Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-101

"..."

Standing among the broken bones and internal organs of the corpses on the hilltop wielding his dual swords with not the slightest expression on his face, the Gold-tier swordsman was gathering his strength from all parts of his exhausted body. After that, he swung his sword, throwing a green hurricane to push all the monsters that were charging at him. There, he gained one brief moment to catch his breath again.

Looking around the surroundings, the daemons that were pushed back had stopped their assault. They were chewing on their dead comrades' bodies, devouring them. However, there was no sense of any fear in the greenish-blue eyes of the daemons. The frenzied instinct of these daemons had led them to fear nothing about the swordsman. They paused their assault only with the purpose to fill in their empty stomachs.

Other than devouring and slaughtering, there was nothing else on the minds of these monsters. They were basically like puppets that were manipulated completely.

Truth be told, wouldn't that make them just a bunch of bloody meat puppets after they being completely dominated by the Berserk Dragon Virus?

Would I be eaten alive like that? Brandon could not help but have that thought and smiled.

"That's pretty bad."

With so many daemons surrounding him, he could never break out of there with merely his own power… Could it be that now was the time to use it?

Upon resting his thoughts there, he could not help but grip the dual blades of Order in his hands. A pure white sacred radiance flashed across the dual-sword weapons that were forged by the ancient sage.

Before the Gold-tier swordsman could make up his mind, he suddenly noticed that there was a light source shining on by the sky.

Breathing heavily in the middle of the blizzard and the northern wind, he lifted his head to look at the sky. He could not help but mutter to himself, "What the hell is that…"

From his view, not far from where he stood, the sky that was covered by dark clouds was suddenly shattered by some sort of power, along with a flash of golden light and a thick and huge black light column. The remaining dark clouds and the dark mist in the sky dispersed swiftly. Meanwhile, two sources of radiance, one red and another black, were intertwined with each other, falling down to the ground from high above the sky at high speed.

That black radiance was rippling with Chaos waves that were condensed to the max. Meanwhile, Brandon's body which had been representing light obviously felt repulsive towards that light source. On the other hand, the swordsman had an extremely familiar feeling towards the red radiance…

"Joshua?!"

Swinging his sword breaking the ground, the swordsman chopped off the head of a ferret-type daemon that was attempting to ambush him from the side. The gray brain juice along with a strong stench was oozing on the swordsman. However, Brandon was not bothered by that trivial thing at all. Instead, he was shocked at one fact.

"He's still alive?!"

Meanwhile, Joshua seemed to be battling against an extremely powerful enemy. That's right, it was that black dragon. He was currently battling the black dragon!

Having no time to think about how Joshua survived the Dragon Breath attack, Brandon instantly felt alive and motivated to kill his enemies on the battlefield after knowing that his comrade still lived and his comrade was still battling against the source of this war.

He was not alone on the battlefield. There was still hope after all. Most importantly, the dracospider was dead and the black dragon was currently engaged with Joshua. That being said, the dimensional door nearby would only be guarded by the Gold-Tier frost butterfly that was actually not that powerful… there was a chance!

Not to mention that the man withstood the blast of the Dragon Breath head on was still battling. So what reason could he use as an excuse that he could not do it then?!

"At first, I thought about using it when I'm about to destroy the dimensional door…"

Upon muttering to himself in a soft voice, he suddenly felt competitive. The Gold-tier swordsman laughed out loud and lifted the two sacred swords that he was holding tight in his hands. Then he crossed the two swords against each other—right on the surface of the two swords, there were countless ancient runes flashing and moving around. Some even shifted out of the swords themselves and moved all around the blades of the swords. "However, it seems that I might die if I don't use it here and now."

Facing the daemons that once again charged at him, Brandon did not hesitate at all. He immediately charged out as well to engage the daemons. Because the two swords that he was holding were radiating, sacred storm winds and the radiance of the stars began to appear around his body. Soft voices sounded like a melodious song of praise.

Let the strike back begin!

—along in the middle of the two light sources falling down from the sky.

153 years ago, St. George Ascalon, the dragon slayer of the high seas at the Sacred Mountain had told his grandchildren about one serious matter. Meanwhile, this one thing had become the most important rule that one must obey while slaying a dragon.

"Never get into an aerial battle with a dragon."

The gigantic body of the dragon had brought them power and life that was far beyond those of the humans. Speaking only about the surge of power, powerful warriors or mages could potentially defeat a giant dragon. They might even be capable of killing one. However, in term of endurance, the giant dragon would undoubtedly win the battle. Hence, it would be a dumb decision to get into an aerial battle with a dragon.

That was reasonably said though.

Joshua was in a bitter battle because he got into an aerial battle with the black dragon.

As a pragmatist who grew stronger with every battle he participated in, Joshua had already used his strongest attack in the beginning of the battle to inflict the most damage to his enemy. Sometimes, he might even get to instantly kill his opponent. The [Sunlight Spear] and the [Sunlight Blade] that he used were also his ultimate attacks that produced stunning results. The dracospider died instantly while the black dragon had its chest and its backbone slashed open—based on his countless experience on slaying dragons, he knew that the outcome of the battle had been locked. He knew he would be the one who would win the battle by the end of it.

