# Chapter 40: Pure Combat
Walking up the steps along the nearly pitch-black passage, following the spiral staircase, Ying made her way toward the top of the city wall.
Unlike during the daytime when the beast tide was raging, the wall was eerily quiet. Only the occasional footsteps of patrolling soldiers could be heard. White snow covered the stone battlements, piling up into frozen layers. A soldier carrying a Glowstone Lamp on patrol caught a glimpse of a silver-haired girl's figure amidst the falling snow. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but found nothing, wondering if he was so exhausted that he was hallucinating.
Ying walked slowly in the direction of the contract's resonance. Before long, she spotted her master.
The light in the sky had completely vanished. Storm clouds pregnant with blizzards loomed over the fortress. The black-haired warrior stood at the edge of the wall, gazing into the distance at the white mountains and black forests.
Originally, Ying had wanted to cheerfully greet him and tell Joshua that she had brought the armor. But upon seeing his eyes, the silver-haired girl couldn't help slowing her pace, holding her breath as she quietly approached.
Because what those eyes revealed was nothing but longing.
What exactly was her master longing for?
This was a question that had been buried in her heart for a very long time. Ever since she was drawn from the Blade-Sealing Chamber, Ying would occasionally wonder about this.
Slaying enemies, reclaiming territory, departing from Moldavia's main city, racing all the way to the fortress, killing the golden giant beast and driving away the horde of demons, then rushing to Moldova to crush the beast tide, helping others defend the city... Amidst exhilarating battles and slaughter, countless people cheered and praised his arrival, offering worship and trust.
For a warrior, what more was there to desire? Hadn't he already achieved the ultimate?
No matter how much she guessed, it was useless. If she had doubts, she should ask. Ying approached Joshua slowly, then stood behind him.
She asked softly, "Master... what are you thinking about right now?"
What matter could keep you from sleeping, making you stand on the wall in the darkness, enduring the cold wind, gazing at the snow-laden mountains in the distance?
"Ying... you're back."
Having long sensed the silver-haired girl's approach, Joshua, who had remained motionless, replied after she finished speaking. Then he fell into a long silence, not answering the question.
A blizzard filled the sky. The howling wind showed no sign of stopping. On this noisy yet quiet wall, the two fell into stillness.
The silence stretched on for so long that snow had covered their shoes and ice had formed on their brows. Just as Ying thought she wouldn't get an answer and was preparing to stay put, accompanying her master in his daze, she unexpectedly heard a voice by her ear.
"It's probably a desire to fight."
The voice came from Joshua, who was still staring into the distance. Snowflakes like goose feathers fell upon him, his cloak flapping noisily in the wind. The warrior stood firm against the bone-chilling northern gale and said calmly, "Or perhaps it's longing."
She had received an answer, but the silver-haired Divine Mechanism girl was even more confused. Ying couldn't help asking, "But why? Master, you're not like me, existing as a weapon..."
"I long for battle because I hope you'll use me more to fulfill the responsibility and meaning of my existence. I was born for this. But you are human."
Speaking thus, she recalled the broken weapons in the fortress, the exhausted soldiers, the houses that had lost their owners by the roadside, and the armor and steel wreckage covered in blood scabs.
Although it might not be appropriate for a weapon to say this, everyone had traveled a thousand miles to make their homes better. As a human, one shouldn't long for battle so much... This went against nature.
Ying didn't speak the last sentence, but having said this much, there was no need for further words.
Joshua was silent for a moment, not immediately answering the question.
He looked up. The snow on his black hair fell away as he gazed at the sky. Though the clouds still lingered and moonlight was absent, his eyes seemed to pierce through the clouds, staring straight at the starlight beyond.
After a while, he muttered to himself, "Human nature is different."
With that, Joshua slowly turned around. He looked directly into his weapon's eyes and said seriously, "Ying... not everyone is born to enjoy peace and happiness. There are always some people who don't belong to stability, but to war and slaughter."
"And without people like me to fight, how could this world be protected and peace be created?"
This time, it was Ying's turn to fall silent. Her delicate face furrowed into a frown, as if she was pondering her master's answer. This question was still a bit too difficult for her.
The black-haired warrior stood on the wall, looking down. Traces of magical beasts climbing were everywhere. He could still faintly smell some blood in the cold wind. The smell of gunpowder and burning from explosions had seeped deep into the city walls, occasionally seeping out and dispersing into the air.
Ying's sudden question stirred up some past memories. Joshua recalled his life before the transmigration.
In his previous life, he was born into an ancient but not dilapidated dojo. His mother died of illness when he was young. His father, the dojo master, raised him. That stern middle-aged man didn't know how to care for his child, only knowing how to treat him with the harshest methods.
As the future heir of the dojo, Joshua learned everything about fighting humans in that ancient dojo. As a place that only existed to pass down the art of killing, he couldn't access and didn't need to access anything else.
Training his body, generating strength, then learning to control strength, learning to enhance and amplify strength, and finally learning to use that strength... There was too much. Whether it was techniques for killing and infiltration, techniques for mounted combat, or techniques for using all kinds of weapons, he learned them all in that not-so-spacious dojo courtyard.
Although these trainings were exceptionally grueling, they were exceptionally interesting to him. Joshua seemed born for this. Before long, his father had no more techniques to teach him. But he still wasn't satisfied.
To understand the structure and vital points of the human body, its weaknesses and blind spots, Joshua even asked his father to hire a medical school professor to specifically teach him human medicine, to understand what combat was from the most modern and scientific perspective, how to fastest defeat, knock down, and even kill an enemy.
Because he was passionate about combat, he hungrily learned all knowledge, training day and night without rest, honing his body. At seventeen, he even defeated his father and inherited the position of dojo master. That stern man smiled bitterly yet with relief, watching his child surpass him with the knowledge he had passed down.
For Joshua, combat was so beautiful. It was the highest synthesis of humanity, merging everything a person had—regardless of what it was: human emotion, will, ideals, future, as well as wisdom, technique, strength, and soul. Everything was integrated into it.
To carry out one's thoughts or will, one would fight. This was an activity that staked and merged everything a person possessed. Through this, people distinguished who was stronger.
But for Joshua at that time, everything he had learned had lost its meaning. Because it was already an era of great harmony. The original era of martial arts and the era of war had ended and would never return. Humanity had entered a golden, brilliant era of peace, where one could realize their dreams and obtain everything they wanted without fighting or effort...
For humanity, this was such happiness.
But for him, it was such despair.