Soul of Searing Steel

Chapter 245: The Shadow of the Sage

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The colorless beam of holy light went straight through the sky and left a hole in the clouds that filled the entire sky. Some of the citizens of the city managed to witness the scene as they coincidentally raised their head up to look at the sky. Their shock left them shouting loudly. Then they raised their arms and reminded their acquaintances around them to look at the obvious change in the sky. Not long after that, many people had gathered together as they were pointing towards the gap in the clouds of the sky.

Even ordinary people could spot that something different was happening. Naturally, the powerful class bearers would notice it as well.

At the fortress’s tower, the chief of the defending force of Ural Fortress, also the owner of the city, a heavy-armored swordsman, Cade Medsett hurried all the way to the top of the tower with a serious face. Unlike the other ordinary guards, he could clearly see the translucent light pillar that pierced through the clouds in the sky.

“The gate of the city? What exactly happened there?”

Muttering doubtfully, as the owner of the city, Cade knew that he must respond to these sort of unknown events as soon as possible. But as of now, there were no casualties and damages at all, not yet. So he still had an abundant of time to respond to the incident that he just occurred. After thinking for a brief moment, he gave a series of commands to the soldier beside him.

“That’s holy power, right?”

Central Church of the fortress, the archbishop of Ural Church lifted his heavy scepter. That horrific weapon was as heavy as 300 pounds though. The moment when the weapon was moved as it made contact with the surface of the floor made of rocks, a heavy whomping sound was heard. Instead of looking like a priest, the archbishop looked more like a warrior though. He walked up to the front door of the church and looked at the pillar of light that yet to disperse. He said doubtfully, “This is not right. This power is even purer. However, it’s from the same origin as holy light though…”

“So what exactly is this power then?”

The same doubt was being passed around starting from the local mercenary agency, which was also known by ordinary people as the mercenary guild. Within the radius of several hundred kilometers, the most powerful mage, the most exquisite alchemist, and also known as the director of the mercenary agency, Jean Wilmot was staying thirty meters underground. Although he was far from the surface of the ground, he could still clearly detect the Order power on the outside world. The mage had never seen or sensed such pure Order power in his entire life. He could not help but place the quill pen that he was using to write and draw runes aside. After that, he observed the data inputs that appeared on the screen of the Spell Instrument thoroughly. Upon seeing the data, he muttered to himself, “Strange phenomenon. There’s also a presence of a force that’s extremely evil mixed along with holy light…”

In the meantime, the center of discussion, the anxiety in the hearts of everyone.

Joshua was holding onto the Azurite. He was furrowing his brows intensely. The carriage that was designed to withstand a full blast of a cannon was already shattered and blasted away into a pile of wreckage by the enormously powerful Order power.

With the warrior as the center of it, everyone within the radius of several hundred meters was pushed back by a gentle and yet powerful impact. Even the coachman was sent to the far side of the road by the sudden surge of Order power. That honest and humble coachman was still wondering why he ended up appearing on the other side of the artificial river. But for the moment, he would not be able to find the answer to his question though.

Currently, Joshua did not have the time and the attention to be bothered by other things. All of his attention was focused on controlling the sudden surge of Order power in the Azurite that he was currently holding, and also that evil wave of power that struck into his soul.

Before that, right at the moment when he received a warning sign in the depths of his heart, an extremely evil power that could bring total destruction to a soul came into his body through the void. Overwhelmed with surprise and rage, Joshua could not react and resist the evil force in time as the force had already made way straight into his soul.

—Curse? Or is this some sort of spiritual attack?

Even though Joshua was very experienced, he would not have known the nature of such an attack. In fact, Joshua knew the least about curses and spiritual attacks. It was also the worst for him to perform these attacks. One should know that, in the previous life while he was still in the game, any curse or spiritual attacks would only be presented as a negative effect in the form of the system notification, or one could straight away predict it. If one could not pass the game of prediction, the person would be inflicted with many negative effects or damages. After all, was no one in this world had ever experienced that sort of attack in the real world. Hence, it would naturally be impossible for the game developers to imagine how it felt like and simulate the experience into the game.

