Soul of Searing Steel

Though the dimensional passage between two worlds can easily be blocked or sealed, it could never be truly severed or destroyed.

Which was why Joshua and Roland did not panic when they noticed that the dimensional door was reduced to nothing by the light beam they encountered earlier. The holy knight sighed as he stared at the dimensional rift above the pool of magma. He shook his head and complained, "It seems that we are going to stay here for quite a while. If I have anticipated the thrill of venturing into an outer world, I would have brought my armor with me."

"I too have yet to fully equip my armor. Who would have thought that we would end up in an outer world tainted by the corrupted Chaos?"

Joshua shrugged as he never anticipated that he would go through such bizarre experiences. The moment he stepped foot into a new outer world, he was greeted with a light cannon attack, the 'Radiance of Judgment', launched by the Chaos. And now, they have to wait for over ten days or even months before the dimensional door recovered again. He lifted his head to the sky and said, "Roland, perhaps we should be more vigilant starting from now."

He could not help but feel the need to be more careful. After so many years of going on adventures, this was the first time that he almost got completely obliterated.

"… It is really incredible to hear those words from you, Joshua…"

Without letting the sarcasm bother him, the warrior continued to speak his mind, "In order to prevent the enemy from launching that sort of spells, you and I should be aware at all times. We need to use the power of Holy Light and Order with caution. Ying and Ling, you two should take note of that too. Although you two do not possess these powers, both of you will surely have some of those powers on you for staying by me all these years."

"Yes, Master."

"Roger, Master."

The young girl and boy nodded their heads in response.

Joshua decided on what to do next. He looked south where the capital city of Babel Province was and decisively told everyone his plan, "Let's head towards this direction. I can sense a great presence of Chaos… of course, and my horse…"

Since the dimensional door had collapsed after being struck by a powerful energy, instead of staying here and wait, why not get over to the horse which has obviously lost its way and bring it back? Furthermore, the presence of Chaos in that direction was strong. Joshua was a little worried about Black.

Truth to be told, Black was, indeed, not in a good situation at all.

A large cluster of shadows, packed densely together, emerged from the dark clouds that covered the sky. There were purplish lightning seen flashing in the clouds due to the sudden upsurge of the Magic density in this world. And because of the lightning, the endless stream of aerial golems were seen with every flash of lightning. They were flying towards the capital city of the Babel Province like a tidal wave rushing towards the shore. There were also some tremendously huge aerial golems among the horde that are headed straight towards the city. Those gigantic monsters appeared like flying whales. Some of the golems looked like they were being put together with all sorts of random things and a pair of wings stuck onto their backs. Regardless of whether they were small or huge, normal or bizarre, all of them were like an enormous horde of locusts that devoured everything in their way, filled with gluttonous intents, as they headed, at full speed, towards the city.

Almost instantaneously, these monsters arrived right above the capital city of the Babel Province. The crossfire between the two sides sparked. The Confederation army had armed themselves to defend the city against any airborne units long before the battle was about to explode. However, because the volcanic dragon had defended the city against the aerial golems a little too well earlier on, their air defense had not been used up until this point. But now that the Volcanic Dragon was occupied with four golden golems it was all up to the elves to defend against the air units by themselves.

The battles of a higher intensity have begun all over the city. Along with raging roars and intimidating battle cries, the cannonballs were blasted at the shells of the golems, which were as tough as rocks. The power of magic crystals was continuously blasting the steel cannonballs and the explosives out of the gun and cannon barrels, tearing the bodies of the monsters apart. At the battlefield, a large-scale golem was being crushed and destroyed with every passing second. However, the fortresses were also destroyed in the process. The daemons were reduced into scattered rocks as the warriors of the elves turned into shredded flesh and blood and spewed all over the ground.

Golems were similar to the creatures like Clay Puppets or the Rock Puppets that could be created by the mages. Or perhaps, there was no difference at all between the golems and the puppets besides the fact that the golems could split themselves into smaller golems under the influence of some mysterious power.

