Chapter 13: Shadow of the Sage
A colorless, holy pillar of light pierced the sky, striking a circular vacuum in the cloud-covered heavens. Some citizens who happened to look up witnessed this scene, raising their arms in surprise to point out the obvious anomaly to acquaintances nearby. Before long, a crowd had gathered, gesturing and murmuring about the hole in the clouds.
If ordinary people sensed something was wrong, the powerful professionals were even more alert.
At the fortress tower, the garrison commander and city lord of the Ural Mountains Fortress, Gold-rank heavy-armored swordsman Kate Medeset, rushed to the top of the tower with a grave expression. Unlike the common soldiers, he could clearly see the translucent pillar of light piercing through the clouds and sky.
"The city gate? What exactly happened..."
Muttering to himself in confusion, Kate knew as city lord that he had to respond to this unknown situation as quickly as possible. But since there were no casualties or damage yet, time was still on his side. After a moment of thought, he issued a series of orders to the messenger beside him.
"Is this the power of Holy Light?"
At the fortress's central church, the bishop of the Ural Diocese lifted his heavy ceremonial staff. This terrifying weapon, weighing three hundred pounds, scraped against the stone floor as he moved, producing a dull thud. The bishop, who looked more like a warrior than a priest, walked to the church's main entrance in confusion, staring at the still-unfading pillar of light. "No, this power is purer, yet it shares the same origin as Holy Light..."
"What exactly is this power?"
The same question echoed from the local mercenary agency hall—commonly known as the Mercenary Guild. The most powerful mage for hundreds of kilometers, also the finest alchemist and agency director, Jean Wilmot, was thirty meters underground. But through his detection spells, he could clearly sense the Order Force outside—not intense, yet exceptionally distinct. Never having seen such pure power, the mage set down the quill he was using to inscribe runes and carefully observed the various data displayed on his magical instruments, then muttered to himself, "Strange... there's also an abnormally sinister power mixed in..."
Meanwhile, at the center of all this discussion, the focus of everyone's attention.
Joshua gripped the Azure Orb, his brow deeply furrowed. The originally sturdy carriage, tough enough to withstand cannon fire, had been completely shattered by the overwhelming power, reduced to a pile of wreckage.
Within a radius of several hundred meters, everyone had been pushed back by a gentle but immense force. Even the coachman had been sent to the other side of the artificial canal by the sudden eruption of Order Force. The honest, simple driver was still wondering how he ended up there, but for now, he couldn't figure it out.
Joshua no longer had the time or attention to care about other matters. His entire focus was on controlling the sudden burst of power from the Azure Orb in his hand and the sinister soul fluctuation lurking within his body.
Earlier, the moment his instincts had sounded the alarm, an extraordinarily sinister fluctuation carrying the power to destroy any soul had crossed the void and plunged directly into his body. Before Joshua could react in shock and anger, it made direct contact with his soul.
—A curse? Or some kind of soul attack?
Even someone as experienced as Joshua couldn't identify the nature of this attack. In fact, curses and mental attacks were the areas he understood least and was least skilled at. In his previous life's game, curses and soul attacks were merely system prompts or negative status effects—or direct judgments that inflicted certain penalties or damage if failed. Since no one had ever truly experienced such attacks, they couldn't imagine or simulate them.
Now, Joshua was experiencing it firsthand—and it was far from pleasant.
Although the warrior's soul was powerful enough to temporarily resist this terrifying force, his unpreparedness left him unable to expel it from his body. The moment the attack struck, Joshua froze completely, unable to move, capable only of struggling against that power.
At first, he could only passively endure the invasion of that evil fluctuation, using his steel-tough soul to repeatedly counter the bizarre destructive force. It felt like having his nerves exposed, placed in subzero fifty-degree wind, then doused with saltwater—agonizing. With each clash, Joshua's ears rang with piercing, screeching noises, like glass grinding against metal, filling his mind and disrupting his concentration.
Even when Joshua had been most severely wounded, he had never suffered such pain. The warrior felt his mental sea had become a fierce battlefield.
In the midst of this struggle, Joshua instinctively reached out and grasped the Azure Orb hanging from his neck, which was vibrating incessantly. This was merely a reflexive action, but it proved to be a great help. The moment he gripped the orb, the warrior felt the Order Force quietly flowing within his body being mobilized. It connected with some power within the orb, and with a sound like flames igniting, an immeasurable amount of Order Force erupted, like the brightest torch, piercing through his body and soul. It replaced Joshua's will, firmly suppressing that evil force within his mental sea.
The dark green fluctuation writhed as if alive, but was completely suppressed by the Order Force, barely able to move, unable to approach the warrior's soul.
Only then did Joshua have time to catch his breath. Calming down, he exhaled and diverted some of his attention to controlling the power within the Azure Orb, suppressing the evil soul fluctuation inside him, and began to ponder what had happened.