Joshua had now experienced that—it could only be described as an excruciatingly painful experience.

Although the warrior’s soul was strong enough to temporarily withstand that horrific power, he was not ready to expel that power out of his body. While he was being attacked, Joshua’s entire body was completely paralyzed on the spot. He could not even move a muscle. Other than battling with that evil force, there was nothing else he could do.

In the beginning, he could only passively withstand the invasive evil force, using his soul that was as tough as the steel to constantly resist that bizarrely powerful destructive power. That suffering was just like digging his bare nerves out and setting them in an environment with cold winds that were -50 degrees, followed by a splashing of salt upon his wounded nerves. With each resistance he made against the evil force, Joshua could feel and hear the bizarrely deafening sharp noises which sounded like the sound of glass and steel rubbing violently against each other. Those sounds filled his mind as they affected his concentration.

Even when Joshua was at his worst with his injuries, he had never felt this much helplessness and pain in his life. The warrior could feel that his entire spirit had become a violent battlefield.

As he was subconsciously resisting on, Joshua reached out his hand and grabbed the Azurite that kept vibrating violently right before his chest. It was merely an action performed from basic instinct, however, it really did him a big favor. In an instant when his hand grabbed onto the Azurite, the warrior suddenly felt the Order power flowing in within his body was slowly activated once again. The Order power had somehow connected with some sort of power that was embedded in within the Azurite. Instantly, along with the sound of a flame igniting, an unpredicted substantial amount of Order power surged out on the spot like the most dazzling torch. The power penetrated through his body and soul, replacing Joshua’s Will and suppressed the evil force that invaded his spiritual mind.

The dark-green waves seemed to be constantly struggling as if they were alive. However, they were completely suppressed by the Order power. After that, that evil force could only move little by little. The force was no longer be able to approach the warrior’s soul.

At that time, Joshua finally got the time to catch his breath. After calming down, he exhaled and divided some of his energy to control the power of the Azurite Orb. By doing so, he could now suppress the evil force that invaded his body. After that, he began to put some thought into what the hell just happened.

“Someone is using a curse or some sort of spiritual attack on me.”

There was no doubt about that—viciously muttering to himself, Joshua wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead. His eyes were filled with rage, and his face had revealed how displeased he currently was. “An effect that could suddenly be activated without showing any sign of attack… This should be a curse… So who the hell is the culprit?!”

It would not be possible for a person of insignificant status to succeed in using such a curse that could be aimed at a particular target, so close in killing the soul of a Gold-tier warrior which already attained the pinnacle of Gold Tier. Meanwhile, even people of significant statuses would definitely need to use various mediums to accurately locate Joshua’s whereabouts.

Without the need to think about it, Joshua already knew. This was an assassination aimed at him. Meanwhile, the only being that would actually spend so much effort into killing him, a baron from the North who isolated himself from the outside world, would be those god damn evil dragons!

“… So they’re not yet done with their attempts at assassinating me, huh?”

First the demon-blooded dragon, then this curse… Those dragons had really not given up on assassinating Joshua. They’ve already initiated the Dragon’s Calamity in the South. However, they were still exhausting so many resources on Joshua.

Temporarily suppressing his anger, Joshua loosened up his grip on the Azurite. Then he furrowed his brow as his eyes darted left and right, shifting his attention to the fluctuating evil energy waves in his body that were currently suppressed by the Azurite.

However, it was still much better before he put his attention on it. Now that he focused his attention on it, the warrior had discovered the blind spot that he neglected earlier on.

The struggle of the evil force continued. The bizarre dark-green energy wave that was attempting to attack Joshua’s soul seemed to be carrying an extremely dense presence of Chaos. If it was not for the overly dense Order power that the Azurite was unleashing overshadowing that evil force completely, she would have seen that blind spot very early on.

“Currently, only that group of dragons would be so daring to conspire with Chaos without hiding in the shadows.”

Upon determining his goal once again, Joshua looked at the fluctuating wave of the soul in his body. He could not help but feel a headache after that. “So how do I get rid of this if this thing cannot even be purified with such dense Order energy then?”

