Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-168

Looking just like the combination of a dragonfly and a killer bee, the Aragami were flying at a rapid speed towards Joshua as they lifted the spikes on their tails. Along with the long needle-like spikes that were carrying violet-blue light balls around them, there were countless light dots appearing and floating in the surroundings. After that, along with a vague sound, these light dots had completely formed into violet-blue long needles, firing its way towards Joshua at a speed that was ten times faster than the speed of sound.

In the face of the rapid onslaught, Joshua did not flinch. He lifted his left hand, and the black giant axe brought traces of light in the middle of the air. Countless long needles struck on the area several meters in front of him. However, the needles did not strike further than that nearer to him. At the moment when the long needles were flying towards him, a violent curved light was swept across the air and all of the attacks that were aimed at him were smashed into bits. The impact from both sides had caused the sound of two metallic substances clashing into each other. At the same time, violet-blue sparks burst from the impact point.

That scene looked as if Joshua's entire body had countless violet flowers blooming all around it, making the entire scene exceptionally elegant and beautiful to gaze upon.

"So this is the level that these monster can offer, huh?"

For Joshua at his current state, keeping his axe back after performing such a quick attack was as normal as breathing. He looked at his right hand and the fire that was combusting at a slow rate with a surprised look on his face, "My power is actually being boosted to this level."

He could feel that, with the help of the power that the python bestowed on him, his Combat Aura and his Glorious Strength had received an all-out enhancement. Even though it was only for the time being, that enhancement had allowed him to break through the barrier between the power level of a Gold tier and the power level of a Supreme tier. He might barely reach the realm of Legendary tier like he did in the previous life.

Meanwhile, in the corner of his eye, there were numerous system data rapidly refreshing.

[Joshua van Radcliffe]

[Form: Hero]

[Designation: King of Searing Soul (Remaining 2:53)]

[Race: The Descendant of Steel (Remaining 2:53)]

[Level: LV 48+25 (73) Mastery Soul (Remaining 2:53)]

[Challenge Level: LV 70]

[Irresistible, Unstoppable, Unbreakable, Fearless]

"The duration is really short… However, if that's the case…"

After muttering a few words softly and turning his attention back to the monsters before him, Joshua stretched his body a little. The joints of his bones cracked loudly as he stretched out. The heavy pounding in his heart sounded like thunder rumbling. He briefly gazed at the three Supreme-tier Aragami that were about to arrive before him. Then he sighed and said, "Wouldn't things become dull and unchallenging then?"

Boom!

With a sonic boom, countless layers of clouds that were stacking one layer after another appeared right before Joshua. The fragile ground collapsed into many pieces under the trembling of his feet. After that, the broken pieces of earth were being pushed away from him by an extremely powerful impact. Under the circumstance where the gravity had lost its function, the entire ground looked as if it was being shattered and kicked away by the warrior's stomping.

Joshua flew rapidly across the sky and set off waves of air along with streams of remaining fire. His feet were continuously stepping on the air like he was treading on the water's surface, causing the air to generate layers of ripples.

As fast as the speed of the lightning flashing through the air, before that dragonfly Aragami could even react to the situation, Joshua's shadow had already arrived before the Aragami.

"Die!"

Upon letting out a raging roar as loud as the thunder, Joshua lifted up the greataxe in his hand into the air. He had felt it. The strength of the Karlis world was bestowed upon him here. Even though that world was already on the verge of destruction, that power was still the power of the world. Along with the black Divine Armament, the bulging black waves was swiftly growing, together with the blazing flame. After that, they condensed into a gigantic blazing axe that was even large than the size of a mountain! The blazing axe was slashed down upon the monster!

Boom boom boom!!!!

Explosive sounds were heard one after another without a pause. The quakes reverberated through the world as the blazing giant axe smacked the dragonfly Aragami down with an incredibly powerful force like swatting a fly to the ground. With a loud bang, the tremendously tall hill was instantly slammed flat. Countless rocks and gravel were flying and shot into the sky. Enormously powerful impacts had even distorted the air and formed a white mist in the surroundings, causing sharp explosive sounds to be heard.

