Soul of Searing Steel

The dark green light radiated across the land, followed by a strong air current that was as sharp as a blade that went straight across the formation of the Berserk Daemons, leaving a mess behind, stirring up a wave of blood across the battlefield.

In the Dark Forest, Brandon was running at an extremely high speed.

Continuously slaughtering the daemons while making his way across the forest, his entire body was covered in a dark green Combat Aura that looked like a layer of mist. This condensed power had stirred up the movement of wind and the atmosphere in the air. In the meantime when the speed of the swordsman was getting up to another whole new level, the Combat Aura was also powering up his two blades preparing him for his next strike on his enemies.

At that time, the pale green vortex spun in Brandon's eyes. In his eyes, the world has become a twisted otherworld filled with cracks. The face of the swordsman who activated the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception was cold and unfeeling, while not even one drop of the blood from the daemons torn asunder by the sharp blades spattered onto his face.

Brandon Kaos, the man who possessed the strongest swordsmanship gifted by the gods in the whole Empire. The Kaos family that once had a legendary mage had to admit it as well that his gift was extraordinary. His gift had even stirred up debates among his own people— Well, by the end of the debate, they had decided to allow the direct descendant of the family to become a swordsman instead of becoming a mage to fulfill the tradition of his family.

Yes, instead of forcing this genius in swordsmanship to become a regular Gold-tier mage, it seemed better for him to become a legendary swordsman. Such change and tolerance would mean that the prideful mage family had acknowledged his gift.

Crossing across a small hill, the scent of Chaos had become even condensed. The flying wyrms that were circling around the sky above could no longer suppress their urge to attack. So they began to charge towards Brandon who was running across the battlefield.

Looking at the black flying wyrms in the sky with disdain, the swordsman swung his sword across the air and his intense Combat Aura radiated and tore the air. The attack hit the 'rift' and sliced the monsters in half. The foul dark purplish blood together with some internal organs of the monsters were raining down to the ground heavily like cats and dogs!

Without minding about these monsters that seemed to be committing suicide, Brandon kept the two blades that seemed to be the source of luring the monsters which were emitting waves of Order energy that were intense. He was charging forward with high speed, his eyebrows furrowed tightly.

Something was not right.

This number of Berserk Daemons was very unsettlingly not right.

Brandon was feeling that everything was too smooth.

This was a large-scale Dark Tide. There were over 200,000 Berserk Daemons. Their footsteps could have trembled the entire area of mountains and forests—so why was there only so few of them here?!

He had prepared himself to face thousands of daemons surrounding him from all directions. He had prepared himself to clear a path towards his destination with everything he's got!

In the beginning, Brandon could still hear Joshua's roars. He thought that he was about to catch up with that warrior who went forward alone. He thought he would be able to give support to the Warrior when he caught up with him. However, he had never thought possible that even with his Combat Aura activated and he was moving as fast as the wind, even though the battles were easy and simple, even though he had been charging forward in high speed for quite some time already, he had not been able to catch up with Joshua.

That was insane—logically speaking, Brandon should be faster than Joshua in terms of speed. He should have caught up with Joshua a while ago. However, in truth, the swordsman was not able to do so. All he saw was the aftermath of the battle left behind by Joshua.

Along the way, Brandon saw a large number of corpses of daemons—for instance, the thorn beast that had thorns and spikes all over their body like a porcupine, a beast that had rock solid shell over its back, a mammoth of the size of a small hill, and also large and powerful giant bears that were powerful enough to tremble the mountains with their stomps. The corpses of these monsters were all over the place like garbage. They were left behind in a mess along the route that Joshua went by.

There was only one wound on each of the monster's body. Other than the heart, the wound would be on their heads or they were completely cut in half by either a blade or sword. Some of them seemed to have been pierced by spears. In other words, every single one of the monsters died of one hit.

Undoubtedly, that was the main reason why the swordsman could only see so few monsters along the road. Because right before him, that warrior had already taken out those monsters that could have caused a lot of trouble.

"This level of power… this is a little outrageous…"

Swiftly slaughtering up all these monsters while having his own pace maintained without being affected at all, Brandon believed that he could have done the same as well. However, he would be forced to activate his 'Demonic Eyes' and he had to be fully focused in order to do so. Joshua did not have a pair of 'Demonic Eyes' like Brandon did. He should not be able to instantly kill the monsters by hitting the 'rifts'. Furthermore, Joshua had been battling for quite a long time. So what made his attacks so precise then?!

