# Chapter 10: Emberland Longsword
The earth-shattering thunderous roar overwhelmed all sounds in the sky.
From an observer's perspective, it appeared as if a hill on the western side of Ada Ash Island suddenly collapsed and caved in, soil churning, while a dim black-red light mass compressed the atmosphere, surging upward against the current. It pierced through three major groups of mad dragon legions along the way, leaving a trail of blood and gore as countless wyvern corpses fell like raindrops.
The western temple defense line seemed to experience a minor earthquake. The ground shook, and whether they were divine mechanism puppets or clergy, everyone felt a tremendous force making it impossible to stand steady, their bodies swaying.
A visible substantive shockwave spread with the movement of the light mass. Gale-force winds exceeding level twelve raged through the sky, causing many wyverns to veer off course and crash into their own kind. Whether magic or dragon breath, neither could hit the light mass for a time, forced to watch it fly past at extreme speed.
And at that very moment.
The Ultimate-rank Red Dragon Evian's wariness had just been raised. It turned its head to look toward the direction of the disturbance, and then felt darkness before its eyes.
A massive axe, so black it seemed capable of devouring light itself, was already descending toward its head with the buzzing sound of high-frequency vibration!
If it didn't dodge, it would die!
The death omen flashed before its eyes, but Evian was, after all, an Ultimate-rank dragon. Its reaction speed had long been enhanced through magic, surpassing ordinary computers to reach the microsecond calculation level. The red dragon was about to...
The Imperial side couldn't explain this either, and it would be a loss for all of humanity!
Robzek, however, quickly detected that the violent explosive fluctuation was identical to when Joshua had used the Fusion Core Star earlier to shatter the Bloodmoon Abyss Blood Demon Dragon's teleportation channels. For an instant, he thought Joshua had returned with a small piece of Fusion Core Star fragment and was now using it, but the paladin immediately realized this was completely unnecessary!
With a warrior's weapon and strength, when facing an Ultimate-rank dragon, there was no need to use such a near-suicidal tactic. He could win through steady, methodical combat, at least ensuring his own safety. As for the red dragon, it was originally fond of collecting various flame-related treasures. An Ultimate-rank red dragon collecting a small piece of Fusion Core Star was hardly strange!
He wanted to go to the crater area to see what was happening, but the three-eyed black dragon fighting the paladin had no intention of letting him go. As beams of negative energy fell, Robzek had to turn back and continue his entanglement with the opponent.
Above the crater that had already turned into a large expanse of molten lava, the humanoid red dragon, charred all over and in a sorry state, was panting rapidly. Evian's left arm had been completely severed, his shoulder empty, blood gushing continuously. He stared with a mixture of fear and hatred at the large expanse of golden lava below.
By detonating that small piece of Fusion Core Star he had painstakingly found and collected for nearly two hundred years, Evian had successfully broken through the warrior's battle qi blockade. Then, sacrificing his left arm which had been hiding a binding magic, he immobilized the warrior in place, and used a pre-prepared teleportation to escape the explosion's center. But even so, with the red dragon's high fire resistance, Evian had suffered severe burns.
Even so, his heart was filled with satisfaction — if even he had been reduced to such a miserable state, surely that terrifying warrior had died there, right?
But bubbles rose from the lava.
Crimson battle qi slowly rose, breaking through the boiling magma.
The warrior, whose entire body had been turned to charcoal, still gripped his weapon tightly. He emerged onto the surface, his whole body protected by a battle qi shield that also radiated infinite heat.
Impact and high temperature.
Such simple abilities, yet they always allowed the warrior to survive.
At this moment, Joshua's entire front side had been roasted to charcoal by temperatures of several thousand degrees, much like the red dragon's current state. This kind of injury was beyond the point of feeling pain, because all the nerves in his body had been cooked. The warrior himself could only control his body through battle qi to avoid collapsing into the magma.
Evian's decisive self-detonation attack had indeed successfully ambushed Joshua. If it had been an ordinary person, they would certainly have been reduced to ashes. Even if Robzek had been in the same situation, he would undoubtedly have died.
But from the warrior's charred throat came a sound like a sneer.
"Truly decisive."