Before they could even feel the shock knowing that their comrade was instantly killed right in front of them, the two Supreme-tier Aragami immediately let out a roar that could tear the sky apart. The rumbling sound waves resounded in the air. These two monsters that were about hundreds of meters tall were attempting to round Joshua up at an unreasonable speed that did not seem to match the size of their bodies.

The single-horned Aragami started vibrating both of its wings. Its distorted large horn was gathering boundless amounts of darkness, exuding a deep malice that could potentially render the world into eternal sleep. Right at the same instant when that darkness emerged, the chaotic battlefield had lost its sound as if all energy had been devoured by that very darkness, as if everything in the world had fallen into the abyss of silence.

When the single-horned Aragami was using its very own Ultimate Skill, the spider Aragami did not hesitate to reveal its full power. It was waving its limbs which appeared as if it had countless joints. At the end of each of its limbs, there was a string of gray-yellow silk thread that was extremely thin. That string of silk thread then occupied the sky and formed into gigantic webs one layer after another. There were violent quakes that were powerful enough to crush anything vibrating across every string on the webs. The gigantic webs had locked out all of the areas that Joshua could have escaped to, forcing him down to only have two choices. One would be taking the full charge attack of the one-horned Aragami, while the other choice would be getting crushed by the trembles that vibrated thousands or tens of thousands of times within one brief second.

[Horn of Desolation] and [Web of Desolation]. When these two Supreme-tier Aragami worked together, their combined power levels would become much more powerful than individually. Disregarding [Wing of Desolation] that Joshua killed moments ago and the [Tooth of Desolation] that was rammed to death by No.03, the power level of the four Supreme-tier Aragami combine would be much stronger than this. Even so, that light cannon that could pierce through and annihilate everything, was still a great threat to Joshua.

With such power, even the body of the moving fortress would not be able to withstand the impact of the light cannon. One hit from it could destroy half of the fortress.

"Hmph."

Looking at the dark horn of the one-horned Aragami that was about to hit, and also the gigantic web that could crush anything was about to come in contact with its body, a layer of dark red flame began to glow across the surface of Joshua's entire body. It looked as if countless energies had been activated.

The Divine Power had been activated. His chi and blood circulation was instantly enhanced by three times with the world's power flowing through him. The air around him was being sucked out by the power, producing a vacuum around the warrior. The outburst of flame had directly ignited the dark energy wave.

Immediately afterward, the giant black axe was carrying high-frequency buzzing sounds as if the axe itself strived through space and directly collided with the giant horn. After that, right before the unbelievable eyes of the one-horned Aragami, the dark horn was instantly split in half. Black blazing flames began to spread along with the lesion, causing that gigantic monster to instantly lose its balance, collapsing down to the ground with a miserable screech.

The spider Aragami had immediately noticed that something was not right. The person that had his body blazing with the power of Order from head to toe had a power level that was far beyond theirs—no, it would be better to say that such power should not appear in this world. They had survived over thousands of years in the Karlis world. However, the spider Aragami had never seen such a powerful presence. It let out a deafening sharp hiss and moved its numerous limbs around. Instantly, the gray-yellow gigantic web spread and turned into countless sharp silk blades and sliced towards Joshua who just swung down his axe a moment ago.

The silk blades made the air tremble, with an intense explosive sound. The air was cut open, causing ripples in the form of mist. Meanwhile, with his physique strengthened by the Will of the world this time, Joshua has no fear. He laughed and started moving again, leaving an afterimage of his own shadow as he was charging straight towards the spider Aragami. Meanwhile, in his surroundings, the silk threads that were attempting to slice him had all been disintegrated. Even though the number seemed to be endless, however, they were instantly cut and reduced to nothing.

Facing Joshua's charge that seemed to be unstoppable, the spider Aragami instantly brought forth its full strength. All of the crystal shells all over its body began to flash rapidly, radiating with the light of seven colors that looked magically like a dream. It instantly unleashed all of its power that was all around its towering body.

