Forty-four years ago, seven hundred and eighty-nine years after the star fell, in the western mountains, on the border of a small kingdom.
In the black forest on the border of the Xishan Kingdom, a group of brutal monsters followed their instincts and attacked a nearby border town one winter day.
The attack was so sudden that the border town was attacked by the monster without any resistance. The bloodthirsty monsters broke through the stone wall and easily slaughtered most of the humans in the town. They chewed human bones, tore flesh and blood, spewed fire and ice, and turned the entire settlement into ruins.
The unprepared defenders had already sent out a distress signal, but a group of mysterious men in black arrived earlier than the kingdom's army.
These weirdos, who were wearing hooded robes and completely shrouded in black, were unexpectedly powerful. They used strange spells to drive away the monsters in the city, and then hurriedly walked back and forth in the city looking for something. The black people had no mercy or sympathy for the remaining survivors in the town. They roughly gathered these people together and then inspected them back and forth.
Finally, a middle-aged man with eyes like an eagle owl found a calm boy in the corner of the crowd. The dark red compass in his hand was shaking violently, and the pointer was pointing firmly at him.
This boy had long dark green hair, and his delicate little face was covered in blood, but it was not his own. Even when encountering something like a monster siege, his expression did not change at all. He remained extremely calm, as if the burning city around him did not exist at all.
"Are you here to find me?"
Not paying attention to the scrutinizing gazes of the men in black around him, he turned his head and looked at the middle-aged man. The boy said softly: "I can see the excitement in your heart. It seems that I am indeed your target."
"That's right." After hearing the other party's words, the middle-aged man finally couldn't restrain the ecstasy in his heart. He laughed loudly, then leaned down and stroked the boy's face: "After seven years, we finally found my son of prophecy. is you!"
The survivors gathered around were in an uproar. A middle-aged woman stood up tremblingly. She pointed at the boy with fear and said in a trembling voice: "My lords, this child... He, he is very weird! No matter what kind of beast, Any crops he touches will make them sick or even wither. Even his parents..."
She originally wanted to remind the men in black who saved their lives to be careful of the boy's weirdness, but the next moment, a gray beam of light hit the woman and instantly disintegrated her into pieces. Thick acid and bones.
Amid the panicked shouts of the crowd, the middle-aged man who had just released the dissociation ray said in a cold tone to the men in black around him: "This matter is the biggest secret of the cult... Let them shut up."
"Yes, Lord Priest!" Hearing this, the men in black raised their weapons with a ferocious smile, and turned to look at the trembling survivors.
Blood splatters.
The bloody massacre began, but the cute boy with long dark green hair did not change his expression at all. From beginning to end, he watched everything indifferently, whether it was the man who was extremely passionate about him and was called a priest, or those who were just like him. They were slaughtered like pigs and dogs, and the neighbors he had lived with for nearly ten years seemed insignificant to him.
Life was fragile, like frost at noon, it would dissipate in a blink of an eye, he had known this for a long time, the boy had known this since the day his parents died.
"Herras, you are unique, a treasure given to this world by our Lord."
Not paying any attention to the massacre happening beside him, the middle-aged man stood beside the boy. He said in a tone of uncontrollable excitement: "You bear the blood of the void and have the power to absorb and control life! You were born to join us!"
Perhaps so.
In the boy's eyes, masses of gray-white spiritual matter mixed with turbid life energy broke away from the corpses on the ground, changing into various strange shapes in mid-air, and the boy knew that he could control them at will, as if he could control himself. arm.
Ever since the accident that killed his parents a few years ago, a boy named Herras began to deliberately train his own strength. Whether it was other people's or his own, the boy could easily control it and then absorb it into his own. In the body, making domestic animals weak and vegetation withering is just the most basic ability. As long as Herras is willing, he can even directly make a person lose his life and die of 'aging'.
Perhaps, this is the power of the 'blood of the void' mentioned by the middle-aged man.
Mortals feared this power, and they distanced themselves from him. People in this town tried to expel Herras more than once, but never succeeded. As long as a strong man comes within five meters of the boy, he will collapse to the ground, as weak as if he has not eaten for several days. His gaze can deprive everyone of their courage and make the crowd that has finally gathered collapse.
At least these people were willing to accept me. Herras thought so, so he followed the group of men in black back to their base, a temple located deep in the mountains.
