Soul of Searing Steel

When the sky was dark and void of light, a bright red star-like object burst off the ground and soared to the sky. Like a faintly glowing red sun, the flying projectile shone its light throughout the sky.

Once the light was visible, the entire battlefield seemed to stop its ferocious battle. Be it the soldiers in the fortress, or the rampaging Berserk Daemons, all beings that were present then raised their head to observed the soaring light.

Not long after, the thick dark clouds were split apart by dark crimson light. Like lightning cracking passed the clouds during a thunderstorm, a bright light pierced through the clouds as if it was a spear that was thrown down by the gods who’d controlled the thunder and storm. The light illuminated the land and the crack in the clouds continued to spread wider until the light was moving towards the fortress.

“What is that?”

The white-haired mage was gathering magic powers with his hands. The ripples of power were strong so strong that it could be seen by the naked eye. The man named Feng, who was the leader of the mage squad of the fortress turned to the sky. As much as he was shocked to see something of that magnitude, his focus was never away from unleashing controlling spells to push back the never-ending daemons.

As a powerful elementalist that could control all elements, Feng switched from using the main four natural elements to something else when he noticed elemental powers were not efficient on the daemons. Instead, he used magnetic and electric powers which was much more potent than fire, earth, wind, and water against the layers of thick ice.

Facing off spells that were conjured using electric and magnetic powers as their base, the colossal beast was unable to do much but to take them all with its colossal body and strength. Growling in pain and anger, the beast’s brown fur had crackling static. Its movement speed had been obviously slowed down.

The blond-haired knight, Zorgen did not bother to answer such a question when he himself had no idea what was the red comet in the sky. His hands were gripping hard on the Cross Hammer as he unleashed a red-hot golden colored Combat Aura to counter the extreme temperatures of the winter. It was slow but his hammer would constantly smash enemies around him to attract as much attention to himself instead of allowing the monsters to charge towards the castle wall.

Even though the mountain-sized beast was slowed down, its destructive force had not diminished even a little. Its massive long trunk was swinging around, crashing about into the ground and unleashing a powerful blast. The knight was forced to move away from the attack.

With the will of the beast, the surrounding temperature had dropped below subzero degrees. Such a temperature was cold enough to drain the vitality of even a higher Silver-Tier knight.

Feng was a ranged attacker; hence, he was not greatly affected by the cold temperature. However, being a melee fighter, Zorgen had to endure the fight with the colossal beast with all his might. He could not afford to lose focus or a simplest mistake will turn his body into a pile of mush that will be frozen in less than a second. He had neither the time nor the attention to grace Feng’s question with an answer.

If the battle continued to go on without significant progress; not being able to deal any true damage to the beast itself, then the knight had no choice but to surrender in a matter of minutes.

Luckily, along with a blast of blue electric, another figure had shown up next to him.

“FENG!”

He screamed out without the helmet covering and muffling his voice till it felt extremely refreshing. A long sword that had electric current running through it was drawn out along with the scream. The supersonic sword drawing technique pierced through the icy armor and landed on the colossal beast’s body with a powerful blast. There was not a single trace of doubt when the white-haired mage heard his name being called. With haste, he gathered green-blue electrical power in his hands and unleashed a spell that was made with powerful electric and magnetism with his fastest speed.

[Seizing Static Storm]

The arcane magic in the air materialize into violently crackling sparks that condensed further to form a long chain. The electric chain zoomed towards the rampaging beast around Zorgen and pinning it downwards. With the long sword that had pierced past the icy armor in the center, a violent electrical storm ranged on and seeps into the body of the beast via the sword, numbing its muscles and nerves. Along with a deafening roar, the beast may have the constitution of a Gold Tier, but having its muscle and nervous system numbed, the beast dropped to all fours and gradually stopped moving.

Zorgen did not felt the need to appreciate the fact that Chiri was alive despite having sustain a full-blown attack from the colossal beast, however, he did feel grateful for the attack that was extremely rare and precious. Without delay, he gathered his focus onto the blistering power in his hand and materialized his will in the form of a radiant light glowing behind him. The knight then took a leap of faith and dashed towards the beast, kicking off a large pile of snow as he did.

With the powerful Combat Aura burning around him, his muscle and body had gained a destructive power at the cost of possible bedridden for a month. The man’s golden aura glowed and was focused on to the Cross Hammer in his hands. Gripping the hammer’s handle with all the strength in him that all the veins around his hand popped out, the Knight smashed the colossal beast with everything he had. The resulting smash was so powerful and fast that it created a sonic boom before landing on the beast’s belly.

“GRAHH!”

A powerful blast erupted in between the man and the beast. A 10 meters circular explosion exploded along with the ground beneath them. Countless of snow was blasted up into the air like a large smoke pillar. Nearly all the surrounding Berserk Daemons were immediately blasted away from the resulting impact and was burnt away. Even Chiri and Feng had to withdraw from the area around Zorgen to avoid getting caught in the attack. That was not all, Zorgen was not finished. Along with the powerful blast, a dimmed golden light erupted from beneath the beast and shot out countless of light beams which pierced and attacked the beast that was in the center of the smoke pillar. All the Berserk Daemons that survived the initial attack was immediately burnt away with intense flames.

Once the searing light beams ended, a blue Combat Aura flashed and Chiri flashed towards the smoke pillar. After a few moments later, he came out of the smoke pillar with a half-conscious man on his shoulders.

The half-elf and the white-haired mage teamed up and Feng took the half-conscious knight and casted the basic Awakening spell on the blond Knight. After breathing raggedly for half a minute, the knight sighed tiredly and opened his eyes.

“Did it work?”

