Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-171

Upon clenching his fists and keeping the piece of blazing steel in his hand near his chest, the exhausted warrior turned his head and looked at Nostradamus whose eyes were still wide open and was still speechless. Then he spoke feebly, "Master Nostradamus, thank you for opening the dimensional rift to get us back. But please don't close the door too soon next time. I would not have made it back."

He complained, "I was witnessing the dimensional rift closing slowly. I could only work harder to speed up. Thankfully, I made it in time."

No, you were not even close to making it in time!

"… It's great that you made it back."

Without knowing what else to say, Nostradamus could only let out a sigh of relief. He looked over at the top of Joshua's head. Upon seeing the black-and-white hair, he could not help but furrow his eyebrows, "Wait… what happened to your hair?"

He also saw the scratches all over Joshua's armor. The old mage then narrowed his eyes and observed the warrior. After that, he spoke in a low voice, "Your body… your vitality has been severely exhausted! What did you guys go through on the opposite side of the dimensional rift over the last couple of days?!"

"That's… hard to explain in words… Well, to sum it up, I had a great time fighting."

As Joshua did not even know where to begin, he chose to use simple words to describe his entire journey to the outer world. He looked at his surroundings and noticed that there were quite a number of mages standing still in their own positions. They were maintaining the formation of the magic circle. So he could not help but feel curious and ask, "These mages—who might they be?"

"My apprentices."

Noticing that his apprentices were still standing still in position as that they were stunned by what they had just witnessed, Nostradamus coughed and signaled that they could break formation and leave. Then he quickly explained, "You guys disappeared all of a sudden. I couldn't find any other help on such short notice. Even so, I did not expect guys to return so quickly."

Upon saying that, he let out a small sigh.

Joshua thought for a moment and found that although he did experience many things, they really did not spend that much time in the outer world. He nodded his head and then handed No.03's Runic Core over to Ling. Ling displayed slight nervousness as he received the Runic Core. Upon receiving it, he felt a heavy load in his arms. He almost collapsed to the ground along with the gigantic crystallized steel column.

This thing… is even heavier than I imagined!

"Let's save the chatter for later. Joshua and I, and the others are extremely tired now."

Nostradamus seemed like he still wanted to talk to Joshua about some other topics, but the voice of the old dwarf interrupted him from the side.

Moreila that was not far by their side had already made contact with the dwarves nearby the Volcanic Lake who were observing the situation about the activation of the dimensional rift. He was explaining his whereabouts for the past few days to his own people. Then he turned around to look at Joshua and Nostradamus before he started talking, "We shall speak about what happened to us in the past few days tomorrow. For now, let us have a good rest."

The dwarves responded in unison.

Meanwhile, Joshua also noticed that his knights were near the Volcanic Lake. The knights were wearing white-silver armor. Their presence was evident as they were standing at the side of the black lava rock area. Joshua greeted them by waving. Their moods instantly shifted, to a cheerful one.

The several days that Joshua disappeared, was embarrassing and agonizing for them. When their baron disappeared, they could not even do a thing about it. For a knight, there could be nothing worse than that.

Meanwhile, Clyre did not say a single word. The druid seemed to be reveling the nature of this world as she took a breath of fresh air in. She was sensing the natural scents of the cedar and all kinds of shrubs in her surroundings. Her expression looked as if she was in heaven.

"Ah... what a beautiful world…"

Nostradamus would naturally not object to this reasonable proposal made by the dwarf though. Although he was really curious about the strong presence of the Order and the gigantic Runic Core that was being held in Ling's hands, however, there was no need for him to hurry about it. It would not make a difference even if he discovered what it was the next day. Hence, he held back his curiosity. He then escorted everyone to the dwarven settlement, together with Moreila and the other dwarves.

Along the way to the residential area of the settlement, Joshua who was heavily surrounded by his own knights, brought up the system tab.

The warrior had gotten used to the habit of looking at the system tab after every battle. He would want to have a look at the rewards he earned from the battle— It was that way since the beginning.

Thus, he was once again spammed with system notifications.

[You have slain a Gold-Tier Chaos Daemon – The Famine]

[You have slain a Gold-Tier Chaos Daemon – The Famine]

[…]

[You have slain a Supreme -Tier Chaos Daemon – Tooth of Desolation]

[You have slain a Supreme -Tier Chaos Daemon – Wing of Desolation]

[You have slain a Supreme -Tier Chaos Daemon – Horn of Desolation]

[You have slain a Supreme -Tier Chaos Daemon – Web of Desolation]

[You have ignited the Flame Seed of Order!]

[You have attempted to reawaken the world!]

[You have unlocked the Mythical Event—King of Searing Soul]

[Because the incident has not been revealed to others yet, your World Fame remains the same at the moment (When the people know, your World Fame will automatically increase to the deserved level)]

[You name has been known to the Gods now. They praise you for your actions. Your Favor of the Gods + 15]

Upon seeing that, Joshua could not help but feel a little disappointed—The souls that he collected to be in the state of the 'King of Searing Soul' was, in fact, his Experience Points. So killing the three Supreme-tier Aragami should have given him a tremendous amount of Experience Points. Those souls had all been used in an attempt to revive the world. As a result, not only did he not earn the slightest amount of Experience Points, he even suffered great losses.

