Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-148

This is really interesting.

When Joshua crossed over the deep dark tunnel that slanted down all the way into the pyramid, he found that he arrived at a gigantic metallic living hall. That was when he got the thought saying that it was really interesting.

A real world was really vast. The pleasure to explore here in this world was much more exciting and interesting than exploring the world in the game. It was additionally exciting to explore and discover this uncultivated world. Joshua could feel his heartbeat was accelerating involuntarily, just as he was battling.

To him, that was the best praise he could ever receive.

Along with the footsteps through the passage, under the shining of the gloomy light, the heavy footsteps echoed throughout the closed corridor, clear and incomprehensible. The echoing footsteps had also led them to feel a little nervous and excited as they ventured into the passage that had existed over a thousand years. The footsteps of these outsiders had stirred the dust up into the air all over the place as they were making their way through the passage.

Joshua and others stopped in their tracks after they came across a damaged area in the living hall of the place. On the side of the hall, the wall seemed to have cracked after being inflicted by an explosion from within the wall, revealing the steel within the wall. There were numerous complicated gears, pistons, steel bearings, and multiple magic circles forming a complex structure that seemed like there were signs of life in it. Even without a high standard Alchemy, Joshua could still tell that the technology contained within this pyramid was far more advanced than he could ever imagine it to be.

"It'll take at least a Legendary-tier alchemist to analyze the technology inside out."

After looking at the technology seriously for a brief moment, Joshua could not help but feel get a slight headache. He recalled the moment he was still in high school. "At my current standard, it seems too hard on me after all."

"Still further down."

At the side, Clyre informed the others saying to go further down the road. She seemed to be in a better mood right now, "The primal energy is getting thicker, stronger."

And after examining the damaged area, Joshua turned his head around and looked at a sign hung over on the upside of the hall. The sign had some complex words written on it. However, under the system's translation, he naturally knew what the words meant.

[The Layer of Heaven, Pneumatic Circulation Center.]

"What does that mean…"

Joshua did not quite understand the meaning of the translation provided by the system. He could only say that two races would understand things differently, and the words they used were different as well. "Can we assume that it is saying 'Air Circulation Management'? As for the term 'The Layer of Heaven', my current position is probably at the position where the sculpture 'heaven' is on the outside of the pyramid."

"It seems that we're a little reckless for coming in like this."

Right at the side of the damaged area, Moreila spoke without showing any sense of remorse or fear. This old dwarf was seriously examining the interior structure of the metallic pyramid. He smiled and said, "However, it's actually much more excited for coming in like this. It remains completely unknown to us what lies before us."

"Speaking of which, well, it's not really completely unknow to us. At least we can predict something."

Joshua laughed on and replied. At the same time while they were chatting with each other, they were making their way through the large living hall, all the way to another passage that led them further down into the pyramid. There were quite a number of doors along the passage. All of the doors were then smashed opened by Joshua and the dwarf. Everyone then followed the coordination of the 'primal energy' that was given by Clyre. At the same time, they were also observing and examining the situation in the interior of the giant pyramid.

"It feels awkwardly smooth though. There's not even a single defense mechanism all along the way."

Muttering to himself, Joshua swung out a punch, throwing out an expanded air force, blowing a metallic huge door opened. As he pulled back his fist, he frowned. There was a look of doubt on his face. He seemed to be troubled by some thoughts, "However, we have all gone through the purification of the crystal sun. We are all completely living beings of the Order after all. Maybe that's the reason why the traps and the defense mechanisms did not respond to our presence?"

On the other side, Ling pulled his owner's sleeve to inform Joshua to look downward.

Joshua raised his head and looked over to the direction Ling attempted to ask him to look at.

The passages of the pyramid were unusually wide enough to allow all kinds of huge Alchemy Instruments to move across them freely. There were obvious energy lines and runes on the walls along the entire way. From time to time, there were various magical glows flashing along the energy lines. Although, this was a magical world, however, it gave Joshua the vibe that this was a sci-fi world. At that instant, right behind the door that was right before his eyes, it was a scene filled with magical wonders where he had longed to see.

It was a large vaulted hall, roughly the same size as the main hall in a standard cathedral. Numerous chairs were clustered into one area after another on the ground in the vast space. The walls of the surroundings were full of exquisite murals. The murals exhibited strange scenes. There were cars that could fly, ships that could travel through stars across the galaxies, and also cities that could move. Meanwhile, most importantly, there was actually a white platform made out of stone right in front of the large living hall.

A crystal-sun statue that was sparkling magically with golden radiance was located right above the large stone platform. That crystal sun was levitating in mid-air, rotating at a very slow pace. Meanwhile, there were statues all around it. Those statues looked similar to humans with a variety of wings. Based on the aesthetic view of the human beings, their appearances were a bit slender and feminine. The pair of huge wings that they had extended from the sides their waists. They looked just like the remaining of the dead bodies that Moreila found right outside the perimeter of the pyramid. It seemed that everything matched Joshua's predictions so far.

Right at the dome of this hall, there was a mural representing the starry sky where innumerable lights were scattered all over in the darkness. Only the sun was shining bright, lighting up the dark world.

[Praise the sun, the light, and heat, and all life is born by its hand. May it live forever in the sacred glory of heaven and let our world circle around it again and again. May it never rest.]

