Soul of Searing Steel

Chapter 549: Omen

“Calm down, Brandon. What happened to little Remy and Flan?”

Joshua had quickly noted the main issue at hand with a single glance—instead of the Dual Blades of Order the blond swordsman mentioned, the man panicking as he did now was entirely due to the fact that his two daughters were unconscious. To the swordsman famous for his valor who also once fought orcs and cultists, Brandon would have at most be shocked for a moment even if his Sage’s Legacy vanished one day, before composing himself to think of a solution. But now that it concerned his daughters, he was now unwittingly anxious.

“I don’t know… It seems that they’re asleep, but they can’t be awakened regardless.”

Beside them, Vale Dani did not lose her composure like Brandon, although worry remained apparent on her face. “Though there’s no risk at the moment, it’s still not alright for them to sleep like this. Brandon found out that it was because both Remy and Flan played with his Twin Blades out of curiosity, and the only way we thought of was to ask if you had come across similar situations.”

Brandon nodded and drew out the weapons by his hip. The plain, undecorated and old Legacy blades were now emitting two silver, pure radiances, connected respectively but imperceptibly with a ‘ray’ to the two cute little girls and appeared to be the reason both were unconscious.

Joshua nodded. “I mostly understand now,” he said, before turning towards Brandon with a doubtful question. “But why would the kids be able to touch your weapons? It should have been by your side in any given moment—you even mentioned last time that you even hug it in your sleep.”

Though outsiders would not be able to tell, Joshua, Brandon, and Vale Dani were close. The two families often organization private cocktail parties to kill time.

“It’s certainly that way when I sleep alone, but—” Brandon blinked and abruptly switched gears as the red-faced Vale Dani prodded him with her foot. “Joshua, your Sage’s Legacy awakened much earlier than I did and should know by now the way to control these creations of the last era. Could you tell what’s the problem?”

“I understand most of it, in fact.” Joshua nodded at Brandon’s question, telling nothing but the truth. Unlike Brandon, the Azurite in his heart had already turned into a part of the reignited flames from his visit to the world of Grandia, but the most important ‘Searing Crown’ Authority remained in his body, and through that energy which the Sage had blessed him with he could at once see the truth behind the fainting which left even the couple helpless—clearly, the two children Remy and Flan had fallen into the memories of the Sage like he did initially. Since they were not Brandon—the current heir—they did not have the ability to react subsequently after the memories were activated, and hence unable to wake up.

“They should be playing in a dreamland now.”

It was clear from the girls’ expression that they were not suffering from their dreams, especially with that occasional smile of theirs. After thinking it for a few moments, Joshua gave a suggestion.

“There are two solutions. First, I sever their link with the Dual Blades which basically guarantees that they wake up immediately, although they would feel a little pain that is about the same as being jolted awake from a nightmare. Second, you could try linking to the blades. They are your Sage’s Legacy after all—your daughters are merely accidentally pulled in thanks to having your bloodline. When you, the true owner arrives, it would definitely ignore your daughters and drag you into a dream state instead.”

“Don’t worry. It’s just a necessary step for the Legacy, there won’t be any adverse effects.”

Having heard Joshua’s suggestions, Brandon drew out the blades with no hesitation once more, and frowned, clenching the hilts tightly as if trying his best to communicate with his weapons. To a family man like him, it was impermissible even for his daughter to have nightmares—even words of decline appeared to be excess. Vale Dani, meanwhile, watched her husband. She probably believed that Brandon could smoothly solve the issue, and so did not appear too worried.

Concern breeds entanglement, huh. There was clearly nothing for him to do even as Joshua looked on—indeed, if Brandon could calmly analyze the situation, his ability would certainly have allowed him to easily sense how fragile the link between the blades and his two daughters was. It was extraordinarily simple whether he chose to sever or substitute himself in the link, but it was precisely because he was Brandon that he could not do such a ‘simple’ matter.

Come to think of it, if the quest of the Azurite vanished without a trace after reigniting the Flame Seed and only left the Authority of the King of Searing Soul, what quest was there for the other Sage’s Legacy?

In the world of Grandia, the robes of Hillya, a dragon-girl with mixed ancestry had transmuted into a tremendous magical formation that complemented the Tinder, carrying it back to the world of Mycroft and should have disappeared entirely by now too. On the other hand, the Dual Blades of Order and the Bright Scepter did not, which certainly meant that there were still incomplete missions.

—Perhaps I should ask Brandon when he’s finished.

At the thought, Joshua gestured for Vale Dani so that she and the blond swordsman enter the liege’s residence. If Brandon simply lay down out here when his linking proved successful and fall briefly into a dream state, it would be really ungainly.

