In 1024 AD, Wayland Smith had been chosen to forge a sword for the king of England. Since then, his son, son’s son, and every generation that followed had produced blacksmiths capable of miracles—a single blacksmith in each generation, as if bound by a hereditary, lottery-drawn obsession.

  Of which, Alex had become the next afflicted.

  As a child, he used to watch the sparks fly from molten metal when struck by a forge-hammer. The hammer would return with a vengeance, a muscled arm behind it, striking fervently, as though trying to turn swords into dollars like Jesus had turned water to wine.

  His father had rarely acknowledged him during the few years he’d been around. Still, Alex would watch for hours, his eyes never leaving the garage forge as its fire bellowed. And now, stepping into a forge for the first time since childhood, his body remembered that fire.

  Suppressed for far too long, it rose up to consume him.

  You’ve awakened a dormant Bloodline!

  [Forged in Fire]

  Countless sparks fly from molten metal, but only one catches flame. You are the sole inheritor of 1000 years’ lineage of blacksmiths.

  Effects: ???

  An overwhelming emotion struck Alex, a mix of intense elation and a profound sense of loss too strong to process in his exhausted state. He shoved it all down, refusing to look inward.

  He immediately recognized the surface-level effects of his bloodline: an intuitive sense for reading metals, enhanced proficiency with smithing related skills, a concentrated state, and a feeling of rightness when he stood in a forge. It was that sense of rightness he focused on as he dusted off an old, slightly chipped hammer. His clawed arm still throbbed, but the ache dulled with it in hand. His heart, which had begun to race, slowed as he surveyed the forge

  The smithy was bare bones: the anvil was missing its horn, the grindstone had a pedal ripped off, and a lone bellow sat where a pair should have been. Rusted tools lay scattered in disrepair. The place was run-down, and had been for a long time.

  He cleared dust from the workstation and gathered all the tools he could find: a dull chisel, a bent fire poker, and tongs with no gloves to grip them. He shoved a bag of old charcoal into the clay furnace, only for an unexpected plume of soot to rise and swallow him up, sending him into a coughing fit.

  The soot clung to his lungs, tasting tangy-sweet against his tar-scorched breath. Yet another inconvenience caught his attention when he recovered. He picked up a decaying pouch that contained a bright, icy-blue powder and held it far from his face, inspecting it dubiously.

  Black Scale Powder

  A deep-black powder made from the scales of a Blackfrost Salamander. It evaporates into a vapor upon contact with fire, increasing its potency and duration.

  Considered safe for use up to three years after the creature’s death.

  Examine.

  Expiration Date: 111 years ago.

  Perhaps ‘run down’ was an understatement. They really don’t want to make this easy for me, do they?

  He grimaced. No, they really didn’t.

  Alex’s father had never let him touch his hammer so the first time he’d forged anything was in Nightmare. He’d been with a party back then, unlocking his bloodline much later when he was strong enough to defend himself, but even then, reaching his class unlock had been a miracle. What he’d once seen as a difficult path he now read clearly as intentional sabotage by Nightmare’s Architects. He wondered—not for the first time—how he’d ever made it as far as he did.

  Stubbornness, he shrugged. Luck.

  But luck aside, there’d just been too much against him. He'd stumbled blindly, making countless mistakes, breaking his foundation until he could never fully utilize the gift he’d been born with. Foul play or not, he had lost.

  In recent years, it’d been harder to remember what could have driven him to become a blacksmith in Nightmare, of all places. The answer was simple—he just didn’t want to fight anymore.

  His shoulders sagged as he took a slow, lethargic breath, then he set them squarely once more. In the apocalypse, all paths led to conflict. It was unavoidable, something he had long since stopped mourning. This time, he would wage his battles armed to the fucking teeth.

  His grimy nails dug into his palm as he hardened his resolve. There was nothing they could do to him that hadn’t already been done. They’d shown him hell, and he’d lived through it. They’d given him scars, but all he saw in them was a decade and a half of experience burned into his soul. Knowledge they didn’t want him to have—weapons they didn’t want him to carry. Time had granted him far more than any man should possess. And while the culmination of all he’d endured might no longer show on his body, it still stoked a cold certainty in his gut.

  He would play their game, but not by their rules. And none of it will go to waste.

  Alex sprinkled some Black Scale Powder onto the charcoal, then stepped back and tossed a lighter into the furnace. A loud thwoom echoed as fire exploded outward, clawing for his face. He barely closed his eyes in time. The flames stopped just short of his face, though the blast of soot sent him into another coughing fit.

  Fanning the air, he waited a full minute before daring to open his eyes—only to find his clay furnace slightly cracked. But his anger faded when he saw what was left behind: a beautiful fire that hardly needed fanning. It lashed in the furnace’s belly with fervor and he read its fiery licks like a surfer reads the waves.

