Soul of Searing Steel

No wonder the Azurite orb reacted. So this thing was the reason of all that.

  Meanwhile, on the other side, Brandon also began to explain, “Other than the creature from the Dark Abyss and the high concentration of Berserk Dragon Viruses that you gave us, we have also purchased a few draconic beasts that were bounded by the Berserk Dragon Virus from the distant South.

He held on securely to the cylindrical crystal column when he showed the black crystal that was sealed in the cylindrical crystal to the warrior and the others. The blond-haired swordsman seemed strangely proud of it though. “Among these draconic beasts, some of them parasitic Chaos creatures that looked similar to the creature of the Dark Abyss inside their bodies. Each of these parasites is unleashing strange and bizarre waves and toxic gases that could cause ordinary daemons to go berserk. It behaves like the source of the virus that spreads the Dragon Berserk Virus. Through the experiments, we have discovered that these parasites can actually fuse together. Every time they get to fuse together, the waves and the toxic gases released by the parasites will become stronger. The effect would grow a few times stronger in the instant when they fuse together. In order to uncover the reason behind that, we…”

“After that, you’ve put all of the creatures and the parasites together. By the end of it, you’ve taken this thing out of the body of the fused monster, am I right?”

Joshua interrupted Brandon by saying that. His eyes were fixed on the black crystalline object. He had an extremely grim look on his face. “Then, do you have any idea what this does?”

“Of course.”

Brandon furrowed his brow a little. He was about to say something about that matter when he was interrupted by the warrior. However, that was merely a trivial matter. Hence, after placing his emotions in check and gathering his thoughts, the swordsman continued to say, “Through our experiment at the border of the South, we uncovered that as long as this black crystalline thing is not sealed and isolated by the crystal, letting it out of the cylinder exposing it into the air, the presence and waves it releases would be able to attract every single one of the berserk draconic beasts within the radius of ten kilometers towards it. Those berserk draconic beasts would not be able to resist their urge to move towards it and gather there. While they are at it, they will not resist or strike back even if they are being attacked. This thing is like the perfect bait for that!”

Upon explaining that, Brandon looked very excited. He fully understood what that concept was—with the existence of this thing, it would become almost impossible for the borders of the Empire Kingdom to be surrounded by the berserk draconic beasts. A large number of draconic beasts would definitely gather at the spot where the black crystalline substance was exposed. When the monsters gather at the spot where the crystal is, the Imperial Army could just focus their attacks on the monsters. They could even attack the beasts without worrying about being attacked by the beasts.

That thing was unquestionably a strategic treasure. One could even say that, having possession over it could mean that one could seize the initiative to make the first move.

“You’re right about that.”

Joshua had also expressed his agreement on that.

However, he came up with another question, “But Brandon, at what cost?”

“Do you know the reason why the Berserk Dragons would naturally go towards this piece of small crystal and gathered around it? Let’s put this simpler, do you know Chaos—this piece of crystalline, why would it attract the Berserk Dragons?”

“… No, I don’t.”

The blond swordsman was stunned by the question asked by the warrior. He hesitated for a moment before attempting to explain it in his own words, “But we’re still doing research on it… the process of researching it will not be completed in one single step though. When the celebration banquet is over, I will bring a few archmages from the association and travel South to the borders again. We shall even test out the effect of this piece of crystal at the Southern Kingdom and looked into the reason why it behaves that way.”

“By then, everything will be too late, my friend.”

Joshua shook his head. As expected by the warrior, Brandon and the others had yet to uncover the true effect that the Heart of Chaos could offer. Truth be told, regardless of whether it was attracting the Berserk Dragon or luring them towards itself, those were merely the small insignificant side effects.

This sort of item was formed from countless Chaos power gathering together in one place. It was an item that was almost equal to a Mystical Item such as the Divine Crystal. Its greatest effect would be ‘Evolution’.

Joshua could still vaguely remember that when the Dark Abyss had invaded the world in his previous life, countless daemons were rampaging across the entire continent of the world. Because the number of monsters were so dense, regardless of whichever forces, it was really hard for anyone to eradicate the seemingly endless army of daemons marching in from the Dark Abyss. There would always be some remaining even though the forces all around the world had tried their best. Meanwhile, those daemons remained on the battlefield would always devour the remaining parts of their dead comrades to replenish their power. Some of them even grew stronger as they devoured more of their dead comrades.

