Soul of Searing Steel

Chapter 465: He’s No Fool

Scarlet pupils shifted in angles impossible for ordinary beings while a formless undulation swept before it, as if a scanner with high definition.

At the moment, Joshua’s sensory had entered deep into a microscopic vision, capable of viewing the most fundamental constructs of the world and every slight shift in energy. Through the magnetic field and energy emission that cascaded, he could differentiate the energy of every existence within thousands of meters.

Right now, the body with the greatest energy value in the southern wastelands was the general who called himself the Fourth Commander. It was as if a gloomy and cold ocean existed within his body, and was so vast it earned the warrior’s respect.

However, it was unusual that those elite soldier ghosts had not a hint of lifeforce over their bodies—it was the same for the military god specter whose head touches the sky.

It was paradoxical. Compared to their image that churns winds and clouds as well as shaking the earth, they seemingly did not exist in this world in energy vision.

Despite that, both soldier ghosts and military god phantom undoubtedly existed. Their blades carved through the land, drawing blinding sparks. Meanwhile, the dragon-armor general brandished his huge energy sword and made space itself ripple as it moved through the air.

But apart from that, they ‘did not exist’ within the energy vision.

To the warrior who fought at the speed unit of ten-thousandth per second, as well as depending on finely honed martial arts and foresight instincts to parry and block, it was a tremendous hidden disadvantage.

It was simply too slow if he did not rely on his energy sense, and instead solely used his eye to ‘observe’ and his brain to ‘react’. Champions of the same tier would therefore have plenty of time to deliver a lethal blow on Joshua.

That was why, logically speaking, he should continue staring Armand down until he saw through the authenticity of his secret technique [Lord of the Armies]—a decision that was only right.

Nonetheless, while Joshua would insist that himself was no fool, he had always been lazy to act smart.

And so, the man who held the Dragonslayer Swordspear took a step ahead.

As if a furnace for irons or the scorching sun, concentrated lifeforce radiated out of the warrior’s muscle that was so robust it far surpasses steel.

The little specks of dust in the air as well as the withered soil and metals were moving away on their accord from Joshua, forming an absolute territory of vacuum. As if losing their weight, countless stones started to orbit around that territory like satellites.

Steel Strength hummed softly. Under the repel from powerful lifeforce, along with the cornerstone of the world being pried by a brutal power, gravity has vanished from this land!

In the very next moment, Armand’s whose internal alarm had been raised to the highest vigilance, was only able to see the crimson radiance of the spear tip that took away every other color and light, stabbing towards him from several kilometers away!

It was so fast that the mental faculty seemed rather slow in comparison. Having lost gravity and air resistance, Joshua’s full power thrust at present reached horrific speeds at almost fifty times the speed of sound. If the warrior was in space, he could break through the restraints of the world—or even the sun’s gravity, darting towards the boundless sea of stars in the distance!

As if a rocket at full acceleration, the recoil from the thrust caused a rampant sandstorm to appear out of thin air behind the warrior. However, Armand who was on full alert from the start did not have the mind to take note of the sights. Against the swordspear that came within view in the hundredth of a second and was much more dangerous than all the horrors he had faced before, he could only parry!

Wind and thunder raged. The speed at which the dragon-armored general wielded his swords was already able to draw out plasma in the surrounding air. Even so, it was a rather prompt parry that could not perfectly withstand the terrifying strength of the enemy.

Klang!

Armand’s plain sword struck the side of the swordspear before him, intending to divert it away from his body. Indeed, the spear edge was pushed away and headed towards his flanks, but the armor over Armand’s arm shattered at the same time. Below it, countless bone shards sprayed out while his body violently folded too.

Although he escaped the ending of being perforated by the swordspear, his arm and backbone was completely shattered, critically destroyed by Joshua’s violent power!

Still, the general’s counterattack came rapidly too.

The colossal military god phantom swung the bonebreaking giant hammer in his hand with a speed completely inconsistent with its size, plunging down at ten thousand meters pers seconds towards the warrior who pulled his spear back and prepared to attack again.

The blow covered a square area of hundreds of meters, with power akin to crumbling mountains and plummeting meteors. Layers upon layers of circular waves broke through the air, its special aspect that had no energy reaction at all allowing it to strike the powerful enemy deep into the lithosphere!

Boom! The land was crushed like a biscuit, soil and shattered stones shooting out like tidal waves. At the same time, the countless soldier ghosts started to charge out in a machine-like orderly manner towards where the hammer had struck. The earth trembled beneath their feet, their speed even breaking through the sound barrier. Furthermore, these elite heavy-armor infantries that numbered over ten thousand even had abilities that had reached or was approaching Gold tier!