  His soul stirred as his System popped up.

  You have gained a new bloodline ability!

  [Thermostat]

  A smile tugged at his lips as he suddenly knew the fire’s exact temperature: 834° F.

  He pumped the bellows to raise the temperature. Then he prepared the room, pouring the canola oil he’d bought from 7-Eleven into another large, elongated clothes basin for later when it was time to quench. Opening his inventory, he summoned the Necromancer’s core and the armor from the first Scenario. The pieces collapsed in a pile at his feet.

  Abandoned Armor

  Trait: Malleability

  With his heightened senses, Alex felt a twinge of regret as he saw the armor through new eyes. Before him lay a creation forged with enough love to almost develop its own soul, and he also had the core of the Necromancer that had enslaved it. Alex should be able to use the powerful synergy between the two materials to create something extraordinary.

  In theory, at least. But now was the time for harsh realities. He pinched the bridge of his nose, anger boiling within, then he knelt by the armor.

  When he had found it in the heart of all that bloodshed, it’d felt like he had found himself for a moment—a damaged thing bursting with potential because of all it had experienced.

  But even for Alex, someone with the proper skill set, he just didn’t have enough to do the material justice. He didn’t have the stats he needed, he didn’t have the time, and even with two boosts to his smithing skills’ proficiency gains, he was still starting over from zero.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  He gently brushed the armor's curves, trailing the blunted wedges with his fingertips.

  Then he tossed the pieces of the armor into the fire. He captured the very moment the piece’s trait glitched and fizzled out, burning the memory into his eyes.

  I’m sorry I can’t give you the love you deserve.

  * * *

  Necessity is the mother of invention, or so the saying goes, but what’s left unsaid is that not all inventions are born pretty.

  Some years into the apocalypse, Alex had once been forcefully “apprenticed” to a Master Blacksmith—a crotchety old man who’d achieved immortality too late to retain his youth and who’d hated Alex’s style of blacksmithing so much that he refused to teach him anything.

  Well, not anything. There’d been one lesson he’d parted with—perhaps the most important in Alex’s life—and it’d been recited when the man had ripped his hammer away and thrown it across the room.

  Alex only remembered his words out of spite.

  “Here’s what you don’t understand, shithead. When you create something—a sword, a horseshoe, an iron rod to shove up your ass for all I care—you’re not creating a thing; you’re birthing a soul. Any smith who refuses to invest their own soul into the process hasn’t earned a place in my forge.”

  At the time, Alex had been so pissed off he’d annoyed the man for another three months before his leave, and his “Master” seemed to have kept him around just to have someone to hate. But despite all that wasted time, Alex had only just now started to realize what he’d meant. Only now, after regaining all that he had lost.

  The fire manifest in his soul flared up, flickering to a beat so familiar yet hazy in his recollection. For such a long time, he’d felt something was missing in him that he couldn’t put a finger on, but he now understood what those words had meant. He watched the armor soften and subtly lose shape. The System only said “Oslumnen Metal” now.

  No.

  Something primal objected from deep within. He picked up his hammer, and his bloodline stirred.

  No.

  The fires could have the armor’s trait, but that wasn’t all it was. He had felt it there when he’d been crouched in that field. Its soul was mutilated, its potential twisted out of shape. But the remembrance was still there—clinging helplessly to its lattice—the dying embers of a purple flame.

  It’s Aura.

  Alex could imagine every ancestor he’d ever had looking upon him at that moment, and his shoulders dipped from the hammer’s weight before settling into a relaxed position. Once, blacksmithing had been an escape for him. Yet after crafting Lys, it had only been a prison. The style of blacksmithing he’d developed wasn’t one he could easily break free from.

  But right now, he could do anything.

  Worries of survival, of his sister, of Jun and Gloomy, of all else—he purged them from his mind. He forgot his senses, his survival instincts even, and his fatigue melted away until it was just him and the flames. There could be no room for contamination in this forging.

  After all, Alex was going to birth a soul.

  He began immediately, heat licking his face as he leaned in to stoke the fire. His eyes watered as he judged the glowing armor by its color. It was naturally black in color, so he would know it was ready when it reached a deeper molten yellow.

  Thankfully, all signs pointed to the armor being a decorative piece, which was good since it wouldn't have been pretreated, and so heating it out of shape wouldn’t ruin its molecular lattice.

  But there was a reason Oslumnen wasn’t used in combat. It was a soft metal, more brittle when hardened, and it could break against well-made weapons. That’s why traditionally, it was alloyed with iron and other compatible ores, but the iron supplied to low-level mobs was worse than rusted wrought for Alex’s purposes, and the dagger he carried didn’t contain enough steel.

