Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-75

"I see. The honor is mine."

Upon hearing those words, Joshua instantly understood. The messages in his head were linked. Instantly, he recalled the many messages he received into his head earlier on.

Brandon Kaos. The Imperial Sword of the previous life, the descendant of the Legendary Grand Mage Carbala Kaos.

However, at the same time, he was also one of the mage families that sealed the passage and knew about the existence of the Evil Gods. He knew this through the secret letter that his butler left for him.

The messages from the past and the future, they were mixed together. Instantly, the warrior understood a lot of things.

I know now. If I did not rush over to support Moldova, then Countess Vale Dani Scarlet would have died fighting the Dark Tide. She had passed out even before I arrived. From that point of view, it was obvious that she would sacrifice herself to defend the fortress. Meanwhile, it is obvious that she is Brandon's wife that was not known to the world.

Reaching out his left hand out touching on the radiance of Order, Joshua could feel that Brandon was the same as him from a certain point. The power that he inherited to become the Chaos Guardian and the power that was presented on Brandon's swords were basically the same. They might even come from the same source.

Meanwhile, in the future, the power embedded in these swords could even slay the Demon Baron of the Dark Abyss. The scene where it was revealed of its true name was so memorable that it was almost impossible to forget.

However, Joshua was also putting his thoughts on other matters. As for the reason that the two of them did not hold an official wedding ceremony, it is quite easy to explain… As the descendant of a legendary combatant and a Gold-Tier swordsman that serves for the glory of the Empire, Brandon's identity and the Scarlet family are a little complicated. After all, both of them are the heirs to their own family and they are both leaders. There would be problems when it comes down to the issue of inheritance among their children. Meanwhile, the Scarlet family and the Kaos family would never merge… Furthermore, they are far away from each another. The two sides would never leave the north and the Imperial City. Since that was the case, marriage has less meaning to these two Gold-tier combatants.

Setting thoughts upon that, Joshua lifted his head and looked at the Gold-tier swordsman who had already kept his two swords back into their sheaths. Joshua could not help but sigh. He was trying to suppress his sexual urges. He seemed ready to be a bachelor for his entire life. That was probably because Vale Dani had passed on. I can't believe that he's such a faithful lover.

Brandon had no idea that Joshua had labeled him as a faithful lover. He kept his swords back and displayed a solemn expression. "Joshua van Radcliffe, even though you've just inherited this power not long ago, but as a comrade that fights against Chaos, I believe that you've also sensed the shadows of Chaos that lurk deep within the Dark Forest."

"Indeed. There's really a putrid scent within the forest. I've even killed some infant-stage Aragami while I was on my way to the fortress."

Recalling that, the warrior nodded and said, "There's also condensed Chaos energy on the Corrupted Black Dragon's scale dust. I am very certain that the Corrupted Black Dragon is completely corrupted by Chaos now. Meanwhile, the Marine Abyssal Dragon and the Pentashade Dragon must have something to do with that kind of corrupted. It must have corrupted the entire Dark Forest across Mount Great Ajax."

"You actually knew this much?!"

The Gold-tier swordsman was astonished. He frowned and said lightly, "The Pentashade Dragon is currently communicating with some sort of mysterious existence deep down in the abyss of the deep sea. That's the latest news that the Empire confirmed recently. Even Count Beirut de Radcliffe would not know about this when he was still around. So where did you get this…"

He looked perplexed.

"Before the Dark Tide in Moldova happened, my territory experienced the Dark Tide once."

Joshua reached his left hand into the small pouch that was hanging by his waist. The outer layer of this pouch was coated with a thin layer of metal. It seemed that the layer was formed from the dripping of the molten steel earlier on. However, the pouch was not destroyed even after being exposed to extremely high temperature. Instead, it was coated with a layer of metal.

Tearing apart the metal layer with one hand, the warrior took out a grain-sized silver bead. Right after the bead was taken out, a sound that indicated the magic power was deactivated was heard along with the flowing air. This silver bead instantly became a silver egg-shaped object. There were some traces of corruption on it.

The shrinking spells of this world were not regular. It was extremely difficult to perform one. Other than the truly powerful combatants, the others would not even be capable of using storage like this one. However, the people in this world were very skilled in using shrinking spells and the spells to cancel weight of the objects. So it would not matter if they were weapons, heavy armors or other things, most of the people could use shrinking spells and the spells to cancel weight of the objects so that they could just keep the objects into their pockets.

Joshua revealed the giant white egg to Brandon and said, "Among the monster horde during the siege, there was a Gold-tier mammoth. Its ability to go berserk was far beyond those daemons that were affected by the Corrupted Black Dragon. This egg is the reason why that ability to go berserk that was way beyond out imagination exists."

Taking the silver giant egg over with a serious face, the golden-haired swordsman was very surprised. He seemed to recognize that thing. "I see… So this is really the Marine Abyssal Spawn! What a condensed scent of Chaos. There's also the remaining scent of the Corrupted Black Dragon's power… It seems that the mages of the Empire were right all along. All of the Marine Abyssal Dragons are here in our world because they were fleeing. It seems that the world of the Abyssal Sea must have fallen, just like the land of the sealed!"

