Soul of Searing Steel

Pulling the greatsword out of the ground, Joshua lifted his head and looked at the dragon that resurrected itself once before. He looked at the same dragon that he just killed one more time and remained silent.

Boom!

The gigantic body of the dragon slowly collapsed onto the ground. The impact from its body stirred the dust and sand on the ground up into the air. Meanwhile, some black mist that looked like threads floated out from the corpse of the black dragon as if they were trying to vanish into the air. However, the Azurite that was hanging right before Joshua's chest absorbed those black mist. The flame of order that was calm and powerful was burning vigorously within that small pearl. It was using the power of Chaos as its new source of fuel, turning such contaminating existence into an endless stream of power, restoring the stamina and power of the warrior.

That dragon had died for real this time.

After a long battle, things finally came to an end now.

"… Finally… it's done."

Sensing that there was a pure and enormous amount of energy restoring his Combat Aura and stamina, the tired Joshua wiped off the dust on his shoulders. Then he chose a rock and sat himself down. Then he closed his eyes and calmly control the power within his body in an attempt to heal his own wounds.

The dragon was dead now. That monster had not used any sort of Gift, nor did it show off its own melee combat skills that it was so proud of. The warrior had been suppressing it with ferocious attacks all the while throughout the battle. Because of that, it was fatally wounded and it got devoured by its own Chaos power. By the end of it, it was sliced in half by a sword that came right from the top all the way through it.

Currently, without the Berserk Dragon, without the so-called 'king' to lead them, the daemons in the surroundings instantly fell into chaos. Without receiving an order from a higher order or leader, the true nature of Chaos became even more obvious now. The daemons were beginning to lose their minds and roared around like they had just lost their purpose. They even started battling each other. Some of the daemons that were ferocious by nature even started to hunt down the other daemons in the surroundings just to fill their empty bellies.

However, regardless of how ferocious they turned out to be, none of them dared to approach the warrior who was resting up on the side. Looking at such a powerful existence that was capable of clearing out a path through the Dark Tide none of the daemons would want to provoke him.

After losing their leader, the true nature of the Chaos army had revealed itself; bully the weak and fear the strong. There was no such thing as sanity and logic in Chaos. Even if they were the same species, there was nothing there to stop them from slaughtering each other.

Sitting on the rock, breathing in the cold air, Joshua noticed that the blizzard was not the only thing that stopped. He was not bothered by that at all because he was also almost done with healing his own wounds all around his body. He could not care less about the daemons killing each other. That was because he had seen such scenes for far too many times in the previous life. So there was nothing special about it.

Furthermore, after he slew that black dragon for real, he had finally gotten himself some time to think about something else.

First of all, why would the existence of the outer world bestow the black dragon with such immense power?

Even though Joshua had slain this dragon twice, truthfully, only Joshua himself knew. If his attack was not violently consecutive and having no vulnerability at all, giving no chance for the black dragon to fight back, then the black dragon would have caused more harm to him in the previous battle. From the perspective of the warrior, the dragon must possess the power to breach the defenses of the fortress all by itself.

One must know that when the black dragon was enhanced by Chaos, it only used its simplest attack, the Breath Attack to break through the defense of Joshua's Steel Armor Kokyu-ho and his Combat Aura. If such a destructive power could be used to the max, even the thick metallic super wall that was as thick as tens of meters might not be able to withstand that attack—bestowing such power upon a Gold-tier daemon was obviously a little too much already.

At first, Joshua could not fathom the incident. However, currently, he had seen the true form of the Dark Tide where the Daemons were killing each other. The warrior finally knew the reason behind all that.

The Berserk Dragon Virus and Chaos could both cause endless descent and corruption to whoever was the victim of it. Meanwhile, the Corrupted Black Dragon was the core that controlled and spread Chaos across this world!

