The final polish on the mithril blade was finished. I gently ran the sharpening stone along the blade, and it gave off a soft, clear note, like crystal struck by a tuning fork. I held the sword up to the light. Perfect. The blade's edge was true and well-balanced. Fit for a prince.
I carefully laid it beside Emberline on the bench, its edges catching the morning light from the tall windows. Two very different blades. One refined, the other gleaming.
I didn’t linger.
My hand reached under the bench to grab the last piece of orichalcum, it was heavier than it looked, still carrying that faint pulse beneath the surface. It wasn’t cold, but it numbed my fingers, as if it remembered the fire from before. It’s a strange metal. I wonder where this element would be located on the periodic table. Where would both of these metals be? If I recall correctly, they would fall into the transition metals group. But where? I would love to see the atomic makeup of these elements.
Back at the forge, I sketched the sword designs on parchment with a charcoal stick. I need to make some pencils. Let’s see, some clay and graphite for the core, and some wood around the core. Glue it all together, and bam, a pencil. I need to ask the Guildmaster where I can get some graphite. More projects. I should write these down, only if I had a pencil.
Back to my current job. Sometimes, I get too many distractions, many of which are of my own making. Now, for those two blades, not ceremonial or decorative, but real, honest swords. One is for Guildmaster Verran, and the other for Vaktar. Both are one-handed: one swings forward like a falcata for pure chopping power, while the other is tighter and leaner with a forward balance, perfect for quick draw and strike. I measured with my fingers, nodded once, and placed the ingot in the crucible.
Now, the ingot needs to be cut in half. A hot cut will do the job. Typically, the metal is scored before being placed in the forge. What can score orichalcum? The forge roared as the ingot was heated. Orange and white flickered upward, brighter than before. Pulling down on the bellows’ ropes, the forge grew hotter and hotter.
Then the back doors slammed open. One breaks free of its hinges. The air shifted. Heat from the forges clashed with the sudden draft from outside. The rhythmic clack of boots echoed like war drums on stone. Chainmail rattled beneath layers of plate. Robes whispered. Their approach was a weighted judgment of inevitability. All the sounds in the forge quieted, hammers halted mid-swing, and apprentices froze at the bellows. Even the flames seemed to recoil.
A blacksmith near the entrance stepped forward, Halden, built like a furnace, with arms as thick as barrels and a heavy apron blackened by decades of iron and fire. His hand gripped a pair of tongs like a weapon. His voice was rough with grit and heat.
“That door is not used for general use,” he said flatly.
The lead priest didn’t answer. His face was hidden beneath the deep cowl of his bone-white robes, fingers already raised, lips already moving in silent invocation. Light gathered in his palm.
Crack—BOOM.
A burst of divine fire roared through the air like a cannon blast. Halden never stood a chance. The blast hit him dead center, his apron instantly turned to ash. The force lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the back wall like a rag doll. Tools clattered to the floor. A bench cracked loudly. He crumpled with a groan.
“Halden!” someone yelled.
Two blacksmiths charged ahead without hesitation. One gripped a heavy hammer with both hands, shouting as if back on a battlefield. The other, a younger man, grabbed the iron poker from a nearby brazier, spinning it in his hand like a staff. They didn’t fight with ceremony. They fought like men defending their home.
The hammer-wielder crashed into the second priest before he could raise his defenses. The impact sounded like a bell dropping on stone. The priest staggered back, ribs caving under the force of the blow, collapsing to the ground. The poker cracked across the third’s jaw with a wet snap. His spell fizzled out as blood sprayed from his mouth. He collapsed on one knee, clutching his shattered face. A roar erupted from the other smiths, dozens of them shifting, readying tools that had never been meant for war but would work just fine in one. And still, more figures advanced.
Heavier. Slower. More deliberate.
Three remained now two knights in holy armor, their helms etched with sunburst sigils and sacred verses, and between them, walking like judgment given form, The Inquisitor.
