Soul of Searing Steel

Panda Novel

The storm swept through the earth, causing the trees to tremble and the waves to roll in the southern sea.

In the sea in the far south region, on the gray island Aida, the Sacred Mountain of the Seven Gods which was calm and free from the storms because of the presence of divine spells and divine circles was currently shrouded in cold rain. In the middle of the thunders that rumbled across the sky, the sounds of dragons roaring and the sounds of people shouting as they killed echoed from the island.

Using his hand that was holding a scepter to wipe away the blood that dripped from his forehead, Priest Guevara kicked a smashed wyvern’s head with his foot and leaned against the pillar by the shrine. He breathed heavily and rapidly.

The scent of blood filled his mouth. The war seemed to have come to an end.

In front of the shrine near the island, pieces of the berserk dragons’ remains scattered all over the area. There were also puppets’ body parts among those corpses. The stench of blood and the odor of the decaying bodies of the dragons had fused into a new stench that was unbearably disgusting. Just like the smell of the canned mackerel of the Magere Island, any ordinary men would puke when they caught a whiff of the scent.

However, the strong priest was not affected by the stench at all.

He was already gotten used to the scent of decay.

Ever since the berserk dragons surrounded the Sacred Mountain, battles had been occurring very frequently. The wyverns could not do anything with the divine defense mechanism facilitated by the shrine. The clergy were short on numbers and were incapable of defeating that many draconic beasts. The two sides got into multiple battles everywhere as they attacked and defended against each other, leaving a large number of bodies behind in each battle.

The Gray Island was now full of corpses. The wings and limbs of the dragons were severed from their bodies while their bodies and heads were cut open and scattered all over the place, turning the place that was once sacred into a butcher house. The unbearable stench of blood and decay tainted the peace and holiness of the place.

After recovering a little energy, Guevara lifted his head and looked at all the corpses around him. Then he looked at the sky—lots of wyverns that were bathed in their own blood that was spilled from their own wounds were fleeing into the distance under the lead of a few powerful dragons that were wounded quite badly as well. All of them seemed to have suffered a tremendous loss before they decided to flee from battle. Right behind them were beams of light launched through the divine spells that were deadly and destructive.

The fourth wave of the berserk dragons had also failed to break the defense of the Sacred Mountain today. However, the Priest did not seem to feel even the slightest relief. Instead, he was feeling more bothered that before.

There were approximately a few hundred thousand wyverns near the Sacred Mountains. Even though there were only about a thousand of them, which possessed wisdom and immense power, the Pentashade Dragons were able to gather all their forces and attack their target. They were capable of leveling the great land in the distant south into a flat land. Only those who possessed the strength of Legendary would be able to survive the onslaught of that sort of enemy forces. The Church was able to gain the upper hand at the moment only because those berserk dragons on the frontline were simply sacrifices to exhaust the defense line of the church. They were not the real main forces of the Pentashade Dragons.

It was not Guevara’s first time participating in that defensive war. He had also participated in the previous battle to fend off the giant sea monsters from the dark sea. He even used a divine spell to slay a giant octopus with ten tentacles.

However, the priest had a hunch that the Sacred Mountain would lose this war for the first time.

“Guevara, how many puppet guardians are there leftover there?” An exhausted voice from inside the shrine asked. There was also the chanting of the Intermediate-tier clergy as they maintained the ritual. After hearing the voice of his comrades, the strong and sturdy priest regained his senses and responded loudly, “No more. There was a blue dragon among the berserk dragons. In order to keep its head, there was no longer any divine puppets on the frontline.”

“God damn it, you should have saved some of them when you were using them to defend the line. Those were some Silver-tiers after all!” The voice sounded enraged and blamed him for wasting their resources. However, that man sighed, “Never mind, the ritual is about to be completed. We will be abandoning the post by the outermost border of the shrine and return to the central area of the defense at the shrine.”

So, what kind of ritual were they trying to complete that they had to launch the ritual at all thirteen of the outposts of the west coast of the island? What sort of ritual was so important that they were willing to risk it all to make sure the ritual was completed?

