Soul of Searing Steel

Everything before his eyes was snowy white. The icy cold feeling overflowed his entire body. The translucent ice crystals were melted by his body's high temperature, evaporating them into warm vapor. Lying right in the snow, Joshua took a deep breath. That was no accident. He could sense Chaos energy that was extremely condensed, attempting to corrupt his body.

This entire place had been completely corrupted now. Without a few advanced level priests to purify this place, even if the dimensional rift was closed, the darkness would remain deep in this land for the next hundreds of years. The darkness might even fuse itself into the land once and for all.

At that time, the warrior could not help to retrieve his memories on what [Chaos] actually was.

… In actuality, there was nothing much to think about. The one explanation that covered its aspects was that it was the source of all disaster, regardless of previous life or this current life. It would remain like this. There would be no exception.

Chaos would devour anything that was not being shone upon by light. It blurs existence, wipe off order, and eventually, it would destroy civilization and corrupt wisdom. However, whenever there was life, such devious act would not be allowed. Joshua chose to fight Chaos. The reason was not that he was moved by any sentimental values, at least not by such light reason. He was bounded by the responsibility of Order, Wisdom, and Life. He could not run from that responsibility.

Even though Order and Chaos were complete opposites, the fire would also need it to ignite, giving out radiance to exist, being the origin of a world to exist in the middle of the void. However, regardless of whether it was the invasion of the dark abyss or the corruption of the void or even the bewitchment of the Evil God, the descending of the demons from other worlds—these incidents that had something to do with Chaos would not be a good thing. Each incident would leave a large number of casualties behind.

Same went for the dimensional rift incident.

If Joshua could not close it as soon as possible and allow the dimensional rift to open completely, then the existence behind all this would reach out its tentacles, causing a catastrophic event such as the descent of a daemon lord. That sort of incidents would require the legendary combatants to resolve and were be significant enough to be recorded in the history.

Despite Joshua's bloodlust, he did not want that sort of incidents to happen near his home.

Fortunately for him, the current incident had not escalated to that level of seriousness just yet. Although the continuation of the upcoming plans would be a little troublesome, however, it would be better for him to focus on killing all of his enemies now and think about the complicated issues later.

Boom!

Snapped back to reality, a red radiance glimmered from the layer of snow he was under. Heat began to rise as the Combat Aura all around Joshua pulsated. He pushed himself out of the snow that buried him with ease. After that, he let out an outburst of impulse and pushed all the snow around him away. Tightening his grip on the hilt of his silver-white greatsword, he stood up and spat out some blood.

The attack seemed extremely powerful, however, it did not hurt the warrior much.

"This monster, is actually a little stronger than I thought."

Joshua set his eyes on the giant daemon that was also had its eyes fixed on him from afar. The daemon was just waiting for the right moment to strike. Joshua's face had finally look deadly serious for the first time since he entered the Dark Forest.

Zergs were monsters that had a body mass hundred times larger than normal insects. The demonic insect that Joshua encountered earlier was one of the zergs.

The physical bodies of these monsters were tougher than the bodies of the regular Steel-tier daemons. They could even crush the Steel-tier daemons like they were nothing.

Even though these Demonic Insects did not have enough wisdom to learn all sorts of skills, they could just use their tough bodies, their natural abilities and all sorts of spells to survive. They were also powerful enough to be called one of the more prominent species on the continent. They could really breed their own kind and survive on this continent that was always filled with war.

Back in the year in the distant south, the humans and the elves only managed to barely suppress the zergs from breeding insanely fast after the two races had given it their all. That incident had been listed as one of the historical events known as the [Alliance of Nature]. By the end of it, the two races had made a peace treaty with the Heart of the Swarm. The three races had pledged to live together in harmony since then.

Relying on their bodies, they were powerful enough to battle the humans and elves that had already advanced into their magic era. That should be enough to emphasize on how powerful and scary each of them could turn out to be.

However, they were just living beings after all. They could be hunted and killed easily by powerful beings of their same size. Some beings that were larger than them even hunted and feed on them.

Those dreadful hunters that prey on these demonic insects would be the spiders. They looked like insects, but they weren't.

Meanwhile that Gold-tier daemon, the dracospider, was one of those species.

Far away from where Joshua was battling, the gigantic body of an insect or rather, monster with a golden-grayish shell remained still. The eight gigantic legs that had some crystalline substances covered all over them were ready for battle. The stab wound that was caused by Joshua's lance right below its abdomen was dripping with a milky greenish blue liquid. The eight eyes on its head were glittering with purplish blue radiance. Meanwhile, that wretched-looking mouth and fangs of the spider were opening and closing from time to time. Translucent venom liquid was dripping right out of its mouth.