The long phrase were written right beneath the statue of the crystal sun. The thick magic energy was flowing strong, maintaining the radiance on the crystal. Joshua could tell that it was merely a statue by a glance. This statue was completely different than the statue that contained the true sun's power of Order which was located the top of the outer pyramid

Moreila and Clyre were also as surprised as Joshua at seeing the exquisitely beautiful murals and statues. However, they had lived for hundreds of years and had experienced many things. Even though what laid before their eyes was astounding, they were not fazed by these cliché distractions. They still remembered their main goal for going all the way there. A few seconds later, the old dwarf and the druid began to look around for valuable clues.

In the hall, there were also many corpses all over the place. These corpses still had clothes on them. However, a gentle touch was enough to shatter them into ash and dust. Even the breeze that was stirred up by the movement of walking was also enough to turn all the corpses into ash and dust.

"As time passes, everything is so fragile. All lives are. No exceptions to the instruments as well."

Moreila shook his head and let out a sigh as he spoke. He casually walked by a chair and touched it. It was no surprise that the exquisite chair that was not made of steel was shattered into a pile of dust upon getting a touch from the dwarf. For that, the old dwarf could only let out a sigh and shake his head before turning his head over to look at the other things.

Meanwhile, Clyre furrowed her brow while she was observing the statues of the Karlisi located right by the side of the crystal sun that was levitating in mid-air- There was no denying that, from their appearance, the Karlisi did hold some similarities to the elves. They were both gentle. One of the differences was that the Karlisi had wings that seemed to have allowed them to fly more conveniently. Because of that, their bodies were much more slender. The average height of each statue was only about 1.6 meters. However, they could reach up to 2 meters tall when they stretched their wings out.

Well, statues were merely artistic creations that have always been slightly more perfect than reality. So one could roughly imagine that the height of the Karlisi should be a little shorter than the height of their statues.

"They really do look like the honorable Avian people… Could they be of the same race? Following the timeline, it's possible that the Karlisi had accidentally gone through dimensional rift, arriving at our world and were forgotten."

Clyre was still having thoughts about it. However, Joshua who had almost done examining the hall did not give her more time to have her thoughts. The warrior spoke aloud to the people behind him, "Let's move on forward. We have a long way ahead of us."

Well, what he said was true. The bottom floor of the pyramid was already as large as the size of a city. Even though the few floors above the first floor were a little narrower, they were still so vast that one could not see the side edges of the floors. It would surely take more than ten years for the four of them to explore the entire place. Currently, they would need to locate the 'primal energy' that Clyre mentioned earlier on as their priority. That would be the one thing that they needed to do most in order for them to resupply. Their secondary objective would be locating the center core of this moving fortress to see if they could acquire any information to improve their current situation. Currently, they knew nothing at all about what to come.

"However, every single person in this fortress seemed to be all dead… Or else, the corpses would have been taken care off. After all, this is a very important living hall of a religion. They wouldn't just leave the corpses all over the place unattended."

That was what the warrior was thinking about. With Joshua leading the way in front of them, they left the religious living hall and continued on walking down the passage. The group walked past countless rooms with all sorts of special and strange properties in them. Upon recording down what they found, they continued on down the path that leads them to the center of the pyramid.

After walking down the path without knowing how long they've walked, the path that was leading down had reached an end to it. The group had arrived on a platform that was located high up from the ground.

Right before Joshua, there was a giant circular and vertical giant pit that went all the way down. With his eyesight, he could not see anything clearly on the opposite side, the bottom of the pit. He could only see the same silver-white steel wall down there. Looking upward, he could only see a sparkling magical stream of light which had a faint golden color. Looking downward, there was only a sea of mist brewing down the pit.

This mist was rapidly dissipating. The giant pit that went all the way down looked different from the other halls in the pyramid. The place was filled with wind flowing up and down, blowing away the mist little by little at a very slow pace. Finally, the bottom of the giant pit was revealed before the eyes of Joshua and the others after a brief moment. There was a magnificent city built from steel and iron.

Right at the bottom of that giant pit that was indescribably vast, there were innumerable tall and huge buildings that were built from steel and iron standing still on the area. Joshua could not help but have a familiar feeling about the scene he was looking at. However, that was not it. There were also numerous steel towers standing among the other buildings as well. There was also indescribably powerful magical energy surging and radiating brightly on top of those steel towers. The magical energy on top of those towers was radiating as bright as the lightning. The golden magical radiance then turned into surging electrical charges, charging up the entire area.

On one of the side of this huge city, there was a huge billboard right on the front. There was a short phrase written on top of the billboard.

[Central Doctrine Area]

[Restricted area, irrelevant personnel is not allowed to fly at will. Stay away from this area. You'll be responsible for your own death.]

After the mist had scattered, Clyre and Ling were standing by the side looking puzzled. They blinked their eyes again and again while staring at the giant city right below the giant pit. After that, Ling spoke to Joshua with a serious look on his face. "Master, I can sense the presence of a Divine Armament. It's just right among the buildings of the city!"

"Joshua, the primal energy is just below there somewhere."

Without the need to say much, Joshua could also feel that something was not right.

"So right below there… that presence is very similar to the presence that the Azurite gave me!"