Generally speaking, other than the person that cast the curse, the only other way to get rid of it was to use pure power to remove the effect of the curse.

Nothing good could come out from rushing though. So Joshua could only temporary do so. Hence, he got himself ready and attempted to touch that soul wave. After that, he used the oppressive Order energy to attempt expelling it out of his body, or maybe wipe it off clean from his body. The warrior acted swiftly. He immediately acted after he thought of it. His tough soul was just like the silver steel, getting separated from the layers of Order energy, approaching the relentless black fluctuating wave that did not have shape or attributes.

In the midst of the approach, his soul had felt a burning pain as if his heart was corroded by strong acid.

However, this kind of pain felt like the warm wind in early spring if it was compared to the agony he had to endure when he first came in contact with that evil force. Instead, it had led Joshua to make his decision to activate his soul and approach that evil force in his body.

His silver soul carried a tremendous amount of Order energy and touched the wave of black mist.

Meanwhile, during the moment of excruciating pain and suffering, a strange situation that had never happened before arose—an intense green light was seen gushing out from the Azurite that was hanging right before Joshua’s chest. Then it turned into a halo and stayed floating right above the warrior’s head. Meanwhile, along with the spinning halo, a series of illusion was seen right before the warrior’s eyes.

The white light gleamed on as countless fragments of images were floating across his vision.

He saw that there were vast, endless plains where countless living beings were flourishing on the land itself. Meanwhile, there was a group of humans came wandering. They drove the beasts away, burned the forests, and cleansed the plains. Then they started building villages and constructing walls. That was how they started the first bonfire, vowing to make the land their eternal homes.

He also saw that countless migrants had come from afar and joined them. They had built various buildings around the villages, sowing different seeds and harvesting different crops. In the beginning, there were still disputes among races. But as time passed, people of different races swore their oaths by the bonfire in the center of the city saying that they would join their forces and work together for the survival of their future.

He then saw that under the blaze of this flame, a village became a city. And a city became a nation. Then a nation merged races together and formed the first civilization.

The Flame that represented humanity was burning in the torch of the giant city. Its light shone upon heaven and earth, illuminating an entire era.

The illusions were flashing on as the fragments of images appeared and vanished rapidly. The warrior had tried his best. However, he could only see one or two parts of it. He had never get the chance to understand the entire story behind the scene.

At the end of it, all within his vision went silently dark.

Just when Joshua was puzzled, another series of countless fragments of memory flashed across his vision.

This time, it was filled with the presence of despair.

It was a dead and desolate world. There were no signs of any breath of the living creatures on the surface of the earth. There were corpses everywhere, and bones were scattered all over the place, piling into mountains of bones. Amidst the ashes, the horrifying evils that rose from wars had already spread across the entire world. From the sea to the earth, from the mountains to the sky, forests, swamps, lakes, and deserts… every corner of the world was already shrouded in death. All lives were already been attacked by plagues. All of them had to die.

Behind the dark poisonous clouds, there were huge shadows floating and intercepting each other. Countless bizarre jointed limbs and tentacles were hanging down from the sky. At the end of all lives, the monsters that were once the embodiment of the plagues which devoured the world was born. The giant tentacles with abscesses, rotten meat and mucus passed between heaven and earth. They took the lives of all of the remaining survivors without mercy at all. That evil that carried along infinite malice had transcended after it had harvested a world with civilization. It had obtained enough power to go to another outer world.

Two completely different illusions appeared side by side, in front of Joshua. One side of it was like a blazing flame, unleashing a radiance that was brilliantly bright. Meanwhile, on the other side, it was like a bottomless dark abyss, releasing corrosive fluids that were capable of corrupting the world, descending it into chaos.

Although he knew that he was looking at illusions, Joshua’s spirit never felt so clear before. He stood at the midpoint between the two worlds as if the rock he was standing on was generally not moving at all. As he was facing the endless whisperings of evil and the spiritual erosion, the warrior could not help but sigh aloud. Then he brought along his endless curiosity and turned his head over towards the other side where the light of the flame was blazing bright.

Then he saw it. A pair of eyes that looked straight into the human heart.

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