether it was Ying who was hugging a dragon egg or Ling who was filling up a bottle with some inexplicable mist right beside the silver-haired girl, or Black which was sweeping its head to shake off the snow on top of its head, the three of them felt an overwhelming presence. All three of them could not help but lift their heads and look.

That presence was similar to Dragon’s Might, however, it was a completely different sort of presence than Dragon’s Might.

The peak of the dragon lair was slowly collapsing because the magic upon it was no longer running its course. The huge ice layers were drowning everything like an avalanche. The flood of snow had caused a series of catastrophic collapses all the way down to the foot of the mountain like an unstoppable tide of an avalanche, devouring everything along its way.

However, their attention was not on the avalanche that was rumbling their way. They were all paying attention to the red light that came crashing out from the peak of the mountain looking just like a red comet.

A powerful force accompanied by a fearful shrilling spiritual presence swept across the top of the entire peak of the snow-capped mountains. The dragon lair, which had already completely collapsed, was stirred up into the air by that tremendously powerful force. In the meantime, with the red light as the origin point, endless waves of impacts were seen rippling out from the origin point, spreading across all of the frosts and snows in the surroundings, stirring up everything including the rocks and gravel into the air along with it.

The avalanche seemed to be pushed off by that incredibly powerful force. The pace of it collapsing its way towards the bottom of the mountain was slowing. By the end of it, the snow avalanche had finally stopped by the mountainside before it could ravage over the foot of the mountain.

“Master is taking too long…”

Looking at that magnificent scene, Ying could not but shake her head. Then she let out a sigh. “Why must he wait until the entire dragon lair collapses first before coming out…”

“I suppose he has something he must do. You see, he remained in the place even after he threw us out from the dragon lair.”

In the meantime, Ling was trying to hang the dragon egg and the bottle on Black. When the body of the dragon-blood warhorse that was giving out high heat made contact with the cold and chilly presence of the dragon egg, Black could not help but shiver. Blowing off some steam from its nose, Black used its head to push the male Divine Armament away. Ling attempted to do it again and again for a few times more. However, none of his attempts succeeded. Then he helplessly said, “You… just wait till Master comes back. He’ll make you carry the baggage and things.”

“Hiss hiss!”

Black neighed a few times as a response to Ling.

At that time, the red light dot that was gleaming from the peak just now took a spin around the dragon lair before it took a final turn and arrived at the front of the two Divine Armaments and the horse.

That was actually Joshua who had just completed absorbing the dragon blood.

“Let’s get ready to go home.”

Those were the first words that came out of his mouth. Then he used leather belts to tie the dragon egg and the bottle on to Black’s back. “We might need to take it slow when we go back. I shall use the communication circle to contact Nostradamus. I’ll ask him to send a few of his disciples over so that they can use their teleportation spell to bring us back to the city.”

“Master, are we going to disregard the dead bodies of those dragons?”

In the meantime, Ying was looking at the top of the mountain with a regrettable look on her face. Then she spoke with her soft voice, “We’ve spent so much effort in killing them though. But we’re not going to pull out their tendons and skins, or breaking their bones and sucking out their marrow… it feels disrespectful to their dead bodies…”

“… Ying, where did you learn to speak like that? You should speak like a lady next time.”

Joshua widened his eyes and stared at the silver-haired girl in amazement. He thought for a moment and decided that he should not let Ying out to stroll around the city too often starting from now on. After all, there were countless adventurers and mercenaries around the city. Exposing such a pure girl like Ying to them would definitely affect her mind a little… no, it might even corrupt her mind!

Hence, Joshua decided to look for opportunities in the future to hire some home tutors in order to expose Ying to more cultural lessons. In the meantime when he was having thoughts on that, Joshua replied, “Well, it’s not necessary for you to get yourself concerned with that problem. The temperature of the mountain peak and the snow frost is literally the best refrigerator there is. Since we’re not capable of taking a dozen of dead bodies with us, there’s no need to be hasty about bringing them in. Not to mention that the dragon’s blood would only be effective in enhancing a person’s body the moment it is freshly spilled.”

“In future, I will prepare a trial, and after my knights have graduated from here, they shall come to this very spot I’m standing on without bringing any weapons on them. Then they shall be digging the corpses of the dragons out from the ground. A part of their spoils shall belong to them of course. I can ask the dwarves to forge weapons out of the spoils my knights can dig out – By doing so, I can also save the cost of hiring manpower to dig up everything buried down there. Also, I don’t have to waste my thoughts on designing their armor. At the same time, I can also train my men a little. I can kill so many birds with one stone.”

