Soul of Searing Steel

A silver-haired girl was looking around while stopping at the crossroad. Slightly furrowing her delicate brows, her eyes glowed green as if the flames of a firefly were swimming in her pupils. After a brief while, she found her direction.

The thick snow had already been cleared with only some snowflakes left. There were no longer any hurdles for people to travel on the road.

There a high chance that the architect of the fortress was a personnel from the military; the way he built the facilities looked very identical and plain in terms of design. From the looks of it, the houses look like cube boxes with a standard design for the roof and had the same arrangement for their windows as well.

In addition to the snow filling the top of the roof, this poor girl had a hard time differentiating the houses.

"Where am I now..."

Feeling lost, Ying felt very confused by the current scenario. All the people around her are soldiers with stern faces and were moving around nonstop. After stopping the Dark Tide invasion a few hours ago, these people kept their composure and continued dedicating their blood, sweat, and tears in repairing the city wall and making preparations for the next possible onslaught. They did not even have time to celebrate their previous victory.

Although everybody knew that even though the beast who lost their leader would not invade the city that had a Gold-tier warrior standing by, they did not turn foolish or arrogant. Even though the group of beasts out there would probably kill each other due to hunger out in the wild, the soldiers did not dare to let their guard down even for a single moment.

Perhaps because Ying was kind of short within the crowd, nobody really took notice of her. Even if someone was curious about the silver-haired girl being in the crowd, nobody took the leisure to stop and figure out her problem. This little naïve Divine Armament who had a serious lack of common sense did not even know how to ask for directions in this scenario. Even as time went by, the situation was not in her favor.

This awkward situation only ended when a masked warrior and a white-robed old mage came out on the street.

After sending the heavily injured comrades to the medics, two of the leaders only then decided to tend their own wounds. The white-haired mage would only need to meditate for the moment to recover from mental fatigue. The half-elf warrior had a more serious issue as he had suffered internal damage.

"Chiri, if you can't endure it, do not force yourself."

Although Feng was a mage, his subclass was a berserker. With his experience gained throughout his old age, the old mage who lived in the north was not inferior to the half-elf warrior. He could easily identify that the comrade in front of him was more sluggish than usual. This could only indicate that this half-elf had sustained quite some damage.

"My wounds are actually getting better real quick here. Just that the regeneration ability is a bit too fast which caused some itchiness…"

Chiri was not lying about his condition. Being a half-elf with a unique class [Blood-Seal Hunter], he could utilize the Beast-blood rune which contained a bit of the daemon's power in his body for combat. Being an advanced Silver-tier warrior, his body could sustain a total of three magic runes. During the battle, he cast [Resonating Thunder Blood], [High-Speed Regeneration] and [Eagle Eye].

To divert his own attention from the pain and itchiness of his body, Chiri initiated a conversation, which was rare. "Did you notice? Young Master Joshua does not look like how he was used to be."

"Yea, I agree."

Feng nodded his head in agreement. "Young master was very gentle and cheerful when he was young. Even after gaining some experience from the military these few years, his temperament was not affected. When he was returning to the main city last time, I was going to inform his father…"

Joshua!

After being stranded on the road for quite some time, the silver-haired girl who almost lost hope heard the name of her master. Her eyes were filled with hope and she directly looked towards the direction of the sound.

There were an old mage and a masked warrior wearing a helmet. Their strength was a level above Ying, in addition to that their posture and aura was somewhat different; the soldiers near them would greet them with respect as they walked passed them. Ying thought that these people should be some high-ranking personnel within the fortress.

"They address my master as young master. Seems like they are heading towards the direction of my master."

Ying followed both of them from far away and muttered, "I think I'm on the right track towards master now. I can finally feel his presence!"

Divine Armaments and their contractors had a mysterious bond between them. This bond was the strongest when both of their levels were within the same range. After Joshua ascended to Gold tier, she could not locate her master's location when they are far apart unless Joshua initiated a communication directly from his side. Now, she was within the acceptable range to detect Joshua's presence and was making her way towards him.

Meanwhile, Chiri and Feng's conversation was still ongoing.

"The young master does not just have a majestic and mighty aura, his presence also brings fear to those around him."

The half-elf replied, "I have been on the battlefield for all these years, how could I not notice the killing aura developed from countless slaughter? Calm and cool? No. That is a deadly aura. The old, gentle and mild young master had already evolved into the deadly killing machine which devours everything in his path. "

The white-haired mage nodded his head in agreement. He had a mixed feeling about this. He did not know whether he should be happy or worried about his young master's condition. "When the old lord passed away, I was extremely worried about our young master's character. He was too mild, too soft in the past. Who would have thought that after our old lord passed away, our young master would change so drastically? No one knows how destiny would change; our lives are always unpredictable as usual."

Huh? Master was gentle and cheerful in the past?

Ying who was eavesdropping the whole time was astonished by this information she just received. Her memory core deep within her body started to operate. No matter how much she recalled her encounter with her master, she could never imagine how her master actually smiled in a gentle way. It was impossible to think in such a way. Her memory about her master and this gentle image does not go well together. Those two different images were too much of a conflict between each other!

However, when she thought about the moment before the battle began, she noticed that this black-haired warrior would occasionally smile. Within his eyes, she saw a strong feeling of excitement. Maybe Joshua did not notice this himself, but Ying who was following by his side all the time had seen all his expressions clearly.

This was a man who would felt immense excitement and happiness during a dreadful battle or bloodbath. Who in the right mind would think that this human could be 'gentle and cheerful'? What nonsense! Ying shook her head, only to think that this old mage was senile. It was just too ridiculous to compare that image to her master!

After passing through multiple paths, this silver-haired young lady felt that her connection with Joshua was getting stronger and stronger. It seems that her path towards Joshua was correct this time.

After a while, she saw the central tower near the great walls of the Dark Forest.

At the entrance of the central tower, there were two sturdy knights guarding. They were equipped with silver-gray metal armor, holding a long spear and shield. A crest with a pattern showing a wolf baring its sharp fangs was engraved on their equipment. As their faces were covered by the helmet, no visible expressions could be seen behind the helmet. They wore black capes with gold linings, displaying the same color as the Radcliffe family's insignia of two hands wielding swords which was dancing in the wind.

"I think this is the place."

Ying sighed in relief. Instinctively, she swiped the imaginary beads of sweat off her forehead.

"The silver-haired lady behind, why are you following us?"

Suddenly, Ying heard a deep voice. The half-elf warrior turned his head towards Ying and stared at her. "Although you do not have any malicious intent, could you explain the reason behind your actions to us? On a side note, I have never seen you in this fortress before. Where did you come from?"