In that way, after several congressional battles, the human forces had uneasily discovered the truth that even though the number of daemons were decreasing, the remaining daemons were having a great boost in their growth. Initially, the few demonic monsters could be easily killed by the Iron-Tier soldiers. However, in just a few days, all of those little demonic monsters had evolved into berserk demonic monsters. Their strength had tremendously increased, causing a tremendous increase of pressure upon the human forces, which had the upper hand over the daemon forces from the Dark Abyss. Due to the sudden change of tide in the battlefield, the human forces had no choice but to retreat to their main cities and fortresses and stay guarded at their main headquarters.

Such a situation was naturally abnormal. The major forces had dispatched their very own party, which consisted of champions who were at least Gold tier. This party was dispatched over to investigate the reason behind the abnormal phenomenon. At the end of their investigation, they had uncovered the truth that there was a monster that they had never seen before appearing in the base of the daemons which was the Dark Abyss. That monster was capable of releasing a strange wave that could lure the other daemons over to its side. Then it could also enhance the strength of those daemons that gotten themselves near it. That was the main reason why the daemons from Dark Abyss could gain the abilities to fight back in such a short amount of time.

The human forces were extremely uncomfortable after knowing that such ability existed. So, a Legendary-tier Swordsman from the West Mountains, the wielder of the Holy Sword ‘Sword of the Silver Oak’ – Mystletainn ¹ called La Motte Ternant ² eradicated every single daemon in a stronghold of daemons all by himself. He even took out the special monster that could enhance the strength of the other daemons and ripped its core right out from its body. That was how the human forces obtained the core of that monster.

According to the description provided by Ternant, the appearance of that sort of monster looked like a conical pillar that was piled up by numerous corpses. It used white bones as its armor and the rotten flesh of the dead as its own flesh to protect its central core that looked just like a piece of crystal. Rows of huge eyeballs that were twitching and turning all the time were seen inconsistently lining up from top to bottom of the entire pillar. It looked as terrifying as the appearance of an archdemon. The scholars during that time had named that horrifying pillar as the Pillar of the Archdemon. Meanwhile, the core that was found within its body was called the ‘Heart of Chaos’.

Brandon and the others had unexpectedly obtained a much smaller ‘Heart of Chaos’. Well, the size of this one was certainly a lot smaller than the one Joshua knew about. Truth to be told, the ‘Heart of Chaos’ that the Holy Swordsman Ternant obtained back then was as large as the size of a human head. Meanwhile, the one that Brandon was holding was merely the size of an ordinary human thumb. However, even though that was the case, the crystal was still a ‘Heart of Chaos’, so to speak. If the blonde swordsman and the others had really brought that thing out to a spot where an enormous number of daemons gathered, they would unintentionally aid the daemons in evolving into something more powerful at the same time if they would have stayed at that spot for a little longer.

Upon imagining that scene, the warrior could not help but shake his head hard to remove the scene from his head. In the end, the appearance of the ‘Heart of Chaos’ at such early stage of the timeline was the change he brought into this world when he crossed over into this world. In his previous life, Joshua had never encountered such a thing since the beginning of the Dragon’s Calamity until it ended. Hence, Joshua was partly responsible for the appearance of the ‘Heart of Chaos’ at a time like this.

As a man who had experienced all these, Joshua believed that it was necessary for him to pass some of his experiences to these men.

“Brandon, I believe that I owe you an explanation. There’s something you must know about this thing.”

Without even the slightest hesitation, the warrior spoke out straight away. He told Brandon who was still feeling doubtful about the matter, “Regardless of whether you believe me or not, I know exactly what that crystal that you’re holding can do. You did say that you’ve yet to uncover its full capabilities, right? You even said that it could only derive things. But its true function is…”

Joshua briefly explained the existence of the ‘Heart of Chaos’ and its function to Brandon. He did not mention the source of his information though. The warrior only told Brandon that if they ever take this thing to the borders at the South or the distant South, the consequences would catastrophic. The warrior even told Brandon that their experiment did not go wrong was because they were lucky. They might not be that lucky if there would be a second time though.

