Soul of Searing Steel

Joshua opened the box.

Chi—

It sounded like a blade penetrating rotting meat.

It was as if a hurricane with the heavy scent of blood and rust from the ancient times had been stirred up around Joshua. Waves of the incomparably ordered yet dreadful power fluctuations representing Austerity, Sealing, Purification, and Annihilation spread in all directions, utterly eliminating and completely penetrating the surrounding chaotic atmosphere."

The Berserk Daemons in the surroundings were terrified by the sudden wind along with the scent of blood. Those daemons that were corrupted by Chaos earlier could not be even stopped by death. However, they were retreating just because they felt the waves of energy surging out from this little box. The army of the Dark Tide was taking tens of steps backward. It seemed that they did not dare to get near to Joshua and the box.

The reason was they had lost their awareness. The only thing that remained was instinct. It was fear which made them take a few steps back from Joshua and the box.

Ignoring all of the monsters in the surroundings, the warrior took a breath of the contaminated cold air of Mount Great Ajax. Then he took out a black stone from the box.

Dragon-slaying stone.

Dragons. Regardless of which dimension the Astral Dragons came through from, or the dragons that were born on the land of this initial world, there were many differences. However, they had one thing in common.

They were extremely powerful; naturally born that way!

Before the flame of the human civilization was ignited, these monsters that were on the top of the food chain were roaming around the continent, preying on the other races and species. They were acting like the predators of the world hunting other living beings. After all, they were born with extremely strong bodies and gifted with terrifying magic power. They had skin and magic resistance that was unbelievably tough.

However, that was it.

Regardless if they were Astral Dragons or the dragons from the initial world, they would still have a common weakness, the greatest weakness of all. They would act alone.

That weakness was fatal.

Even if the Astral Dragons had intelligence and civilization, most of the time, they would just stay in their nest all alone. They would just do research based on their own interest. Their long lifespans and their prideful souls had led them to care nothing about communicating and socializing with the other races or even their own species—that was their most significant reason that they would fail.

Facing one weapon specifically designed to kill one specific race, the one weapon that was forged by the efforts of the humans, elves, dwarves and many other races after experiencing untold hardships—the [Dragon-slaying Stone] that was produced from the strongest alchemy with the aim to destroy the dragon bloodline. Even the mindless Berserk Daemons would also tremble in fear.

Not to mention that the warrior was currently looking at a Gold-tier daemon which had dragon blood coursing through the veins in its entire body. Its full name was 'Ajax's Aurumseeking Draconian Spider'.

As one of the arachnidan daemon's evolved state, the dracospider was as its name suggested, a giant dracospider that prey on weaker dragon species and flying dragons as their food source. It had the dragon blood coursing through the veins in its entire body. And because of that, when it sensed the chilling power that was designed to exterminate its bloodline, the Aurum-colored Dragon Spider could not help to take a few steps back.

Overwhelming with fear while shivering, the eight crystallized legs were moving backward. This powerful Gold-Tier daemon was behaving just like the other normal Daemons. It also backed away tens of steps. Well, it might even have backed away more steps than that.

"… Hmph."

So it retreated just like that?

Upon shaking his head and humphed coldly, a sense of disappointment flashed across the Warrior's eyes. He held the dark dragon-slaying stone on his hand and rubbed it across the surface of the silver-white blade of his greatsword, his own Divine Armament.

Sha—

The grinding sound echoed and a faint dark red powder was seen resting on the blade of the greatsword. After that, the power vanished without leaving any trace behind. Meanwhile, waves of magic power mixed with some sort of strange power flashed, leaving line patterns surging with the power to destroy.

"Master… So this is the dragon-slaying stone?"

Right across his mind, Ying's Spirit Sense was a little blurry. The voice of the girl using Spirit Sense quivered. "This presence, it's so… scary…"

"Fear not, Ying, this is the power that you and I possess."

"Overcoming the fear was the source of the development of the human's civilization. Just like how human overcome their fear towards the fire they first discovered in the middle stone-age era. While from building the order of the civilization, as my weapon, you must overcome this sort of fear," Joshua added.

After keeping the dragon-slaying stone, Joshua lifted up the silver greatsword. Red Combat Aura was gushing out like a torch. The lines on the blades were glittering with radiance, emitting out waves of intimidatingly dreadful pressure.

The strength of civilization was the strength of the human. As a warrior, one must be familiar with using that power. One must be prideful for being the wielder of that power.

Backing up step by step, the ferocious dracospider deep could not accept the fact that it showed its vulnerable side and thus rebounded like a spring. The more pressure it was facing, the more the dracospider tried to fight it. Facing Joshua who was getting more intimidating with each passing second, this powerful daemon's desire to battle finally overcame its own fear.

The power of Chaos was overflowing. Disgusted by the power of Order coupled with its will to battle shattered its fear.The Gold-tier daemon knew that the aura of its opponent was building up into an unstoppable tidal wave soon. So if it retreated now, it would only provide the time and opportunity for its opponent to accumulate enough power to instantly kill it!

Upon understanding its own situation, it totally abandoned the notion to retreat. The dracospider lifted its forefront legs without making any sound as if it was trying to intimidate its opponent with its sharp fangs and legs. Then it looked at the dragon-slaying stone like it was nothing. Right after that, it lunged towards Joshua ferociously.

The dracospider seemed to have triggered a signal that led the other daemons to react to the situation. The daemons that were retreating backward in fear began to roar in rage. Then they also charged forward towards Joshua. Right after the Dark Tide retreated a little from Joshua, they lunged back at Joshua ferociously. The initially large hole in the middle of the dark condensed Dark Tide suddenly shrunk. The daemons looked like a tidal wave that could devour anything that they charged at. They charged at the warrior in black armor once again.