Even though he did not have the strength to smash his opponent's heart to pieces because his left arm was brushed by the black dragon's breath, yet apart from slimes, there has never been a creature in this world that could fight back even with half their torso and spine cleaved in half, not even dragons!

However, the giant dragon that were currently battling Joshua for its own life had totally ignored that one iron rule.

Its lungs were split open and the arteries near its heart were cut off. The endless red Combat Aura that was directed into the body of the dragon by the silver Divine Armament made the dragon's body implode, which caused a mess out of the muscles and blood flow in its body. Such serious injuries should have fatally wounded or killed the black dragon. However, it still had enough strength remaining to roar out in rage, wrenching its long neck searching for a position getting itself reach to bite the man with a silver greatsword in his hand standing right before its chest.

Boom!

A punch was launched along a thunderous sound. A powerful impact tore a hole in the atmosphere. The deafening explosive sound came from the tip of the warrior's fist. Joshua was clenching his teeth which began to reveal cracks around them. He was using his left arm that seemed bloody and almost shattered to regain control over the giant dragon by grabbing down on its jaw. Because of that, he managed to avoid being bitten on his shoulder by the giant dragon.

With the greatsword that was plunged in the middle of the black dragon's chest as the support point, the warrior pressed both of his legs against the blood and flesh of the dragon, treating the blood and flesh of the dragon as his standing ground. In the meantime, he was pressing the greatsword deeper towards the heart of the black dragon with his left hand while holding himself against the struggle of the giant dragon with his left hand.

The warrior had enhanced his own power with both his martial art skills and Combat Aura. Furthermore, his Divine Armament was also pumping raw enhanced magic through him. So currently speaking from only the perspective of power, Joshua was almost as powerful as the giant dragon. At least the situation was as mentioned when the dragon was heavily wounded now. On the other hand, speaking from only the perspective of endurance, both of them were at about the same level. The contaminated blood of the black dragon was gushing out from the opening of the wound, exhausting the stamina of the black dragon at an insanely fast rate. Meanwhile, every bone in the left hand of the warrior was crushed and shattered. They were being held up together purely by the Joshua's own Combat Aura.

Fortunately, because of the injuries on its backbone, the black dragon could not use its front limbs to deal immense damage that could obliterate the mountains to Joshua. Or else, the warrior would have been smashed like meat pieces, or get incinerated into ash and dust.

Both of them were inflicted with heavy injuries that could have caused either any man or any dragon to lose their battle capability for the moment. However, neither had thoughts of surrendering. Instead, they chose to continue falling while they were battling each other.

Distance from the ground, 500 meters!

This dragon seemed bizarrely odd!

Joshua, with his furious burning gaze, took a closer look at the flesh of the enemy right in front of his eyes. Instantly, he saw countless small tentacles wiggling around the wounds and injuries of the giant dragon. They seemed to be attempting to heal the wounds! At the same time, these tentacles were also attempting to push the Divine Armament that was being pushed closer and closer towards the heart of the giant dragon. That tremendous amount of power seemed like it was about to bounce the greatsword out from the body of the dragon!

Tsk! This black dragon that was corrupted by Chaos was no longer a normal living creature. It had become something like the Aragami, the beings that were blessed by the Evil Gods. That being said, any normal heavy damage or damage to its vulnerable weak spots would no longer work on the dragon!

Along with the black dragon's attacks that went berserk, the dark purplish mist was once again spread into the surroundings through its wings. The mist then engulfed the body of the warrior and the black dragon. Meanwhile, upon understanding that point, Joshua immediately switched to using another method to attack. He knew that it was pointless to continue fighting this type of monster. If his judgement was wrong in the first place, then he needed to change his mindset immediately!

Distance from the ground, 200 meters!

Having nothing left to think, Joshua pulled out the silver greatsword that almost penetrated the heart of the dragon. Instantly, the black blood began to ooze out like a fountain, splashing Joshua's body once again. Meanwhile, the black dragon that intended to attack Joshua suddenly froze. He could feel that its entire body had lost all of its energy to move.

Although the greatsword was plunged in its body, however, the sword had also suppressed the blood vessels and muscles of the dragon. Before that, the dragon attempted to prevent its heart from being cut in half. It had been using its muscle power in an attempt to squeeze out the greatsword. However, now that the warrior suddenly pulled the sword out, the dragon had squeezed most of its blood out through the wound as he was focusing all its strength on removing the sword out of its wound previously. As the remaining blood in the dragon's body was not much to begin with before losing more blood, the dragon instantly lost most of its stamina to the point that it was on the verge of dying.

Distance to the ground, last 30 meters!

"Just go down like a good puppy!"

While the dragon froze, Joshua took advantage of it. The warrior who was as exhausted as the dragon straight away reached out his leg and kicked it right in the chest wound of the dragon. After all, he no longer needed to use any fancy ultimate skill to end this. All he needed to do was to use his body that had been enhanced by ten levels and kick right at the center point of the dragon to shove it down to the round!

Distance from the ground—zero meters!

Boom!

Instantly, one large and one small cloud of fog exploded on the surface of the black ground. Those were the impacts that Joshua and the black dragon crushed down onto the ground. The dust and sand were stirred up vigorously into the air by the shockwaves of the impacts.