The Abyssal Sea was naturally the home of the Marine Abyssal Dragons. It was a deep-sea world filled with water without any land to begin with. Long even before the ancient time, that world was already linked to the Mycroft Continent. The dragons were coming into this world through that passage. That was one of the outer worlds that was linked to the Mycroft Continent.

"It's not necessary that they are running. Some of them must be the believers and messengers of the Chaos. Ever since the Pentashade Dragon accepted many dragon species from this sort of outer world, more strange and bizarre phenomenon seemed to emerge."

Based on his memories from his previous life, Joshua was trying to match the messages in his head to the current situation. He looked at the civil war between the Pentashade Dragon and the Metal Dragon in a different perspective. "Because the lifespan of a dragon is long and their willpower is extremely strong, so the process of corruption would definitely be longer. However, because of that, if they had truly fallen, they would be corrupted for good. As astral realm dragons that could travel across realms and worlds, they are different from the dragons in our world like the Corrupted Black Dragon. These dragons have the ability to communicate across realms and worlds."

"That's right. That extremely dangerous… it's possible that those dragons are actually communicating with the Evil Gods!"

Brandon was touching the silver giant egg. He had never been seen so serious in his entire life. He raised his head and looked at the warrior. "My comrade, I hope that you can let me keep this creature of the Abyssal Sea Realm… When the Dark Tide ends, I will need to travel back to the Empire. With this as proof, I can inform the Emperor about the danger that the Pentashade Dragons can unleash upon us. This is about the survival of the human race. It might even involve the survival of our entire world."

Truthfully, Joshua took out the item because he wanted to pass it to Brandon in the first place. So he agreed without hesitation, "No problem, just take it."

Looking at the golden-haired swordsman handling the egg cautiously, Joshua could not help but sigh.

As a player in the other life, although the warrior had built a powerful party, they were still a little far behind from the royals of the Empire and the senate families in term of power. Although the players were considered as part of the people that could affect the direction of the history, they would not be able to understand so much about the entire situation.

Especially at the current time, in the previous life, it was still the first expansion of the game. In the beginning of the second expansion, the players had not built up a force that could influence the world just yet. They had also not acquired any trustworthy information and messages at that time, Most of them were still focused on building their strength and power level. Because of that, they omitted in that regard.

However, currently, in the meantime when Joshua received a lot of messages from the future, he also received information about many secrets of the past. After comparing both messages from the past and the future, he could now make more assumptions and predictions that yet to happen in the future.

It seemed that in his previous life, the God of Might and Justice had acted upon the situation. Not only did the God of Might and Justice aid the Metal Dragon to sanction the Pentashade to the mortal world, the God of Might and Justice had also aided the Church of the Seven Gods in annihilating the Marine Abyssal Dragons. There should also be reasons for the gods attempting to dispel the seeds of Chaos out of this world.

Upon resting his thoughts here, the warrior could not help to feel a little excited.

This mother*cking Dark Tide. The water seems deep indeed, however, it is somewhat interesting.

Well, an opponent that could put up a good fight would be a must forever in this world. It could keep things interesting at the least.

"Mr. Divine Armament, you don't have to stay in your weapon state. You can rest now."

Keeping the creature from the deep sea to aside, Brandon looked at the silver greatsword that Joshua was holding on tightly since he arrived. He spoke out of courtesy just to remind, "I'm also one of the Seal Guardians, so you don't need to maintain your Divine Armament form."

"You're wrong, my friend. This is not a mister, it's a miss."

Joshua lifted up the corner of his mouth with amusement. Then he shook his head and said, "But you're right though… Ying, you can deactivate your Divine Armament mode now."

"… Yes, Master."

The silver greatsword rested on the hand of the warrior for a brief moment before it trembled lightly, deactivating her Divine Armament Mode.

Following the flashing radiance of the magic power, the shadow of the Divine Armament slowly emerged right before the two of them.

"… Hmph."

After returning to her human form, the first thing that Ying did was glare fiercely at Brandon and huff with anger. After that, she walked behind Joshua. Her face was emotionless. She did not say anything after that.

"…"

Baffled by what just happened, the golden-haired swordsman was not an idiot either. He noticed that he was obviously hated. He had no idea why though.

Could it be because he had mistaken her gender earlier on? No, that should not be it… Most of the Divine Armaments were male. Furthermore, it was impossible to tell their gender by looking at their appearance in their weapon mode. So it made perfect sense that he made a mistake in guessing. Meanwhile, that mistake only happened once. This lady shouldn't be so mean, right?

Brandon felt dejected. He did not intend to offend the cute Divine Armament. After all, everyone was part of the force that went up against the Dark Tide. There was no need to be hostile towards anyone on the same side.

Joshua did not say a word about it. He was looking into his past memories to retrieve as much information and messages as he could with a calm face.

Meanwhile, Ying remained silent. She seemed to keep quiet because she noticed that her Master did not say anything as well. She just stayed by the side of the warrior. Brandon instantly realized that the spiral stairwells became quiet all of a sudden. Meanwhile, he did not have anything to say as well. Everyone remained quiet.

Thud thud thud—

A series of footsteps had broken the awkward silence of the situation.

"Lord Brandon!"

Right by the entrance to the stairwell, the voice of a guard echoed in, sounding breathless. "The Countess has woken up!"