The two knights advanced, each a wall of metal and determination. Their armor wasn’t ceremonial; it was battle-worn, with sunburst sigils deeply carved into polished plates, scriptures inlaid along their pauldrons and bracers in gold. One wielded a flanged mace, while the other carried a broad-bladed longsword engraved with runes that faintly shimmered in the forge light.
They didn’t charge. They moved forward. They didn’t charge again. They kept moving forward, step by step, boots ringing off the stone. I exhaled slowly and triggered Analyze.
[Jakub Walker]
Race: Human
Status: None
Title: Divine Templar
Age: 27
Class: Paladin Lvl 10
Strength: 18
Intelligence: 17
Wisdom: 18
Agility: 16
Charisma: 16
HP: 260/260
MP: 300/300
SP: 250/250
Skills:
? Unarmed Combat - Lv. 10
? Sword Fighting - Lv. 15
? Divine Healing - Lv. 5
Equipment:
Armor: Sanctified Plate – Grade: High
? Magical Resistance: Moderate (Divine Ward)
? Physical Resistance: High (Blessed Forging)
? Vulnerabilities: Joint gaps, vision slits, kinetic overload
Weapon Enchantments: Holy Burst (Mace)
[Dante Ellis]
Race: Human
Status: None
Title: Divine Templar
Age: 30
Class: Paladin Lvl 10
Strength: 18
Intelligence: 18
Wisdom: 17
Agility: 15
Charisma: 17
HP: 250/250
MP: 300/300
SP: 250/250
Skills:
? Unarmed Combat - Lv. 8
? Sword Fighting - Lv. 12
? Divine Healing - Lv. 2
Equipment:
Armor: Sanctified Plate – Grade: High
? Magical Resistance: Moderate (Divine Ward)
? Physical Resistance: High (Blessed Forging)
? Vulnerabilities: Joint gaps, vision slits, kinetic overload
Severance Glyph (Blade)
Not invulnerable. Just built as if nothing should ever touch them. But I wasn’t anything. I shifted my stance slightly, scanning their approach. Just two walking tanks. “What the fuck is divine armor?” I muttered to myself. “Resists both magic and steel but not completely.” Their pace never changed. Their weapons gleamed. And I knew: I’d need to hit harder, faster, and smarter than I ever had before. All that I had was the hammer in my hand.
The blows from tongs and hammers bounced off their armor like twigs hitting stone. One blacksmith struck a heated bar at the knight’s side, but it ricocheted with a metallic hiss and caused him to stumble back, falling across the stone tiles.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The knights scarcely acknowledged the resistance. They moved with the calm precision of men chosen for this very purpose, unstoppable, unhurried, and righteous. And walking among them was the Inquisitor. Out of habit, I used analyze and was shocked to see what was before me.
[Wilfred Hermmons]
Race: Human
Status: None
Title: Inquisitor of the Holy Order
Age: 57
Class: Divine Executioner
Strength: 17
Intelligence: 18
Wisdom: 18
Agility: 16
Charisma: 20
HP: 270/270
MP: 350/350
SP: 300/300
Skills:
Swordmanship - Lv. 18
Sanctify Zone - Lv. 16
Mirrored Will - Lv. 14
Heaven’s Wrath - Lv. 11
Equipment:
Blessed Plate of the Redeemed (Fire Resistance, Anti-Magic Lattice)
Greatblade “Ash Oath” – Enchanted with Divine Fire, Soulburn, and Cleave
His cloak hardly moved despite the heat; his gloved hands were folded in front of him, as if he were giving a sermon. His voice was soft but clear, mumbling something in a forgotten dialect, a prayer or a sentence, each word wrapped in sacred authority. His eyes stayed fixed on me, and the forge for a moment felt colder than it should. All three of their eyes were locked on me. Then the knights moved. Oh, crap!
Not just a charge, a surge. Full plate thundering across stone, boots pounding in perfect rhythm. I barely had time to grab my hammer before they were on me. The first knight slammed shoulder-first into my worktable, shattering it in half. Tools clattered to the ground in a metallic explosion, punches, tongs, and chisels flying like shrapnel.
