Soul of Searing Steel

Panda Novel

“… Where am I?”

When the golden-haired Zorgen, the captain of the task force that was defending the fortress woke up on a solid bed that was made of black wood, the middle-aged man could not help but feel unwell. His body was fatigued. He felt like as if he was almost drained completely.

Upon opening his eyes, his vision was blurry. Currently, Zorgen felt as if he was still on the battlefield where they were fending off the daemons.

Slowly recalling his memories, the howling of the cold winds and the roaring of the ferocious daemons were heard in his ears once again. The ferocious gigantic monsters were charging into the walls again and again, tearing them all apart. Meanwhile, the horde of black monsters was gushing into the city like a tidal wave that was unstoppable.

What laid before his eyes had made the warrior feel a sense of despair deep in his heart. However, he was not dumb either. He immediately reacted. If the situation continued in such matter, how would he be lying on the bed peacefully like this?

“I’m actually alive. I’ve awakened from a coma after I exhausted myself using too much of my Combat Aura. It seems that the war has ended.”

Upon making fun of himself for a bit, Zorgen turned his eyes towards the window and looked at the golden sunlight. The golden light was shining on the stand on the bed’s front. The light revealed the flying dust in the air. Then he suddenly remembered, “That’s right, it must be Count Joshua.”

When the monster horde had breached the walls of the city, Zorgen had fallen into a blurry state because he used too much of his Combat Aura. In fact, he went into a state of coma. However, he could feel a tremendous power descending from the sky, slaughtering all the monsters on the battlefield. Meanwhile, that tremendous power must be the new Gold-tier Count of Moldavia.

With one hand holding his head and the other supporting him against the bed, he was awake. The golden-haired knight was still feeling a little dizzy though. He tried to get out of the bed. However, a strong sense of pain spread across his entire body- especially the internal organs in his body. Every time he sucked in a breath of air or swallowed his saliva, he could feel an intense pain across his entire body like having a sense of intense electrocution across his entire body.

“My internal organs are sustaining far more damage than they should. It must have been because I overused my Combat Aura.”

Enduring the uncomfortable feeling across his entire body, Zorgen slowly sat himself up. He was currently wearing loose pajamas. His wounds were tightly bandaged. It seemed that the medical team had given him a bath as well.

“This time, it seems much better than any other times back then.”

The knight had sustained similar heavy wounds in the past. He had passed out like this as well in the past. However, regardless of anything, he was always sent back to his house naked. He had never thought that the medical team would be so thoughtful to provide him a pair of clothes this time.

As for that sort of wounds, the knight had gotten used to having them.

Combat Aura was the combination of will and body. It could be known as the dual appearance of substance and spirit of life. The unleashing of the Combat Aura was like squeezing one’s own body and spirit intensely, bursting out the strongest power from the body’s most subtle part. The skill was simple actually. It did not require the wielding of the power to unlock one’s own body to protect oneself. Even the mercenaries on the streets could easily do it. However, because the side effect of doing that was too much for some people to bear, people would not simply use it unless it was a crucial moment or moment that involved life and death.

However, as a soldier that always stayed in the frontline of battles, they had experienced more ‘life and death’ situations than others. Although pushing themselves to use their Combat Aura to the max would cause them to be weak for three months, it would surely be better than being dead on the scene. Zorgen knew that better than anyone. This was not his first rodeo as well. Although his hidden wounds had made it difficult for him to cross into Gold-tier, if he did not do that in all the ‘life and death’ situation’, he would not have survived until today.

Long ago, Zorgen had heard from the previous liege saying that there was some sort of special breathing technique that could instantly surge. Under the circumstance that there were no side effects, the person who used it could also enhance his own adaptability. However, it was also obvious that this was never an ultimate skill that would be passed around. So even the liege would find it impossible to acquire such a skill.

“My strength is still too weak… if I can just break through the barrier to Gold tier and acquire Glorious Strength, I wouldn’t have to experience such a dangerous situation. As a servant, not only I failed to share the burden of my liege, I even needed him to come to the frontline to save us. What a disgrace…”

Standing up shakily, the golden-haired middle-aged man sighed. Then he walked out of the room into the living hall.

This was a strong military-styled hall. The head of the huge bear with a wretched face was hanging over the dusty fireplace. From the sunlight that came through the window came a long shadow. There were tools and jars for weapons maintenance in the corner of the room. There were about two to three chairs arranged scattered on the left side of the table. It seemed that some people had been sitting there for quite some time, and then they forgot to clean up the place before they left.

In Dark Forest Fortress, each warrior would have their very own house. Those who had a wife, sons, and daughters would all live together in the house. However, most of the houses were occupied by warriors that were single. As the captain of the defending force of the city, Zorgen naturally had quite a large estate. However, he had not been able to get a wife even though he was forty-three. Therefore, this double-storey house did not have a woman. So no one was there to tidy the house.

