Soul of Searing Steel

Chapter 141: The Barren World

Different types of scenes could be seen presented to the warrior.

There were scenes such as a large number of animals running through the plains, large schools of marine life form swimming within the vast ocean. Beneath the cold glacier lies a great sea vortex where large special living being resided within the depths of this abyss.

All the different sceneries flashed in Joshua’s mind. Those included numerous living moments and the extinction of different species. The terrain changed over time, where great mountains changed into deep valleys, rivers turned to deserts. The time of this world passed in the speed of light, changing its form rapidly.

Within all these sceneries, humanoid form living beings evolved most of the time.

These humanoid beings hunted for food and grew crops to sustain their lives. These beings gathered as a group, forming towns and cities. Their evolution progressed toward language and culture. With all these evolutions, it had created a form of plenty of activities that kept on changing the world.

Joshua noticed these humanoid races started from the wilderness and slowly walked into civilization. Through this path of evolution, it had created their path towards space.

The large magic ship carried forth a form of endless energy, traversing different worlds and setting up equal trades with different races. It was a wonderful moment for the civilization.

However, all good things come to an end.

Joshua witnessed the whole process, where the seeds of Chaos spread into the dimensional space. This had drastically changed the fate of the world, where endless chaos beings were brought forth to this world, causing destruction to both their civilization and technology. With their technology being robbed from them, the humanoids were powerless against these creatures and slowly withered away with doomsday awaiting.

This was precisely what Joshua saw in the final scene.

A strong gust blew over the plains. The greenery within the lands danced with the rhythm of the wind. Sounds of metal crashing with each other could be heard. Numerous warriors with weirdly designed weapons on hand together with magic steel armor formed a complete army gathered within the plains.

There was a floating ship in the sky, casting a huge shadow upon the warrior beneath it. The magical light from the armor flowed through the runes upon it, generating an unbelievable radiance.

Facing them were a horde of terrifying creatures.

Through the pact formed with the Divine Armament, Joshua could feel a tremble deep within his Divine Armament’s soul. All the scenes and illusion he had been witnessing caused his weapon to be surprised. The weapon in the warrior’s hand was the origin of all Divine Armaments.

The things that they were facing were the Aragami horde.

This particular scene was much slower as compared to the ones before. The details were more in-depth, and the moments of this scene were getting much clearer as time passed. At first, Joshua could only see and hear the cutscenes vaguely. At this moment, he could even smell the scents of steel and blood mixed on the plains.

The humans had successfully gathered. The Aragami were prepared as well. With the leadership of a human, they initiated the charge against the Aragami. The hurdles that these warriors faced were not simple tasks. The Aragami were everywhere, ranging from the open land to the vast sky.

Sounds of crystal and steel colliding, the echoes of battle rang through the plains. The aura of death released by the Aragami condensed into dark smoke covered the land from the sunlight, and formed an endless battlefield of darkness. Together with the advancement of the floating ship, the battle had caused the plains to be dyed in red, lands were burned and blood was spilled.

It was a disastrous slaughter with both sides not backing off a single step. Numerous steel floating ships were sent down to earth from vigorous attacks. Before they landed on the ground, they formed into huge balls of flame and dived towards the hordes of Aragami, turning everything in their path to dust.

Aragami do not have hearts to begin with. The warriors did not hesitate to slay all the enemies within their path using their courage and will. Magic was useless against these Aragami, thus only physical attack could deal significant damage to them. For this civilization which walked the path of magic without enhancing their Combat Aura or weapons, they had a big disadvantage against the Aragami. They do not have the knowledge to properly wield swords against their enemy. Despite that, they still tried their best to swing their blades, slaying down as many enemies as they could.

The slaughter slowly reached its final moment where there was only a single group of knights left on the battlefield.

The flag he carried were torn and filled with blood, yet it still danced gracefully with the breeze. The knight had most of its armor damage and his weapon had cracks all over it. The sky now completely sank into the depth of darkness without a single ray of light visible. The knight was now standing against a monster as huge as a mountain.

Razor sharp limbs rapidly quivered around the armor surrounding the large monster. Numerous Aragami which were wounded but not dead fused together into this gigantic Aragami. On top of its body were thousands and millions of compound eyes moving around that huge body, releasing beams of death. Numerous trunks with barbs could be seen wiggling around, spitting out acidic fluid at the same time. It was an indescribable monster. It was pure madness itself which you may think that the monsters you have seen in your bad dreams might just be cute as compared to the huge Aragami.

However, the remaining warriors never showed any fear on their faces.

They held onto their broken blades, raising their war flag and faced their demise. They may be at death’s door, yet they did not back off and made their final effort.

“Charge!”

The last command could be heard. Following it was a group of knights taking on a suicidal attack against the final boss.

It was their last attempt, their last effort, their last struggle.

That was the final moment of that particular cutscene.

The scenes continued to play.

There was no miracle at that moment, their last effort resulted in nothing. The large creature devoured every corpse that laid on the field. Dark mist spread and engulfed the world. Sunlight slowly became history with the weather getting colder as time passed. Plants no longer have the capability to grow, wild beasts no longer had anything to feed on. Food supply diminished, the forest withered. No clouds, no rain; only complete silence within the world which lacked life. With this enormous force of darkness devouring everything in its path, living only a world of famine, a world where life was gone.

The flame was extinguished.

The civilization which once traveled through the vast space could not fight against this power of darkness. The remaining resistance could only hide, defending themselves within a mountain-sized fortress, surviving in this lifeless world. On the other side, a monster with a horn on its forehead with huge skeleton wings on its back, numerous compound eyes, and tentacle-like limbs traversed the dark sky. Surrounding its body was sparks of lightning, signifying that it was the best and the master of this world.

Joshua was completely immersed in this scene. He looked at the huge monster with a terrifying aura flying through the dead sky. Instinctively, his body was ready for combat. His Combat Aura combusted into flames, turning into crimson red and later on jet-black aura.

His act of instinct suddenly triggered something.

The Pool of Souls… the Soul of Fire?

An unknown sound could be heard, causing an unexpected change.

The scene in front of Joshua cracked and started to shatter.

Following that, a gray-colored power of steel rushed out from the swirl, forming a very dense fog, covering everyone within the room.

No one would allow unknown matter or activity approach them. Joshua, Moreila, and even Clyre would not do so. However, things happened just too fast for them to react and they could not escape being engulfed.