Guevara was not the kind of person who would question the orders that were given to him. Although the central district of the shrine gave them some weird orders, they as the clergy would only need to follow them—in fact, in order to ensure that the mission was completed, the central shrine had sent seventeen Gold-tier priests and holy knights, a great number of Intermediate grade clergy twice the number of the Gold-tier party, and also hundreds of Iron puppet guardians to guard the outposts. That formation of forces was more than capable of balancing both offense and defense on the battlefield by annihilating the berserk dragon led by dragons.

Not to mention that such powerful parties were sent forward just to make sure that the ritual could be completed uninterrupted within half an hour.

In the sky, a light spot suddenly appeared, followed swiftly by four thin red beams of light. The light beams penetrated through the dark clouds and caused some intense explosions. The blazing fire swept the clouds away as hundreds of draconic beasts were killed and thrown from the sky.

Guevara glanced at the place and nodded with appreciation.

It was a cannon blast fired by a reinforcement force sent forward by the Empire—a floating battleship.

Ten days ago, a flying iron battleship broke through the defense of the berserk dragons and came to the top of the Sacred Mountain. It was said that this battleship, Gale, was sent to support the church, courtesy of the Northern Empire. At first, the priest was prejudiced towards the metallic battleship that appeared a little weaker than he expected. He was convinced by his own judgment that the Empire was stingy in providing aid to the Sacred Mountain. However, after witnessing its performances in the battles they fought with its support, his impression on Gale changed.

That floating battleship was indeed defenseless against the raid of the champions. However, it was a powerful weapon against the forces of ordinary berserk wyverns beneath the Gold-tier. Its power was equal to the power of ten Gold-tier priests combined. Its firepower was beyond everyone’s imagination. With forty alchemic cannons raining cannon blasts on the enemy, the battleship instantly took out a few dozens of wyverns.

Besides the cooldown period of ten minutes after launching a full powered attack, the battleship did not seem to have any other weaknesses.

Thanks to the support of that battleship and the puppet guardians, there was no major injuries or death on the Sacred Mountain. Everyone was just exhausted. The base force had yet to sustain any damage.

The icy rain fell upon the earth with the cold winds blowing across the land. The stench of blood and decay had momentarily dispersed from the shrine. Guevara, who was currently guarding the ritual that was carried out by his comrades, suddenly sensed that something was off.

The gray island Aida, where the Sacred Mountain was located, was actually a gigantic Divine Circle. It could control the weather within the area of a thousand square kilometers. Be it the clouds or the rain, every unnatural phenomenon summoned by the Pentashade Dragons to aid their attacks on the Sacred Mountain, would end when the invasion was over.

However, why did the phenomenon stay? Didn’t the fourth wave of the attacks ended a while ago?

“The fifth wave is coming! Prepare to engage the enemies!” A thunderous roar came from the other shrine not far from this one. “The ritual is about to be completed! Just hang on for another few seconds!”

“—God damn it! Those bastards!” After hearing the roaring of the dragons, Guevara toughened his spirit and lifted the scepter in his hand. He looked at the black shadows that were flying rapidly across the sky above him. Light particles began to float around his body as he let out a loud roar, “There is no end to this!”

The shrine that was tainted with the blood of the dragons had also begun to emit light. The divine circle crafted within it seemed to be responding to holy light that appeared around priest’s body as it formed into layers of translucent barriers.

In the dark clouds, berserk dragons appeared. There were a few dragons among the berserk dragons. They seemed to be giving commands to the other berserk dragons. Most of the draconic beast charged at the peak of the Sacred Mountains and the Central Shrine Distinct. There were also a small number of berserk dragons charging at the shrines that were scattered all over the island.

Hundreds of berserk dragons swarmed toward the shrine that was guarded by Guevara. He furrowed brows instantly and slammed the bottom end of his scepter solidly on the ground. A ray of light that in the shape of a ring spread from the bottom of the scepter.

Chanting was heard behind his back. A strange power came from the thirteen shrines. A gigantic blue door emerged on the western shore.

Guevara did not have the time to pay attention to the giant door above his head. All of his attention was on the ferocious gigantic lizards before him. The priest was controlling the divine circle of the entire shrine and was ready to receive the impact from his enemies.

However, the impact that he expected did not come.

The blue dimensional door was completely formed when the draconic beasts charged towards the priest and the shrine. A tall, giant ark appeared on the ground.

— Boom!!!

The heavily damaged ark fell to the ground from a few meters as the impact created a powerful shockwave, causing the dirt to tremble so violently. Even the Berserk wyverns roared in shock. They turned around and flew back to the sky, ready to charge at their enemies once again.

