Soul of Searing Steel

Chapter 381: Torn Apart by Creed

The thick clouds in the sky trembled a little. The dark rain and clouds formed into a whirlpool as they gathered in one direction. After a few seconds, a faint red light suddenly appeared in the center of the whirlpool.

Boom!

With a thunderous explosion, a gigantic burning ‘meteor’ fell from the heavens to the sea. White mists emerged behind that ‘meteor’ as a deafening howling and impact came with it.

Before the meteor hit the sea, the sea seemed to be frozen. Then, the rolling waves on the surface of the sea instantly smashed and vaporized. Soon after the meteor crashed into the water, a gigantic ring of water rose up to the sky. The gigantic ring of water rose so high into the sky that even the clouds were affected by the impact, causing steaming water droplets to rain down.

“Good lord… that’s really dramatic!”

Using his Nature Divine Spell to observe the situation, the young elf who was supporting the Ocean Bladed Dragon and the Black Dragon in their tasks to annihilate the horde of the sea monsters kept his emotions to himself. He was shocked. As he had never been mentally strong, Hill had never touched the barrier of Gold tier. However, his sharp senses allowed him to know exactly how powerful the impact was.

Every single sea monster within the radius of a thousand meters of the meteor impact was instantly blown into pieces by the impact. The sea monsters that were further away was also internally injured by the impact. As the merciless gigantic wave smashing the remaining horde of the monsters like a metallic board, approximately twenty percent of the entire horde of the sea monsters surroundings of the ark were wiped out just like that.

Thousands of sea monsters had been reduced to pieces floating in the sea.

“It’s actually ‘it’!”

Robzek was standing at the bow of the ark. He clearly saw the true form of the blazing meteor. The huge wretched head of Grundy the ‘Smoke of Death’ was just too obvious to be ignored. He freaked out a little. The holy knight had imagined many possibilities. However, the fact that the Pentashade dragons actually sent an old and experienced Supreme-tier evil dragon to intercept the mission of the church had never occurred to him. Not to mention that the evil dragon did not face them head on but ambushed the ark from behind the shrouds.

If Joshua did not decisively launch his attack, there would have been casualties. The number of crew on board would have been killed by the ‘smoke of death’. Not to mention that they were just ordinary people. The negative energy in the black shroud could easily kill them.

If that was the case, then the mission of the church would undoubtedly fail.

The silver-haired holy knight, who had always kept his head calm, clenched his fists. His eyes flashed with blazing flames. Veins popped on the back of his palms that were covered in scars and thick shackles. A dense power began to flow in his body.

—Letting an outsider, a noble of the Northern Empire, to help them so much… Perhaps other people would not mind, but the man, the captain of the Order of the Knights could not have possibly allowed that!

—He was also a Supreme-tier!

The man’s ambition surfaced. Robzek decided not to ‘reserve strength’ anymore. He wanted to eliminate any possible threat in the future as he focused on the task at hand. He let out a disdainful roar as steam came out from his nose and his mouth. The 720 energy nodes in his body lit up. That was in fact the secret Kokyu-ho ‘Order of Light’ of the Church of the Seven Gods that could fuse the power of the life force with holy light. It was a Kokyu-ho never to be passed on to any outsider of the church.

Every time Robzek inhaled, the energy node in his whole body would gather several holy runes behind him. With his Combat Aura and his holy light, thousands of Runes merged together like building blocks and formed a spectacular-looking gigantic ring.

The shape of the ring of light looked like the sacred emblem of the God of Might. It rotated slowly behind the holy knight as it bathed in the strength of holy light. Robzek’s combat aura circulated his entire body. Then, the holy aura that was ten meters tall formed around his body as emitted a blinding silvery light just like the sun, illuminating half of the sky.

Boom!

Silver flames gathered in the center of the circular ring. Suddenly, a violent beam of light shot out of the sea. The humungous waves from the impact from the falling of the meteor was once again thrown up. The scorching holy light instantly vaporized tons of sea water, causing steam to rise into the sky like a gigantic mushroom cloud.

The light beam did not stop there. It began spinning along the holy ring and swept across the region of sea 120 degrees in the forefront of the ark with a powerful impact that hurled up large waves that looked like tsunamis.

Many gigantic sea monsters caught in the strong waves roared miserably and helplessly with the rampant waves.

“Roland, Saya, don’t hold yourself back anymore.”

At the bow of the ark, with the influence of the energy resonance, the thunderous silver-haired holy knight who seemed serious and righteous spoke loudly. “Cleanse this region of the sea, and we shall prepare ourselves to face the three Chaos daemons.”

“We shall not let our friend from the Imperial Kingdom underestimate the Church of the Seven Gods.”

Hearing his words, the great nun and the blond-haired holy knight looked each other in the eyes and let out a laughter at the same time. Then they responded to the commander in unity and said, “Yes, commander!”

Meanwhile, the region of the sea where the ‘meteor’ landed.

Deep in the sea water, a huge black shadow and a tiny shadow were entangled in a battle. They had already sunk thousands of meters deep as and arrived at the bottom of the ocean in a mere few seconds.

“Human, your greatest mistake is to put me back into the water!”

