Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-186

In this world, occasionally, people with incredible talents would appear. They would have made in efforts, obtain incredible strength, and then attain incredible achievements. Ultimately, they would leave their names in history itself.

This kind of person would either be called a hero or a fanatic.

The Fallen One, Roland. He was undoubtedly one of these people in the history.

Roland Glamorgan. In the history of the Church of the Seven Gods for over a thousand years, he was deemed to be one of the most gifted holy knights with the most extraordinary Gift.

He was born in a prominent noble family in a kingdom located in the Eastern plains. Because of the political struggle, he was educated by his parents to join the church in order to seek refuge when he was still young. However, he who fell into the dirt from the clouds did not give up on his own life. Instead, he chose to rely on his own Gift and hard work to rise above the others.

In that moment, the one who appeared before everyone was not the strong and silent clergy they saw just now. He was now a holy knight burning with righteous anger, wielding a cross-shaped iron hammer and a square shield, his body adorned with a pure-white combat armor. With his unstoppable might, he destroyed every apostle of evil who dared to stand in his way.

However, Joshua knew that three years from now, in the pioneering Starfall Year 835, Roland would be setting his foot out of the Holy Mountain of the Far Sea and carry with his crusade to banish all evil cults. Regardless of whether it was in the Empire kingdom or the distant South, the Eastern plains or the West mountains, or even the Shining Sea of the islands across the stormy oceans, there would be the traces or the shadows of his heroic battles.

At that time, the man that appeared right in front of everyone would no longer be the silent clergy that was faithful to the cause. He had become a holy knight that was armed with a crossbow hammer and a square shield, wearing a pure white armor, blazing with the rage of Justice, an unstoppable being that would crush anyone or anything evil that would block in front.

Players who had the privilege of playing with him would all express that Roland was extremely reliable. With his spirit as a holy knight blazing in his heart, the uninterrupted beneficial power would be spread to the entire party along with the radiance of the Aura skill. It even spread and covered the entire ground of the battlefield. Before the enemies could even take any action, they had already suffered difficulties. Meanwhile, the players were like fish getting into the water as if they were being supported by a god.

Because he had successfully annihilated various cults, Roland's name was spread all over the world by many people, praising him for his deed, giving him the credit for doing all of it. Some people who had been deeply harmed by cults had even suggested adding the title 'Saint', a word that would only be added to the most outstanding holy beholder of each generation, to Roland's name. That time, everyone believed that he would be advancing into the Legendary Tier and become the next Pope for the church. Or, he could become the great commander for many knight parties of the church.

At this time, the new king of the kingdom where Roland was born stood out and declared that his father, also the previous king, had done a grave mistake by sentencing Roland's parents. The king had even publicly expressed his apology. Then he immediately built a hero's plaque for Roland to honor him.

But at this time, Roland who had experienced hundreds of battles was no longer be bothered by such a thing. He rejected the proposal of the king who sincerely invited him to become the king's personal knight to protect the kingdom. Instead, he went back to the Holy Mountain of the Far Sea to sort out the rewards he had acquired over the years, calming the rage in his heart that he accumulated over the years, tempering his own soul in order to advance into a higher realm.

It took less than a decade for Roland to transform himself from being a silent and firm Beginner tier clergy to becoming an Extraordinary holy knight blazing with the flame of justice to eradicate the cults; Saint Roland that became indifferent by the end of it.

Even the players did not have much negative feedback about Roland. There is not a single blemish on such a holy clergy. That time, Joshua also greatly admired the characters like the holy knight. He admired them because a knight could actually remain true to themselves as if every day was the same as the first day for ten years. They would not be moved by fame and fortune. That would be a warrior that was worth to be respected.

However, the development of story did not go the way everyone expected it to be.

As time passed, years later, just when everyone thought that Roland who had already attained Supreme tier was ready to advance into the realm of Legendary tier, an unfathomable news surfaced.

On the Holy Mountain of the Far Sea, the old Pope Igor passed away unexpectedly. Meanwhile, after the Holy Mountain was sealed for a few days, a notice was issued from one side only, declaring that the holy knight, Saint Roland had fallen. He had betrayed the humans. Then they issued a warrant, a wanted poster of Roland to fully hunt for him. Meanwhile, the ex-holy knight did not give any explanation for that. As he was running like a fugitive, his face was seen to have many wrinkles. Rumour had it that he had already returned to the kingdom where he was born. He had return before the graves of his parents.

Upon leaving a regretful sigh, this ex-holy knight had vanished without a trace since then. He had basically evaporated into thin air before the eyes of everyone who had been attempting to capture him.

