Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-280

The ten light wheels meshed together like gears. A mass of blinding white light ball was beginning to materialize and grow in the center of the light wheels. The energy that was powerful enough to destroy everything was beginning to accumulate at the center. The expressions of the four, who remained at the mountainside of Mount Sigma, changed. All four of them sensed a menacing threat approaching them before they even lifted their heads. They could only see the two light spots, one red and the other white, flying into the sky and into the distance.

The light spots were like arrows, piercing through the air, flying rapidly as they created a vacuum corridor behind them. The deafening sound echoed through the entire region in the mountains. The shockwave of the blast shattered everything along the way. Just as Joshua took out his weapons as they left the border of Mount Sigma with Roland beside him, the rays from heaven accumulated at one spot.

Soon after, a beam of white light shone down from the sky, making the night as bright as the day.

The world seems to be a big bright place of white radiating light. The falling silver star that was born from the Circle of Apocalypse had turned into an enormous beam of light, dreadful and massive. The incredible level of light energy impact had obliterated everything in a blink of an eye.

The atmosphere, the clouds, the mountain peaks, and the volcano were penetrated by the light in a flash. No explosion, no impact, and no heat. Mount Sigma was devoured whole by the bright, white light - reduced to nothingness. Under the infinite radiating white light, Joshua and the others felt their sense of direction dulled. The warrior relied on his photographic memories of his surroundings as he rapidly flew straight, without the slightest fear, at the source of the white light. He calmly analyzed the situation.

Before he could even understand the situation, the light beam had suddenly vanished without a trace. It vanished just as suddenly as it arrived.

Joshua only had the opportunity to lift his head to look at the sky He carried Ying and Ling under his arms. He remained as vigilant as ever. If the situation becomes worse, he would immediately flee.

Roland flew a little slower than Joshua. After noticing the warrior looking into the distant sky, the holy knight did the same.

The ten light wheels continued flickering.

Occupying half the sky was the gigantic magic circle which seems to be having trouble keeping together. They flickered at random with a chaotic buzzing noise and faded as it loses its energy.

The dark rift in the sky was closing up rapidly. The fragments of the world were scattered and recollected. Then, an enormously large golden object was seen flashing across the site. It all happened too fast that even Joshua could only see a ghostly apparition flashed by before it vanished into thin air.

"… What on earth is going on here?"

The holy knight felt exhausted from flying at full speed for a period of time, he had no energy left to feel anything else. He looked up into the sky. His hair was a mess, his eyes filled with anger and shock. After the atomic explosion of the white light, the sky was now clear with star clusters after the clouds dissipated. Each star cluster was dotted with many tiny little stars, grabbing everyone's attention. Joshua and Roland, however, were not in a bit interested in those at all as they continued searching for any trace left by the light wheels that vanished.

"God knows…"

Joshua shook his head and slowly descended towards the ground, landing on the burnt earth. He then put down both his weapons and furrowed his brows and said, "I thought we were done for back there. That attack was as powerful as the realm of the Legendary tier… no… it was way beyond that. That was way stronger than anything that I can imagine."

And what exactly was it that launched such a massive attack on the four of them?

Joshua turned around and looked towards the direction where the volcano was previously located. Now, a sea of magma lies where the volcano used to be. The blazing heat radiated in the area, brought further by the winds. The strong pungent smell of burnt things spread through the area. The warrior could not help but felt heavy in his heart. He remained standing as he gave it some thoughts. A few moments later, he said, "The thing that appeared in the sky just now… it seems like a magic circle."

"A magic circle?"

Roland froze. He retorted to himself, "How is that possible? A magic circle would not have that enormous size and that shape…" However, halfway through his thoughts, he suddenly reacted to Joshua's words and said, "Wait a minute… now that you've mentioned it… that light beam looked a lot like the 'Beam of Disintegration' or "Annihilation Ray' that mages usually use… it also looked similar to the 'Radiance of Judgment' among other Divine Spells!"

"That's not all though."

