Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-54

Noticing familiar faces, the warrior stopped in his tracks. Then he turned around and put down the head of the colossal beast he was holding. After that, he walked up to Chiri and the others.

One seemed old, one looked heavily wounded while the other was unconscious. The three men before his eyes had once served under his father's rule. So they could be considered as elders to Joshua of course, they were currently serving Joshua now. Regardless, he had to greet these familiar faces.

However, when he met them, the warrior frowned. He halted as he looked at the green-haired half-elf with a puzzled face. After that, he turned his head towards the white-haired mage and asked, "Mr. Lawrence, who... is this?"

"Huh?"

Facing a situation like this, Chiri was stunned for a brief moment. He could not react to the situation just yet.

He had seen the Joshua before when Joshua was still very young, instructed by the previous liege to teach the young Joshua how to use weapons. Although the two of them had not seen each other for many years, Chiri could still imagine how the young man would look like after growing up. So it was not hard for him to recognize Joshua. However, he was totally unprepared that Joshua would completely forget about him. Instantly, his felt as if his heart was struck by lightning.

"Don't just stand there, your helmet is falling off."

Feng sighed at the side and said, "He just hasn't seen your face before. So its very normal that he doesn't know you."

Upon hearing the word 'helmet', Joshua instantly understood, "Master Chiri!"

After finished talking, the warrior's expression on his face instantly turned a little strange—The green-haired half-elf's face was handsome and pretty at the same time. Although there were runes all over his face, he still looked extremely charming. Of course, more importantly, that person seemed to be a little younger than Joshua. He looked totally different from the tall intimidating warrior that once taught Joshua how to use weapons. It was perhaps Joshua's youth that led him to see Chiri as tall and intimidating.

Even though Joshua's face looked like a seasoned fighter's, he was a young man that was only in his twenties while Chiri was from the same generation as Joshua's father. So he would be at least forty to fifty years old by now. So it was really a shock to see that Chiri actually looked much younger than Joshua… No wonder he had been covering his face all the while. The runes on his face did not seem to be the main reason. If the bunch of old men in the knight's party could see how handsome and young their commanding officer turned out to be, their morale would have definitely dropped a lot.

Feng did not seem surprised by it. He bowed at Joshua to express his respect towards Joshua. Then he spoke in a low voice, "My lord, this is not a place for chatting. If I may, could you wait for us for a brief moment in the conference room of the fortress? I shall send Zorgen to the infirmary together with Chiri before reporting the situation of the Dark Tide to you."

"There's no need for such a formal process, Mr. Lawrence."

Shaking his hand, Joshua sighed. "This time, I made a mistake. I had not contacted you in days, and I did not react immediately. I thought everything was fine…"

"The fault lies in interference that shielded our communication signals. No one had thought that the Dark Tide would come at us so soon. It was not young master's… not your fault at all. Furthermore, the number of casualties was not high at all. At least only the walls had suffered tremendous damage and collapsed. We just need to rebuild them again."

Continuing from what Feng said, Chiri shook his head and returned to his senses saying, "Now that the Dark Tide has withdrawn, they should not be daring enough to come again before the next Gold-tier daemon reveals itself. We should have plenty of time to fix it. Truth be told, the damage we suffer this round is much lesser than any other amount of damage we suffered in the past."

Upon moving his eyes to the side a little, he could see that the warrior was holding an egg-shaped object that was glittering silver in his hand. Out of his own curiosity, the half-elf could not help but ask,"This is?"

"This is something that I found from the giant beast that I killed earlier on."

Since Joshua was in a good mood, he explained a little, "The mammoths eat grass to live. Although they are not tame to begin with, they do not usually attack the other living beings at will. Meanwhile, as a living being on the top level of the food chain, if it wasn't it, there would not be any colossal beasts appearing in the Dark Tide."

Meanwhile, Feng who was standing right beside him was staring at the silver egg. He then furrowed his brows as he felt a sense of familiarity with that object. He was certain that he had felt that feeling someplace else.

However, it was not the time to talk about that. The white-haired mage thought of it and said, "Zorgen is in a really bad shape. We need to stabilize his condition first. His strength might even reduce a little…"

"There's no need to explain that sort of stuff to me, just go now."

"So we shall see you later in the conference room, my lord."

Outside the city, south of Dark Forest Fortress.