After that, the Aragami started spraying out a gigantic gray silk thread from its tail end.

This thread appeared to be neither matter nor energy. It was an ambiguous existence in between both states. When facing an energy resistance, it could turn into matter to resist the blockage. Meanwhile, when faced with the resistance from matter, it could turn into the form of energy and get around the obstacle. It would only turn into a state that could hurt the opponent at the moment when it makes contact with the target. It was an attack that could not be defended against or be resisted.

—Remaining 1:09

However, the attack could not do anything at all. Currently, Joshua who was still ablaze in the 'King of Searing Soul' mode, was unstoppable. He sneered and swung his giant black axe forward. The impactful flames were gushing out of his axe like a flash flood that seemed to have completely ignored everything. They melted through the gray-yellowish silk threads and hit the spider Aragami. The frenzied force of the impact had instantly blasted the monsters that were hundreds of meters large out and crashed into the floating mountain that was miles away from Joshua. The impact of the crash had caused a hell of a mess to the mountain as the avalanche continued.

"Thanks to you monsters, I've had the feeling of being a legendary warrior again!"

Laughing out loud, Joshua did not stop there. He descended down along with his brute force, slamming onto the horned Aragami that was slowly trying to climb back up on its feet. Along with the sounds of shattering glass, countless Chaos shields that were stacked together one layer after another were easily shattered into pieces.

However, the one-horned Aragami was still attempting to struggle. It continued to release countless black shockwaves as its body was also beginning to vibrate at an insanely fast pace. The high-frequency vibration on the shell of the Aragami pressed against its enemy as there were countless dull radiances emerging on the surface of its shell as if it would devour everything around it, causing everything of Order to descend into Chaos.

But how was it possible that Joshua could be stopped now?!

Satsui Hadou—One punch was enough to shatter it all!

The high-frequency vibrating shell—was directly struck into pieces!

The engulfing light on the crystal shell—had been completely ignored by Joshua's blazing flame while he was in his 'King of Searing Soul' mode.

All three consecutive counterattacks were ineffective. At the next moment, in the unbelievable eyes of the one-horned Aragami, Joshua kicked his leg onto the body of the Supreme-tier Aragami. The huge contrast between Joshua's and the size of the gigantic Supreme-tier Aragami was as if a mosquito was attacking an elephant. However, with Joshua's leg as the center point, the shell of the one-horned Aragami had a deep dent. Countless cracks were spreading across the surface of the crystal shells, which shattered and countless pieces of the shattered crystals were seen flying all over. Meanwhile, that gigantic monster was being kicked out like a football, crashing into another mountain that was afloat, far away from the battlefield.

—Remaining 0:13.

The Python of Steel that had been remaining in silence in the void was peeking into the real world. Even it was surprised by that scene. As a world that never been able to give birth to a single being that exceeded the strength of a Gold Tier, it had not been able to make contact and communicate with outer worlds that were much stronger before the world was invaded by the Evil Gods. Only a few weaker civilizations were able to communicate with it before that. So it had no idea that there would actually be a civilization without magic technology that could be so focused in powering up an individual strength in the multiverse.

Three Supreme-tier Aragami were all taken out like they were melons being sliced on a chopping board?!

Its silver pupils were filled with disbelief. However, because of that, the python also understood one thing.

The warrior in front of me… if he gets to grow stronger, maybe it could truly work!

"With the Initial Flame as the oath, sentence judgment upon all flames of Chaos!"

"With the Origin of Steel as the agreement, banish all evil with the sanction of steel!"

The mark of a crown that was formed from the Azurite had transformed the power of this world into the energy source that nourished the 'King of Searing Soul'. Along with the battle words echoing back and forth in the heart, during the last few seconds when the 'King of Searing Soul' still lasted, Joshua looked at the Supreme-tier Aragami that were drawing their last breaths. Then he roared out loud. His voice reverberated through every corner of that entire world.

"The power of Order of Karlis is here!"