Soul of Searing Steel

Over the years, Joshua had seen many strange things. He also had seen all sorts of spellbooks—evil spellbooks as well.

Summoning daemons and bringing misfortunes were rather common for these books. In regard to the function of those spellbooks, causing those occurrences would be the basic of the basics. In fact, regardless of whether it was killing or captivating lives and souls, or deceiving people or seducing people to sign some sort of pact with the devil, or even having the books turning into a pretty girl or tentacles to battle with people, Joshua had seen it all. However, no matter what, a book could actually break free from the hands of a person… That was something new to him in all those years.

In the middle of the living hall, Joshua and Ying exchanged looks with each other. After that, the warrior took a step forward as he reached his hand out to grab the book with the light brown hardcover that seemed to be made of goatskin.

However, strange things continued to happen one after another—this book continued to shake, and it took a leap forward all by its own, trying to get further away from Joshua.

Furrowing his brows, Joshua took another step forward and reached his hands to grab the book again. However, the book reacted so fast. Right when the warrior was taking a step out, it already moved and leaped to the corner of the living hall.

"…"

With his face looking grim, Joshua kept his playful thoughts aside. His eyes looked cold all of a sudden as he slightly narrowed his eyes. "What is going on?"

The warrior's voice was completely flat as if he was about to get serious. "It knows how to evade? Its speed does not seem bad as well. It seems that Alphonso has indeed bought the correct item. This kind of book is certainly not a normal item."

After he was done talking, he slightly vibrated his legs. The ground beneath his feet shook vigorously for a brief moment. The entire body of the warrior instantly accelerated to the point that he surpassed the speed of sound. He sprinted toward the book and stretched out his right hand almost at the same instant, splitting space and causing bursts of white visible shockwaves in the air, along with a sharp and harsh noise.

At this time, even the strange book could not have reacted to such a speed. When the blast was about to reach the book, it seemed that the book was still attempting to evade. However, a large hand struck out right at it like a metallic iron wrench, firmly grabbed onto its body.

Slightly using a little bit of his strength, Joshua had succeeded in seizing the spellbook.

In his surroundings, although there was not even the slightest trace of crack on the floor, however, the chairs and the table were turned all over the place by the impact from the supersonic speed. In the meantime, the strange part about it was that the spellbook that had been attempting to evade no longer struggle to do so after it had been held in the hands of Joshua. Instead, it was behaving like a real book now, lying quietly in the hand of the warrior. There was not even the slightest sign of life in it.

This had led Joshua to think about the cunning creatures in the forests. They would play dead.

"This is really pretty strange."

Raising his eyebrows a little, Joshua spoke to Ying who was tidying and putting the furniture in the living hall back into place, "Why does the book have its own will to move?"

"… Could it be that this item has self-awareness just like us?"

The silver-haired young girl gave some thoughts about it for a while. Then she seemed a little happy as she came up with a conclusion. "Is it just like me?"

"It shouldn't be."

However, the warrior shook his head to express that he did not agree with the conclusion Ying had just come up with. He looked at the spellbook in his hand and scanned it through a few around. "There isn't any trace of soul. It is probably an instinctive reaction, or maybe it might be some sort of automatic response measure that was being written on this book long ago."

But what actual kind of automatic response measure would make a book run around?!

It would not bring any conclusion for having such thoughts. So Joshua had decided to give up on thinking about it. He straight away held onto the back of the book with one of his hand while he started holding onto the front cover of the book, attempting to open the book up. To read its content within.

However yet another strange occurrence happened.

The book could not be opened!

Feeling shocked for a brief moment, Joshua attempted to get the book open a few times over. However, the result was the same—he could not open up the damn book as if the book was being locked dead. He could not even move a single page of the book.

This time, he could not help but laugh out loud. However, after laughing for a moment, Joshua had once again furrowed his brow.

It was actually very normal that the spellbook could not be opened. After all, spellbooks such as this would record information about 'Mastery' and life experiences of a certain caster. Or, contain some horrifying forbidden magic spells. Or maybe even information about the fallen Evil God and other stuff of those sorts. These sorts of books might have multiple seals cast on them. Hence, opening them up might not be an easy task at all.

This 'Book of Eibon' had caused the destruction of the Fort Ares in the pre-existence after all. The book had summoned quite a large number of Terraria Dhole Worms from the Dark Abyss. So it would be completely normal that there would be some singularities that were hard to be explained.

However, Joshua did not bother himself with these ridiculously complicated things. He took a deep breath and started to charge his body with the flame of his Combat Aura. A powerful impact was unleashed. The Strength of Steel started to gather within the body of the warrior, changing into shapeless power, surging throughout both of his hands.