He spent twenty years there.
During these twenty years, the former boy grew into a boy, and then from a boy into a young man. Finally, on a freezing snowstorm night, the twenty-eight-year-old Herras replaced his teacher, the former middle school student. A young man became the high priest of this underground cult.
The extremely aging old priest looked at his student, and he murmured, as if he wanted to say something. This man could see that a huge vortex of life was spinning around the other party, absorbing the life of all living things within a few hundred meters. His aging was precisely because of this. Otherwise, with his peak golden power, he would at least still be able to survive. Can live for another ten years.
But so what? The old leader didn't have the slightest resentment. He looked at his student who was better than his predecessor and couldn't help but show a weak smile. Herras' strength had surpassed him and touched the edge of ultimate power. This was when he was in his fifties. Only then did we reach the realm of reaching.
He is willing to die and use his body as a stepping stone for the other party.
Herras could naturally see this.
"Don't worry, teacher." The man said in a calm tone: "I will fulfill your wish."
Then the old priest closed his eyes.
The affairs of the Order are boring and boring, nothing more than destroying everywhere, spreading plague, and preaching that the end is coming, but Herras takes it seriously and completes it one by one without any irritation or slackness, like a tireless machine.
He does not understand good and evil, and does not care about good or evil. Killing and destroying is no different to him than eating and drinking. Although this man does not even know what the ultimate goal of his cult is, his behavior symbolizes the true meaning of In the sense of unconscious chaos, countless cultists worshiped him because of this, worshiping this man who was as simple as a beast.
He is called the High Priest, but Herras does not hold any real power in the cult. Several priests under him occupy all the rights, but he does not care about this trivial matter at all. The man just spreads chaos day after day, doing What he should do, and because of this, the man's name gradually spread throughout the Western Mountains.
The high priest of the cult who destroyed more than a dozen towns and killed tens of thousands of humans, the title of [Herras the Blighter] and [Herald of Decay] was enough to make a child stop crying, so much so that the name itself became a curse. .
And the man's strength is also growing day by day, as if there is no end.
The power of Herras has grown so fast that it has shocked the kingdoms in the entire western region. Every time he appears, his strength will be significantly improved, from the golden peak, the ultimate intention, the initial level of extreme intention, the intermediate level of extreme intention, until the extreme level. It only took the man more than ten years to reach the pinnacle of his mind and grow up from not taking it seriously to making the Western Kingdom Alliance feel like a formidable enemy. This is because as the leader of the religious order, he cannot practice all the time. Otherwise, Hull Russ's strength can definitely be even better.
The encirclement and suppression campaign against Herlas ended in several tragic defeats, and the most recent one, the power he displayed frightened everyone - three veteran extreme powerhouses joined forces, and he actually killed two of them. There are no obvious wounds on these two people, and they seem to have died just from normal aging, which means that his power has gradually broken away from the limitations of Jiyi and begun to extend into the realm of legend.
Just thinking about a legendary cult priest makes many kings of small countries without legendary strong men tremble.
But all this means nothing to Herras. The middle-aged man walked silently in the dense winter forest. Wherever he passed, the vegetation withered and all living beings withered. All the vitality was robbed and then incorporated into his body.
The power of life is the power of steel, whether it is fighting spirit or the power of blood.
But it is said that at the beginning of the creation of the world, there were ancient giant beasts wandering in the void. What flowed in their bodies was not the power of life, but the purest crystallization of steel.
People with similar power can naturally control the lives of lower-level people. Herras has a hunch that as long as the life force as majestic as the sea in his body is condensed into steel crystals, he will become a legend. time.
Of course, not now, but in the future.
The man, who did not know good and evil, nor understood morality, was as savage as a beast and as regular as a machine, stopped the meaningless thinking in his mind.
His target is the Northland.
And in the northern land of Moldavia, it's late at night.
Joshua stood on the top floor of the Lord's Mansion, quietly looking at a notebook in his hand.
This notebook looks brand new, but someone has recorded a lot of information in it with strong and powerful handwriting. The soldier read the contents in the dark attentively, looking very engaged.
What is recorded in it is the experience record of the powerful men in the past who have understood the ultimate meaning of power and advanced to become legends.