They were the dragon-slaying army of utmost excellence, who once unified the entire continent and incorporated every territory to their own Empire!

It was only now that the dust and gale kicked up by the sandstorm created by the warrior’s spear attack roared. Alongside the tremendous echo from the giant hammer swing, the reverberation surged towards the ends of the land, making the entire northwestern wastelands quake.

In the thousandth of a second, Joshua and Armand exchanged one blow with results.

“… So powerful, just like a giant dragon in human form… No, even the dragon king at the time didn’t have such powerful speed or strength,” Armand said, his voice ringing out from the openings of his dragon helmet.

Despite being almost completely paralyzed, his body slowly floated. As if time was reversing, the innumerable shattered fragments of bone and armor reassembled over his body and allowed him to recover his original form. Several soldiers thus simply vanished soundlessly from the army of undead spirits, dispersing into nothingness.

It was pure power and speed that surpassed inhuman lengths. It was not that easy to surpass the enemy in that aspect.

The two red glows beneath the dragon fluctuated, but a confident laugh could be heard from under it.

Such a coincidence—he had never relied on this aspect to defeat his enemies!

On the other end, the military god’s hammer was knocked away by a tremendous power, forcing the giant that could compete against titans to take one step back. Joshua’s figure then flew out from the huge crater that was two-hundred meters deep.

The warrior’s right hand that was free had been completely twisted. His blood, ejecting out profusely was held by aura and floated in the air, flying together with Joshua away from the crater. He ignored the multitudinous undead armies that were charging at him, instead staring closely at Armand who was self-regenerating.

“Quite strong,” he said, and with a gushing sound that would give toothaches, the warrior’s bones in his right arm was fixed and recovered to its normal state.

As if alive, the blood and flesh that had shot out squirmed as they returned to their original position. Crimson aura then swept over the naked flash, and a skin layer of metallic radiance covered it.

Brandishing a fist, the aura that gathered over his arm exploded and unleashed a circle of translucent shockwave. With his powerful lifeforce, the warrior’s regeneration speed did not dull against that of the Death Shade general.

And the very next moment was the second round.

The endless undead spirit armies arrived around the edge of the crater.

After death, these elite soldiers that approached Gold-tier had forfeited all emotion when they turned into undead spirits. They silently obeyed every order of their leaders, never backing down even when facing a human-shaped monster who was far more dangerous than giant dragons or demons.

With an orderly sound of metallic friction, they collectively drew javelins that flashed with cruel cold light from their backs and threw them towards Joshua at full power, the weapons penetrating the air shrilly.

Like rain, the steel javelins tore through the air shrilly and blanketed every inch of the air, allowing the warrior no place to dodge. Over the surface of those javelins were also three layers of destructive runes for spell-breaking, armor piercing and energy-breaking, virtually unstoppable and able to penetrate even giant dragon scales.

After pausing for a moment to restore its power, the solider god moved once more, this time wielding the armor-piercing longsword instead of its giant hammer. The energy sword that was hundreds of meters long lashed out, its edge reaching unimaginable speed while closing down all routes of retreat.

Forced to choose between either javelin rain or the mountain-breaking greatsword—Joshua picked both!

Against the innumerable supersonic javelins, Joshua inhaled deeply as if he was ‘devouring the earth’ and immediately exhausting most ion energy almost thousands of metes adrift around him. In an instant, the temperature fell to extreme coldness, and Joshua exhaled!

The resulting energy hurricane that had thunder in the mixed stirred the aerial magnetic before Joshua. The erratic electromagnetic energy therefore magnetized every javelin, causing all of them to swiftly attract each other like real magnets and plummet to the ground. In no time at all, the javelin rain that could kill dozens of giant dragons completely dropped to the earth unthreateningly.

With that solved, Joshua turned towards the giant sword swinging towards him.

After taking the bonebreaking giant hammer blow, the warrior had largely seen through part of the truth behind the Lord of the Armies’s secret technique.

Instead of calling it a sword with actual form, it was more precise to call it a curse named ‘slash’ condensed from killing intent and energy. The military god phantom itself had never been a real body, but it could affect reality because its giant hammer had the concept of ‘shattering everything’, just as its long sword had the concept of ‘cutting everything’!

Against such a move, dodging or parrying was futile, but Joshua just needed to use a more stalwart power to completely crush it.

And so, the warrior raised his spear, red-black spiraling radiance swirling at its tip.

Just as it did a long time ago, when that radiance pierced through the world-breaking meteorite on the world of Illgner.