Zorgen, whose hand was still on his comrade’s shoulder, got up to his feet feebly. With the faintest voice that he could muster, he asked about the situation. The concerned fortress chief guard said, “I had intentionally ignored the head since it was heavily armored. Instead, I chose to attack the part with the least defense which was the belly. I had to say that even if that was my most powerful attack, the beast weighs at least 400 tons! I may not succeed in killing it!”

“I have no idea if it worked. Even though the beast was burning away his life force to gain power, it was of Gold tier.” Feng frowned as he shared a similar concern. His magic was almost drained halfway through. He would need to rest for several hours to fully restore his magic. That is, if he could survive the battle and live long enough. The mage frowned and felt conflicted as he answered. “Right now… I think it’s at least—”

Tong!

A bright purplish light shone out of the smoke pillar, and along with it, a powerful sound of a heartbeat.

All three surviving fighters froze.

Boom!

Something was standing up. The earth trembled as something heavy stomped the ground. A pair of bright purplish-blue eyes glinted brightly from within the thick smoke pillar.

TONG!

Another pillar of purplish-blue light blasted out of the smoke pillar, making the black mist swirl around violently. The dust in the smoke pillar was all blown away, leaving no smoke but only purple mist in the pillar. After that, a louder, clear sound of a beast was heard.

“GRAUAAAH! ARGHHHH!”

A loud trumpet like an elephant was blared and could be heard from throughout the battlefield. The beast came out of the pillar and revealed a large wound on its belly. It was a gory sight with the beasts’ dangling innards visible. However, to make things worse, the purple mist seemed to gather around the wound, solidifying around it. The beast’s flowing blood was stopped and along with a disgusting sound of flesh, new flesh growing on the wound like a tumor and filling up the wound until it was completed closed.

That was a Dragon’s Berserk.

The virus spread by the Corrupted Black Dragon had two stages. The first stage was similar to the Dark Tide phenomenon. A part of a being’s intelligence would be sacrificed in order to gain the berserk status and power. At this stage, the virus might spread and cause humans and beast alike to gain berserk strength. Other than the sudden burst of strength, there was nothing else one could gain.

The second stage would be the Dragon’s Berserk, whereby the monster would gain a power level much stronger than a beast that is infected by the Corrupted Black Dragon virus. In the second stage, the beast would gain an unimaginable power, ultra-fast regeneration ability, monstrous strength, pain endurance, and the worst of all, it could still spread the virus through simple attacks. Furthermore, beasts that had reached the second stage of berserk could have a possibility to give rise to a new Corrupted Black Dragon after death.

Tong…tong…tong tong….tong tong tong…

Both eyes of the beast were covered in a layer of purplish blue membrane. Once a beast had been fully taken over by the virus and reached the second stage, that is the Dragon’s Berserk, it would target and attack places with the most number of enemies, places with the strongest life force. Hence, the beast was no longer interested in attacking the wounded, the weary, and the old. Instead, it turned away from the trio and headed towards the castle at lightning speed. It started with fast pacing, then trotting, and finally, sprinting.

The massive body of the colossal beast became that of a specter. 400 tons of mass sent violent quakes to the earth each time its huge legs struck the earth. With unfaltering speed, the beast charged forward through the ice, ignoring all that was in its path. It trampled past through countless of Berserk Daemons zooming through the field like a rocket and crashed into the fortress wall.

The ground shook violently as the pale-white forty-meter-tall wall which was supported by the living tree’s steel-like roots, was destroyed. Soldiers that were standing on the walls lost their balance and fell off the walls.

“Fuahahhhh!”

The beast did not stop. It withdrew a few steps back and charged forward again to crash into the destroyed fortress. It’s skull armor on its head glimmered with brown light, that of the earth’s color.

Another violent quake erupted. No matter how strong the wall was constructed, it could never withstand the sheer force of a Gold-tier beast’s powerful charged attack. That was why, in the midst of the howling of the Berserk Daemons, one-fifth of Dark Forest Fortress was reduced to rubble. Strong granite that were used to build the impregnable wall was toppling over like gravestones.

“This is the end…”

Looking at the falling fortress with dead shot eyes, the blond knight lost his will to continue the fight. He knelt on one knee to the ground onto the frigid earth and sighed while fatigue assaulted every fiber of his being. He looked hopelessly at the beast that was covered in the black purplish mist attacking the fortress, again and again, relentlessly as bricks turned into rubble and rubble turned into tiny fragments.

When several thousands of soldier faced off with over 10,000 Berserk Daemons and a colossal beast… the fate of the battle was sealed.

“All forces! Fall back!”

A loud mental command was sent out to everyone present in the fortress that seems to be coming from within the high sky.

Chiri and Feng immediately turn to the sky. That was when they saw the light. The once dark sky that was covered in gray clouds was illuminated by a reddish patch. A powerful object seems to burst out of the clouds, splitting the clouds apart and reintroduce the light of day to the gloomy earth.

“When did… That’s too fast…” The white-haired mage muttered softly as he witnessed the sky was being torn apart.

A figure shot down, surrounded by black and red Combat Aura, leaving traces of what seems to be like a meteor coming down to the earth, bring along a pressure that could destroy everything in its path as it broke through the air and zooming towards the Gold-tier colossal beast.

BOOM!

A man stood up from the ground of which he had landed on. Powerful Combat Aura that the man was emitting ruptured the surrounding air, melting all the snow and sublimating them into steam. The violent circulating air gathered all fragments that once was the earth, wall, beast, and dust.

The earth tremored once more and made the earth split apart. In the front of Dark Forest Fortress, part of the wall that stood strong even started to tremble as a small mushroom cloud formed and rose from the crack in the earth.