The dracospider had a giant shell of a crab right behind its back. It also had the magic resistance that dragons had. The explosive power of a spider was dreadful. Regardless of its defense, speed, or their attacks, the spider was just a dreadful being that one should not reckon with it. A normal Gold-tier warrior would not be able to last ten rounds battling with the spider. Encountering such a monster would require at least a party with four elites that could work and cooperate together. Only then, could a party take on the spider.

Some pure dragons which were the same level as the dracospider might not be able to win against the dracospider.

Upon checking on his armor plate right before his chest, Joshua found that there were two large holes on the surface of it. He was not surprised as it fell within his expectations.

Just then, the dracospider came out from beneath the surface of the ground and struck right at Joshua. Joshua who was already experienced in dealing with all sorts of sh*t in battle had led him to know what to do the moment he was about to get struck by the dracospider's attack. Although he had many more ways to evade the attack of the dracospider Joshua decided to take the hit head-on after thinking about it.

As Joshua's body was much smaller than the dracospider's, Joshua was bounced by the impact of the strike by the end of it. The giant spider had also reached out this fangs right before its mouth in an attempt to penetrate Joshua's body to pump some venom into him. However, with his Combat Aura and his armor protecting his flesh, the spider's bite was blocked by Joshua's Steel Armor Kokyu-ho. That bite did not even leave a scratch on his flesh.

Even though Joshua had suffered some internal injuries, however, he had also struck his lance which was powered up with his Combat Aura into the body of the giant spider at the same time when he was struck and sent flying away by the dracospider. That two-meter long lance had completely plunged into the body of the giant spider. Furthermore, the Combat Aura had detonated deep within the body of the spider as well. So the injuries that the dracospider suffered must be much heavier than the injuries that Joshua had on him.

"…"

Without saying a word, the warrior remained silent while he was facing the gigantic spider. Meanwhile, countless daemons were charging towards Joshua from the surroundings. After all, that was the center of the Dark Forest. It was not a place for him and the dracospider to engage in battle. That was literally the base of the enemy. The daemons came charging in at Joshua like a dark tidal wave. Their roaring and hissings were echoing in the surroundings. However, even though these weaker daemons had already lost their sanity, none of them dared to attack the warrior before them.

They were just waiting.

Meanwhile, the dracospider that still had a slight wisdom left in it was hesitating.

As a Gold-tier daemon with dragon blood coursing through the veins in its body, it still had some awareness even though it had been corrupted by Chaos. It could still determine whether its next action would do it more good or more harm. Therefore, the spider had become very serious in taking on the warrior after receiving a solid blow from him. It no longer showed any ferocious intend towards Joshua, instead, it looked calm now.

As a tarantula species that purely relied on venom and its ferocious instinct to hunt, the spider had no need to make webs. Its webs and web sacks had long evolved over thousands of years to become magical organs that release magic power that could bind or stick its preys. It was precisely that magic power that had Joshua stuck on the ground earlier on. Because of that, Joshua could not move at all while he could only take the spider's attack.

However, the toughness of Joshua's skin was beyond imagination.

The dracospider had tasted human flesh before, and not just one or two, it had tasted many humans. Hence, the spider knew that as long as it could peel off the metallic armor layer off its preys, it would be able to taste some flesh and blood… However, the man before him… even though it penetrated its fangs through the armor, the skin beneath the armor layer was actually much tougher than the armor.

For most of the monsters or beasts, when they ever encounter such a situation, they would just give up on preying on their target. They knew that they were not powerful enough to prey on that target. They would switch their target onto smoothing weaker and smaller. However, the current situation was different… the Chaos power that was lurking deep within its body had caused the dracospider to get agitated by the Order power buried deep inside Joshua's body. At the same time, its instinct was telling it that it would be extremely foolish to battle the warrior right before its eyes.

Its instinct and awareness were at war. Because of that, the dracospider became more cautious than ever while facing the warrior. Meanwhile, the daemons all around in the surroundings were also intimidated by the warrior's power. They remained themselves in spots they were standing. Because of that, they had provided Joshua plenty of time.

"I first thought that it would become troublesome as the battle went on."

Joshua reached his hand into the hole of his armor while he muttered softly to himself, "I've never thought that things would turn out so smoothly."

If you guys did not take the initiative to react, that would mean that you chose to die.

Smiling wretchedly, he tightened and expanded his muscles all over his body. He exerted strength on his arm after that. Then the black armor he was wearing was being torn apart as if it was made of paper. A long crack appeared on the armor. Then he reached his arm into the crack and searched the compartment right before his chest. Then he took out a small box.

It was a red box that was crafted from wood with countless runes floating all over the surface.