“I don’t force you to believe me…”

“No, I believe you.”

Joshua wanted to end his explanation by saying that. However, before he could finish his words, he was interrupted by Brandon’s voice.

After listening to the warrior, the blond-haired swordsman who remained silent all the while had responded. He firmly replied the warrior saying that he believed every single word coming out from the warrior’s mouth.

Slowly nodding his head, he seemed to have some thoughts on his mind. After a brief moment, Brandon once again opened his mouth to speak. There, he said, “Is this the knowledge of the Sage’s Legacy… As expected of you, Joshua. You must have obtained part of the legacy from the Azurite, right?”

When Joshua heard what Brandon had to say, he could not help but feel surprised. He had thought that Brandon would have doubted his words. After all, what he said had no source. Not to mention that he only briefly explained it. The warrior intended to wait until the banquet was over before he went along with Brandon to capture a Berserk Dragon in order to test out his own hypothesis. However, he had never expected that Brandon would believe him without even the slightest doubt in his mind.

Meanwhile, from the looks of it, it seemed that a wonderful misunderstanding was caused by his words.

Brandon raised his head and looked into the distant. He then rested his hands on the Dual Blades of Order that were hanging on his waist while he drifted to his past memories. “A few months ago, when I was carrying out the experiment in this lab with the other archmages, my Dual Blades of Order seemed to give rise to an inexplicable resonance all of a sudden. At that time, I wondered why it was behaving that way. But the vibration of these dual blades seemed to be telling me something. There was definitely a person, a man that also possesses a legacy item of the Sage. That man had gone ahead of me and he had attained a deeper level of legacy.”

After Brandon had finished his words, he lowered his head as he looked Joshua in the eyes. He revealed a faint smile by the corner of his mouth as if he was excited to prove his own theory, “There are quite a number of Sage’s Legacy Items in this world. However, I think that only you have the capability to do it… Back in Moldova when we were going up against a Supreme-tier Aragami, you’ve already known the true name of my ‘Dual Blades of Order’ earlier than I did. If that was not because of the Sage’s Legacy, there will not other ways to explain that.”

The logic that he spoke of was perfect—even Joshua could not refute. Because he had indeed acquired the Sage’s Legacy. It just happened today. The warrior had even met the residue of the Sage’s power in the Azurite orb. He had also witnessed the childhood memory of the ancient champion.

Meanwhile, Brandon had kept the ‘Heart of Chaos’. He placed the black crystal that was being sealed by the cylindrical crystal back onto the cabinet. Then he locked the cabinet well. The swordsman sounded a little regrettable though. “I thought we’ve finally found an easy way to handle the draconic beasts… however, it seems that things are not as simple as they appear to be… Thank god that you reminded me after you knew about it through the Sage’s Legacy. Or else if the draconic beasts could really evolve together in one spot because of my mistake, I’ll become a great sinner in history.”

“There’s no need to be so nervous.”

Joshua shrugged as he tried to comfort the swordsman. Right at the moment when the ‘Heart of Chaos’ was placed back onto the shelf of the cabinet, the Azurite orb that was dangling his chest had stopped vibrating as if it had lost its target. “After all, the Chaos crystal in your possession is not really that big. It’s probably not easy for a large number of draconic beasts to evolve at the same time. I’ve only told you about something that is possible to happen in the future.”

The warrior did not intend to explain to the others about the fact that he did not really have too much knowledge from the legacy of the Sage. Well, it would also good to have another way to explain himself if he was ever doubted by some other people. That was not a bad thing at all.

“It’s probably best not to have any possibility at all for that sort of things to happen. As you know, the border in the South is the center point of the Dark Forest. Their pressure is already great as it is now. There’s no need to worsen the situation over there.” Upon shaking his head a little, Joshua laughed and said, “Perhaps you have found a way to connect with the Legacy of the Azurite. But I’ve yet to be able to communicate with my ‘Dual Blades of Order’ after all these time. What a shame for me…”

Having said that, looking at the expression on the face of the blond swordsman, Brandon did not seem like he was feeling self-pity or whatsoever.

However, Joshua had a slight inspiration. He narrowed his gaze and looked at Brandon’s waist. After having some thoughts on his mind, he said, “Brandon, can you show me your blades?”