He had no answer to his own question at the moment. Furthermore, it was not the time to think about it as well. The most important thing currently was to catch up to the warrior in black armor.

The moment he decided to focus on catching up with the warrior, a sound beyond the sound of all the insane noises in the world, a wailing sound that could almost tear the eardrums of a person came from afar.

In the depths of the Dark Forest, a spot was covered by dark purplish mist and large waves began to ripple into the surroundings. The mist was rippling out into the surroundings like tidal waves as well. Meanwhile, the dark gray impact was stirring up the air, spreading into the atmosphere across the air. Anyone witnessing that would not be able to stop the feeling of dread in their hearts.

Boom!

Following the waves of mist, a thunderous tremble and an explosive sound of a volcano erupted echoed through heaven and earth. Instantly, another black light column appeared right in the middle of the sky. In fact, this light column looked even much thicker than the one Brandon previously saw right above the fortress. It brought along much more scents from the outer world.

"Why is it so soon this time?!"

The golden-haired swordsman was at a loss for words. The reactivation of the dimensional rift was much faster than he had anticipated. He clenched his teeth and said, "Joshua was right all along. If we allow things to escalated on, we're not going to make it in time!"

As a Chaos Guardian as well, Brandon could also feel the endless wave of Chaos power overflowing out from that light column. The power in the Dual Blades of Order was protecting his body from being corrupted by Chaos energy. However, the trees and daemons in the surroundings did not have such a good benefit. They were breathing in the condensed power from the other world and they were swiftly corrupted and turned.

There were colorful layers across the surface of the tall and strange trees in the Dark Forest. A thin layer of crystalline substance was slowly spreading. Meanwhile, the points where the Chaos energy gathered around the bodies of the monsters had mostly been crystallized.

The appearance of Chaos would usually mean that the territory had been corrupted. When Brandon was young, he followed the elders of his family over to a sealed land at the west mountains. The entire hidden secret realm seemed to have completely been corrupted by Chaos. Countless monsters that seemed odd and mutated were roaming around. They were blocked by the seal. So they could not wander into the Mycroft Continent

Unlike the crystallization here, the corruption in the secret realm was viral. It would not matter if they were plants or animals, any living things that stayed in the hidden realm would definitely be corrupted by the viral infection and they would all be turned into monsters that creep and wiggle around. They basically existed like a bunch of goo monsters.

Breaking through the monster horde at lightning speed, Brandon suddenly felt that the pressure on the battlefield suddenly got lifted a little. There was no sign of any daemons in the vicinity all of a sudden. The Dark Forest that was initially filled with noises suddenly became vast and empty. That should be a scene that eased up the mind of anyone that was running across the battlefield killing monsters. However, the scene gave Brandon a very strange feeling. Instead, he felt more pressure than before.

"What the hell happened here?!"

There must be a reason behind this bizarre and strange occurrence. Brandon told himself with a soft voice. He did not slow down his pace. He had a hunch that the reason that caused this to happen was not far ahead.

A beam of green light was flying fast through the forest. Brandon was running as if he was riding along with the strong winds. After a brief moment, he arrived at a high ground, The golden-haired swordsman stood right on top of the peak of a hilltop. He was looking down at the bottom from the top.

His sharp eyes and observation had allowed himself to locate what he wanted to find on the battlefield. Meanwhile, because of what he saw, he widened his eyes and stared at the scene.

Under the sky that was shrouded by dark gray mist within a visible range, there were countless horrific daemons lurking in the shadows of the forest. The scene looked similar when the daenibs were getting themselves ready to attack the fortress. The horde was surrounding a vast area of the forest, roaring and hissing ferociously. They seemed to be surrounding a shadow of a man right in the middle. However, they did not dare to launch any attacks on the man just yet.

Brandon looked over there with his focused eyes.

Far apart, right in the middle of the daemons, an energy wave of Order fused with the red radiance illuminated on. Joshua's entire body was ignited with red Combat Aura that looked like red blazing flames. He was currently standing in the middle of the wide and empty forest. It seemed like he was looking at the daemons all around him like they were nothing. Then he took out a red box out from the armored compartment on his chest like there was nothing all around him. There were countless glittering runes floating all around the box.

Looking at the glittering box from afar, Brandon suddenly felt a chill straight up his spine. He could sense a heavy and yet intimidating pressure vaguely coming from the box itself.

Click—

The box was opened.