Although on the surface, Joshua was banned in the North by Israel, this does not mean that His Majesty the Emperor has forgotten the many contributions made by warriors, whether it is giving away divine crystals or going to the Holy Mountain to slay dragons. The empire has always had many rewards and compensations that were not given to Joshua.
Israel, who the warrior refused, asked for compensation in terms of money and property. What he asked for was the empire's experience records on "Perfect Body" and "Extreme Power".
To be honest, this kind of experience is far more valuable than money, but His Majesty the Emperor didn't take it seriously. He even excerpted many notes and gave them to Joshua. He firmly believed that the warrior will surely become a legend, and everything he does will be his own. Just the icing on the cake.
Thanking Israel for his trust in his heart, the warrior glanced at the last few lines of the notebook. He murmured to himself: "The so-called perfect body is to enter the transcendent and get rid of the shackles of the mortal body. The product of one step of sublimation... so only those who have advanced with the ultimate power of power can touch its threshold. Israel has advanced with the ultimate power of skill, so he does not know the secrets, and what is said in these experiences There are very few, not many people with this kind of natural expertise.”
After reading it, Joshua closed the book.
This small notebook was worth more than gold and silver to him, and Joshua benefited a lot from it. You must know that it contains the precious experiences of the legendary powerhouses of the empire, or the peak powerhouses of the ultimate mind. By comparing and referring to the problems they encountered during practice, the warriors felt that they had gradually grasped the secrets of advanced legends and perfect bodies. The essential.
That is the vitality that is extremely pure and has been sublimated to the level of 'steel power'.
All things are born in fire and exist in steel. The initial fire promotes the birth and expansion of the multiverse, while the steel of origin creates life and all things. Fighting energy is a derivative of the power of life, and the power of life is a diversion of the power of steel. Joshua has been cured many times through the Azure Orb, and has recovered from the critical point of life and death several times. He has been able to control the power of life, and Not only the fighting spirit, but the hand that healed Ivan before was proof that his power was becoming more and more refined.
But the power of steel is different from the power of life. Except for the world of Kallis, the rain of steel dropped by the steel python of the world's will, the warrior has never seen the pure power of steel. At that time, his The realm is too low to realize the pure power that can purify the entire world. This has to be said to be a pity.
"When I get back from Moldavia, I might want to go back to the world of Kallis."
With this thought in his mind, Joshua couldn't help but recall the contents of the notes in his hand.
In the history of the empire, there is no shortage of strong men at the peak of their will, and most of them are warriors. However, most of these warriors who have reached the top of the mortal world are stuck at the level leading to the legend, unable to advance even an inch. .
This is because they simply don’t know where to go or how to make progress.
The purification of fighting spirit into the power of life is already the end for most of the most powerful people. How do they know their goals if they have never seen a higher level of power? The power of steel is all over the world, as ubiquitous as space, but precisely because of this, it is difficult for people living in this environment to realize this invisible power. Even Israel admits frankly, My own advancement was just a sudden feeling, and I suddenly realized one of the original powers in this world, and then advanced to legend.
But Joshua doesn't want to rely on luck. His fortune is far higher than that of Israel, and even everyone else. He has traveled to different worlds many times, and the power of steel in these worlds must be different. The warrior believes that as long as he goes to other worlds again next time, world, then he can definitely start to understand from the slight difference in the origin power of the two worlds, and then detect the traces of the power of steel and touch the threshold of the legendary realm.
He has clearly seen the gap between Jiyi and Legend. All that is left is to wait and break through, continue to polish his body, and practice fighting spirit and life force.
In the darkness of the night, Joshua raised his right hand, clenched his fist, and a layer of black-red flame gradually appeared on it.
This flame is his fighting spirit. The black color represents the power of glory that devours the soul, and the red color represents the pure power of high temperature and impact.
The cold winter wind blew through the streets, making a slight buzzing at the corners of the eaves. As this sound came, the color of the black and red flames on the warrior's fists deepened and purified bit by bit, until finally, it turned into It was extremely dark, as black as an abyss.
The fire of life.
It is extremely deep, as if all the colors are gathered into black, symbolizing Joshua's vitality. This power is so thick, as majestic as the sea. The countless treatments of the Azure Orb have made the warrior's body adapt to this power. , he can freely control it to heal friendly troops and kill enemies.
