Soul of Searing Steel

Colossal Demon-blooded Dragon. If someone used this term while asking the most knowledgeable scholars in the art of dragon in this era, then he or she would not be getting an answer. Instead, he or she would be laughed at for talking nonsense.

Because the species represented by that term had never appeared in the vision of any human in the entire history.

On the Mycroft Continent, the dragons that were closest to humans were the common dragon species such as the Silver Dragon, Green Dragon, Copper Dragon, and other Metallic Astral Dragons. They did not mind living alongside the humans as they were willing to abide by the rules and laws of Order. In some countries, these colossal dragons were even the leaders of cities. There were even noblemen who had formal titles and territories, who were respected and worshiped by many people.

Meanwhile, the Red Dragons, White Dragons, Black Dragon and other Pentashade Dragons were more inclined to occupy a land of wilderness and live freely without abiding to any rules and laws. Maybe there were some vassals among their subordinates, however, most of them were species that behaved like imbeciles. Compared to the Order, they were more willing to live based on their own minds.

However, the colossal Demon-blooded Dragon were different from the two types of dragons.

They were monsters which hailed from the Dark Abyss.

The bottomless Dark Abyss was a dangerously chaotic world that was linked to the main continent of Mycroft. The monsters from that place were deformed and terrifying, And they were fuelled with the desire to attack. Other than that, their powers were bizarrely powerful as well.

The monsters summoned by the Book of Eibon such as demons, ghouls, and dhole worms from hell were dangerous monsters from the Dark Abyss.

However, the frightening part of the Dark Abyss was not that. If there were some ordinary beings living in the Dark Abyss, even if they were extremely powerful and remained uncorrupted by the Chaos power in the Dark Abyss, their offspring would become enchanted and become half-Chaos creatures. That was how the colossal Demon-blooded Dragon and a series of enchanted monsters were born.

In the previous life, at the end of the Dragon’s Calamity, when the Pentashade Dragons began to wrestle out and fight for the final counterattack, the colossal Demon-blooded Dragon miraculously appeared in the visions of the humans. The Chaos monster that had powerful strength, appearing wretchedly scary, along with the possession of many special Gifts had given a tremendous blow to the human forces and caused the humans to suffer catastrophic losses. They managed to counter back the humans from retaliating back on them, giving many people such as Joshua a deep impression.

But now—those who revealed themselves earlier would not be able to appear imposingly.

The Demon-blooded dragons, Searle, and Darwin, were currently fleeing for their lives.

The thought of battling to death had never crossed their minds. At the moment of perceiving the strength of this human warrior to be far beyond what they could handle, Searle and Darwin quickly pushed their bodies to retreat without even a tenth of a second of hesitation. With the remaining strengths in them, they raised their heads directly and fled toward the sky.

This decisive choice even made Joshua who was on the charge to assault to temporarily lose his target and feel stunned for one brief moment.

“Did they really flee just like that?” Joshua muttered to himself doubtfully before rage rose up to his chest. “So they came here to assassinate me, wreck my mansion and think that they can get away just like that?!”

How could they be given good treatment after doing all that?!

The red Combat Aura broke out in full force, and Joshua stepped onto the air, sending a bang which sounded like metal colliding. Under the vibration of the powerful strength, instantly, the warrior had sped up illogically fast.

The flying speed of the dragons was much faster than the flying speed of most other creatures. As a magical creature that naturally possessed wings and flying spells, it was not a strange thing for an adult dragon to reach the speed of sound while it was flying. Meanwhile, Searle and Darwin had obviously reached that level of speed already. They were flying at full speed, dragging of a lane of vacuum right behind them, leaving the air to be unable to regroup. Layer by layer, the ring-shaped clouds formed from the sonic booms were seen trailing right behind each of the dragons. In an instant, the main city of Moldavia had completely disappeared into the horizon.

Even so, the two demon-blooded dragons could not get rid of the dreadful existence that was chasing after them like an evil spirit.

“How is he still behind us?!”

“Isn’t he just a warrior? It would still be reasonable if he only burst out into super speed over a short distance. So how is he flying at a speed not slower than us in a long distance?!|

With fear lingering in their hearts, Searle and Darwin continued to communicate with Spirit Sense, but they could not get any answers. As they were panicking, they made every effort to further accelerate. However, the human warrior who was following them also broke out into a speed to match theirs, not falling behind at all.

