Soul of Searing Steel

An old diary, its covers blackened, the pages yellowed and covered in various signs of decay.

19th of June—clear day

Brought Old Abel to herd sheep, but it appeared short of breath. Leah was right—the herd was getting bigger, and Abel hasthe will but not the strength. Perhaps I should find another shepherd dog, and let Old Abel who had toiled for seven to eight years rest.

22nd of June—cloudy

Two of the sheep are about to give birth! It should have been a monumental event, but for some curious reason the lambs were not looking good and had trouble breathing. Was it because the mothers were disturbed during pregnancy?

Either way, my flock has grown again—I should perhaps consider selling a few of the goats and let little Ebrach learn a few things in town and see if there's an enchanted cavalier in the making!

22nd of June—gloomy

The lambs are all dead… Perhaps their gestations were indeed affected, with my neglect being the bigger issue. Although Leah consoled me, it still does hurt.

The mother sheep seemed sad too—they were their children after all. On another note, why do grasslands always have such gloomy weather? This has gone on for a few days.

27th of June—dark

The flock did not dare to leave their pen. Old Abel had barked as loud as he could, but not even a single lamb got out.

The dark day outside is getting even blacker, and it's now almost impossible to find the path. The fog is obscure but not damp, and neither was it about to rain.

Really weird.

29th of June—fog

Even the grass is withered. The fog seems to be toxic, and it feels like every other plant is drying up too… The ewes that had recently gave birth were also dead—it was as if they had decomposed for some time when their remains were found.

Come to think of it, the lambs looked strange when they died. Could it be…

From this point, a black stain had stuck the following few pages together—appearing to be either blood or ink.

7th of July—clear day

The fog has finally dispersed!

The aberrations that had appeared last night seemed afraid of sunlight! Ancestors protects us—our whole family were unharmed, but the other shepherds were all dead.

What is going on? Be that as it may, I really hope that I can keep writing in this diary.

9th of July—thunderstorm

Earthquake!

I had planned to move to the city, only to meet an earthquake the moment I woke up!

The house is fine, but the pen crumbled—and yet not one sheep came out, I daren't take a look…

The noontime downpour is here again, we could only pack our things and wait in the house. The road to the city would have definitely become a mire in this weather.

Come to think of it, I've not seen Abel for several days. Where has it gone?

11th of July—fog

That monster ate all the sheep…

And what on earth was that black shadow that suddenly appeared in the weapons…

Leah's arm is hurt, and for some reason the blood wouldn't stop… She's asleep with some bandages on, but I don't know if she would recover…

Later entries were a mess, with the diary having traces of being soaked as well as scattered black stains. It appeared to be a mixture of tears and inks, with some obscure writing scrawled so untidily it was unintelligible.

Leah… Dead… Monster… Abel… Ebrach

1st of August—clear

I've finally arrived at the shelter after passing through the grasslands.

This forest has a scent of holiness… but I'm about to die.

My child…. I wish you would have a peaceful life in this crazy world.

It was a fogged night in the western region of Grandia. There was a human village built over a river island amidst a virgin forest, burning brightly even as the river streamed roaringly. Under the swaying light from the fires, smoke rose intermittently, passing through the wooden roof, the dancing flames themselves fluctuating.

In one of the huts that was about to fall, the black-haired crimson-eyed warrior quietly put down the diary with one hand—the other was holding the smaller hand of a little boy, whose face was splattered with blood and filled with immeasurable panic and gloom.

"Your grandfather seemed to have loved your father very much," Joshua muttered.

"And your father loves you too."

After bidding the titan farewell last night, Joshua had headed all the way north, following the guidance of the Mirror of Holy Splendor as he dashed towards the fourth Sage's Legacy.

He could only form the colossal lifeforce giant by unleashing most of the lifeforce imbued within the Azurite. It was an energy that far exceeds his body's limits, which was why Joshua needed to learn the compressing method of the titan and the Evil God of the Air to force those energies within his body so that energy and flesh could fuse as one. What was more, this was done by the very strength of his own body, and not dependent upon the Sage's Legacy.

After his physicality was honed to the next level, the warrior's speed was much faster than before. In one night, he had left the Xayar Mountains and passed through a large grassland—but as the sky gradually gloomed and the thick fog appeared, the guidance from the Mirror of Holy Splendor began to fluctuate. In the end, it simply became a normal mirror, no longer able to provide coordinates through the power of the Holy Light.

Joshua was not surprised. In another world where the energies were fundamentally different, it was a sign of how prepared Pope Igor was for the mirror to have kept working for so long. Even he, a Supreme champion had his ability largely restrained, while that was just a little mirror. And yet, it had kept working—as expected of its creator, the most powerful amongst Legendary-pinnacle champions, a god who walked amongst men.

Following the final direction given by the mirror, Joshua flew southwest. The sun was now shining across the land, allowing the warrior to see things that made his heart sink.

There were brutally destroyed villages, caverns caved in by avalanches, lake islands sunk to the bottom of the waters, forest shelters scorched through by infernos… It was a deathly silence along the way. The warrior could even tell that all these had recently happened late into the night, and recognized that there had been champions who fought in the vicinity of those ruins.

But without exceptions, every settlement was destroyed, the corpses of those that had lived there strewn all over the place.

Until here.

Joshua had sensed an immeasurably faint presence.

It was a crude village built on a river island. It seemed completely defenseless—the scattered, thick low wooden walls would not be able to keep boars out. Still, the warrior was aware that this was just a cover. With the control of spellcasters who were proficient in botanical magic or druids who manipulate Nature powers, those seemingly plain defenses and ever-present stakes would become an omnipresent trap and a barrier so tall none could climb over.