Having settled Brandon and the others, Joshua paced around alone at the second floor of the liege’s residence. He was rather idle recently with virtually nothing to do since there was nothing he had to manage as the liege of his entire domain. On the lowest level, each village head and mayor were managing things daily, while tax collectors and legions of knights were naturally present to handle daemons. At present, due to the Great Mana Tide, even the Moldavian knights could wipe out any Gold-tier beast that appeared—Joshua effectively had no chance to act unless it was a Supreme-tier monster.

And those were rare even during the Great Mana Tide. Being leaders that were only next to Legendary beasts, they were considered Elders even amongst the dragons. In fact, there could have been one or two of them in the depths of the Great Ajax Mountains, although they should have migrated by now. Beasts of such level already had intelligence equal to humans—perhaps surpassing them—which was why they were not so foolish as to be neighbors with a Legendary champion.

Just as he arrived by the stairs between the second and first floor, a tranquil undulation of Order power wafted from the guest room. Joshua nodded—Brandon formed the link a lot quicker than he thought, and it seemed that the motivating force that was his daughters would allow him to awaken some ten years ahead of schedule.

Come to think of it, the Sage was no demon—such a will to protect was definitely more apt than any other passive emotion to awaken the Legacy. In the pre-existence, perhaps it was because he wanted to defend the world against the Abyssal invasion that he would resonate with the Dual Blades of Order.

But just as Joshua was prepared to head for the first floor, an extraordinarily malevolent and sinister presence suddenly wafted from the guest room behind that serene Order power ripple. The presence was so evil and corrupt that it appeared to be assembled out of all the sins in this world.

In the very instant he sensed it, Joshua turned and reached Brandon’s guest room in time at all before crashing straight to the wall. Catching Vale Dani’s collar as she prepared to counteract with a spell with one hand and the two daughters who were sleeping soundly with the other, Joshua brought the tree of them to the streets outside the walls of the liege’s residence. Then, in the next three seconds, he ran in and out of the manor and threw out every nonplussed person, including the black dragon girl, the luminous orb, Ling, Ying, and every house servant out of the residence. Then, he returned to the second-floor of the residence and briskly kicked Brandon several hundred meters up in the air, striking a hole through the roof.

The swordsman, holding a blade in each hand, was emanating two distinctly different presence, one being of the good and the other evil.

“What on earth is this?”

It was only now that Joshua had the time to consider what happened to the swordsman. Despite being kicked rather reservedly by him, Brandon neither reacted nor dropped and simply hung in the air as if losing all weight. There was an immeasurably profound power that shielded his body, separating him from every external force. Joshua could sense that the Dual Blades of Order appeared to be subjugating something within—that something had emitted that corrupt and malevolent presence precisely because Brandon had entered the Sage’s dream state and the ripples from the blades were gradually unsealed.

It’s not very strong, Joshua thought in a brief moment, but it shouldn’t be simply allowed to unleash itself.

So, he quickly made a choice that yielded three results.

With a dull boom, the snow clouds over the liege’s residence were blasted away in a halo shape, where Brandon was punched some twenty kilometers away from the heart of that halo and vanished at the end of the horizon. Having controlled his power output to ensure that the punch did not hurt him and was enough to temporarily disperse the corrupted presence and that the liege’s residence was not affected by the source which was now sent flying, Joshua accelerated as well and flew towards Brandon’s body.

On the ground, the two girls who coincidentally opened their dazed eyes in the embrace of the gaping Vale Dani. They instinctively looked at once to the skies, blinking and muttering doubtfully with their delicate voices.

“Eh?”

“Daddy… is flying?”

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Minutes ago, in the guest room of the liege’s residence.

After Brandon had Vale Dani bring their two daughters to some distance away from himself, he took a deep breath and unsheathed the Dual Blades of Order, placing them above a desk in the guest room.

It was a sacred object passed down over centuries within the Kaos family.

Brandon had a complicated expression as he stared at the two blades that gleamed in dull silver and white. He stroked their scabbards, his movements gentle yet careful.

Though their origins were a mystery, the endowment of the Sage’s Legacy was traceable. For example, in the books that were long destroyed from the fires of war and migration, the primeval history of the Starfall Era was recorded, carrying documentation of the Legacies. The precursor of the Kaos family had precisely handed that part of history to his descendants, a fact that Brandon remembered only too well.

Around a thousand years ago, the perplexed pioneers who knew nothing stepped out from the underground shelters and faced a completely unfamiliar world and a dangerous environment that were now all savage forests. Against the endless onslaught of daemons, the pioneers could only strive to survive by relying upon divine shelters, an in that period, the Sage’s Legacy was first chronicled in text.