Flying at a super high speed in the air, the high altitude cold air rubbed against their bodies like sharp blades. Joshua looked at the two huge dragons in front of him. Although he had previously used up half of the Combat Aura for activating ‘Avatar’ in order to destroy the dragon breaths that were thrown at him earlier on, he did not really suffer much damage at all. Currently, his body was still in perfect condition. Furthermore, he also had his own special flying skills. He could use the air flow of the creatures ahead to speed up—as the flying speed of the dragons were increasing, he could just lend the air vortexes and the vacuum corridor that were left behind by the dragons to speed up his own flying speed. The faster the dragons flew, the faster Joshua was able to fly as well. Hence, he did not consume much energy in flying.

After a period of time, the heavy bodies of the two dragons that were heavily wounded could not take the load of flying that fast anymore. Hence, their speed began to gradually slow down. At this time, Joshua had to adjust the angle of his own flight just like the best hunter, ready to find the right timing to get these hateful monsters in one go.

The incident where they tried to assassinate him was still regarded insignificant. After all, no one could have succeeded anyway. But these dragons actually wrecked the administrative building that was built less than a year ago. Even if killing was an act going against the gods, Joshua swore that he had to.

“This is not a way to go. He will soon catch up to us!”

Noticing that they would never be able to get Joshua off their tails by merely flying at high speed, the two giant dragons communicated with each other and they activated their spells at the same time. Looking as if the two dragons were deliberately stirring up a magic wave, the two colossal dragons suddenly vanished out of sight. At the same time, a black mist thick enough to absorb all light began to spread rapidly, engulfing the figure of the warrior and obscuring his vision.

[Greater Invisibility: Mist]

The strength of the dragons was that they were naturally born with a physical body comparable to that of an advanced warrior, the magic powers comparable to the power level of high-tier mages, and also the terrifying dragon breath that seemed like their natural instinct. When Searle and Darwin noticed that they had completely lost in the aspect of physical strength compared to the warrior, the two dragons switched to using their magic energy, activating their instant spell to flee.

“What a ridiculous struggle.”

This was indeed a difficult problem for ordinary warriors to handle. However, it was not even a problem to Joshua. Facing such a shameful and ridiculously simple spell, he could just close his eyes and started to sense the presences of the dragons with his mind and the scents of the dragons in the air. He could even sense the movement of the winds and air in the atmosphere to determine the trail of the two dragons.

“I’ve got you now!” After a fraction of a second, Joshua found the two dragons in the direction where they were escaping towards. His raised his eyebrows and he smiled joyfully. “You can’t escape from me!”

After that, he accelerated again and flew towards the direction he determined where the dragons were.

Well, skills were deemed to be flexible applications of certain abilities. The method of human combat was a skill, however, it was just one of them.

Mastery Skill represented not only Combat Skills, but also the ultimate of any universal ability. Skills to search for presence, skills to differentiate lights, skills to differentiate sounds and location, evasion, prejudging, mind, and even eating, running, flying, the position when one charge up and let out a punch during training. Everything was part of skills. They were all derivatives that involved one’s physical control over their own bodies.

Meanwhile, as they were being caught up by Joshua once more after using every trick up their sleeve, the dragons which could not get away began to feel despair.

From the beginning to the end, they were all being toyed in the hands of this human Warrior – they couldn’t escape, or hit their targets. Their thoughts or magic spells seemed to be seen through in an instant. The giant dragons were very sure. Without the slightest doubt, they knew that even if they wanted to commit suicide, they would not be able to do that. Even if they wanted to flee, that would only prolong their inevitable deaths. They would become even easier targets to be struck down if they continued to flee.

“Rawgh! What exactly have those god damn informants been doing?!”

As the warrior behind them was approaching fast, Searle which seemed to notice that its life was coming to an end began to curse the dragon’s informants which provided them the information on Joshua. It has obviously begun to ramble over its own statements, “Joshua van Radcliffe, he, that human! He’s not an Upper Gold tier at all! Supreme! He has already achieved Supreme tier! He even obtained Mastery! The Elders are needed in order to slay such a powerful champion!”

Twenty-two years old. He would certainly be advancing to the Supreme tier in the future. It was merely the matter of time before he would become the destined Legendary warrior!

It would only be pointless no matter how annoyed the dragon felt. The fact remained that no matter how remorseful it felt, it could not change anything now.