The body of a Gold-Tier champion had initially fused with the energy as one. So the warrior could not burst out with a powerful force that had nothing to do with his physical fitness anymore. At this time, Joshua did not believe that he could not open the book.

Before he could even make his move, Ying's slightly flustered voice rang in his ears. "Wait, Master! Don't use any force on the book right here!"

"Master, stop!"

Ling who was cleaning up the tableware with the servants had also rushed back into the living hall. He looked at Joshua who looked calm and yet flashing with the radiance of Combat Aura, and instantly said, "Don't do something rash in the mansion, Master. If you want to do anything, just do it outside the mansion!"

Even 03 could not calm down. Her projection surfaced in mid-air as she also attempted to persuade Joshua out of it, "Yea, Joshua. The impacts of your our movements are just too strong for the place to handle, Meanwhile, this book doesn't seem to be normal at all. If you really want to open it up, I suggest you should find a place with much more space before you try it out.

"… You're right."

Since that everyone around him had suggested the same idea, Joshua would naturally not going to open the strange book by force in his mansion. In fact, the warrior had also responded. The real question of this thing would not be whether he could open the book or not. The question would lie on whether he could use his full strength to open up the book when he was inside of his mansion. The new liege's mansion had just been rebuilt recently. So how could he use brute force out of his liking like he did before?!

Hence, Joshua let out a deep breath and discharged the Combat Aura that was brewing all over his body. After that, he held the book in his hand and walked out of the mansion.

Ying and Ling had also let out a breath out of relief. Then the two of them pushed the cart where the runic core of 03 was on, following right at the back of the warrior as they walked out of the mansion.

Soon, the four of them had arrived at the outskirts of the main city.

Currently, snow and frost across the land had already melted bit by bit. The land that looked plain white a while ago had now revealed some black ground and layers of grass. However, Joshua did not pay attention to the scenery at this time. His attention was completely focused on the book with goatskin cover that he was holding in his hand.

On the brown cover, the name of the book was written with strange words. Meanwhile, the touch of the cover felt like it was made of goatskin… Other than that it could run around on its own, this was absolutely a normal book. So why can't he open the god damn book then?

The warrior shook his head.

Then, in the next moment, he unleashed his strength. The red blazing Combat Aura was hot. Joshua swore that he would open the book today!

Boom!

The aftershock of the huge outburst of the enormous power had blown away all of the remaining snow and black dirt from the ground. The tyrannical impact had swept across the entire surroundings. Other than the small piece of ground right underneath Joshua's body, the entire area, having him as the center point of the radius area, was scraped off by a layer. Dust and dirt were stirred violently into the air, shrouding the shadow of the warrior as if the dust had engulfed him whole.

The impact gradually subsided, and the smoke and dust had also gradually dispersed away.

In the meantime, as the dust was settling down in the area, a voice was heard.

"It ain't budging and it can't be broken."

Knitting his brow intensely, Joshua was standing right in the middle of the piece of ground that was not scraped by the impact of his power. He stared at the book which did not even get a scratch after all that. Then he muttered to himself, "I've not even thought of opening the book. I only thought of tearing it into half to prevent it from causing more catastrophic incidents in the future. But I've never thought possible that it would be ineffective… It seems that this book truly has a connection with the demons from the dark abyss, or even with the Evil God. I believe that even if a Supreme-tier mage appears right before me and cast a magic barrier, that magic barrier will not be so tough as well."

The surge of the power of a Gold-tier champion could reach the point where ordinary people could not have imagined possible. The gate of the main city of Moldavia was a gigantic solid steel block that was made by the rune dwarves back in Black Steel Remelting Furnace that was located underground. The steel door was approximately 4,500 tons in weight. When this giant object was pressed down, even solid iron blocks would be pressed into flat pieces of steel biscuits and sink into the ground. However, Joshua could actually single-handedly lift that piece of steel up when he was bursting into his full power form.

But even with such level of power, he did not manage to tear the book open at all- Hence, there was no doubt that this was not just some powerful insane spellbook written by some powerful mage. This must be a book that came from Chaos or the Evil God.

"The material of the book itself is not mysterious. They are merely pure goatskin and ape skin…"

Joshua no longer planned to use brute force on the book. He narrowed his eyes and carefully examined the material of the book. "The bottom of its cover is actually made of patches of human skin. So this is truly a book of evil, it seems that I'm right. The book itself is not special. However, the things that are inside of the book, the information, must be special."

In this world full of magic power, combat aura, holy light, and daemons, words could also be a powerful tool.