“What in the Seven Gods is this—”

Guevara was also shocked by the sudden appearance of the ark. He inhaled sharply out of shock. He had no idea what would the ritual he had been guarding do. So he was not prepared for the sudden appearance of the giant ark—the ark was also carrying a weak presence of the Dark Abyss, making the priest feel very unsettled.

The purifying ability of the Sacred Mountain had easily cleansed the presence of Dark Abyss from the ark. The fluctuation of the Order energy waves from the glowing fire right above the ark had also made Guevara understood that the huge ark actually belonged to the church. He who possessed an agile mind was about to understand that the ritual performed by his fellow comrades was to summon this ark back to the Sacred Mountain at all cost.

However, it was not the time to think about that. A strangely powerful wyvern seized the perfect timing and charged at the priest when he was distracted by the sudden appearance of the ark.

The dragon’s charge was one of the most difficult attacks for anyone to dodge. The gigantic body of the dragon leaned onto its gigantic mass and penetrated most of the protective barriers of the priest. Even a Gold-tier warrior would have to be very cautious to prevent from losing balance after that sort of impact. With a cracking sound, the translucent barriers on the outer surroundings of the shrine were shattered. The mutated wyvern charged straight at Guevara, who only managed to respond to the attack, after being distracted by the ark.

The priest felt his chest tighten. He knew that he was most probably going to die the moment he was hit.

However, a gigantic metallic board was instantly thrown right towards the wyvern, a split second from ramming into the priest. That wyvern was then struck by the metallic board and was pushed by the momentum of the flying metallic board. After the metallic board hit the wall of the shrine not far away from the priest, a thunderous rumbling echoed.

“… Huh?”

Blinking his eyes, the strong priest shivered as his eyes widened. He looked at the spot where the metallic board landed—the remaining half the mutated wyvern’s body was twitching while the other half had been crushed flat by the metallic board. Cracks spread on the wall of the shrine, which was undamaged after multiple battles, as half the shrine shook violently.

In the middle of the sky, hundreds of the berserk dragons saw the opportunity. However, they did not launch their attacks. Instead, they fled as if something terrible had happened. That was the first time Guevara had ever seen the draconic beasts without consciousness so terrified.

Those draconic beasts did not manage to escape in time. Suddenly, a trail of black and red Combat Aura flew from the wrecked ark. It moved at a high speed. With a few flashes, half the wyverns were split into half. The bodies of the dragons oozed dragon blood as they fell towards the ground one after another.

Multiple beams of light beams condensed and merged with holy light and launched into the sky, annihilating the remaining wyverns—noticing the strange occurrence, another horde of wyverns appeared with a few dragons in the front. They flew rapidly towards the west side of the island and were ready to destroy all the shrines around that region of the island.

However, while they were flying toward their targets, the entire army of the wyverns instantly turned in another direction and flew around for a while, holding themselves from attacking rashly. The dragons that were leading in front looked each other. All of them with consciousness could feel a chill down their spines.

At that time, a party came out from the ark.

Two holy knights and a nun. The human who was leading them was a warrior with black hair and red eyes.

Joshua looked into the sky as he looked at the wyverns and the lightning. He felt a little doubtful as he brushed his chin, “Have the berserk dragons launched their final attack? Not so soon, right?’

The typhoon in the distance had yet to rise. The divine circles of the Sacred Mountain had yet to be suppressed by the force of nature. As long as the berserk dragons were still sane, they would definitely not attack the strongly fortified Sacred Mountain.

However, the current situation was bad. The warrior stood on the ark as he looked around him from higher ground. There were many corpses of berserk dragons scattered all over the place. There were parts of wrecked puppet guardians scattered among them as well.

The church’s puppet guardians were powerful puppets constructed with divine spells. Each of them required an extremely low cost to create and the materials required to construct them were just some refined steel and one surgical core. These puppets took the form of a human. They possessed the strength of an Upper Silver-tier. They never fear death. Besides the fact that they cannot be mass produced and that only a high tier priest could make them, there seemed to have no weakness about them.

Currently, thousands of destroyed puppet guardians laid around the place. That number of puppets was already the number the Sacred Mountain could store in a year. Truth to be told, the church would not have made so many puppet guardians without anyone’s order.