After taking in dozens of breaths, Joshua finally caught up with the two extremely tired dragons. They tried to run away several times throughout the entire chase, but they were all forced back by the warrior with his Combat Aura attacks. The dragon wings that had sustained some damage could no longer allow the dragons to fly at top speed, causing the dragons only to be able to exhaust their last bit of physical strength as they flew on.

The roaring of the dragons that carried anger and fear at the same time echoed across the undisturbed frozen hills of the Northern wilderness. The final roars of the two dragons gradually became lower and disappeared completely.

*****

Outside the main city of Moldavia, the Base of the Draconic Caravan.

In the main city, other than the knights and the horses that were outside of the liege’s were not allowed to run, the drakes were not allowed to run around the city as well. Hence, right by the outside of the main city, there was an area of land, a base built especially for the merchants to gather.

The fierce dragon roared and the intense battles in the sky had also affected that area. The pressure of the giant dragons had either caused the low-tier draconic beasts to rage on and go berserk completely, or caused the low-tier draconic beasts to be so frightened that they could not move even the slightest inch of their muscles. Some of the drakes could only tremble under the pressure of dragons for they had been tamed. However, there were also others that went completely insane and destroyed everything in their surroundings. These colossal drakes which had dragon blood coursing through their veins were the ones that hated those dragons the most. That would be their instinct to resist.

Originally, frantic drakes would have caused a great deal of damage to their surroundings. However, fortunately, this time was not the same as the past.

The holy knight was walking around the base. His body was radiating with a touch of holy light—of course, it was not that he was trying to calm the beasts. Instead, the holy knight was actually using his strength, the pinnacle of the Gold tier, to suppress these gigantic beasts. From a certain point of view, he used the holy light to give the beasts a concussion. In this case, no matter how violent a monster turned out to be, it would turn docile in an instant.

Roland pacified these drakes one after another and he could not help but let out a sigh. This kind of work should be the work of the priest. But somehow, the priest of the church in the main city had not arrived just yet. He was also not likely to sit there quietly and watch these draconic beasts cause destruction to the surroundings. Hence, he could only do it all by himself.

Speaking of which, why hasn’t the Count of Moldavia arrived yet? That warrior did prevail in the previous battle. There should not be any accidents.  As the holy knight who was patrolling the base began to think about this matter while he was appeasing a drake that went berserk, he muttered, “I did not expect that the dragons would retaliate against the man who slaughtered their kind. This is the first time I’ve seen such thing.”

While Roland was having these thoughts, in the distant sky, a red light suddenly appeared.

The red light was heading quickly towards the direction of the main city, and after a few seconds, it was clear that there was a figure of a man right in the middle of that red light. Meanwhile, the shadow of the man was holding two large spherical objects in his hands.

It seemed that it was another successful slaughtering of the dragons. Also, he had returned.

Upon nodding his head, Roland blinked his eyes and could not help but admire the warrior. Killing two Intermediate Gold-tier dragons in such a short period of time would be troublesome even for him. Before that, when he sensed the battle happening in the liege’s mansion, he even wanted to get into there to lend a hand to the count. Who would have thought that the battle would end within half an hour.

It seems to be the right time to pay the count a visit. 

Roland had the thought to pay Joshua a visit as he once again looked into the sky. However, he could not help but be stunned by what he saw.

Because the red light did not enter the city. The light only flew around the sky above the city a few times before flying straight towards the direction where Roland was currently standing.

Phew! Phew! Phew!

The violent winds came in, the warrior who flew swiftly into the vicinity stopped instantly and stayed levitated in mid-air. In his hands, the warrior was carrying two huge dragon heads, bathed in dark red dragon blood as the entire scene was filled with blood and fury. Joshua lowered his head to look up from above the air. Then he fixed his eyes on the holy knight who was appeasing the drakes that went berserk.

“I have the presences of these two dragons on my body… These presences would only stay on me because I’ve been with them for a long time.” Upon muttering to himself, the warrior sneered, “The fact that you can control these drakes that went berserk. Even a Gold-tier priest cannot do such a thing. Furthermore, you actually disguised yourself as a holy knight… You’re truly not simple at all. You must be one of the higher-level dragons, right?”

Roland who seemed to be unable to understand what the warrior was talking about gave a glance at the ‘calmed’ drake by his side subconsciously. Then he turned his head and looked at the armor that was stained with the blood of many dragon beasts.

Wait a minute, could it be that…