Joshua shook his head and narrowed his eyes. He recalled what he had just witnessed moments ago during the attack by the light. "Let's not talk about the dimensional rift that appeared a while ago… that attack back then did not only carry destructive power with it. I could sense that if we did not flee from it in time, we would have been obliterated. Even our souls would not have survived. There would not be even the slightest essence of us left in this world."

"That was a complexly-combined, enormously-scaled magic circle. It must have been combined from at least thousands or even tens of thousands of magic circles!"

Even twenty years into the future in Mycroft Continent, such existence would still remain a concept that was impossible to achieve. It was deemed to be the ultimate magic weapon that required millions of mages to bind their powers together to create and operate.

Joshua inhaled deeply and remained cautious. He mumbled to himself, "The Chaos in this world has actually acquired an immense power… even the descendant of the Evil gods themselves can barely match this sort of power. If this sort of attacks were so constant, then the person who was wielding the power to launch such attacks must be wielding the power of a true god."

Ying and Ling, who were standing beside the warrior, nodded. Both of them did not have to focus on escaping just now so they had enough time to observe the light beam—the purely white light beam did not carry anything holy at all. Instead, there were only indescribable chaos and evil that intended to reduce everything back to chaos and nothingness.

Roland also discovered another strange thing. He reached out his hand as if he was gathering something from the atmosphere. But only a small amount of light emerged in the air. The holy knight felt uneasy about it and said, "This is strange. The element in the atmosphere of this world is only one-seventh of the elemental density in Mycroft… With such low density in the atmosphere, it makes perfect sense that the enormous magic circle vanished after launching one strike."

"But stranger is, how could the Chaos create such an enormous magic circle if the density of magic in this world is so low?"

"Instead of wondering about that, I believe that we should be thinking of something more practical," the warrior reminded Roland with a friendly tone.

Joshua reached out his hand towards the direction of Mount Sigma and spoke in a low voice, "The attack that we witnessed just now seems to have caused the dimensional door to disappear—my friend, before we think about anything else, perhaps we should consider the issue on how we are going to return to our world…"

Babel Province

The colony of elves nearest to Mount Sigma, apart from scattered small cities and villages in between, would be the capital city of a Province. The mayor and the commanding officer of the military army of the city were exhausted as they were defending against the endless stream of golems. They were still busy giving instructions to keep the city standing.

While they were occupied with their tasks, one of the eves, who was sitting right next to the window of the office, screamed. Everyone immediately looked angrily at the elf. They were angry because they have been working for days without rest but still ended up trapped in the city. The elf did not quiet down despite being angrily stared at. Instead, he just pointed his finger towards the sky and stuttered, "Look! Look at that! The Apocalyptic Circle has appeared again!"

His words shook everyone in the office. The elves in the vicinity, including the mayor and the other high-ranking officers, instantly ran out of the rooms and offices and stared at the enormous magic circle that had, once again, appeared in the sky. They were rendered with shock and were all speechless.

Would the terrifying event happen again?

Not long ago, they learned about that the incident back at Sapphire Port through the observation circles. They witnessed many aerial golems pouring out of the dimensional rift like dark clouds floating out. The scene was horrifying to watch. They went through so much hardship to finally regain their strength and gain some advantages. Would they be forced to retreat again?

Before they even had the time to think, a light beam that pierced the heaven and earth emerged in the distance. Everyone felt their hearts tightened as they felt an instinctive fear creeping down their backs.

On the other side of the city.

The fierce flames blazed on while the ground was cracked open. The black draconic horse was surrounded by five gold statues in the middle of the ruins of the central square. Its body was surrounded by red shrouding clouds of fire element. It was brewing its fire that will destroy everything while it was engaged in a stalemate with the golems.

Countless golems remained lurking in the shadows. However, none of them attempted to attack. The Apocalyptic Circle revealed itself again. The golems seemed to have received some sort of command from their master as they charged towards Black simultaneously.

All of the golems made their move simultaneously and charged towards Black. Black, on the other hand, also received some sort of signal and let out a thunderous roar. It charged forward and engaged in a battle with the gigantic monsters.

Light beams shot across the battlefield, followed by loud explosions and blazing flames, scorching the ruins in the area. Ashes fluttered in the air as the flames flickered.

The battle was far from over.