Even so, he obtained many achievements. Unlocking events such as the [King of Searing Soul] could bring him many titles and other rewards. Hence, it was really hard to say whether he really lost anything or not.

Scanning his eyes about, he looked at his character card.

[Name: Joshua van Radcliffe]

[Form: Hero]

[Designation: Man holding the Flame]

[Race: Human of the Northern Division]

[Race Skill: Warrior Race (Warrior Skill Experience Points x 1.1)]

[Level: LV 48 Upper Gold-Tier Glorious Light]

[Challenge Level: LV 47 (Hero)]

[Attributes: …

Charm: -5]

"Wait a minute!"

Upon seeing that, Joshua could not help but to frown intensely before he opened his mouth to talk, "Last time it was still 1, Why is it a negative figure now?!"

If Charm was positive, then some people could at least communicate normally with him. Now that his Charm had dropped to a negative value, regardless of how he appeared to be, as long as the willpower of that person appeared to be lower than his, that person would need to perform a Fear Identification the moment they see Joshua!

What does that mean then? It would mean that the Aura of Fear that he seemingly appeared to possess before was now truly present within him. If he ever switched Class to become a [Fearsome Baron], his ability could even straight away allow him to have the Legendary Tier's [Despair Aura]!

In order to find out the reason why his Charm had rapidly declined over the time ever since he arrived at this world, Joshua had looked through all of his achievements in the system. He noticed that he did have many strange and odd titles.

[Executioner: For a short period of time, slaughter a large number of lives, performing extreme acts of destroying corpses.

Intimidation + 5, Charm -3]

[Miracle Crusher: You have no remorse at all. You have destroyed one or many miraculous buildings or things of miracles. The world fears you.

Charm -3, Persuasion +2, Intimidation +2]

The first title was acquired most probably from killing an enormous amount of Aragami. Meanwhile the second one… Joshua turned his head around and looked at the runic core. Then he could not help but think. "Could it be that the act of destroying the mobile fortress was regarded as my deed?"

When he thought about how he took the runic core of 03 out of its place, causing the entire mobile fortress to swiftly explode and be destroyed, Joshua had to admit that there was really a possibility over there. Upon shaking his head, he continued to look downward at the system tab.

[Status: Lack of Vitality. Medium]

[All Attributes reduced by 35% (recovers after ten days)]

[Class: LV48 Chaos Guardian. Elite]

[-Gift-]

[…]

[Flame Seed – Bonfire: LV 1]

[After you kill the Chaos daemons, you will immediately receive a certain amount of Physical Strength and Health Points. You will not be affected by any negative effects that are below the level of Supreme Tier. Your existence itself has an equal level to a Holy Artifact of Order.]

[—Flame of Order, Chaos as the source of combustion.]

*****

At this point, Lorrain was standing right beside Nostradamus. He had fixed his eyes on Joshua.

This Silver-tier mage who had already attained the pinnacle of the Silver tier was looking at the black-haired warrior with respect yet doubt.

Right before his eyes was a tired and aging old man.

He actually managed to rip the dimensional rift with his bare hands?!

If he did not see it with his own eyes, Lorrain would have never believed such a thing could be possible. Even a three-year-old who learned magic would be aware that the structure of the dimensions was so stable that ordinary magic and Combat Aura would require a tremendous amount of energy to affect time and space, requiring a very large number of energy levels. Only dimensional magic that was extremely special and puzzling could be used to control the most basic elements of the world.

Meanwhile, the other combat skills and spells could only indirectly affect them.

Even so... that guy! That warrior… he actually ripped the dimensional rift with his bare hands! How the hell did he manage to do that?!

Having his thoughts scrambled, regardless of how he thought, he just could not get the answer to explain what he just witnessed a while ago. Lorrain could not help to feel troubled by that.

In the meantime, upon noticing that someone was glaring at him, Joshua turned his head around and looked to the side. Lorrain instantly realized that he had locked eyes with the warrior.

The red pupils were staring straight back into his eyes. The young mage felt suffocated in an instant. A sense of fear bubbled up to his chest all of a sudden.

His willpower was considerably strong and tough. Hence, he did not collapse and pass out. He swiftly looked away and closed his eyes, pretending that he was adjusting his spiritual state - truth to be told, the sense of fear that he got from Joshua had caused his heart to bounce around rapidly like a rubber ball. He was completely unable to calm down.

Joshua also did not bother himself with that sort of things though. He had no time or energy to entertain others that were spying on him. The warrior then took out the strange piece of 'Fragment of the Searing Steel' that he kept right before his chest.

This item suddenly appeared in his hands when he was going through the dimensional rift. Vaguely, Joshua seemed to have seen the shadow of the Python of Steel. However, he did not understand the reason why the Will of the Karlis world did not hand it to him face to face.

Regardless of how he looked at it, he could not identify the source of this thing. Joshua could only shake his head. Then he said, "System, identification."

[Fragment of the Searing Steel]

[... Identifying item…Origin Knowledge Identification success. Mystical Item Knowledge Identification fail. World Knowledge Identification fail.]

[Identification Report: Fragment of Searing Steel. Mystical Item of the World]