"Someone cursed me or used a soul attack against me."
There was no doubt about that. Gritting his teeth, Joshua wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. His gaze burned with fury, his face as dark as water. "This sudden, unprompted attack must be a curse... So who is it?!"
Such a targeted curse attack, capable of nearly annihilating the soul of a determined Gold Peak warrior, was undoubtedly beyond the means of any small faction. Even major powers would need various mediums to accurately pinpoint his location.
Without a doubt, Joshua knew this was an assassination specifically aimed at him. And the only ones who would go to such lengths to deal with him—a nearly reclusive Northern lord—were those damned evil dragons in the South!
"...Is this assassination never-ending?"
First the Blood Demon Dragon, now this curse. Those dragons clearly hadn't given up. Despite already unleashing the Dragon Calamity in the South, they were still expending so many resources on him.
Suppressing his anger for now, Joshua released his right hand from the Azure Orb. Frowning, he shifted his attention to the evil fluctuation within his body, now suppressed by the orb.
But when he focused, he noticed a blind spot he had overlooked before.
This strange black fluctuation, still struggling relentlessly to attack Joshua's soul, contained an incredibly dense aura of Chaos. If the Order Force from the orb hadn't been so overwhelming as to completely mask it, he should have noticed it earlier.
"Now, the only ones openly colluding with Chaos are indeed those dragons."
Confirming his target once more, Joshua looked at the soul fluctuation within him and couldn't help but feel troubled. "Even such dense Order Force hasn't purified it. How can I eliminate it?"
Generally, aside from the caster lifting the curse, the only method was to wear it down with pure power.
Unable to think of a better solution for now, he decided to proceed with that. Carefully, he attempted to touch the soul fluctuation, using overwhelming Order Force to expel or erase it. The warrior moved swiftly; his resilient soul, like silver steel, parted the layers of Order Force cleanly, approaching the shapeless, featureless black fluctuation that churned endlessly.
As he drew near, he felt a pain like being corroded and burned by acid.
But compared to the agony of directly confronting that terrifying force earlier, this was as pleasant as a warm spring breeze. It only made Joshua more resolute in driving his soul forward to approach it.
His silver soul, carrying a massive amount of Order Force, touched the black mist fluctuation.
The moment intense pain struck, an unprecedented anomaly occurred. A fierce cyan light surged from the Azure Orb on Joshua's chest, forming a halo that hovered above the warrior's head. As the halo rotated, a series of visions appeared before his eyes.
White light flickered, and countless fragmented images like slides emerged.
He saw a vast, endless plain, teeming with countless creatures. A group of wandering humans arrived, driving away beasts, burning forests, clearing a clean environment. They built a village, erected walls, lit the first campfire, and swore this would be their eternal home.
He saw countless refugees coming from afar, joining them. They constructed various buildings around the village, sowed different seeds, harvested different crops. Initially, there were disputes among the tribes, but as time passed, the diverse people swore before the fire in the city center to work together and strive for their survival.
He saw, under the light of this flame, villages became cities, cities became nations, and nations merged races into the first civilization.
The flame representing humanity burned fiercely in the torch of a great city. Its light illuminated the earth and sky, brightening an entire era.
Visions appeared and vanished, flickering constantly. The warrior strained his eyes but could only glimpse one or two fragments, never grasping the full picture.
Finally, all images dissolved into silent darkness.
Just as Joshua grew puzzled, countless more memory fragments flashed by like fleeting shadows.
This time, they were filled with despair.
It was a dead, desolate world. The land held no trace of life. Corpses littered the ground, bones piled into mountains. Amid drifting ashes, a terrible plague born of war had spread across the entire world—from oceans to land, from mountains to sky. Forests, swamps, lakes, deserts—none escaped death's shadow. All life was ravaged by pestilence, unable to find release.
Within the dark green toxic clouds, a massive shadow shifted. Amid interwoven light and shadow, countless bizarre limbs and tentacles descended from the heavens. As all life neared its end, they enveloped the world. The monster embodying the plague was born from this, its enormous tentacles covered in pustules, rotting flesh, and slime sweeping across the sky and earth, mercilessly claiming the lives of all survivors. This evil, filled with boundless malice, ascended after reaping the civilization of one world, gaining the power to reach beyond.
Two completely different illusory realms appeared on either side of Joshua. One blazed like burning flames, radiating brilliant light. The other resembled a bottomless, rotting abyss, breeding poison capable of corrupting worlds.
Though fully aware he was trapped in an illusion, Joshua's mind was clearer than ever. He stood at the midpoint between the two worlds, as immovable as a boulder. Facing the ceaseless evil whispers and mental erosion on one side, the warrior snorted in disdain. Filled with boundless curiosity, he turned to look at the blazing fire on the other side.
And then he saw a pair of eyes that seemed to see straight into the soul.
(To be continued.)