Joshua even had a hunch that as long as his power continued to grow stronger and the power of glory further advanced, he would be able to manipulate the vitality of other creatures around him and use it for his own purposes, just like a powerful mage can He can easily control the magic power of mages who are inferior to him, counterattack and control their spells at will, and he can also absorb the life force of others at will, just like those big devils in fairy tales.
But who would do that? The warrior shook his head disapprovingly. The lives of others have unique imprints. As long as they are normal people, it is impossible to absorb the life power of others arbitrarily. Otherwise, they will completely lose their self-awareness and become a madman like a beast.
The black flames burned silently. At this time, if Joshua's body was viewed with energy vision, it seemed like a sun falling on the earth, covering the entire main city of Moldavia and even the surrounding wasteland. Here, Within the range, monsters retreated in fear, insects and ants huddled in their nests, and all humans felt inexplicably at ease, as if they were in a warm embrace.
The long black and red energy lines, with the warrior's right hand as the source point, continued to spread towards his body, which meant that Joshua had used all his strength, and the invisible ripples spread in all directions, causing everyone in the city to People with certain strength were shocked.
Artanis got up from his bed in the church. He hurriedly walked to the window and looked at the Lord's Mansion not far away. Although the old bishop's eyesight was not good, with the help of divine magic, he could still clearly see the figure. .
The instinctive fear comes from deep in the heart, which is the suppression at the level of life. Artanis took a deep breath and said to himself with some envy: "Have you reached this point...Joshua...Bello and Fan will be proud of you."
The artificial intelligence lady floating in the night sky also turned her head and stared at the top floor of the Lord's Mansion. She wanted to go over and see the situation of the soldiers, but the powerful life energy fluctuations stirred the magic elements of the entire city. No. 3 even felt This projection of hers was about to be cut off from her true body. She stopped where she was and couldn't help but reveal a wry smile.
In addition, many people noticed the fluctuations coming from the direction of the Lord's Mansion. Most of them were elite adventurers or powerful guards in the caravan, but they did not dare to pay direct attention like No. 3 and Artanis. , but stayed in his room with some fear, waiting for the fluctuation to end.
Joshua didn't care about the attention around him. He continued to use his power, letting the black flame burn blazingly on his right fist, causing a slight qualitative change.
Black and red lines have spread all over the warrior's body. All the muscles, tendons and internal organs in his body are moving and rotating violently. His powerful lungs are sucking air, producing a long and incomparable echo, like a dragon's roar. Qiao Xiu Ya stared at the flame in his hand, not letting up at all.
I don't know how much time passed, but suddenly, a silver light suddenly appeared in the black flames.
Joshua was slightly startled. He didn't know if it was his illusion or if it was something real. But just when he was about to take a closer look to confirm, the black fire of life went out.
The warrior staggered back. This experiment to sublimate the power of life actually consumed all the majestic fighting energy in his body, so that Joshua was now at his weakest moment except for being seriously injured and on the verge of death.
But four hands supported the warrior's body from the back. When Joshua looked back, it was Hotaru and Rin.
After the two gods noticed that the warrior was emitting powerful life fluctuations on the roof, they immediately came to the top of the lord's mansion and silently watched behind him.
"What a good boy."
Leaning on the wall, Joshua gently held the two of them in his arms. He looked at the two silver moons in the dark sky, with red light shining in his eyes.
The surge of power from the Azure Orb quickly restored the fighting spirit in the warrior's body, quickly allowing him to regain his ability to move.
Was that silver flash just now the prototype of the power of steel? The soldier didn't know it, but he knew that this way was feasible. As long as he continues to walk, whether it is the legendary realm or the perfect body, it is the scenery that he will definitely see on this road.
"Hotaru, Rin."
He said softly: "I will leave tomorrow for Moldova."
The warrior didn't seem to explain his decision, but said to himself: "I have a hunch that maybe by fighting an evenly matched opponent, I will be able to more clearly detect the essence of the power of steel... It is probably a gift from Organa. Well, since that time, my hunch has always been very useful."
"Yes." In Joshua's arms, the young girl agreed softly. They are the warrior's magical machine and his weapons. They will never object to what their master decides to do, but will instead support him.
This is trust.
Because of this most loyal trust, they will accompany the warriors until the end of the world.
(End of chapter)