As the manipulator of the core to spread the Berserk Dragon Virus that was turned from Chaos, all Daemons that were corrupted would listen to the will of the black dragon. As the king of the Chaos Berserk Daemons, as long as the dragon wanted, it could subdue all daemons to submit to it. It could just order the daemons to jump off the cliff to drown themselves in the sea. Meanwhile, the existence behind this incident obviously wanted something that was completely opposite of this. They did not need a being that could control the Berserk Daemon Army but cannot be controlled by the existence itself.

So from that point of view, the black dragon's fall was a must. Even if the dragon was not oppressed by the series of intense attacks from the warrior himself, the dragon would still fall into the abyss of Chaos for being bestowed with too much power. After that, the dragon would still become a puppet to whatever entity that was lurking behind the incident.

However, regardless of whether it would fall or not, that dragon would still not be able to match Joshua's strength. That was an unquestionable truth.

"Rawgh!!!"

Suddenly, just when Joshua was still thinking about the incident, a thunderous roar was suddenly heard across the battlefield.

Along with the thunderous roar of the monsters, an dreadful feeling was felt in the atmosphere. Followed by a loud bang that might shatter the heavens, in the eyes of the warrior, the black radiating column of dimensional rift emerged once again not far from between heaven and earth. It stirred the dark clouds and pierced the sky while it was still spreading endless waves of Chaos energy into the surroundings.

"The dimensional rift… looks like this will be the last time."

Noticing the intense wave that the light column was nurturing, Joshua who had done adjusting himself looked grim while he stood on the rock. He turned his head around and looked at the pitch-black light column and the ever-expanding dark sky right above his head. Then, he grabbed the hilt of his Divine Armament tightly.

—Nearby the dimensional rift

A silhouette of a man that was surging with dark green radiance was pulling his dual blades out of the gigantic butterfly's corpse. A cold gray liquid that had a sweet yet bloody stench dripped right out from the wound.

This dead butterfly had a pair of translucent wings that had icy blue runes on them. The snow and frost were gathering because of these strange runes. Even the clouds were moved there. The clouds were basically gathering slowly to one spot as well.

Brandon was using his trembling hand to sweep away the sweat that was frozen on his head. Then he kept the dual blades back into their scabbards. After that, he took a deep breath and let the breath out, adjusting his Combat Aura to shake off all sorts of ice and crystals off his body.

Before that, he had gone through hell while he was charging through the Dark Tide. He was even surrounded by the daemons at a point. So now, the Gold-tier swordsman had finally arrived nearby the dimensional rift. However, he was a little unlucky. He actually stumbled across the Gold-tier frost butterfly while he was charging through the forest.

Even though the frost butterfly was not built for battle, it was still a Gold-Ttier daemon after all. So the two of them had prepared themselves for a battle in an instant. Facing an opponent of the same tier, the frost butterfly immediately stopped manipulating the weather of the sky. Then, dozens of magic spells with structures that looked simple but with destructive power that was not weak instantly flew towards Brandon like a thunderstorm.

Kachak!

Right in both of his eyes, the light blue radiance was circulating vigorously. With the force in his magical eyes, Brandon could easily break off the spells that the Gold-tier daemon threw at him. After that, he took a step forward and started charging forward; there was nothing much to say about what happened next. After a lot of battles, the Gold-tier swordsman had finally slain his opponent with his dual blades.

Although the battle was a little tougher than he expected, he won by the end of it.

However, not long after he could feel happy about his victory, suddenly, a violent tremble shook heaven and earth and a loud bang was heard. Everything came from deep within the forest right before Brandon's eyes. A gigantic black light column emerged and fly up into the sky, piercing through the clouds and the sky, tainting the sky with a layer of pitch black. Endless breaths from another world were gushing into the atmosphere of this world like a tidal wave. There was no boundary to it.

Maybe that was because he was being too near to the light column at the moment. Because of the Order Attributes imbued in him, he felt surprisingly disgusted by the presence of that light source. Brandon could also clearly felt that there was a condense terrifying energy right within the light column. That energy was hidden in the middle of the light column as if it was nurturing something.