Even after its spine was crushed by an elbow strike, Grundy was not fearful at all. It shook its body as the scales on its back and some of its flesh fell off of its body. The warrior was shaken off its body at the same time. The spiritual power that was so powerful that it actually distorted the dimensional space of the material world and the flowing currents in the depths of the dark sea. Instantly, two gigantic Water Colossuses emerged in the sea water and reached out their palms as large as the size of a house in attempt to slam the warrior who was not adept at battling underwater.

However, the warrior just stared at them and exhaled.

With the rapid current in the sea, that breath pierced right through the chest of one of the Water Colossuses. That breath contained the Combat Aura of the warrior had instantly shattered the magic energy core that maintained the shape of the Water Colossus. Because of that, the gigantic water colossus stopped moving and dispersed into sea water.

The other remaining Water Colossus also dispersed into sea water–Joshua pointed his finger towards the colossus as his horrifying combat aura pulled the flowing current of the sea and formed a boiling steam that expanded. The Water Colossus noticed that steam shot right through half of its body and destroyed its core as well.

The warrior did not want to waste his time and his breath too much on the insignificant spawns that were created to distract him. His eyes were locked onto the black dragon that had fled thousands of meters from him as it rapidly healed its wounded body.

Grundy did not hope for the two Water Colossus to inflict even the slightest damage to the warrior though. Even though the two colossuses had the strength of a Gold-beginner, they would never stand a chance to even mark a scratch on the warrior. The black dragon summoned them just to buy time to gain distance from the warrior to heal its spines and its right claw.

In order to study the negative energy more conveniently, Grundy transformed its draconic body into a body similar to the body of a half-spectral being or a leech. Besides its brain, each of its limbs and every segment of its skeleton were made up of powerful scepters and special spell items. Its giant draconic scales were made of scrolls. Its giant draconic lines on its body were actually runes. Its spine was the one thing that kept everything connected. That was the most powerful combined-magic core that formed the infamous ‘Grundy the Smoke of Death’.

As the spine, which was its core, sustained damage, the black dragon was weakened by at least thirty percent. However, because of the inhuman modification, Grundy was also able to rapidly heal its own body. It was even capable of growing its limbs back. That few seconds when Joshua was being stalled by the two Water Colossuses, Grundy had basically healed most of its spine and reestablished the connections in all parts of its body.

Joshua frowned when he noticed that. The black dragon before him was undeniably a giant caster dragon specialized in casting spells. Its capability to battle physically was so weak that the warrior could actually kill it with his eyes closed. A while ago, the warrior was able to tear the limb of the black dragon apart like it was made of paper and crush the spine of the dragon like a thin layer of glass. Those were sufficient proofs to back up the fact that the black dragon was weak in melee combat. However, because of that, it did not matter if the black dragon lost a limb or two. As long as ‘most of them were functioning’, any injuries would not be able to affect its power in battle.

The two of them descended deeper into the sea. The water pressure several kilometers down in the sea was high, causing the warrior’s movement to slow down. He was no longer capable of moving his body freely. Grundy did not hesitate at all and began to mercilessly attack the warrior. The draconic eyes in between the two rims of its eyes flowed with purplish energy. The observation spell that was bound to its pupils allowed Grundy to accurately lock onto the warrior in the deep sea.

Thousands of head-sized magic missiles instantly emerged before the black dragon. Among those magic attacks, there were water current attacks, negative energy attacks, as well as acidic attacks and thunder attacks. With Grundy’s command, the missiles charged towards the warrior with the current of the sea. The impact of was so great they could easily penetrate a metal board so it was definitely enough to shred a human being.

The warrior was well aware that the missile attacks had the capability to track and pursue their targets, making it impossible for the warrior to evade those attacks with his current movement speed underwater. He decided to stay on the ground as he intended to detonate every single missile that flew at him. Instantly, the deeply contaminated sea was overwhelmed with bubbles and slops. Grundy lost sight of the warrior.

However, the black dragon did not stop its attack at all. It remained focus with its instinct as he continued to bombard spell attacks at the area where the warrior was supposed to be. Powerful spell attacks shot from its fingertips. The black and red combat aura barrier that glowed brightly in the distance had proven Grundy’s judgment about the location of the warrior. Grundy continued to suppress Joshua with its endless waves of attacks to prevent the warrior from getting an opening to launch his attack.

Grundy suppressed the warrior for several minutes. The black dragon’s feet came in contact with a solid ground. That was the moment when the giant dragon noticed that it was at the bottom of the sea.

—Hold on a second!

The black dragon looked down at the sea rock it was standing on. Then it immediately understood the reason why the warrior did not fight back. Joshua had trouble moving freely in the water. He was not able to approach the giant dragon like how he did it when the two of them were still high up in the sky. However, the situation had changed when they arrived at the bottom of the sea.

The bottom of the sea allowed the warrior to charge his strength to move forward. The solid ground made it easier for the warrior.

Having no power to change the circumstances, Grundy thought about it. A deep and heavy sound came from its head. A large number of sea rocks shattered and collapsed, followed by a light in black and red moved rapidly towards the black dragon. It felt like a small-scaled earthquake at the bottom of the sea.