Some even said that they had seen the shadow of Roland in the Dark Abyss. They claimed to have seen a knight wearing the armor of a gray holy knight which was covered in scratches and damages battling against a large horde of demons on the bloody sea of plains. There were also people who claimed to see that there was a powerful holy knight armed with a Sunset Battle Hammer dealing with several Shadow Dragons. However, no one could verify whether those claims were true or not.

After that, no one has ever seen Roland's presence. No one has ever paid any attention to that matter as well.

Because the seal of the gate to the Dark Abyss had been broken.

In any case, this legendary character had a lesser-legendary ending though. The truth of history was hidden into the troubling folklore. No one actually knew the true course of the events. And the truth about Roland's fall had been hidden away by moving time, slowly becoming dusty and unrevealing.

After all, the next event would be a war that would not give anyone a chance to breathe. Joshua knew that world that was called [Continental War]. He understood that more than anyone.

With the passing of the pope, Saint Igor, and the fall of holy knight Roland as the starting point, the invasion of the Dark Abyss was officially initiated.

Of course, Roland had yet to fall in the current timeline though. He had not even started his adventure to eradicate the lairs of the evil cults. However, the stage for everything that yet to happen had been built. The actors had already gone up to the stage one after another. The heroes had pulled out their swords, while the conspiracies were beginning to bloom everywhere.

"I do remember that he is really good at battles."

Upon ending the flashback, Joshua's mind whirred. "Speaking of which, what he could have done that the Church of the Seven Gods would declare that he had fallen to the dark side then?"

In the previous life, no even a few knew about the reason behind Roland's fall. The information was even highly classified among the upper level of the Church of the Seven Gods. Players could only rely on words they could collect from what they could hear and explore the secrets within those words.

Some speculated that Roland had murdered the old pope, his own adoptive father. However, let's not look at how a Supreme-tier holy knight could kill a Legendary-tier clergy. Everyone could not find a reason for Roland to have the motive to kill the pope in the first place. As long as he could advance into the Legendary tier, he could definitely become the next pope of the church. Meanwhile, with Roland's qualification, it would only be a matter of time before he could become a Legendary tier. So he would absolutely not be idiotic enough to do such a thing.

As for his other so-called dark past, they were nothing more than a savagery against the cultists. He did not treat them as humans at all. But in fact, Joshua did that more than Roland did. Having his thoughts paused there, the warrior could not help but recall on some old memories about the movement of those cultists in the urban villages. He shook his head and felt that the group that called Roland cruel were just jealous of him actually.

In fact, there wasn't much memory about the warrior being related to Roland to begin with. During that time, his entire party was cheering for the activation of the Dark Abyss dungeon. Other than some holy knight admirers among themselves, none of them had been paying much of their attention on that matter.

Never mind then. It would only be pointless to think too much about it. Joshua decided to give up on thinking deeper upon it. Instead, he turned his head around and looked at the old Priest.

Ever since Artanis had advanced to the Gold tier, Joshua's face had seemed so much better. Although his hair was still white and his beard on his chin had not turned black just yet, however, just by looking at them with his eyes, he could tell that they started to become tougher now.

"It seems that you also got the key as well."

While being stared at by the eyes of the old priest that were filled with doubt, the warrior sighed.

In the unending disputes on the Mycroft Continent, only when they reached the Gold tier can they be regarded as touching the door of the historical stage. Meanwhile, the Glorious Strength would act as the key to the great door of that stage.

In the eyes of Joshua, there was a layer of holy light gleaming from the body of Artanis. That would be some sort of energy that was related to life. There was no doubt that the old priest, who has accumulated so many experiences, had already had a sense of touch on the edge of the Glorious Strength before he was stabilizing his own Gold tier realm. It was just that he had not even the slightest idea about it.

There was a huge gap between a Gold tier that possesses Glorious Strength and a Gold tier being that does not. That gap would be a gap that was almost impossible to cross. Mastering the Glorious Strength would be the only way to master the first step of your own fate. About that, the warrior did not intend to tell him about it. Sometimes, it would be better to let the person take that one step all by himself.

After chatting with Artanis for a brief period of time, Joshua continued to walk back on the road back to the main city along with Ling, Ying, and 03.

The nature of advancing through tiers in Continental War was actually all about transforming one's own body and soul into Extraordinary materials. According to each person's preferences, the direction of advancement would turn out different. For instance, what Joshua did today was strengthening up purely on his power.

In fact, currently, his physical body had reached an unbelievable level under the support of the Azurite and the Chaos Guardian class, and also the fact that he had slaughtered too many Chaos daemon. Regular Gold tiers that had attained the pinnacle of the Gold tier realm would not be able to match his power. They might not even be able to break his defense.