  However, because Oslumnen was a soft metal, it also melted at a much lower temperature than iron, and would be quicker to forge. And despite all its flaws, Oslumnen held one vital strength that most earthen metals didn’t—it could conduct mana.

  Without running mana through a weapon, there could be no traits, perks, or enchantments, and many skills were entirely unusable.

  And without mana, you can’t do this.

  Alex reached for his bound Essence and twisted it, forming a pattern he knew better than any other—one he’d used more than any in his life—and connected it to his soul.

  [Metalwork] has been learned!

  [Metalwork]

  Allows one to embed mana into metals and manipulate it through the act of hammering.

  With his tongs, he grabbed the metal, torn cloth insulating his grip as he held it over the anvil. He fed mana into the molten material, embedding it into its very grain. Then he extended his senses, centering even more on his hammer’s blunt edge as he swung it.

  As the surfaces collided, he manipulated the mana’s shape ever so slightly with his blows, both from inside and out, and subtly, the impact began to make a difference.

  Sparks flew from the anvil, and Alex soon fell into a familiar rhythm, the clanging sounds serenading his ears like a melodic metronome. Two high-pitched clangs, then a lower one as he bounced the hammer off the anvil. There was a shrill sizzle underlying the metallic clangs as sparks flew from the metal, and a deep crackle as fire claimed it once more. The rhythm lulled him to sleep and kept him wide awake at the same time.

  Forge welding was a fundamental of blacksmithing, requiring precise temperature monitoring. The heat from the forge softened the metal, allowing it to change shape, and he focused on controlling its temperature rather than hardening it into form.

  He was repurposing armor scraps into a new billet rather than starting fresh, so his strikes had to be gentler—since the metal was thinner and more brittle. Going too fast or too hard would easily break it apart.

  And so, he kept his rhythm.

  Alex swung his hammer with the cadence of a man ringing a gong. He drew the metal out, folded it over itself, and sprinkled borax as his flux to prevent oxidation. Reaching into the charcoal bag, he found crushed powder at the bottom and coated the anvil with it to integrate carbon into the compound.

  Thankfully, Oslumnen was anti-corrosive and thus had comparatively little slag or rust to beat out, but the armor’s poorly maintained state made it all the more tedious. Mana manipulation made all the difference timewise, yet even still, the process demanded constant concentration and effort from Alex, and by the time he formed his Oslumnen billet, he had pushed far past his limits.

  His mana control had slipped from his grip. His reserves were run ragged from relentless metalwork. His muscles twitched, his mind spasmed, and his legs buckled beneath him. He dipped forward, vision darkening. And just as his body threatened to fall apart, a crazed smile drifted across his face.

  He reached for that power, tingling within him…

  …and dragged all of it into the depths of his soul, refining it.

  4,340 Essence Crystals have been consumed!

  You have leveled up!

  You have leveled up!

  You have leveled up!

  You have leveled up!

  You have leveled up!

  ALERT: You have entered a Supercharged State. If Essence is not bound to stats within a limited time frame, you risk imminent—

  Alex didn’t need to hear the rest of the warning. He could already feel it on every plane of reality—his mind, body, spirit, and soul. A rush of power flooded him, greater than the sum of his existence, threatening to tear him apart on every level. His skin fissured with luminescence, and his astral body burst at its seams.

  There were reasons you didn’t mess with the System’s safety guards—an Awakened at the fifth level had no hope of integrating more Essence than their entire existence contained, not at this magnitude. Or at least—as he’d told Jun—not unless the corporeal attributes of his stats were wholly and utterly exhausted.

  A smile cracked Alex’s lips.

  Essence has integrated with Fortitude!

  Fortitude +2

  Essence has integrated with Arcane!

  Arcane +3

  Essence has integrated with Perception!

  Perception +1

  Essence has integrated with Dexterity!

  Dexterity +1

  Essence has integrated with Strength!

  Strength +7

  The power high was intense and immediate, like the feeling of a new muscle after a day of bench pressing; except the three days of soreness were removed, and the strength was instant. At first, he struggled to lift his arm. Then he struggled to swing it hard enough to shape the billet. Finally, as power flowed through his veins like thick lava, the struggle was to restrain himself enough to maintain technique.

  He’d been waiting for this moment, withholding his Essence deliberately all for this. When that unbound power was fed into your stats, you had to train them immediately for the greatest benefit.

  But what if those stats had already been pushed to their brink? What then?!

  Alex began to cackle maniacally as sparks spat at his face. He almost lost grip on the rhythm of his strikes, hitting as hard as possible while not bending the metal out of shape. Strength coursed through his body, and he felt the agony of two years of sleepless, corporate pain pay itself off.

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  Over 4,000 Essence!

