Soul of Searing Steel

Was it in the hands of my family right from the start?

Joshua was doubtful at first when he heard this information. The Azurite was in the Radcliffe family’s possession right from the start? Then, how do you explain the legacy of the Chaos Guardian which only began 400 years ago?

Although Joshua had tons of questions to ask, he believed that Brandon would explain to him clearly. Thus, he kept silent and listened carefully.

Brandon did not fool around as he recalled something and spoke, “Your ancestors were the same as my clan. There was a glorious period where your ancestors were knights of the empire for generations. However, your ancestors still did not own a territory back then. If it isn’t that your family produces a Gold-tier warrior for each generation, the names of your family would probably long forgotten, devoured by time.”

“Despite having an era of prosperity, there will still come a time where the name of the Radcliffe family will be slowly forgotten. Until the fateful event where the Ancient Dragons triggered the Great Ajax volcano to erupt, the flames and blaze magic caused a disruption in space. This event has caused a temporary malfunction of all teleportation portals between the Empire and Lost Sea.”

This event was known to Joshua as it was written down on the secret letter given by the old butler.

The golden-haired warrior continued to speak, “The king of the era had gathered 200 scouts towards the Great Ajax volcano to determine the existence of the Ancient Dragon—Blazing Black Dragon Alatreon. The group was a Gold-tier army, with Perfect Silver-tier elemental mages being the weakest link in the group. This group of warriors were known to be undefeatable during their era. Even if they were to be attacked by a group of a 100,000, they could easily deal with such threats. Your ancestor was one of the leader for the group. ”

What happened afterwards was quite predictable. The nearest teleportation portal could only deliver items without life forms. It did not have the capability to send humans directly to the spot. The scouting group then traveled by foot all the way to the northern lands. Their effort had made a path directly towards the volcano. They were able to discover that the Ancient Dragon was no longer in the vicinity and proceeded to settle the issue that was brought forth around the volcano.

At the end of it, they had discovered a dimensional path towards the other world and met with the Aragami invasion.

The creatures that brought forth by the Aragami were not vulnerable to magic or combat aura. These monsters were only susceptible towards physical attacks. At first, the scouting team had a huge challenge in terms of dealing with the onslaught. After swapping out their existing equipment, finally, they were able to deal with this monsters easily. Four brave warriors were even successful in invading the borders of the dimensional rift and created havoc within, leaving only dust and destruction in their world.

“The evolution of the Azurite began at that point.”

Brandon’s felt very respectful towards these warriors as he continued speaking, “As the joint forces were destroying the group of Aragami, the Radcliffe’s protective charm, the Azurite suddenly morphed into the shape of a stone and burst into flames. It was then raised into the skies and released a green radiance, the source of Order.”

“The Azurite utilizes the remains of the Aragami as a fuel to burn up itself and releases a strong radiance towards the whole area. The chaos aura around the vicinity vanquished in an instant. The Aragami feared the light and tried to escape from it. Those which did not make it in time were destroyed without any traces left behind.

“… So that’s how my ancestors inherited the will of the Chaos Guardian?”

Joshua frowned and said, “The Blood of Chaos, the Source of the Flame. So that’s what it meant.”

“That’s right. Chaos was the fuel for the Initial Flame of order and brilliance. The Azurite was a part of the legend, a treasure that was extracted by the Sages from the abyss, thus it has similarities to the Initial Flame.”

Brandon explained all the information he knew about the Azurite, in addition to some of the information which Joshua only knew after being verified by the system. “After the Starfall timeline, the new Seven Gods of Humanity had toppled the initial beliefs of the human race. However, they had still left behind the legend of the Sages. Within the records of current human race, the story of Sages and Holy Light were even earlier than the origin of the seven gods. This fact itself had proven that the information about the Sages according to the legends are mostly true.”

“Based on my assumption, the inheritance of the Chaos Guardian were long lost within the history. At a certain point in time, it had landed in the hands of your ancestors. The Mycroft Continent had not face the invasion from the Aragami for a long time, thus the inheritance does not have a chance to awaken. Due to that fact, the Radcliffe family who had known about the legend might have kept this inheritance for themselves.”

Brandon finished most of his explanation. Finally, he stopped for a moment and drank some water. He looked at Joshua who was in his own thoughts and begin speaking, “Look, most of the questions you’ve asked have been answered. If all the event were to be explained in a sequence, it is easier to understand the whole picture rather than having to understand the history part by part.”

The ancestors of Radcliffe had inherited the Azurite, yet they did not know the way to utilize the treasure. Up until 400 years ago when they started disrupting the Aragami’s invasion, then only the existing of the enemy blood, the Aragami triggered the Azurite to recognize the enemy of Order, thus only allowing the Radcliffe to gain the inheritance from it.

“That is correct indeed.”

Joshua nodded as most of the complication had been solved, then he thanked Brandon and said, “However, the legend of the Sages and the Azurite is too long. There is a lot of details that we are still unable to link to the stuff that is happening currently. What I am most concerned right now is the information regarding the edge of the dimensional rift. Is this place a nest of unlimited Aragami only?”

“The information from the legend is not useless. At first, we thought that all the legend were stories about a part of the happenings in the past. But we were wrong, it wasn’t that simple.”

Brandon shook his head in denial, stood up and grab himself another glass of water. After pausing a moment and drank some water, he continued speaking, “In fact, when the Azurite radiated throughout the world and disintegrated the bodies of the Aragami, four of our ancestors had noticed that a strong force from the outer world was heading towards their direction. They decided to retreat back to their original world immediately. On their way back, they accidentally found a stone table and took it back with them as well. Later on, my ancestor, the legendary mage Carbala Kaos, led all the magicians from the Empire to seal off all the passageway to the dimension rift.”

“Due to the fact that there will be a large amount of Aragami attacking the seal once in a while, no one dared to reopen the seal after that. To solve this issue, your ancestors had manufactured Divine Armaments to gain strength and could easily defeat an Aragami of the same rank as the warrior. The Empire’s leader also tried to search around for artifact left by the Sages to fend of the Aragami invasion. My Dual Blades of Order and the White Jade Book that existed before was found it such a way.”

Joshua was still unable to understand the whole case and asked, “All these equipment require to kill a lot of chaos beast as a sacrifice to display their power, just like how the Azurite works. Based on the analysis, these equipment were made before the Starfall timeline; it is probably somewhere between the 300 years of slump during the Glorious Era. The weird part is that we could not cross over the rift with Order powered equipment. However, we cannot defeat the Aragami without these weapons. Unsealing the pathway would pose too much of a risk to this world. We can’t really take the risk just because we are curious about the other side.”

“These are indeed the issues on hand. Just imagine that one of those parasite-type Aragami invades our world, and one had managed to slip through us, this could cause havoc. We can’t take actions that could endanger mankind due to our own curiosity,” said the Warrior.

“That is correct. Being invaded by dimension demon twice, we can no longer predict how chaotic the other world is,” replied Brandon.

Joshua again furrowed his eyebrows. With a serious expression, he said, “Then our current status is very complicated. The Corrupted Black Dragon was infected with chaos energy in some unknown lands and is now heading directly towards the northern dimension rift. This could only mean that the northern dimension seal was not the only entrance for the dimension demon to enter. They had other methods on hand to create havoc… Luckily for us, we have ways to deal with it.”

“What solution?” asked the golden-haired swordsman who was in distress.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Joshua shook his head and looked directly on the wall. His current vision passed straight out of the wall, toward the snowy lands far away and landed on the chaotic dragon.

“Just slay it. Then, every issue that has been bothering us can be solved.”