[The first person was ‘Suo’. The sun’s envoy, she holds the scepter of power and wields the power to command light and flames. The swarm of southern forest beasts retreated in the face of light from the searing sun, the draconic hordes of the swamp turned into ash from the inferno.]

[The second person was ‘Da’. Lightning incarnate, he brandishes dual blades and wields the speed and edge that tears all things apart. The snake demons’ blood flooded the West Mountain Hills, the talons of Ancient Dragons were sliced by it.]

[The third person was ‘Yi’. Master of the mountains, he stood aloft over the land and wields the power of imperishable body and will. The Northern frost wyrms were banished to the edge of the land, steel behemoths were defeated by its fists.]

Those three stanzas of heroic description were compiled as an anthology of psalms. It was easy to tell that those were the three Legacies left behind in the world of Mycroft—the first wielders of the ‘Bright Scepter, the ‘Dual Blades of Order’ and the ‘Azurite’. They were spread over different corners of the land and yet possessed a power that comforted the hearts of the masses as well as banished all corruption.

At present, the Bright Scepter of the Far South was now the regalia that every generation of pontiffs carried amidst a millennium of chaos. The Dual Blades of Order were lost to the mob as the Diamond Family led a great migration to the North due to torment from the warlock dynasty, but was finally procured by the precursor of the Kaos family who had a great passion for collecting artifacts. On the other hand, the Azurite gradually became anonymous no thanks to its special appearance and requirements for awakening—it was until the rise of Count Radcliffe, its current heir that it regained public consciousness.

Nevertheless, each had followed the human race through a long baptism of the river called time. Following the tumultuous shift of history, they were no longer merely weapons or Legacy objects left behind by the Sage—they were blades of glory, carrying the immeasurable labors in which humans conquered all nature and calamity as well as the will of bygone wisemen and heroes.

By what virtue and ability would I resonate with the Dual Blades of Order and inherit the true Legacy of the Sage?

The very thought left Brandon a little shaken inside, although it was quickly stifled by the swordsman. He grasped the hilts of both blades determinedly, the thick scabbards slowly pushed by aura and leaving the edges, finally dropping to the floor and displaying the body of the dazzling dual blades that appeared to be assembled out of light.

Instead of self-doubting out of past glory, why not take it and set accomplishments that precursors could never hope to compare. Brandon revered those heroes and wisemen, but fear and respect were two different things—he never believed himself to be any inferior than any single one of them, and what he lacked was merely time and stability, and was hence convinced that he definitely could make a Legend and feat that belonged to himself.

“Heed my call.”

Crossing the blades before his chest, Brandon closed his eyes and soon his spirit plummeted into a dark environment amidst the crisp sound as if glasses were broken. The dual blades too glimmered in an obscure radiance—two streaks of light arcs entered Brandon’s body to form two great turbulent streams of energies in the shape of Mobius Strips, the two colors silver and white illuminating the dark space.

Shone upon by the light, Brandon felt immeasurable calm and comfort—it was the power of order, the light which banishes or corruption and erosion. The swordsman felt that he never approached the essence of the Dual Blades of Order so closely, those two tides of Holy Light that flowed in an infinite cycle surged without rest in the dark, and at the edge where darkness and light touched was the hazy silhouette of a person.

Brandon’s breathing paused for the moment he saw the silhouette, his heart throbbing. In the dozen years past where he embraced the dual blades as he slept, he often dreamt of that silhouette albeit forgetting it every time he awakened. But now, every memory of it had been refreshed. An instinct as a Successor told him that it was the shadow of the Sage—touching him and talking to him would allow him to utterly grasp the dual blades, just as how Joshua mastered the Azurite.

The swordsman advanced with no hesitation. In an illusory spiritual realm such as this, advancing required not physical strength but stalwart will. Even if Brandon’s pace was slow it was immeasurably firm with not one step back or hesitation. As time passed, he slowly closed in on that illusory silhouette and saw that the Sage’s shadow had his hands clasped behind and his back to him as if he was suppressing and sealing something.

Suppressing? Sealing?

Somehow, Brandon became vigilant at once as the two words flashed in his mind. He took a look at the darkness around him and found in astonishment that traces of dark yet malevolent fog rises from the ground with every step he made. Now, he was just a few paces away from the silhouette of the Sage, and yet the spreading and corrupt black air had occupied more than half the illusory space, obscuring even the light emanating from the Dual Blades of Order.