"That's how it should have been in the first place."

Picking up a statuette of a lance from his waist, a magic light flashed across the sight of everyone and everything. There was another two-meter long gigantic metal lance appeared right in the hand of Joshua. Facing such a dangerous situation that could be deemed as a situation of despair, the warrior did not feel even a vague sense of fear. Instead, he let out an insane laugh and charged forward at full speed!

The man holding a greatsword and a lance in his hands was charging forward with all his might. The aura of that one man felt like a thousand soldiers charging forward fearlessly. Every step he took stomped the ground with intimidating strength and left cracks in the ground. With shockwaves and wind accompanying the moving greatsword, the warrior in black armor charged right into Dark Tide and began his onslaught on the daemons. A huge wave of blood splattered across the battlefield. Along with Joshua charging forward, the daemons around him fell to the ground in pieces one after another. The monsters that charged blindly at Joshua were all sliced up like dried straws being harvested by the farmers. They were easily slashed and sliced in halves. The remaining of their limbs and broken body parts were flying across the battlefield together with daemon blood. Their meats that were being sliced up by Joshua were flying all over the place. The blood and the body parts were then frozen up on the ground because of the cold freezing weather.

The Divine Armament that had been smeared with the dragon-slaying stone had acquired a powerful source of strength to annihilate. Even though the targets were not dragons, Joshua could still slaughter up the daemons with ease. Initially, these daemons that were infected with Chaos had a strong and powerful life force. Even if their heads were cut off, they would not die on the spot. However, the situation was very different. Daemons that were sliced by the silver greatsword would lose all their strength instantly and fall to the ground. After that, their body would dry up and decay into corpses almost in an instant.

"Trash."

Do you really think I took out the dragon-slaying stone to take care of you trash?

Right in the middle of the gaps in between the helmet, Joshua's two red eyes were blazing with two dots of red radiance. Upon bathing himself in the blood of the daemons with a stench that only a few could stomach, Joshua lifted the lance in his hand and started stomping on the enemies repeatedly clearing out as many weak daemons as he could. In between the explosive sounds coming from the impact of the lance hitting on any daemons that came in contact, the dracospider also lunged towards Joshua. The crystallized legs broke through the atmosphere that brought along an impact that looked like a white mist. It also rammed into the other Daemons into meat pile, splattering the blood of those daemons into the surroundings. The gigantic body of the monster that was tens of meters tall suddenly charged towards Joshua like a moving mountain. Meanwhile, the strong binding force that came along with the spider web magic appeared on the warrior once again. The webs were binding the warrior up like sinking the warrior into some sort of gooey substance, causing him to become unable to move.

Meanwhile, the warrior did not need to move at all.

After observing the situation in a calm manner, a shadow of a lance flashed across like a shooting star. It was the lance that Joshua was holding earlier on, being thrown out right at one of the legs that were coming at the warrior at the speed of sound. The sharp tip of the lance penetrated the tip of the gray-golden shell on dracospider's leg. The tough shell that was supposed to be as tough as metal was shattered into countless pieces just like that. After losing one leg to support its balance, the part where the dracospider received the impact was a little slanted.

Coincidentally, the second leg of the dracospider crashed into Joshua at the same time. The immovable Joshua who had activated his Steel Armor Kokyu-ho had become tougher when he embraced the impact of that hit head-on. After that, he borrowed the heavy impact of the hit to flip himself out of the entanglement of the webs and avoided the dracospider's ramming with its gigantic body that was as heavy as the impact one would feel for being hit head-on by a tsunami.

Landing himself on the ground and balancing his body, Joshua gulped down some fresh blood that came out from his lungs. Then he widened his mouth a little and took advantage of the dracospider after it failed to hit its target and lost a foot. During the brief period of time where the dracospider lost its balance a little, its two feet were stomped to the ground explosively, stomping the dirt, rocks and solid frost into pieces. The impact of the insane explosion stirred up some dust into the air, allowing the warrior's body to break through the speed of sound and to turn into the speed of light. Because of that, Joshua was able to charge towards the enemy's front.

Wielding his great sword towards his enemies, the deep lines on the blade seemed to have sensed the presence of the dragon's blood. Instantly, it unleashed a tremendous wave of immense power. Joshua directed this immense wave of power on the sword and swung it towards the gigantic dracospider.

Kachak!

A crystal clear sound echoed. The strike was powerful enough to shatter the shells that were tough enough to withstand the blast from the alchemy cannons. Right after the dracospider had its one leg penetrated, its another leg was chopped off.

The dragon-slaying stone was extremely rare. How could Joshua waste it on handling one daemon? How would that be possible?

Even if this was a Gold-tier dracospider that was intimidatingly powerful, it would not be qualified enough for Joshua to use the stone on it!

Although daemons could be stupid sometimes, they would not even think about battling their enemies one on one. That included regular Berserk Daemons. Meanwhile, the Gold-tier daemons were also behaving the same.

Just as Joshua had gotten the upper hand in the battle with the dracospider, a wave of cold wind whistled through the air. The snowstorm that was originally pouring down from the sky suddenly intensified. The snowstorm even broke through the barriers on the Dark Forest and poured down upon the black land and rocks of the forest. The small ice dust began to surge on. The dark purplish mist was beginning to get thicker as well. Initially, people could still see everything that was within twenty to thirty meters. However, people could only see everything a few meters away front them.

Upon chopping off the third leg of the dracopider, while the warrior and the dracospider were battling against each other, two dreadful presences that were heavy, just like the extreme cold and Chaos, suddenly appeared on Joshua's left side and his back.

The real deal had come forth!