Using the sea rocks as the counterforce, Joshua flew towards his target like a lightning bolt in the deep sea. There was a flash of black and red light, as the warrior flew across thousands of meters before he faced the black dragon.

The sea water was violently pulled as they were formed into strong currents. The blazing flames of the combat aura vaporized the sea water as high-temperature air bubbles rose rapidly toward the surface of the sea.

The speed of that charge had exceeded the limit that even the black dragon could not respond to it in time. Grundy sensed the movement of the warrior by relying on its powerful spiritual sense. However, its body that sustained quite an amount of damage and could not completely operate in order to respond to the approaching threat. Its eyes were not able to locate the warrior, nor could it hear anything because the movement of the warrior had exceeded the speed of sound underwater. The attack that Joshua launched had landed on the body of the black dragon even before the impact of the ocean waves could reach the black dragon.

Grundy’s survival instinct had driven it to attempt activating its teleportation spell to get further away from the warrior. However, as a warrior how had fought many casters and enemies that were good in casting spells, Joshua was experienced in interrupting a simple teleportation spell. Without even the slightest mercy, he used his combat aura to interrupt the teleportation nodes that connected the magic energy. Then, he landed his fist on the lower jaw of the black dragon. In that instant, the sea water created a great splash from that powerful impact. The water instantly turned into hot steam. The steam moved in all directions.

Joshua created a vacuum in the depths of the sea.

That powerful strength struck the gigantic body of the black dragon and sent it flying–Grundy’s lower jaw was completely crushed and half of its draconic teeth were reduced to dust. It was concussed because of the spell rebound effects and the impact of the warrior’s punch. It went unconscious as its body was thrown back towards the surface of the sea by that powerful punch. Briefly after that punch, the black dragon floated a few hundred meters upwards.

Right at the bottom of the deep sea, the warrior readjusted his aura. The combat aura that surrounded his body was scorching hot. However, his mind was as cool as steel. Joshua looked at the floating body of the dragon. Then he pushed his feet against the ocean bed towards the surface of the sea. Then, he turned himself into a flowing light to pursue his target.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Giving time to the black dragon at all, the warrior continued to launch a series of heavy punches onto the body of the black dragon. The gigantic body of Grundy was like a broken sack of punching bag getting mercilessly punched by the warrior. With the continuous explosions and the cracking of bones, the two of them floated towards the surface of the sea almost as fast as when they fell from the sky.

On the surface of the sea.

The black sea water in Anos Abyss was completely contaminated with the blood of the sea monsters, the color of the sea water was indescribable. The three members of the church who no longer held back their strength and the two dragons spent merely twenty minutes slaughtering every single sea monster there. Pieces of flesh floated on the surface of the sea as the stench of blood and death filled the air.

The ark could once again sail. However, Robzek did not give any command to the captain of the ark and the crews to do so. That was because Joshua who sunk into the depths of the sea with Grundy had yet to resurface. Everyone furrowed their eyebrows as they stared at the spot in the sea where the ‘meteor’ fell into the sea. They had a bad feeling about it.

After all, the black dragon was one of the spawns from the Abyssal Sea. It was the lord of the great seas and the swamps. The only creature that could triumph over its species would be the draconic eagle species that possessed some bloodline of the giant dragons. However, those wretched-looking evil dragons could even prey on the giant whales.

The warrior was a noble that hailed from a northern territory called Moldavia. He had spent his entire life in the wilderness and the land of snow. He was capable of slaying white dragons easily. That was because people in the North did not fear the cold. However, a battle in the deep sea… No one had ever heard Joshua having such experience.

Black transformed herself into her human form. The girl with a heroic appearance stood at the edge of the bow as she looked at the surface of the tainted sea with her golden eyes. She was worried sick about her own master, just like everybody else around her. However, compared to Roland and Robzek who were mentally prepared to leap into the sea to support the warrior in battle, Black had the uttermost confidence in Joshua that he could handle it.

The reality did not disappoint the young girl.

On the surface of the tainted sea, air bubbles appeared, making the sea look as if it was boiling. White steam escaped from the air bubbles and rose into the sky. The ferocious waves pushed the surface of the sea up and formed a small mountain of water that was about ten meters tall.

Suddenly, the mountain of sea water was lit up by a black and red light. A tremendous force burst out from the mountain of water and the water fell back to the sea. There was a vague sighting of the body of a gigantic dragon being blasted out from the sea like a giant rock being thrown right out from the sea. Soon after, a man who was completely surrounded with combat aura emerged from the sea.

“You’re finished, Grundy.”

Joshua’s voice and the combat aura seemed to resonate and sounded like the rumbling of a volcano eruption. The warrior flew rapidly towards the black dragon which had already lost its ability to move anymore. Without even the slightest mercy, the warrior plunged his arm into the flesh of the black dragon as he locked his grip tightly on the bone of the dragon. Then, he dragged Grundy’s gigantic body and threw it straight into the sea.

There was a huge impact when the body of the dragon hit the surface of the sea. Its entire body was crushed and scattered as it burst into many pieces.

In the next moment.

The giant dragon was torn apart by creed.