Even as he was left in shock, Brandon promptly noticed that the dark fog did not exist as a mirage in the illusory realm. It was spreading towards the real world with him as the source, and as such he widened his eyes, sensing that a cluster of the dark fog had assimilated with the air around and extended towards his two daughters who had just awakened even as Vale Dani looked on doubtfully.

“Damn it! Stop!

Turning towards the darkness with no pause and stopping his approach to the silhouette of the Sage, Brandon clenched his fist in the mirage and bellowed as he focused his spirit to bind the unknown fog that was spreading from his body. Though he knew not what the essence of the fog was, its evil and corrupt presence definitely was nothing good. As a father, the swordsman would never easily allow that thing to touch his children!

It was assuredly effective. The dark fog paused for a moment; it kept spreading albeit ten times slower. Brandon, however, did not relax because Vale Dani and the children had not left the building. His wife was even frowning at the abnormality, putting down the two girls and prepared to approach and have a look.

Don’t mind me, run! Brandon’s heart roared sonorously but it was of no use. He did his best to control his body in the real world from the illusory one so that he kept his distance but the effect was almost imperceptible—it was the same principle that no one dreaming could deliberately control their body. But just as Brandon was about to give in to despair, a figure wearing a black trench coat crashed through the wall and appeared before him.

Joshua. Brandon’s heart was infinitely relieved when he found out who came—even if that fellow in front of his eyes had no taste at all as a man and stayed clothed in the same style for years, even if that man never understood the pleasures of life, Joshua was unquestionably the most reliable warrior in any moment of danger.

As expected, as Brandon now looked on with ease, Joshua had one way or the other moved Vale Dani and the others away within a single breath and briskly sent himself flying over twenty kilometers away with a kick and a punch.

It was really fucking painful but well done!

Though strictly speaking it was being walloped by another person with one punch and a kick, Brandon was earnestly praiseful over Joshua’s decisiveness. Without any restraint, he could now calm his mind to study the origin of the fog meticulously and the reason it appeared in the Sage’s Legacy.

On the other end, Joshua flew across the air and headed rapidly towards where he sent Brandon flying.

While he was not sure what happened, he acutely sensed in those brief seconds that the corrupted presence streaming out of Brandon was very similar with something he was very familiar with—the condensation of living vengefulness!

Joshua was incomparably familiar it since his body was tangled in endless vengefulness, with hundreds of thousands of soul shards carrying their final wails and encircling him. There had also been another batch added recently—curses from the tens of thousands of demons from the Sixth Abyss. If any Medium wanted to contact Joshua through his soul, they would be eroded by the vengefulness in less than one second and become mentally aberrated if they were not Legendary.

Joshua could only do his best to hold back his presence no thanks to that vengefulness, otherwise every place he went would fall and become a region of absolute despair and madness, to say nothing of interacting normally with ordinary folk. Everyone would go for each other necks amidst the fear and hysteria or cause stampedes as they fled.

And yet, that incredible vengefulness did not compare to the corrupt presence presently wafting from Brandon’s body.

It was the same difference when comparing a mountain and an entire mountain chain.

Arriving where Brandon was, Joshua watched the ground below in the sky. It was a vast ice plain that was covered in snow, with a swamp-like dark domain rapidly spreading. Shadows, unnamable yet extremely twisted were struggling and climbing out from the black swamp. There were ancient evils formed from endless limbs that surround it, ferocious giants that had human bodies and squid-shaped skulls, along with nightmarish squirming things that were composed of viscous liquid with indeterminable shapes.

The ancient evils that vengefulness alone radiated residual vengefulness were roaring silently in the dark swap domain, with Brandon’s motionless body at the center of it all. The once dazzling Dual Blades of Order were now enshrouded in misty darkness and slowly losing their luster. Then, a sight made Joshua inhaled sharply, for he saw a few familiar shadows from the illusion.

Dull crystalline shells, savage bodies that resembled huge insects—those were precisely the minions of the Evil God of Famine, the Crystal Insect Yurmadais! The vengefulness of those Aragami curled their joints and mandibles, unleashing terrible pressure, and undoubtedly had a Legendary ability in life at a bare minimum!

Without hazarding any guess, Joshua could now be positive. Despite not knowing why they would hide within the Dual Blades of Order, these spreading vengefulness was part of a remnant from the many Evil Gods’ creatures that the Sage had slain all those millennia ago! And those terrible shadows were the minions of the many Evil Gods back then, even part of their true form!

Knowing that, Joshua dove downward, prepared to help Brandon—only to pause again just as he prepared to accelerate.

A mild voice that was at once familiar and unfamiliar appeared in his mind.