“The Sacred Mountain and the berserk dragons are testing each other at the frontline of the battlefield.”

Saya took a step forward. Her body was lit up with a pattern of golden light, she looked just like a painting of a beautiful angel. A halo floated above her head. She was charged with an immense amount of holy light. “It seems that we have arrived at a very bad timing.”

“No, isn’t this the perfect timing?”

Joshua and the two holy knights looked at each. Then the three of them instantly smiled, “So, are you all done resting now?”

“You have just battled Mandagar with your full strength. We should be the ones asking you,” the blond-haired holy knight answered calmly. Because he was being suppressed by the presence of the brain-eating worm in his head, he was not able to support the warrior during the battle with the Crystalline Abyssal Dragon. He had been feeling dissatisfied for a while now and intended to rant, “Or perhaps you could rest this time and let us handle these flying pests.”

Without responding to the holy knight, the warrior waved his hand and slaughtered a dozen more berserk wyverns in the sky.

In the next second, he leaped into the air and flew straight into the sky.

Crush!

In an instant, masses of red mist exploded among the observing berserk dragons. One after another the wyverns were sliced and crushed by an invisible mighty force. There weren’t even much remaining of their crushed bodies to begin with. Their spilled blood flowed with wind before they dispersed away.

Only a few dragons among the wyverns were able to see a dark shadow flying back and forth among the wyverns as it slaughtered the berserk dragons one by one.

In that instant, it felt like time had stopped. All the dragons could see was that the warrior appeared behind a dozen berserk wyverns while throwing punched at the wyverns. Bloody mist exploded everywhere. Purplish blood of the dragons oozed as their draconic scales scattered all over the place. Their flesh burst open as wounds covered the surface of their skin. The bodies of the wyverns were crushed into pulp by a tremendous force.

A millisecond later, the bursting airwaves were wrapped in the stench of the dragons’ blood as they instantly turned into red wind.

“Supreme!”

“Supreme-tier warrior!”

“What is going on?! Why is there suddenly a Supreme-tier warrior here?! Aren’t all of the human champions on the Sacred Mountain under the strict monitor of our scouts?! How did this man just suddenly appear?!”

The appearance of the warrior was not what crushed their spirits. It was the appearance of the second and the third flashes of holy light. Robzek and Roland had also flown into the sky and killed the dragons. The high-temperature light beams fused with the divine combat aura had blown up the wyverns and reduced them to dust. Even one of the dragons who received the command of the berserk dragons had been slain within seconds by the combined attack of the two holy knights.

Saya walked up to the shrine and assumed the authority to command the divine formation from Guevara, who appeared stoned by what just happened. Then she began to weave a gigantic divine circle which restrained over hundreds of wyverns and pulled them down to the ground. The impact from the falling dragons caused dust and sand to float all over the place.

“Two! Two Supreme-tier beings! Clear out! Clear out at once!”

“Something’s not right! We have to go back and get reinforcements!”

“This is an ambush!”

Under the command of the dragons, the berserk dragons turned around and began to panic. They were planning to flee now. Those dragons, which were scared to the core, flew rapidly in an attempt to leave the dreadful region of the island.

However, before they could escape any further, two cold lights flashed from the direction of the Sacred Mountain and pointed straight at the shrine.

In the next instant, the cold lights penetrated two dragons and left a great explosion of red mist behind. The lights flashed pass both sides of the warrior and plunged into the ground.

The warrior seemed to be a little shocked as he stopped pursuing the fleeing wyverns. He lowered his head to look at the spot where the two lights landed. The warrior stared at them for a brief moment before a smile broke out on his face.

He flew towards the two cold lights.

It was a greatsword and a greataxe. The two gigantic weapons were so huge that ordinary people would not be able to lift them. They plunged into the pathway before the shrine, vibrating slightly as if calling out to their master.

“Slaughtering the weak is not a battle I’m fond of. This sort of slaughtering always stays the same no matter how many times you try.”

Walking to the two weapons and lifting them, Joshua gripped tightly onto the handles of the greatsword and the greataxe with both his hands. Then he spoke gently to both of his weapons, which had waited for a very long time for this, “Would you feel bored and tired of it?”

“Of course not.”

The voices of the girl and the boy responded to the warrior at the same time.

“As long as we are together with you, we will never have any problem with any battle, Master.”

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