According to legend, at the beginning of the ancient times, the [Rune] that was born from the Initial Flame claimed to have the power to make all phenomena in the world to reappear. Meanwhile, the [Inscription] that emerged on the Primordial Steel had the ability to fulfill wishes.

Well, putting these aside, regardless of the ancient language of the Ancient Dragon, the superior Elvish language, or the human's primordial language, all of these languages would also have similar magic power. Hence, same goes to the words that were passed down by the Evil God who was wandering in the void.

Whatever item or book with words tainted with the power of Chaos would become even more difficult to destroy even if it was the most fragile thing in the entire world. That was also the main reason why the Church of the Seven Gods would focus on using the holy light that purifies. That was because they wanted to focus only on those Chaos artifacts that were extremely hard to destroy.

"The existence of Evil God cannot be known by normal people. The more people know about it, the more people would become embracers of the Evil powers in the names of evil. These corrupted existences could also be obtained through sacrificial ceremonies and depravity to obtain the forbidden power. However, the Evil God would also take advantage of this opportunity to spread the power of Chaos across the entire world."

Lightly repeating what he had known from the old butler about the Evil God long ago, Joshua could not help to have a deeper understanding of those words. He thought of the Corrupted Black Dragon that he slew previously, and the last remaining of its corpse that turned into a shapeless daemon, "These terrible beings have powers to infest everything. Even though it was merely some recorded words could make a normal book so powerful and tough. If the number of people that know about the Evil God and the number of people getting corrupted becomes too many, these monsters will invade directly."

Looking at the book in his hand, Joshua nodded slightly and muttered to himself again, "I now roughly understand now. Because it contains some information about the Evil God and it had acquired the forbidden power. So the book has acquired certain instincts of its own. It was trying to get away from me because I have the power of Order that could be used to destroy it."

"Ling, you hold the book."

"Oh, me? Alright."

The black-haired young man who stood far from his master heard his order. He could not help but be momentarily stunned. However, he immediately reacted and ran up to Joshua right after that and took the book from Joshua's hand.

At the same time that the book was handed to Ling, the presence that was surging across Joshua's body was instantly reduced at a very rapid speed. Before this, the presence of the warrior was blazing hot like the heat of a volcano. The scorching heat was unparalleled, and it was eye-catching. However, now, he looked like a small match that was barely burning- under the sky where the sunlight was a little brighter, even if one had put effort into looking at him, that person would definitely not be able to see him glowing.

Meanwhile, as Joshua's presence had completely vanished among nature, right in the hand of Ling, although the book was a little unsettled, however, it did not attempt to flee as it used to. Even though the warrior was just standing by its side, it remained calm now.

"Try opening that book."

Joshua instructed Ling. He seemed to show an interest in what was to come next.

Ling followed the instruction given by Joshua—Even though the black-haired young man had some doubts in his mind… He saw that his Master could not open it up even after he had gone full power. He was merely a Divine Armament, would he be able to do it?

However, in truth, he had opened up the book with ease, just like how an ordinary human opens up a book to read.

As expected, the book was opened.

Joshua looked at what just happened. He could not help but think quietly in his mind, "As long as it is not me?"

Meanwhile, at that moment, time and space, fluctuated once.

In a distant land, in the middle of a forest by the mountain range, a white-haired man paused his job to examine.

Nostradamus who was looking for a suitable location to build his Mage Academy in the land of the North raised his eyebrows. Then, he turned around and looked at the directing his back was facing. He looked a little puzzled.

"This is… the presence of the Dark Abyss?"

The old mage kept muttering to himself, "How can this be? It would still be relatable if it was the presence of the Evil God. But why is there a presence of the Dark Abyss in the land of the North…"

In the midst of the void, a huge rumbling roar came echoing through as if there was something monstrous, evil and yet huge was crossing through the dimensional passage and into this world.

Along with the Book of Eibon being opened up, waves of strange dark and red mist were flowing right out of the book, shrouding into the surroundings, giving out a terrifying pressure all around.

Rumble

A series of rumbling footsteps were heard all over the place.

Shreck!

A sharp claw appeared.

Under the corruption of the dark mists, the dimensional rift that was gradually becoming weak had been torn apart.

An unparalleled ferocious presence was beginning to expand. The dimension was torn apart so much that a large tear could be visibly seen in the middle of the air. Meanwhile, two large red lights were seen emerging in the middle of the dark mists. A gigantic horrifying daemon in humanoid form walked right out of the dimensional rift, staring at the world before it with cold eyes.

However, it saw Joshua who was standing in the middle of the dark mist right before the crack of the dimension.

This monster was so bewildered that it stayed rooted to the spot.