Rise of the Living Forge

For a split instant, Arwin stared in shock. His blood pounded in his ears and goosebumps gripped the back of his neck like a skeletal hand. Twelve was dead. There was no way that the assassin could have survived their attack. He’d watched the man die himself.

Then the panic faltered in the face of realization.

This was a vision.

It was no different than any of the other visions he’d had. Twelve was still dead. Arwin was just seeing the remnants of who he was… but if it was a vision, then the order was all wrong.

The visions came when he was connecting with a material in order to forge it into something. Arwin hadn’t tried to craft anything yet, and even if he had, he most certainly wasn’t working with any pieces of Twelve’s dead body. There were certain lines he wasn’t looking to cross quite yet, and he wasn’t desperate enough to be making equipment out of the corpse of a dead human enemy.

This makes no sense. Why am I seeing Twelve? He shouldn’t be here unless the Mesh is trying to show me something, but I don’t know why it would do that either. Is it trying to let me learn techniques or something by fighting him? That feels like a reward that a combat class would get rather than a —

Arwin froze as a thought slammed into his skull like a hammer.

A vision only comes when I’m working with something that used to be part of someone. The only thing I ate was the sword.

“The fucking sword is part of you?” Arwin demanded, his eyes going wide.

Twelve’s head tilted to the side. “What? How do you know that? Where are we, smith? I don’t know how you managed to defeat me, but you are sorely mistaken if you think I can be held. Release me.”

He doesn’t remember dying? What part of Twelve am I even speaking with? Is it his soul? A fragment his existence left behind?

“Tell me how the anti-magic sword was made,” Arwin said, cracking his neck. He reached for his magic and was unsurprised to find that it was sealed from him. There was only a single ability that would work — but he wasn’t about to reveal his trump card quite yet.

“The anti— how do you know this?” Twelve demanded. He raised a blade for Arwin. “You’re out of chances, smith. Refusing to give me the Dungeon Heart was foolish enough. Keeping me prisoner is the last mistake you’ll make.”

Darkness swallowed the assassin.

This was basically the perfect area for Twelve. They were in a giant sea of empty shadow with nobody around left to counter his abilities. Arwin didn’t waste an instant. The moment Twelve vanished, he activated [Unleash].

A wordless roar filled the dark like booming thunder. Green flashed through beside Arwin as the enormous form of a Wyrm materialized, its body coiled around him protectively.

The air was split by a loud clang as Twelve’s sword struck the Wyrm on the side. It sheared through its scales and bit deep into its flesh, but the monster was far too large to be brought low by an offhand strike.

Its tail whipped forward in a blur, catching Twelve off guard for a brief instant.

Wait, he actually got hit by a normal attack? This is the real Twelve, not a clone. A trained assassin shouldn’t be getting struck that easily by such a telegraphed attack, even if he wasn’t ready for it.

It seemed that nobody had told Twelve that.

There was a loud crunch as he was picked off his feet and launched through the air. Twelve flew for farther than he should have before landing on a patch of twisting shapes and rolling to a stop. He staggered to his feet and readied his swords again.

“What infernal magic is weakening me?” Twelve demanded. “Poison?”

That’s it. He’s weakened. I don’t think the Mesh weakened any of my other opponents before the fight, though. Any power I managed to get always came after I proved myself worthy to wield their strength, and it was granted to me by the item I was trying to craft. Why would he be weak— ŗ

And then the next piece of the puzzle slotted into place.

Anna had killed Twelve with Sympathetic magic. He’d had his power split between eleven other bodies, and they were all still dead. There would be severe backlash to him for having lost so many of his clones.

But if that’s the case, then that means the Mesh only saw fit to bring him back to the point where he was a single person rather than the normal state of his power, which the other monsters I fought seemed to be at.

This isn’t the same as a normal vision. It’s almost like I’ve already taken a portion of his power already, but we haven’t even fought yet.

“Don’t just stand there and stare at me,” Twelve snarled. Darkness washed over his body and swallowed him whole. His words still echoed out through the shadows from every direction. “You should have killed me when you had the chance!”

Instinct made the back of Arwin’s neck prickle.

He spun, twisting his entire body into a punch and unloading every scrap of force he could muster. Arwin struck a patch of night before him. He couldn’t see anything, but every sense he had screamed that Twelve was within it.

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A satisfying crunch rewarded his attempt. Arwin felt his knuckles dig into flesh and a cheekbone shattered beneath his fist. Twelve shot back like he’d been launched from a cannon. Darkness peeled away from him in ribbons that rose up, evaporating from his body. He bounced across shadows that formed into the ground beneath him until he slid to a stop.

“I did,” Arwin said, letting his fist lower. “You’re nothing but a remnant — and not a particularly good one at that. Your weapon is already selling you out, Twelve.”

“Impossible.” Twelve pushed himself up with one hand and wiped the blood from his face covering with the back of one hand. “How much power were you hiding? What games are you playing at?”

“Punching someone in the face does not instantly make me have an ulterior motive,” Arwin growled in response. “Give me the answer. What is the sword? How did you make it?”

Twelve vanished.

Arwin’s senses screamed again. It was almost as if he could tell where Twelve was coming before the man had even decided that himself. He had absolutely no idea how he was doing it, but Arwin didn’t question his fortune.

His knee drove up. It slammed into flesh, and shadow exploded out of Twelve’s back like a spray of black paint. His eyes bulged and he folded over Arwin’s knee with a wheeze.