The silver-haired girl was riding on a black warhorse, making her way through the white snowy land. The hooves of the horse were knocking hard on the ground while it was galloping, splashing up the snow into the air leaving a trail behind.

A moment later, the warhorse stopped galloping. Now, Ying was looking at the tall city wall of Dark Forest Fortress that was facing the snow land. The gray-white gigantic rocks had almost the same color as the color of the surroundings. There was no way that anyone could see them.

Running back and forth across the snowy land for two days was mainly because the spreading mist was interfering the communication system. Joshua and Ying could not find the specific range of the interference. So they could only move forward towards the visible mountains. After that, they took a detour around the bottom of the mountain for one round—fortunately for them, they had located the source in the end. So their efforts of running around were not for nothing.

Upon arriving at the gates of the fortress, the female Divine Armament was a little surprised to see the calm faces of the guards. It seemed that not long before she arrived, they were already alarmed by her arrival. Meanwhile, the soldiers and guards on the wall looked at the silver-haired young girl curiously. So, who was the young looking girl that rode a horse? Every single one of them wondered where she came from.

Ying did not think much of anything. She straight away hopped off the back of the horse and revealed her identity card to the guards. The radiance flashed brightly. Her name and her origin were projected halfway in the sky. This sort of card that had magic waves that could not be fabricated. So the small door by the side of the gigantic city gate was immediately opened.

"The liege should be in the memory chamber in the middle tower of the fortress."

Upon going through the passage, the guard of knew her identity immediately informed her of the information. Although she could feel the whereabouts of her master that already made a pact with her, the silver-haired girl was still acting courteously and thanked the guard before she walked out of the passage. Right before her eyes was a street filled with people walking around.

The civilians and soldiers that were not wounded had come back to the street moving supplies required to rebuild. Some of them were distributing supplies to the people in need. Meanwhile, many soldiers who were wounded had to stand in line to wait for their turn by the infirmary. Some of them even got their treatment from themselves by the side of the street. Meanwhile, a small number of Silver-tier warriors and archers were only wounded a little. They had begun running around the place trying to maintain order.

However, mages that wore long robes did not appear in the vicinity. Ying was sharp as she noticed that. On the other end of the street, there was a shadow wearing a long gray robe. That man seemed to be covering his head while he was walking across the stone-paved road limping. He seemed to be in a bad shape.

That was normal. Engaging countless daemons in an all-out war, the mages that were deemed to be a noble class could not actually unleash their full potential and use the advantages they had. Facing that amount of monsters in the Dark Tide having to target their attributes and all, it would be pointless. The case might be different for some special war mages. However, for most of the mages, casting a great number of spells consecutively would cause stress mentally. Right after that, they would have a headache for a period of time after being mentally exhausted.

However, no matter the situation, the city was considered to be in good shape for the moment. There was no sign or proof that a defensive battle against the Dark Tide had happened in the city not too long ago. Ying was recalling on her past memories. There were many different scenes.

She could clearly remember one of the worst ones. When she was here last time, the fortress had been breached. The city was set ablaze in flames. Black smoke was seen everywhere across the city.

Meanwhile, the air was filled with the burned scent of meat. The best thing about that time was that under the support of one of her previous masters, the walls were not breached by the daemons. The soldiers and civilians of the city were fending off the invasion on the walls. The battles raged on for days.

In a nutshell, she had never thought possible to see such a peaceful and harmony scene right before her eyes. So how long has it been? It was not even two hours yet. How could the Dark Tide end so quickly?! Were the daemons so weak and vulnerable that they were forced to retreat so soon? Getting information from one of the guards by the roadside, Ying had succeeded in getting the information she wanted.

"What on earth is this… The issue has been solved so soon…"

Upon sighing out loud, the silver-haired girl could not help but feel happy for having a powerful master and her master's victory. However, at the same time, she was a little unhappy. "Unfortunately, I have not contributed anything to claim this glory… I'm a weapon, but I'm not needed. I've got no chance to prove my own worth to Master…" she sighed.

That feeling was very hard to explain. Ying knew better than anyone that having that thought was not right in the first place. How a master used his tools depended on his own preference. As a tool, since she was not needed, she should just stay in her sheath waiting for the right moment. The thoughts of thinking to reveal herself to the public all the time was an immature thought. That could potentially affect the image of her master. Although she knew all that, and she knew how true that was, she still felt a little frightened and concerned.