Chapter 463 Death Shade Ambush (1/2)

Night at the southern wastelands in the world of Grandia.

Joshua stood at the peak of a mountain, overlooking the land below.

Before him was a continent shrouded in darkness. There was no illumination, no torches and no light that civilization and intelligence would bring. The complete dullness devoured everything, with obscurely seen Death Shades wandering as they wailed shrilly.

It had been almost ten days after he had arrived in the area. The warrior had searched through every corner of these lands, streaking across all directions. Along the way, he saved at least thirty survivors in shelters, killing Death Shades by the ten thousand and increasing his energy output level to 63%.

But it was meaningless, with Joshua's brow so furrowed in frustration it was essentially standing upright—as if she had vanished, there was no trace of the dragon-winged girl.

The warrior did not speak within the darkness. Neither did the divine armament siblings who had finally adapted to the environment of this world and was now able to change in human form. Ling and Ying could both sense their master's irritation, and understand the mood.

It has not been a month since the warrior had arrived at this world and found the location of the heir and ascertained that the Sage's Legacy was in fine condition. That was almost too fast, but Joshua knew that he had almost directly found his own objective. What was worse, after gaining no result after searching according to the clues, it was certainly exasperating comparing the two.

In the next moment, after a long exhale to still his troubled heart, Joshua returned to calm.

”Looks like she's left this wasteland,” Joshua muttered to himself. ”Urbandy gave me her scent and I do sense it amongst these lands, but it vanished ten days ago… I originally thought that she was hiding, but now it seems that she's used some method to conceal her own scent and hide someplace else.”

With that thought, Joshua, looked around at the horizon of each direction as he stood aloft at the mountaintop. Even if she was hiding at another area, then where on earth would that be?

Who knows. All he could do was depend on luck.

Now. Joshua planned to have Ling and Ying revert to their weapon forms, hold them aloft and drop them, after of which he would search wherever the tip of axe and sword pointed towards.

However, just as he was about to do that, he sensed a weak yet familiar ripple, and Joshua could not help but turn his eyes towards where the ripple came from.

”Silver tier?” He exclaimed in slight surprise.

That ripple was created by someone who had broken through to a Silver Radiant Spirit tier. It must have been a Dark Iron Omen-class individual who cultivated in aura, allowing his own body's energy to link up with his entire body and utterly grasping their own physical prowess to ascend!

”That was quick.”

Throughout the entire southern overgrown plains, Joshua had rescued more than thirty survivors from various shelters and left each of them a different style of Kokyu-ho. Those Kokyu-ho combined the two chief cultivation principles of aura and protocrystal mana, allowing them to ascend either by absorbing the energies adrift around the world or through absorbing protocrystal power.

Most of these survivors did not have powerful abilities. Still, it was exactly because of that reason, as well as their weak presence that got the Death Shades which had destroyed their shelters to ignore them. Nonetheless, after attaining the Kokyu-ho and Joshua's help, their ability definitely increased greatly and was enough to resist the Death Shades.

But for someone to make a breakthrough in ten days into Silver-tier, it was something that made the warrior feel rather surprised.

This proved that his hypothesis was not wrong—or should he say, great success!

And so, a crimson bolt of light leapt up from the summit and streaked down towards the land. The dim radiance carved out a straight line in the dark world, dashing speedily towards the eastern region of the southern plains.

Meanwhile, amidst the ruins of the southern wastelands, a boy and a girl with blonde hair were standing in front of a house that was recently repaired and facing a group of Death Shades that were slowly closing in.

”Crete, aren't you done calibrating?”

The girl stood valiantly, brandishing a cleaver that was polished to extraordinary sharpness and rapidly killing the weak Death Shades before her. The southern plains had been the most fertile ground in Grandia, and one of the largest human settlements. Still, the Death Shades that awakened here were mostly mortal-class, which was also how the girl who possessed certain extraordinary power could hold out for so long.

That being said, however weak the Death Shades were, the young girl could not fight all by herself.

”If you're not done adjusting, I'm going to die right before your eyes!”

At present, the young man's whose name had been called was not in a fine state. He was closing his eyes and leaning on a wall of the house, taking short and hurried breaths as if he was about to drown. Underneath his skin, bundles of green veins were bulging, the muscle squirming—bringing energy but also extreme pain.

”Laurel!” The boy named Crete spoke with a choppy voice, biting back through the pain. ”Thirty-seconds! Give me thirty seconds!”

Even as he spoke, a lot of blood moved visibly through Crete's veins, transporting the seeds of power assembled within his body to his entire body as he prepared to muster Silver-advanced tier aura.

”I'm almost done!” He then exclaimed, his voice no longer quaking as much even as he gripped the felling axe beside him, his green eyes flashing ferociously.

But Laurel cold no longer wait for his support.

Naturally, it was not because she did not push the Death Shades back—but it was due to the crimson meteor that sparkled over the horizon.

Joshua had arrived.

As if the sun had swept through the land, the entire eastern flank of the southern wastelands was cleared of Death Shades. Boy and girl stared blankly towards the sky as a familiar figure appeared in the sky over their village.

The figure who once saved them from Death Shades and instructed them in cultivation.

”My lord!”

Laurel and Crete quickly knelt, their eyes filled with reverence. Though they did not know Joshua's name, it did not affect the place he held within their hearts. It was a character that was equivalent to reborn parents, a great teacher—or perhaps something even more.

On the other hand, Joshua, who saw that the muscles and veins around Crete were yet to return to normal, pointed with his finger.

A faint lifeforce emission thus shot out from his fingertip and seeped into the youth's body. In an instant, the youth sensed in shock that the squirming muscle and veins had all calmed, completing the ascension!

After everything was done, Joshua nodded in slight praise as he surveyed the broken village around them.