For mages, a puppet that could split by itself would be the best masterpiece to guard their homes and other significant properties. If they could have a puppet like that to themselves, they would not need to spend their time making a puppet. As long as they could program their Puppet to the way they wanted the puppet to be, it would duplicate itself. However, the regrettable thing about it was that the mages could only satisfy themselves by summoning the puppet of the lowest grade, the Mud Puppet. The golems were different. Regardless of whether they were Iron-tier, Mithril-tier or Adamantine-tier, all of them were equipped with the ability to duplicate themselves. The only difference was that they needed time to duplicate themselves. The magic technology that was embedded within the golems were completely unimaginable to anyone in this world.

These powerful golems with the ability to duplicate themselves could already be deemed as a force that could annihilate an entire world—a force worthy to be labeled as a civilization.

The sound of the cannons and the trembling footsteps of the golems were heard across the battlefield. The fragile flesh and blood of the elves, which were scattered all over the ground, were mixed with the fragments of the broken rocks. Everything seemed to have gone through the meat grinder. The battle had reached its peak. The Elven Confederation was slowly collapsing. The fortresses by the outskirts of the city had mostly been destroyed by the golems. Many of the buildings in the capital city of Babel Province had collapsed as well. Half of the city was laid to waste. Even if they could fend off the golem force this time, they would require decades to rebuild everything in the city. The only question that remained—would they win this battle?

Above the sky, even the whistling winds were muted, leaving only the rumbling sounds of artilleries being continuously fired. The heavy footsteps of the golems and the miserable screams and groans of the dying elves filled the air at the battlefield. Shortly after, a long, thunderous roar of a dragon was heard over the other noise.

A beam of red light shot across the battlefield. The light beam carried high heat and hit one of the golden golems, which was already suffered quite an amount of damage. The surface of its shiny body is covered in scratches inflicted by claws. So its shell no longer had the ability to deflect any sort of attacks. In one brief instant, the golem exploded into ashes and dust.

Black took a heavy breath as it stood in the middle of the ruins. It was currently surrounded by many monsters. After knocking down some Mithril-tier golems, it leaped onto the roof of a building and looked down at the battlefield from high above. It intended to launch another dragon's breath. The core in its chest glowed brightly. Just at that moment, another Adamantine-tier golem emerged behind it and pounced onto Black, trapping Black and collapsing the whole building.

The weights of the two enormous beings were so heavy that the building was crushed into pieces. After suffering such a powerful hit, Black fixed its eyes at the space in front of it and stared blankly. Its draconic eyes lost focus for a moment—the weight of the Adamantine-tier golem was simply too much for it to comprehend. Even a Titan Colossus was not as heavy as that and Black could barely endure this weight.

The other golems saw the chance and all of them charged at Black. They charged at an alarming speed, intending to crush Black to its death. The weight of the Adamantine-tier golem firmly locked Black to the ground.

"Roar!"

Black could sense its own death approaching. It roared in rage as it attempted to escape. Countless lines of patterns that seemed like magma emerged all over the black shell of the draconic horse, starting from the tip of its head all the way down to the tip of its tail. The bright red light radiated back and forth across the lines and patterns across its body. Suddenly, a horrible high heat radiated from its body and melted the earth beneath it into a lava pit and Black started to sink into the lava.

The Adamantine-tier golem remained its posture in an attempt to lock Black onto the ground. As a puppet, it had yet to possess intelligence to analyze the situation. In the meantime, other golems lunged at Black, pushing Black deeper into the lava pit.

However, there was no longer any sign of Black in the lava pit. Not far from the pit, an area of the ground suddenly turned lava red. Suddenly, the draconic horse, which was shrouded with the clouds of fire element, broke out of the ground that had completely turned into lava. With both of its claws digging into the ground, it launched an extremely high heat dragon's breath in rage.

The regular golems, which gathered in one place, were instantly annihilated. The Adamantine-tier golem had submerged into the lava pit. The lava pit that was created by Black's enormous amount of magic energy then cooled down swiftly, trapping the golem in the ground.