Arwin’s elbow slammed into Twelve’s temple and the man tumbled back, hitting the ground with a pained cough. The Wyrm took a step back, watching them with a bemused expression on its scaly features. It seemed to enjoy watching Arwin beating the shit out of someone other than itself.

“How are you hitting me?” Twelve demanded again, his voice weaker and nasally from a broken nose. “I am invincible and immaterial within the shadows!”

Arwin almost burst into laughter as he realized what was happening.

Ah. So that’s what’s going on. I took the anti-magic abilities from your sword. I guess that means even Twelve is weak to his own bullshit magic. That just makes me want to get my hands on it even more. It’s too powerful of an ability to be left in the hands of a dead murderer like you.

“Not anymore,” Arwin replied honestly. Eating the blade must have given him a huge amount of leverage over the scales in the vision. Where they normally started heavily skewed in the favor of his opponent, now they were tipped toward him — and he had no plans of letting Twelve shift the tides. “Answer the question, Twelve. Answer it and I’ll let you go. That’s it.”

“Do you really think you can make demands? From me?”

Twelve vanished. Arwin stepped forward, driving his weight behind his fist.

It slammed into Twelve’s face, ripping him from the darkness once more and driving him straight into the shadow before Arwin’s feet. Blood splattered against the inside of the assassin’s cloth mask as he let out a cry of pain.

“Yes,” Arwin said, his mind shifting gears as a strategy made itself known to him. “I’d say I’m offering you a pretty good deal, Twelve. You don’t even have to give me that sword of yours. You can keep it. I’m not trying to start trouble with the Setting Sun. Your guild is powerful and we want nothing to do with them. You can just tell me how the swords were made and I’ll let you leave.”

“I’ll kill you,” Twelve growled.

“Perhaps another day. But today, if you stand up again, I’ll put you down like the sick dog you are. You’ve got one way to get revenge, and that’s getting out of here. And the only way that’s happening is if you answer my question. Even if you kill me, my guild has us locked in here with magically reinforced doors. You’ll never get them open, so you can enjoy starving with only my corpse as company.”

Twelve stared at him. “You risk your life purely to… figure out how to copy my sword? Who told you about it?”

“None of your business,” Arwin replied. “The cards are played, Twelve. Leave and get a chance to get revenge on me when you aren’t weakened — or die here.”

Twelve snorted. He wiped the blood from his features and rose to his feet. “Accepted. You will not like this. The blade can only be created by a smith with talents far beyond anything you are capable of. She recorded the true form of my soul and imbued it into my weapons, awakening their true potential.”

“You mean the anti-magic properties are because of your soul, not because of some intentional enchantment?” Arwin asked, his eyes going wide.

“Exactly,” Twelve said. “It is not something you are capable of stealing, smith.”

Arwin barely listened to any of his words after the confirmation.

So the sword itself has the power, but it’s based off his soul. It’s almost like Awakening a weapon then, isn’t it? Just with a specific goal in mind. I didn’t even think about trying to control how a weapon Awakened, but that seems incredibly close to what this is.

That means there’s someone else that can make Awakened weapons out there… but that’s not my problem right now. If the way to replicate those swords is to somehow replicate someone’s soul, I can work with this. More than that. Twelve’s soul was able to actually stop the Hungering Maw completely. I’m sure that won’t last, but if I can replicate that, this could actually be the way I truly master my greatest weakness. Lillia has kept it at bay for now, but who knows how long it will be before it starts needing more power than what we can provide it through magically enhanced food.

“Are you ignoring me?” Twelve demanded.

Arwin blinked. He’d forgotten the assassin was speaking. “What?”

“Our deal is done,” Twelve said with a low chuckle. “You have received your answer. And, if you keep me here, then your earlier guess was correct. My guild will destroy you and everyone you hold dear. Free me, and my blade will seek your heart alone.”

“Oh,” Arwin said. He blew out a slow breath. “Sorry about that. No.”

“What?”

“I lied,” Arwin said. It was a far shot from the burdens that Rodrick had taken onto his back, but he couldn’t leave all the distasteful tasks to the former paladin. “You’re not going anywhere but right back to hell, Twelve. You’re dead. We already killed you, and your guild isn’t coming. They have no idea what happened to you.”

I’ve got to find out how to imbue the form of someone’s soul into a weapon, huh? That’s as good a starting point as any.

This should be interesting.

Arwin swept his hand down.

Twelve’s eyes widened in horror. He threw his hands up — and the Wyrm’s jaws slammed around him, crushing his body and swallowing the assassin whole.

There was an instant of stillness. The world seemed to grind to a halt as Twelve vanished within the Wyrm’s mouth.

A glimmer of gold danced through the air before Arwin as words traced themselves out a foot away from his nose.

Milestone 3 of [Curb the Hunger] has been revealed.

Milestone 3: Master the Hungering Maw. Your control over yourself grows, and so does your hunger. Find a way to completely bring the Hungering Maw under your control before it consumes you.

Reward 3: Unknown Title; Class Upgrade

A burning pain lit in the pit of Arwin’s stomach. His eyes widened. For the first time in quite a while, the Maw had made itself known — and it was starving.

He didn’t get a chance to think on the returned threat of his own body or the additional Class Upgrade that was now included in the reward for the 3rd milestone of his challenge.

The vision shattered, falling away like planes of black glass around Arwin, but he barely even noticed.

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