Soul of Searing Steel

"Master, this is…"

Unlike Joshua who knew a lot of information, Ying had never seen such a strange scene. A stream of blue light flashing and a door appearing out of nowhere. After that, a faint view of a dark land and white sky appeared right before her eyes. There were countless tombstones and broken weapons standing quietly across that dark land. Other than the blue light, there was also the old church that was covered in dust. Both were quite distinct though. They did not affect each other at all.

The girl could also feel a vague sense of familiarity across the dimension. That vague sense of familiarity came from those weapons across the dark land. The female Divine Armament could not help but take a step forward after sensing that. She had an urge to touch the blue light.

"It's a dimensional door."

Reaching his hand to pull the girl back, Joshua patted her head and told the puzzled girl, "The dimensional door that connects the passageway is currently sealed off by some power. You'll get hurt if you touch it now."

Looking at the blue door, the warrior had a clear sense of direction now. Right behind the sealed door lay the cemetery of his family. There was a power calling out to him. It was just like the memory that he had when he was still young. He currently had the same impression he had when he was attending his grandfather's funeral in this church. The memory had such a powerful impact that he could still remember it until today. He could still clearly remember everything that happened on that day.

That would be the resonance of the bloodline. It felt like as if the blood in his entire body was boiling.

However, Joshua had suppressed the resonance within his entire body. After all, mistakes might emerge from memories. In the previous memories of the warrior, the grandfather of the warrior was buried in a tombstone next to the church. However, the truth was that the body of his grandfather was in fact buried at the land behind the dimensional door.

He calmly observed the emerging blue door.

"This is a twelve-point dimensional door that is developed by Thovern Boer, the archmage of the Far South Mages Association. It will require three Level 40 Gold-tier mages to build this. However, even though a large amount of magic was exhausted in the beginning, the dimensional door is still very stable. If the location for creating the dimensional door is suitable, the door can last for tens of years."

Glancing at it, the former legendary warrior swiftly saw through the dimensional door. Using his rich experience as a guide, he had come up with twenty methods to destroy the door. His hands were about to act. "Judging from the design, it's a little outdated. However, it's one of the top new skills in such a time. It's not this advance yet when I was young. So when did they actually upgrade it?"

Maybe they had upgraded it while he was away serving the military.

With that thought, Joshua shook his head. He could not help to think that the old count had left the work without leaving any words behind, free and easy. Without the previous owner of the house to set up examples for him with both precept and practice, even though he had received the messages from the altar, he still had a lot more that he did not know. For instance, why would the cemetery of his family be built in a temporal space like this one? How about the nullifying power of the church?

Temporal space was known to be a special domain between worlds. There were big and small ones. Each of them was different from each another. Their names came from the fact that they exist in the gap between two worlds, If a temporal space was very stable and it could exist long enough, the space could form earth and sky in it. There would even be some special life forms in that space. That space would literally be like a real world on a smaller scale.

Towards the end of Continental War from his previous life, there were quite a number of high-level bosses and forces that had their very own temporal space. Quite a number of dungeons and battles happened in those spaces. One of the most famous ones was that players would enter another realm through a black hole called the [Wild Ancient Sacrificial Realm that Connects the Worlds]. That was a passage among many worlds. The realm had already become so stable that it could be deemed as a new world already.

At that time, to prevent the monsters from retreating or to destroy any possibility of getting surprised attacks from the enemies, almost all people would need to learn how to destroy all sorts of temporal space and teleportation signs, something Joshua was already very familiar with. That was also the reason why he thought of the methods to destroy the blue dimensional door the moment he saw it.

Everyone should have the responsibility to interrupt the teleportation.

However, those were not really important at all. Joshua quickly sorted out the information that the altar passed to him. After that, he immediately knew how to get through that dimensional door.

"As long as I provide the bloodline of the Radcliffe family on the sacrificial site of the altar or part of the body of a Divine Armament there, I'll be able to get through smoothly… Simple."

Joshua bit his own thumb and left a small cut on it. Dark red blood began to drip onto the center of the altar made of stone. Upon making contact with the stone-made altar, the blood seeped into the stone. With the toughness of his current body, other than his own teeth, the knife that he always carried would not be able to leave a cut on any part of his skin anymore.

A few seconds later, following the expansion of the magic power, the seal that was hidden in the dimensional door was broken free. The blue radiance flashed. The ground and sky that appeared translucent at first became visible in front of his eyes. The feeling where that cemetery was very far away had vanished.

Joshua did not hesitate to go through the dimensional door. Meanwhile, Ying followed closely behind him.

As they were going through the blue door, Joshua felt extremely dizzy. However, he had gotten used to balancing himself back right after he crossed a dimensional door. He even had enough strength remaining to carry Ying who almost fell on her knees after experiencing the dizziness of passing through the door.

Standing on black soil, Joshua put the silver-haired girl down who had regained her balance. Breathing in the air that was totally different from the air in the initial world, Joshua looked around at the surroundings of the small world. The diameter of the small world should be approximately 1200 meters. He could even see the edge of the world in the form of glimpsing chaotic light that seemed to contain everything. However, the unidentifiable color of the blurred clusters was flowing by the edge.

"Father and Fang should be here."

Mumbling, Joshua recalled on a memory two months ago. It was a shady day. The snow was just about to start falling. Before the northern winds turned freezing cold, the white-haired old man was smiling at him while saying goodbye to him. It happened right before the main city of Moldavia. After the man left for quite a distance, he vanished into the horizons, out of Joshua's view.

So now, could he really be here?