The peak of Gold Tier, the Glorious Strength. Joshua took a deep breath and carefully thought about it. He had finally gotten the ticket to enter the world stage.

This step. The number one in the previous life had used five and a half years to achieve this. Meanwhile, Joshua had used almost six years to reach that step. That was because the number one in the world in the previous life was a mage, and Joshua was merely a warrior.

Of course, the Joshua in this life cannot be compared to the old him anymore.

From Silver Tier to Gold Tier, he had used only seventeen days. And from being a Gold Tier all the way to the pinnacle of the Gold Tier, he had only used about half a month.

And now, he was about to walk into the realm of Supreme tier.

The Satsui Hadou was the name that Joshua gave to his own Glorious Strength. Its nature was to strip off all the souls of all the life that he killed, and then use the wreckage of these souls as fuel to unleash an incredibly destructive power.

Well, this was not a rare ability though. The number of Glorious Strength that used souls to power up was not low at all. Hence, the old dwarf would point his finger at Joshua and state that Joshua was a Soul Blazer. However, Joshua would definitely be the strongest Soul Blazer in the entire history.

Currently, in the body of the warrior, deep within the depth of the soul abyss that kept souls, the place was filled with black fragments of souls. Meanwhile, his own soul was suspended above the air like a sun shining upon those fragments, slowly melting them and transforming them into pure destructive power.

Walking all the way while having thoughts in his mind, Joshua had arrived back at the liege's residence. Meanwhile, at that same time, the news from Nostradamus came as well.

Like Artanis, he wanted to remind the warrior that the strongest holy knight of the new generation from the Church of the Seven Gods would be coming to the North. Meanwhile, after Joshua had expressed his gratitude to the old mage, he no longer set his attention upon the matter.

Time passed. It was already late April.

Looking from the main city of Moldavia at the direction of North, one would be able to see that the sky was very clear. There was a layer of nearly transparent white clouds floating on the blue sky. The golden sun shone directly down upon the entire Great Ajax Mountains and the Dark Forest. The scenery looked like a magnificent fairyland.

It was a good weather that was rarely seen in the North. All of the farmers were taking the opportunity to sow the seeds for the second time. The plants were growing just fine, especially when the purification and the fertilization of the sun vines were present in the soil of the earth this year. This should be a year with bumper harvest.

Meanwhile, Ling's process of tier advancing had been completed after the young male Divine Armament had rested for a couple of days.

Through the Book of Eibon, Ling had obtained enough experience points. Unlike Ying, Joshua had no idea whether it was because the physical quality of Ling was better, or it was because Ying truly had an accident that caused her to go into a deep slumber over a long period of time when she was advancing into a new tier. This time, when Ling was advancing into a new Tier, he only felt a sudden exhaustion over his entire body. Other than that, he did not feel out of the ordinary at all.

Sitting on the desk made of steel-core wood, Joshua was listening to the news and messages that were reported by Ling one after another.

"Master Moreila is now leading the dwarves?and they have just departed from the dwarven settlement. They shall be coming to pay us a visit soon."

The black-haired young man lowered his head and looked at the documents. He summed up the key points of the documents and told Joshua about them one after another. After reading out for a brief moment, he was a little surprised. Then he said, "This is a letter from Miss Clyre. She has expressed her gratitude towards you, Master. She said it herself that the planting of the sun vines all around the region has been completed. All that's left is to wait for the purification to run its course and purify everything. After that, she will be returning to the distant South… there's also a little box here. It seems that there's something in it."

"Open it up and take a look at it."

Upon hearing that, Joshua could not help but feel a little curious about it. Then he said, "Let's see what exactly is in this box then."

"Alright."

Nodding his head, Ling straight away opened the box that came along with the letter.

A ring appeared right before the eyes of the Master and his servant.

"So… it turned out to be the Twin Infernal Serpents Ring..."

He completely forgot about that. Joshua picked up the female-style ring in his hands and shook his head, followed by a sigh. "Although this is indeed my ring, however, what would I want this ring… it's useless for me… Why doesn't she just keep it? I've never thought of wanting it back after I've gave it away…"

Upon saying those words, the warrior swiftly made a decision.

"Ying, this is for you."

After done talking, he passed the ring over to Ying who was sitting by the corner reading a book.

"Thank you, Master…"

After hearing what Joshua said, Ying immediately put down the book and took the ring . However, after she took the ring over, she sounded a little embarrassed as she spoke, "But Master, I can't wear any other equipment though. The moment when I activate my Divine Armament transformation, all equipment will be automatically put aside."