Black did not hesitate breaking the golem into pieces. After it was done with the golem, it could not help but feel all four of its limbs weaken. It almost lied down flat on the ground from exhaustion. The Fire Element energy that was charging up Black's entire body dissipated into the surrounding. The golden red lava turned black rapidly.

After slaughtering more than just a dozen of Adamantine-tier golems and countless normal golems, Black did not have any energy left in it even though it had inherited the bloodline of the Ancient Dragon, Smelting Black Dragon. Its firepower was about to hit the bottom of its tank. However, the golems remained on course of their invasion as they endlessly gushed out of the through the streets in the city. They were also emerging from the other side of the horizon. The number of these monsters were yet to be reduced. At first, there were only a few thousands of them descending from the sky. But now, it seems that there were at least tens of thousands of them on the battlefield. Not to mention that their number had become more than just double.

Black shook its head and took a deep breath. Denser magic energy in the atmosphere allowed the golems to duplicate themselves. However, it also allowed Black to recover its strength a little faster. After recovering some of its strength, Black, once again, stepped up as it made its way to the other sites that needed its support in slaughtering the golems. At that time, there was a large number of aerial golems flying towards a direction. Some of them have noticed the presence of Black in the near. They deviated from the direction they were initially headed and charged straight at the draconic horse.

—There is no end to these goddamn monsters!

The draconic horse felt a little out of breath. It had finally felt what its master felt and understood the disgust on his face every time he spoke of Chaos. If the number of all of the Chaos armies were unreasonably high, then it would really disgust anyone until they popped a vein.

The black shell across the body of Black remained strong and tough as it had yet to suffer too much damage. It was tough enough to resist the magma and the underground pressure. However, the muscle tissues and internal organs beneath its shell have suffered quite some heavy damage. The fists of the golems might not be able to break through the tough shell of Black, however, the impact of the attacks could penetrate through the shell and hurt the flesh and bones beneath the shell. In the face of the aerial golems that were coming at it, Black did not panic. These monsters were not that powerful. Black knew that it could slaughter them all with ease. It might even kill a few at the same time with just one fling of its claw if it got lucky.

Suddenly, a strong spiritual presence swept across the entire city.

Just like how a typhoon set off a huge wave and how earthquakes set off a tsunami, the powerful spiritual power assaulted the souls of everyone in the vicinity. Most of the elven soldiers collapsed on the spot and some of them have even started to go crazy. For those who were in better conditions, they also suffered as they saw illusions flashing before their eyes. Their hearts were beginning to be overwhelmed with negative emotions.

Black also felt that its heart was behaving abnormally for a brief moment. And for that one moment of distraction, Black suffered another pounce-attack from a Mithril-tier golem. Its rage burned through the fear it felt from the presence that overcame the city. The draconic horse raised its claw and tore its enemy into pieces. However, even though Black could break free of the influence of that spiritual presence, the other elves were not capable of doing so. Just as the elves were stunned by the spiritual attack, the golems, which were not affected by it at all, have charged into the defense line of the elves. Because of that, the golems had broken through a large block of defenses. In just a blink of an eye, the golems have charged into the last line of defense right before the sanctuary. The golems could even see the entrance that led down straight to the underground sanctuary.

However, Black already lost its energy to even pay attention to those things. Its draconic golden pupils were contracting as it stared at something beyond the clouds.

The purplish magic lightning was seen stretching and branching across the distant sky. In the gloomy dark sky, a silver glow that seemed a little odd, suddenly appeared.

That odd silver light was in a humanoid form. It was an existence with a body that is formed merely from rays of light. Its entire body looked hollow. The only thing visible across its entire body was the Magic Circle that appeared similar to a light wheel that was rotating very slowly. Each oscillation of the light wheel unleashed a powerful wave of spiritual attack into its surroundings.

Vaguely in between the gaps of the spiritual attacks, the half-draconic beast could hear a bizarre voice.

"The Autonomic Puppets have failed to carry out their mission."

A screech akin to the sound of glass and metal rubbing against each other that could cause dizziness was heard. "Now, Harmonic Interface No.7 (HI7) shall initiate the mission to eradicate the pest."