There were many gray tombstones in that realm. There were probably about forty to fifty of them there. That number had exceeded the number of landowners in the past. Joshua slowly approached the tombstone nearest to him. Then he took a closer look at the words carved on the tombstone.

A broken spear was placed right in front of the tombstone. Right above the shiny surface of the tombstone, a line of simple words was carved. However, it seemed that time had caused the carved words to blur out. To see the words clearly, Joshua approached nearer and used his hands to touch the words—a sense of coldness was passed across his senses. The dust on top of the words was wiped away as well.

—Simos Radcliffe, 541 – 574

—Divine Armament Rou, 541 – 574

[The life of a knight passes quickly, giving a glance at cold death.]

Remaining silent for a moment, Joshua turned his head around and looked at the other tombstones right beside the one he just looked at.

This time, a broken blade was placed before the tombstone. There were some bloodstains on the hilt of the blade. God knows how long the bloodstains had been there.

—Aileman Radcliffe, 692 – 743

—Divine Armament Ya, 692 – 743

[Before hitting the dawn, thirteen Dark Tide, twelve victories.]

An aegis shield that had a large crack right in the middle was leaning against another tombstone near him.

—Ivan Radcliffe, 479 – 517

—Divine Armament Ann, 479 – 517

[Death is not for naught, at least it brings some light to victory.]

Walking past the tombstones across the place, some were carved with words while some were not carved with any words. Some were even carved with the life story of the owner on their own tombstones. The words were condensed. There was no way that Joshua could see the words clearly. However, no matter whose tombstone that was, Joshua would give his respects towards all his ancestors.

Joshua could know when any of his ancestors were born and when they died by looking at the information carved on their tombstones. Also, everyone that was buried in this realm died on the battlefield. None of them died of natural causes. On average, there would be a new tombstone added to the realm once every forty years. Sometimes, a whole family died at the same time on the battlefield.

Hundreds of years ago, in order to securely guard their dimensional door, the ancestors of the Radcliffe family arrived at this frosty land and started their new life. They built cities and forts on the land. They separated the mountains and the Dark Forest, fending off the ferocious tides of beasts from invading the world of men with their flesh and blood.

Under their leading, countless warriors with iron wills came to aid in their crusade of defending the cities. Some were there for the glory while some of them were there to fulfill their duties. Many fought with honor on the battlefield as well. However, more of them died attempting to fight for honor and glory. Their families and comrades had to bury them.

Those sacrifices must be respected.

"Master, come here quickly and have a look at this…"

Joshua heard the nervous voice of his Divine Armament coming not far from him.

He turned around and looked. He noticed that the silver-haired girl was standing in front of an obelisk that was made of solid rock. Confused, she blinked her green eyes which were fixated on the object before her.

Noticing the warrior's approach, the little girl opened her mouth slightly. However, she had no idea where to begin. She could only point her finger at a greatsword that looked incredibly huge at the side of a tombstone. After that, he asked politely, "Is this Fang?"

He walked towards Ying, reaching her side. The first time when Joshua saw the greatsword with black golden runes all over it, he took a deep breath and frowned, looking confused. He was at a loss for words and could only smile bitterly.

"… Ahh. That's right. It is."

As expected. They were here.

The greatsword with black golden runes all over it was plunged in the ground right before the tombstone. The cold blade made of steel had quite a number of cracks across it. As a former legendary warrior, Joshua could tell. The core of the sword that was supporting the sword had been shattered. So anyone could just forget about using it. One normal swing could have shattered the sword

Avoiding touching it, Joshua raised his head and looked at the tombstone right beside it. There was a familiar name carved right on the tombstone.

—Beirut Radcliffe, 785 – 831

That was his father's name.

The warrior had finally found his father's grave.

On top of the solid tombstone, there was a long sentence carved on top of it.

[Perhaps one day, civilization and order will be able to transform the world into a more suitable place for survival, but not today. Before that, someone must stand up to battle, and sacrifice himself.]

The gray obelisk seemed to have been carved in recent years. Unlike the other tombstones in the surroundings, a tucked paper cluster was placed right in front of it. There seemed to be something inside of it though.

Bending down his waist and reaching his hands to pick up the paper, Joshua unfolded the paper and noticed that there were two sentences written on the paper with messy handwriting. Meanwhile, a green gemstone fell onto the palm of his right hand from the folded paper.

The warrior took a look at the paper first.

'My son, Joshua Radcliffe.'

'I believe you will make it here… I hope that you can master the power of Legacy.'

"Father is dead. But he still has so much confidence in me… However, what's the power of Legacy?"

Muttering to himself with questions, Joshua looked at the gemstone in his right hand. His red pupils narrowed a bit, "Could this be it?"

He took the green gemstone of the size of a thumb and observed it carefully.

The gemstone that seemed insignificant looked rather ordinary. People would have ignored it and treated it as a normal stone on the ground. However, Joshua realized that the center of the stone stone was greenish-blue. The pattern in the stone looked as if there was a small galaxy spinning slowly in the gemstone.

Joshua tried to grip it.

After that, the moment when Joshua gripped the gemstone, a sense of electricity surged through his palm and hand like he was instantly electrocuted. The feeling spread across his entire body in one brief instant. Meanwhile, the warrior noticed that a large notification box suddenly appeared right before his eyes. Red bolded words were posted across his entire view.

The long-awaited system notification had finally revealed itself right before Joshua's eyes.

[You've acquired an Origin Item, Special Class Item—The Sealed Guardian's Azurite.]

[You've passed the Will Determination Test! You've passed the Party Determination Test! You've passed the Qualification Test!]

[Important! You've acquired a message about the new Class—]

[You've met the requirement.]

[Do you wish to change your Hero Class to Chaos Guardian?]