"The dracospider is dead. Joshua is dealing with the black dragon. Meanwhile, I've just killed the frost butterfly… So if I destroy the dimensional passage to the other world, I might be able to put a stop to all of these. Chaos might stop invading our world!"

Muttering softly to himself, Brandon looked at the black light column and took a deep breath. Then he was tending to his body that was tired.

He should try to recover his status as much as he could before the final moment arrived.

—Moldova Fortress.

Right on top of the frozen wall, the Silver-tier knights were running back and forth. They were wielding their weapons around preventing the daemons from getting up to the wall. Meanwhile, the archers, mages, and the soldiers that were manning the cannons were aiming their attacks with calm precision. Along with the sounds of shooting cannon, arrows, and spells, the alchemy cannon blasts were bombarding the ground where the daemons were. Meanwhile, blood splattered all around the place like large red flowers blooming all over the place. At the same time, arrows and spells were raining intensely and vigorously upon the daemons, causing countless holes among the Black Rising.

Such situation would not be inconvenient for a human. However, it would not be convenient either. The two sides were still in a deadlock. The guarding force of the fortress was relying on the large number of supplies they acquired by spending a fortune and also things that they created with alchemy to reduce the number of daemons that were charging at the fortress. The situation would remain until one side collapsed.

However, suddenly, the daemons that were set on breaching the defenses of the fortress suddenly changed their mind. Their iron will to take down the fortress seemed to have been broken somehow. They began to kill each other among themselves. Even one daemon that was in lizard form suddenly gave up and left after it was just one step from stepping into the fortress. It just turned around and bit the other daemon that was right beside it. The two daemons suddenly got into a fight and fell off the wall, pushing the other daemons that were crawling on the walls along with them.

"What is going on… the Dark Tide seems to have descended into chaos?"

Right in the middle of the city, Vale Dani who was getting ready to move out furrowed her brows. She even blinked her eyes for a couple of times and looked far into the battlefield doubtfully. Then she muttered softly to herself, "Could it be possible that Brandon and Joshua have taken out the leader of the daemons?"

However, that should not be possible. Other than the monster ants, there were no other daemons that would begin killing among themselves after their leader died…

Just when she was getting deep in thought, a strange whistle that was difficult for the mortals to understand echoed through the mountains. There was a flash coming from far away, right in the middle of the Dark Forest. Along with an enormous magic tide emitting out, a stream of black light column was formed. The light column then rose into the sky straight away!

Vale Dani stood up from her chair right away. Her expression was of bewilderment and fear. "That's the third time that there's a strange phenomenon happening over the dimensional rift. Will Brandon and Joshua make it in time?"

Upon shaking her head, the violet-haired mage had a worried look on her face. She was not very happy about the fact that she could not follow her loved one and her ally into battle. However, regardless of that, Vale Dani understood. The fortress was the place that she could fully utilize her skills and abilities to the max.

After letting out a soft sigh, Vale Dani put both of her palms together and closed her eyes. Then she prayed to the gods.

"I pray that everything will be fine."

—right by the dragon's corpse.

Behind Joshua's back, the black dragon's corpse had gone through an unusual change under the influence of the enormous Chaos power that was brought into this world through the dimensional rift.

The body that was initially drained completely by the Azurite was now expanding up slowly. After that, the entire body turned into a shapeless muddy substance that looked like black liquid. That black liquid was decaying the ground and the rocks on the ground. Then it swiftly spread, making its way towards the other corpses of the daemons in its surroundings.

It was silent and scentless. Many corpses of the Berserk Daemons had been devoured by this black liquid just like that. They were completely sucked dry; that black liquid seemed to be gathering its strength, growling slowly into something more powerful. Not long after that, this shapeless black liquid had devoured more than a hundred corpses of the daemons, increasing its mass It became so much that it was even bigger than the size of the black dragon now.

Right by the shadow, this black liquid reached out towards Joshua who was walking towards the dimensional rift. It was reaching out as if it was extending its tentacles and spikes towards Joshua.

The dragon had died, however, a demon rose.