What was originally just a hoarse, indistinct murmur gradually restored itself to the warrior's original cold tone: "I must admit, you are a strong one."
At his heart, the Azure Orb flickered with a gentle cyan light. On the warrior's divine bones, mesmerizing rune-light flowed.
With rapid metabolism, new flesh, skin, and hair grew quickly. In just a few breaths, much of the charcoal on the warrior's surface had already fallen off, revealing the newly grown skin beneath.
Joshua hadn't been unable to dodge Evian's attack. He had simply felt a premonition and wanted to fully experience the power of a Fusion Core Star's self-detonation.
Considering his own defensive power and regenerative ability were sufficient to withstand the opponent's attack head-on, the warrior, with inhuman resolve, stopped in place and personally experienced a Fusion Core Star explosion.
This feeling was indeed completely different from when he controlled its explosion. Amid the intense pain and high temperature, Joshua, who had perfectly endured all the positive energy impact, had indeed gained some understanding.
"So this is how energy operates and then erupts."
The warrior murmured softly to himself, while before his chest, traces of flame light appeared. Crimson battle qi gathered and simulated, forming a basketball-sized 'small sun.' Joshua had a flash of inspiration. After this battle, he might be able to completely replicate an attack like the previous 'Blazing Sun Flash.'
At the same time, he confirmed one thing: the Fusion Core Star was not the opponent's trump card for destroying the entire temple defense line as he had suspected earlier. This power was far from enough — at least, it would need to be as large as the one he had used back then.
Meanwhile, in mid-air, the severely wounded red dragon stared dumbfounded at the human standing on the lava.
— What is that?!
— He endured a Fusion Core Star's self-detonation head-on?!
— Is such a creature... no, monster... truly human?!
An indescribable fear rose in his heart. As a red dragon, Evian felt a long-unfamiliar chill impacting his spine and mind. He watched helplessly as Joshua's body regenerated, and a terrifying fireball with the same fluctuation as the Fusion Core Star explosion condensed before his chest.
He had calculated everything, yet accomplished nothing. An inexplicable emotion choked the red dragon's throat, rendering him speechless. Extremely turbulent emotions could no longer be distinguished as fear or hatred, jealousy or shock. He simply stared blankly at this scene, and a realization dawned in his heart.
— I can only use that thing.
An item from that mysterious organization cooperating with the Five-Colored Dragon Clan, entrusted to him by the Elder Council and the three clan leaders together. A powerful artifact that could only be used by the red dragon's bloodline, which connected to the endless sea of fire elements. An item so terrifying that even holding it usually filled Evian with dread.
— Although according to the original plan, it was meant to be used to blast open a passage to the Holy Mountain at the opportune moment, a certain kill to secure victory, there was no doubt that if he couldn't kill this warrior before him now, there would be no 'after.'
At the same time, Joshua, whose nerves throughout his body had been completely reshaped, reborn like a newborn, suddenly raised his head to look at the sky.
In mid-air, the humanoid red dragon pulled a peculiar longsword from his subspace storage.
This longsword was ancient and solemn in style, like a ceremonial sword from a temple. Its blade was entirely pitch black, but the edge faintly emitted a deep firelight like the core of the earth. Strange patterns extended along the spine of the sword, forming runes so magnificent they were breathtaking.
Just looking at these runes brought to mind a series of concepts like 'Earth,' 'Lava,' 'Creation,' as if it were the incarnation of the earth's core, the very heart of the Mother Earth.
Legend has it that the First Flame burned the void, and the ashes condensed into steel, from which all things were born. The earth is the rust of steel, and the depths of the earth are the residual warmth of the First Flame.
The First Fire created the world, Steel shaped all things, and upon the Emberland, all life multiplied.
[Creation Flame · Emberland Longsword]
Although merely a replica of a true divine artifact, this Emberland Longsword still possessed infinite might.
The black sword hovered and rotated before the severely wounded red dragon, like a crack leading to the depths of the earth's core. Under Evian's full activation, the patterns on its spine began to release streams of energy light like solar coronas.
In an instant, the sword tip aimed at Joshua's location.
Death.
For the first time, he truly felt that he might die.
This was the only thought in the warrior's mind when he saw that all-too-familiar divine artifact longsword.