Upon getting near to the table, he picked up a cup out of convenience and poured some water into the cup. As the fireplace was not lit, the temperature in the house was very low at the moment. Even though the water in the pot did not freeze, it was very cold. However, Zorgen needed the cold water. He lent the chilling water to refresh and reactivate his brain cells. After that, he no longer shook around as if he could not walk properly.

In the meantime, the sound of frost and ice being stepped on was heard from the main door of his house. Before the knight could turn his head towards the door, he had heard the sound of a key unlocking the door. Then the door was opened.

Holding the key in his hand, the white-haired wizard and the masked warrior walked right in and appeared before Zorgen.

“… close the door quickly, you bunch of hoodlums who do not know how to knock!”

The wind that blew in along the opening of the door was -21 degrees. Even a Silver-tier knight could not bear that sort of chill. Zorgen spoke in rage as if he was roaring in his low voice, “And please explain how did you get the key to my house?!”

“Calm yourself, my friend. You’ve been out for three days now. If we don’t take the key with us, who’s going to open the door for us to get in? You?”

Feng closed the door behind them and shook his head, he touched the white beard below his chin and said, “The number of wounded people is too great. The infirmary does not have enough beds for all of them. So we had to send you back here so that you can recover. About that, you should be thankful that we carried you all the way back here.”

“… then should I thank you for coming over to visit me as well?”

“We’re just here out of convenience.”

Chiri was standing at the side with his mask on. Though he did not wear any armor, he shrugged and said, “Who would want to care about you, old geezer? We received a letter from the clock tower. The name on the letter was Scarlet from Moldova. The Scarlet family and the Radcliffe family are of the same Count family. I believe this is related to something big. It’s necessary to summon you as well. The three of us shall pay a visit to the Count to report on the situation. Then we shall present the letter to him.”

Conference Room in the tower.

Joshua was sitting right in the conference room of the tower. He was frowning as he was trying to recall something. Right before his eyes, there was a black notebook. There were already quite a number of notes written on it.

Thirty years ago, the halflings had made a revolutionary change to the art of making paper. Now that the people did not have any appreciation to the clean and neat papers, they even founded the printing industry. So a notebook like this could be bought with two silver coins anywhere out there. Even a normal resident could afford to get one for themselves.

Now, the warrior was recalling back on his past memories. He was trying his best to recall as much information on the northern Empire as he could.

Unlike the other human settlements where people gather, the northern Empire had a very simple structure when it came to politics.

Many big and small countries in the northern lands and the western mountains were attempting to conquer each other. The situation was always chaotic. The complicated situations were enough to cause massive confusion among the chiefs that controlled a party of hundreds. Meanwhile, the members of the parliament in the distant land of the south had to exhaust their brain juice to fight with both open and secret means.

Unlike them, there was only three powerful influence on the vast land of the north—The Royals, the Nobles and the Church.

Although the royals needed no introduction, the Emperor’s strength accounted for their influence. Meanwhile, the Central Army and Elite Army of Five were the other part of the influence.

Meanwhile, things were a little more complicated when it comes to the nobles. The number of the nobles in the Empire was considered the fewest among the entire continent. Counting on from barons to the lieges, their number altogether did not even exceed a hundred, which can only be weighed down by the fact that even the number of rich in some of the larger kingdoms of the eastern lands were more than that. On the contrary to their number, each of them was packed with quite an influential background though.

There were daemons that came from the Dark Tide and those that scattered across the land. Because of that, the mercenaries were broadly restricted. Look at Moldovia, a liege could already have almost a hundred knights and thousands of mercenaries. They could even build fortresses by the border of the land. If their territories were placed in the east, these territories could be considered small countries. Meanwhile, the mercenaries that the lieges could hire might have much better capabilities than the Empire’s elite army.

The Church of the Seven Gods would look at the people’s hearts. However, in the age where the gods were asleep and left the world unattended, the gods were just staying quiet all the time. They were just observing most of the situations without interfering at all.

That was everything that Joshua knew. In his previous memories, he was educated enough to remember every name and seal of all the nobles. Also, he also remembered the general factional divisions and the common sense that normal people of the land had. However, that was it.

Compared to his knowledge on the south, this information that he had in his head was just the tip of an iceberg.

“I can’t believe I can only remember so much of it. There’s nothing there that links to the daemons and the dragon race monsters. It seems that I need to ask Feng and Chiri or maybe the others to see if there are any demonic monsters that have Chaos Attributes.”

Sighing, even though Joshua was an elite enthusiastic player in Continental War, he could not have known everything. As the captain of the largest party in the game, he did know much more information that others would not be able to know for their entire life. However, that did not mean that Joshua could bypass the server and know about the information on the other territories and monsters.

Looking at the system.

“Class Quest… the demon beasts and giant beasts that were infected by the Berserk Dragon virus… although they seemed like they had lost their minds, however, they were just undergoing the process of ‘Berserk’. Nothing is related to Chaos Attribute at all.”

He muttered to himself, “The Chaos Attribute of the monster, so other than the daemons, what else can it be?”

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