The second knight crashed into me, using his shield like a wall of metal and force. The impact felt like a battering ram—ribs crushed, lungs emptied, and the world tilted to the side. I fell back, my boots slipping on the stone, and my vision flashed white for a moment as pain shot through my chest.
–100 HP [Remaining: 220 of 320]
The numbers flickered faintly in the corner of my vision, clinical and cold. But the damage wasn’t just an abstract concept. It burned in my shoulder, throbbed in my ribs, and tasted like copper at the back of my throat. For a moment, my grip wavered. My body cried out for stillness, but my instincts pushed me forward. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
It was like being hit by a runaway car. All breath left my chest in a burst as the impact lifted me off my feet and drove me backward. My spine struck the wall with a sickening thud. Pain flared up in my back. My fingers went numb. My hammer slipped from my grip and skittered across the floor.
The knight didn’t relent. He held me down with the full weight of his shield, pressing it into my ribs and squeezing the air out of me little by little. I can’t push up; no leverage. His sword raised, the tip just below my chin. Behind him, the other knight stood ready to strike the moment I moved. I could barely see over the edge of the shield, but I caught a glimpse of the Inquisitor coming closer, lips still moving in prayer, voice like poison wrapped in silk.
Pressure built behind my eyes. My knees buckled. The world narrowed to heat, steel, and the suffocating weight of inevitability. And then I felt it.
The Inquisitor stopped just behind the knights, robes brushing the stone, voice like gravel dragged through holy ash.
“David Robertson. Heretic. For forging forbidden materials. For bending the divine threads with unclean will. For disrupting the order set by the Almighty, you are condemned.”
“Do we have time to discuss this?” I asked. Calm. Dry. “Grab a beer? Get some cake? Discuss this over a good sandwich.” My voice cut against his like steel across parchment.
The Inquisitor tilted his head, a flicker of disdain beneath his hood. “There is no debate with corruption. Only correction.”
I gave a slight shrug. “Figured you’d say that. Still seemed polite to ask.” The knight to my right clamped down on my shoulder like a vice, armor grinding against bone. I winced, trying to twist away. The other knight raised his blade, slow and deliberate, the edge gleaming with divine oil. My breath came in short gasps. My fingers scraped the wall behind me, searching for leverage that wasn’t there.
–25 HP [Remaining: 195 of 320]
I thrashed once pointlessly.
Then I heard it. “Call for me…”
Not a sound. A presence. Inside me. Beneath the pain. Like a whisper riding the rhythm of my pulse.
–50 HP [Remaining: 145 of 320]
“Call me…”
It wasn’t just a memory. It was Emberline. The sword. Waiting. Listening.
I forced my arm forward, gritting my teeth against the weight of the knight’s gauntlet. My hand stretched into the air, open and shaking.
“Please… help me,” I gasped.
The knight laughed sharply and mirthlessly.
“There’s nobody to help you, heretic. The Almighty sentences you to die.”
Then it happened.
I felt the bench across the forge. The katana stirred. It moved. It responded.
The air grew heavier, thick with iron and something deeper, something awake. A tremor passed through the forge floor, subtle as breath. Sparks fluttered from the coals, drifting sideways. And then Emberline moved.
“Stop him!” the Inquisitor shouted, voice laced with panic and fury. But the command came too late. The forge air split. Not thrown. Not drawn. Summoned.
The katana launched from the bench in a blur of molten silver and orange, trailing a streak of light through the smoky air, like a comet screaming across a battlefield. It didn’t tumble. It didn’t spin. It simply moved, as if it had always known where it belonged.
The blade’s hilt slammed into my open hand with a metallic chime so sharp and resonant it silenced the forge, like a church bell struck wrong, echoing off stone and steel. My fingers closed around it instinctively. It was already warm. Already awake.
The knight closest to me faltered mid-step, his shield raised, unsure. For the first time, doubt flickered behind the slit of his helm. This wasn’t what he’d trained for. This wasn’t just a blacksmith with a weapon; this was something else entirely.