“I see.”

Standing on the left side of the warrior, the black-haired boy nodded and praised the warrior like he was already good at it, “You’re truly amazing, Master. You’ve actually come up with a great idea.”

“Ling, your skill at buttering me up is getting better… Sigh. So who did you learn all that from?”

While he was sighing, Joshua shook his head. Then he brought the two Divine Armaments along to pick up Black. After all that, they walked towards the direction of the city.

Meanwhile, in the distant, Sigurd was hiding in the snowy land. He was observing his surroundings with his binoculars when he caught sight of Joshua and the others returning towards the city at a slow pace.

At that time, he who was completely prepared and concealed his breath had almost exposed his hiding position because he almost yelled out in shock.

Two children?! A warrior?! Oh, and there was also a horse carrying their baggage!

And that was all they had as their manpower? Was that really the true form of that red light?!

Having those thoughts, Sigurd could not help but recall the light that went above the earth looking just like a meteor. That inhuman sort of power had really had him recalling on some memories of his which were deep in his mind. He could not fathom that there was a connection between that figure he saw with the group of humans down there.

However, he could not deny the truth that was lying right before his eyes.

And now, he had an even greater doubt coming along into his mind.

Are those humans even really humans? They actually succeeded in slaying an entire lair of dragons with so little manpower?!

As a professional adventurer who had traveled throughout the main continent, he had heard countless tales and rumors. He even came across the tales regarding the slaying of dragons. He was even lucky enough to join one of the incidents that involved slaying a dragon. There was an entire fleet of royal knights from a certain small kingdom in the west mountain, leading a large army of servants into the quest of hunting a red dragon that occupied their iron ore in the mountains. Sigurd was employed as an explorer to lead the quest.

That battle was really the true meaning of a desperate battle. The red dragon housed a large group of beasts as its servants. It could also summon the fire elementals to battle for it. The knights fought hard for two days and a night. They had gone through hell before they could kill all of the monsters and beasts and slay the red dragon on the cliff. Even so, they had paid the price with the lives of more than half of the servant army that came along with them. The knight had also paid a great price after losing seventeen of their own. Even the strength of the entire kingdom was weakened because of that.

Of course, the red dragons and the black dragons had always been the strongest among the species of the Pentashade Dragons. The white dragons were far behind than the two species when it came to fighting a one-on-one battle. However, that lair belonged to the white dragons after all. There should be at least seven to eight white dragons guarding that lair!

Wait a minute—Sigurd suddenly realized that the small group of people was walking away unscathed. Meanwhile, the dragon lair had completely collapsed as well. Wouldn’t that mean that the entire dragon lair… had been eradicated by that one warrior that was walking right before his eyes?

Taking in a deep breath of cold breezing air, Sigurd used his palm that was covered with a little snow to tap his face. After that, he continued to observe that bunch of people down there through his binoculars with even more serious eyes.

He felt that he was fortunate enough to witness the happening of a legend.

Meanwhile, at that time, an adventurer who was observing them seriously could not help but notice that the black-haired warrior red eyes seemed to have appeared on the information and date he had seen beforehand. That seemed to be the famous count from the North, Joshua van Radcliffe.

No, not ‘seemed to be’, that was the really him!

That man was very famous, even in the Imperial City. He had achieved some remarkable things in recent times… The excitement in his heart had instantly replaced the surprise and tension he was feeling a while ago. In that instant, Sigurd seemed to have forgotten about his true purpose for coming over here. Well, his initial goal was to explore the Lost Sea in the North. Instead, he was just thinking about how to spread the word out once he got back to the city.

One should know that there were quite a number of people were paying attention to the news about that baron. Regardless of whether the news and rumors were true or not, many would love to find out about his whereabouts and what he was currently up to.

If he ever spread the news about this incident out into the public, this shocking information could stir up a tsunami across the intel circle pool of the Empire City!

In the meantime, the black-haired warrior that he was observing through the binoculars in his hands seemed to have noticed something.

He thought thoughtfully as he turned his head around to look straight in the direction of the adventurer. His red eyes seemed to be seeing through the void to find his target straight away.

Meanwhile, the adventurer had also felt an intense chill up his spine and his entire body went stiff. He felt as if some terrifying beast or some ferocious demonic dragon was targeting him.

However, the warrior did not seem to do anything about him. He just nodded in that direction and turned his head away. Then he no longer paid attention to the adventurer’s presence.

After standing still for a while in the spot feeling the intense chill up his spine, Sigurd’s overwhelming excitement was swept clean.

However, the desire to spread the incident he just witnessed was growing stronger.