But now, those mystical botanical spells were not eve used. Joshua recalled the scene just now—a giant fireball, plunging from the sky and directly igniting the entire village. The champion who could control plants was fighting with another champion capable flight in the river and lost, while the ever-present Death Shades took advantage of the chaos and killed all of the villagers.

Save one.

Leading the boy away by the hand, they evacuated the burning house that was about to crumble. As Joshua watched the little boy who looked to be at wit's ends, he could not help shake his head as they reached the center of the village.

The child had been knocked unconscious by his own father and hid within a huge clay pot used to hold flour. The man had then pressed his body over the lid, never once letting go even as those witless undead spirits tore apart every flesh over his back and drew out most of his innards.

Using every last breath, the father concealed his child's living presence to fool the undead spirits and the existences leading them—until Joshua arrived and pulled the boy out of the clay pot.

"You're Adair."

From the latter half of that yellowed diary written by Ebrach, Joshua learned the child's name. It was curious too, after going through so much, the boy never cried even as he saw his father's mangled corpse, merely standing where he was muddleheadedly, his gaze erratic.

But Joshua did not care about such things. With a soft pat of the boy's head, the warrior gestured at the burning village before them.

"Adair," he said with a flat voice. "This is the village you live in. It's now destroyed."

As if he had been dreaming before, the boy's body promptly shook.

Joshua saw that.

"You've also seen your father's corpse," he calmly continued, his eyes reflecting the faint light of the fires.

This time, the boy named Adair immediately shrunk in agony like a prawn. He squatted on the ground, his hands covering ears as if to deny all reality.

But with one line, Joshua made him instinctively lift his head and awaken from the bottomless despair of losing a man most dear to him.

"I can give you the power for revenge."

In the warrior's hand, crimson aura condensed into a little short sword.

Joshua then looked at the Death Shade bat that was flying in circles around the flames amidst the dark fog, its voice obscure.

He handed off the short sword. "And the most basic thing about vengeance –" he said softly even as the boy's calmed from his panic, "– is to stay alive."

In the air, shrill cries of beasts echoed but quickly vanished.

The night has passed, and the surviving boy stood expressionlessly at the center of the village ruins. However, in his hand was a crimson short sword dyed in blood, with hundreds of undead spirits from bats and blood-lusting beasts lying dead at his feet, turning into ash under the sun's illumination and becoming part of his combat record.

The warrior had left part of his own powers and a fishing net that harvest energy before simply leaving.

Thus, in the darkness of the night, Joshua unconsciously instructed the boy in the first Kokyu-ho of its kind, formed from the fusion of aura from the Mycroft Continent and the mana of this world. The unique breathing rhythm, combined with the energy stored within his body, allowed the once ordinary boy to become a champion who could brawl against ferocious beasts overnight.

Of course, as Joshua would not deny, he was using Adair the local child's body for his own experiment of fusing the energy of two different worlds. Still, the boy would never decline even if Joshua wanted to repeat it thousands of times over—for the hearts of those who desired vengeance was filled with restless inferno, impatiently desiring to burn others and themselves. They would willingly toil, whatever the danger and risk.

Nonetheless, such scenes were quite numerous. When the warrior arrived at the western side of the continent, the ruins he had seen every day along the way was innumerable—ruined villages alone numbered up to a dozen. There were certainly survivors in some of those settlements, but there was absolutely no life in most of the wrecked shelters, leaving just dead silence.

Joshua definitely helped whenever he could, and unselfishly taught those survivors the Kokyu-ho that he meticulously thought up and formed, allowing the people to cultivate themselves in a power imbued with both mana and aura. Instead of requiring protocrystals, users just need still their hearts to absorb the energies adrift in the air to refine themselves.

Though slower, it saves the trouble of searching for more protocrystals. So, compared to the traditional method, this was certainly safer in this post-apocalyptic world.

By very passing moment, the cultivation method the warrior thought up was changing, so much so that every Kokyu-ho learned by each survivor was different from the others, even clashing on certain aspects. Even so, they were the same at the core—it was by molding the lifeforce within their bodies to refine their existence, gradually approaching 'Steel Strength' that was the root of all energies.

It was a cultivation method that goes straight to Supreme or higher tiers!

In days, Joshua had left his own legacy on this continent, allowing countless survivors who had lost their shelters and forced to hide within forest a last chance to keep living.

That was also how Death Shade and men of both good and evil noticed the warrior's existence.

At present, Joshua was still heading west where the Mirror of Holy Splendor pointed.

Along the way, the warrior also acquired news about the Death Shade commanders. Quite a few survivors had described how they say three crystals streaking across the dark clouds northern sky towards the distance.

Those were undoubtedly the traces left behind as those crystal puppets flew.

Be that as it may, while Joshua assuredly desired Jewel Seeds and take another step towards Legendary, he did not forget his true target.

Joshua was fully aware that he was here to search for the fourth item of the Sage's Legacy, in turn acquiring information regarding the Initial Flame hidden within the Legacy.

Pope Igor—perhaps even every life on the Mycroft continent, was waiting for his move.

It was immeasurably sorrowful that the world of Grandia was being invaded by the calamity of undead spirits, with all life bleeding and screaming as they wallowed in the vortex of hopeless agony. And exactly because of that Joshua could not look back and permit the Mycroft Continent to suffer the fate of this world too.

Even if the Jewel Seed the Death Shade commanders possessed was his chance to ascend into Legendary, it was merely a matter of convenience. Joshua would not have change course and pursue those monsters if the undead spirit was in the opposite direction—such was choice.

But somehow, even after arriving at an overgrown wilderness that was very likely to be where Urbandy's portal was directed, Joshua never did find his target.

It was as if Hillya, the dragon-winged girl, had simply and utterly vanished from this land without a trace.