I didn’t wait.
The blade flashed in a silver-orange blur, Emberline answering my call like lightning drawn to the ground. It cleaved through the knight’s chestplate in a single arc, carving steel, chainmail, and bone as if they were parchment. The armor shrieked tortured metal, then split. Blood misted into the forge heat, sizzling as it hit the coals.
The knight hit the stone in two wet, armored halves, one slamming hard against the flagstones with a sickening crunch, the other bouncing once before colliding with my side. The impact nearly knocked the wind from me, but worse was the spray of hot blood, torn fabric, and shards of armor slicked across my chest and face. The copper tang flooded my nose. The severed gauntlet twitched once at my feet, then stilled, fingers curling in death.
The forge went still. No one moved except the second knight. He didn’t hesitate. With a roar, he came forward, teeth bared behind his helm, sword arcing down like a falling guillotine. I had no time to match strength, but I didn’t have to.
I grabbed the ragged half-torso of the fallen knight and shoved it forward with both hands, the body slamming into the charging soldier’s chest and breaking his momentum for a breath. I rolled beneath it, shoulder slamming into stone, and came up under the arc of his descending blade.
Emberline rose with me, not to block, but to meet. Blade met steel in a white-hot burst of sparks.
Clang.
The forge lit up with sparks, bright as stars. Emberline turned his edge aside with a crack of power and kept going. I pivoted with the momentum, low and controlled, the katana moving in tight arcs around my center. A dance not of grace, but of destruction.
He struck again, harder.
Clang!
This time, Emberline didn’t just parry. It bit. A notch appeared in the knight’s holy longsword. A clean gouge, glowing faintly. His eyes widened.
Another clash. Sparks again. Another notch.
He looked down at his blade, confusion crawling behind his visor. It was dying in his hands, each swing weaker, slower. Emberline had chewed through its edge like rot through wood. He stepped back, rattling, unsure.
I stepped in. One clean stroke, shoulder to hip, angled and efficient. Not wide. Not wild. Precise. Surgical.
The edge slid through his plate like cloth, a thin trail of orange light tracing the path behind it. For a heartbeat, nothing moved. Then his longsword dropped with a dull clang. Then, he opened.
His body split along the line I’d drawn, armor groaning apart as if it too realized it had failed. Blood burst in a sudden arc, hot and high, catching my chest, my neck, slicking my cheek and knuckles. The smell of iron hit harder than the strike had. His torso folded inward before he crumpled, hitting the stone in a scatter of steel, viscera, and breathless weight.
I didn’t flinch. I looked down at the remains and said, voice low:
“Bad move. Never take your eyes off your enemy.”
He fell in two distinct motions, his torso slipping free from its frame, legs collapsing beneath him. The sound of his armor hitting the ground was like a dropped anvil. Emberline’s edge didn’t glow; it pulsed quietly and steadily, like a heartbeat.
The Inquisitor stood alone now. Where once there was a squad, ironclad and righteous, there was only him. Blood covered the stone. Smoke curled from the wreckage of armor and sanctimony.
He didn’t flinch. His hood slipped back, exposing sharp eyes and a gaunt face that looked too still to be human. His voice was steady and calm. “You’re too late,” he said. “There will be more. The fire’s already lit.”
I didn’t respond right away. My hand clenched around Emberline. The blade kept humming, soft and steady, as if it remembered what it had just done.
“You speak big,” I said finally, “now that your guards are a memory. Mere words from a man who hides behind armor and scripture.”
The Inquisitor’s nostrils flared. His gaze sharpened. “Heretics are an affront to the gods. Their blood calls out for judgment.”
I stepped forward. Emberline dipped slightly, angling toward the stone floor as if it were listening for permission.
“I’ve seen your kind,” I said. The words weren’t loud, but they hit like iron. Behind me, I heard boots slow, cautious steps. The other smiths were creeping forward, silent but there. Watching. “You speak as if you’re divine when you’re in control, when you have numbers. But when you’re losing?” I smiled coldly. “Then you mumble. Then you spew fear like venom and call it truth.”
A flicker. A tightening of the jaw. His composure broke. Just a hairline crack, but it was there. Rage simmered beneath the surface, boiling past doctrine. His hand gripped the staff as if it might be the last thing holding him up.
He stepped forward with a deliberate stride. The tip of his staff sparked with bright, sharp, crackling light like the air before a lightning strike. Radiant magic flowed across his skin, forming a pale gold shell. Glowing glyphs burned around him in the air, sigils of protection and divine revenge. His body shone with celestial energy. He became more than a man, less flesh, more fury.
[Analyze Activated]
Divine Shield – Active
Complete protection from physical harm for 90 seconds.
Time shrank.
I could feel the heat of the forge behind me, feel Emberline in my hand still warm, still alive. My chest rose once. I held my breath.
The Inquisitor roared and brought the staff down with the weight of a judge handing out a sentence. The radiant flare from his strike outshone the forge like a second sun. I didn’t dodge. I didn’t deflect. I cut.
Emberline moved in a swift arc, smooth as breath, silent as night. The blade hit the base of the staff, not just breaking it, but undoing it. The divine light shattered. The aura wavered.
The blade surged forward like judgment reborn, slicing through the air in a single, steady arc. Steel clashed with the staff, then parted with a burst of sparks. The divine shell flickered, warped, then shattered like brittle glass under pressure. Emberline didn’t slow down. It tore through robes, armor, and bone. The Inquisitor gasped, drawing one final, shuddering breath as the blade cut through his centerline.
The strike hit the anvil beside me, splitting it cleanly with a ringing sound that echoed through the forge like a bell tolling for the dead. Then came the aftermath.
A burst of heat. A wet slap of something heavy hitting the stone. His torso was sheared open, spilling what remained of him in a wave that sprayed across the floor and me. I stood there, chest heaving, streaked in blood and viscera, the katana humming faintly in my grip.
He blinked once, face wide with shock. “How…” he whispered.
Then the light left his eyes, and his body folded in half, each side collapsing into a pool of its own making. I met his gaze, steady and unflinching.
“Because you never listened.”
Silence. One heartbeat. Two. No one moved. The forge, despite its heat, sweat, and fury, had come to a stop. I just stood there, breathing in smoke, blood, and steel. Emberline hung at my side, gleaming in the firelight. For a moment, it seemed like the forge was waiting to see what I would create next.
The ringing silence held for a breath, then another. My arms trembled not from weakness, but from everything that had just passed through them. Then the air shimmered.
A tone sounded not the cheerful ding of a level-up, but something more profound. Reverent. Like a cathedral bell heard from beneath the stone.
[Level Up – ??? Class: Level 7]
[Advanced Combat Achievement: “Against the Odds” – Awarded]
[Three combatants defeated above your skill level. Bonus XP applied.]
[713 XP Sword Fighting Awarded]
[DING]
[Level Up – Sword Fighting – Level 6]
124 XP Until Next Level
[DING]
[Level Up – Sword Fighting – Level 7]
138 XP Until Next Level
[DING]
[Level Up – Sword Fighting – Level 8]
151 XP Until Next Level
[DING]
[Level Up – Sword Fighting – Level 9]
168 XP Until Next Level
[DING]
[Level Up – Sword Fighting – Level 10]
185 XP Until Next Level
I took a step back as the last line pulsed once before disappearing. My breathing slowed. My hands... felt sharper. Not faster, sharper. The stance, the shift of weight, the way the blade moved when I turned my wrist, it was all clearer.
The knowledge didn't come from training. It didn't come from effort.
It was given.
I blinked, trying to reopen the class menu, but I only saw the same three symbols.
[Class: ???]
No name. No hint. Just a level and a question. I looked at Emberline, still warm in my grip, still humming as if it knew things I didn’t.
“What are you turning me into?” I whispered.
It didn’t answer. But deep down, I knew I wasn’t just leveling. I was changing.