  All that power now graced this weak, malfunctioning body of his, and it began to grow. He was unstoppable! His entire body was slick with sweat now—he hardly noticed as the wound on his arm began to bleed.

  He fed the fire hotter and thrust the billet back in, a bar welded to one end for grip. He struck it with his hammer, harder and harder. His mind was clearer than it had been in ages; he regained control of his mana. The black bar turned a deeper orange-red, its shape growing bolder. A drop of blood dripped from his arm, sizzling against the metal.

  Finally, It was time.

  He summoned the core from his inventory.

  [Chimik Core - (Unranked, Common)]

  The core of a Chimik with Death Aura. Can be used as crafting material.

  If Essence was the intersection of life and power, then Aura was that power’s lingering impact on reality. When mana circulated through powerful Essence patterns like those found in skills—or better yet, the Essence Signature of one’s soul—it eventually began to emulate those patterns, becoming Aura. And if that pattern was deeply ingrained, then even after death, when the System reaped the soul of its Essence, that aura would remain.

  A core was necessary to cultivate Aura. It was the only place where mana could be refiltered in a mana pool instead of replenished from the outer world. And if that core suddenly disappeared…

  Alex stared at the murky-black core in his hand, brief hesitation washing over him.

  If the core disappears, that Aura has nothing to contain it.

  Alex knew firsthand that some aspects of Aura had dangerous reactions when loosed from its cage, and Death was one of those. Nothing was strictly alive about this core—even with the trace of Vital Essence that remained—but Aura emulated the life that formed it, and that meant it could hold a sort of “lingering will.” The study of Aura was a behavioral science more than anything, but if this Aura somehow remembered what had killed it…

  A small inkling of danger-sense stirred at the thought.

  No. Statistically unlikely.

  But if it did happen, Alex would have no Aura of his own to defend himself with, given he wasn’t a mage. His mana manipulation alone would have to be enough to contain it.

  He would make it enough.

  He wasn’t the pitiful existence he’d been a few hours ago. He was different now, more whole, and he was doing this for something greater than just himself. He held his hammer over the molten billet, assured by his newfound strength. Then he reached for a familiar skill.

  [Meld]

  Instantly, the orb fused into the billet, melting like molten glass under the impact. It darkened the Oslumnen ore with deeper, murkier shadows. As he stuck it back in the flames, its intense hot red became a molten purple black, luminescent with power.

  For now, the core still held a distinct form. The Death Aura was contained, its compounds not fully ruptured. Inevitably, that would change.

  Alex pumped the bellow with his foot to intensify the heat, and once it was as purple as the cosmic sky, his hammer rose once more.

  [Metalwork]

  The core exploded.

  Death Aura flared.

  For the first time this forging, Alex thought he might’ve made a mistake—that, in his overconfidence, he’d reached too far beyond his bounds. He could feel the slow crawl of death all across his body. It raised the hairs along his skin, singing the ends a charred black. His instincts screamed as Death went searching for his soul.

  It found it.

  And then it just moved past him—rampant still—but now aimless in its rage. He had no breath for relief. He just brought his hammer down again, not letting the aura escape.

  [Metalwork] has increased in proficiency!

  His hammering became unceasing as it bounced off the anvil, recapturing its rhythm. There were two high-pitched clangs and then a lower one.

  Mana: 21%

  Metalwork was a skill with such a low mana cost that the drain was almost unnoticeable at first use. But after hours and hours of repetition, it added up quickly. Now, with so much more mana and Aura to work with, that drain only increased. Even two boosts to the skill’s proficiency didn’t see it leveling fast enough.

  His senses worked overtime to grasp the Aura and hammer it into the metal’s lattice, but his Perception and Arcane stats were too low. He reckoned it was only thanks to the mana conductivity of the pure Oslumnen compound that he was managing at all.

  Mana: 19%

  As Alex worked furiously to integrate the Core’s Aura, he noticed a new problem. That purple flame—the spark he’d been trying to preserve—began to flicker out and die. The cold Aura of Death smothered it, snuffing it out at its embers. It was far weaker than Alex had thought. Yet, he could hear its voice, the desperation in its withering heat.

  It was time to move on to the next step.

  Refine. Bind. Affix.

  The process used for leveling and learning skills was universal for all power formations. He was in the binding phase, attempting to tether the Aura to the Oslumnen ore. But Aura was only an echo of power. It retained form due to the memory of Essence, due to the confines of the core where it had formed—its habitat. To bind it to a new host, it needed new stimulation, a lure, and that required more Essence.

  Alex frowned. Hesitation seeped its way into his hammer’s rhythm. His grip tightened to combat the slick of sweat. He’d intended to repurpose his remaining balance of Essence Crystals to the cause, but he’d already realized it wouldn’t be enough.

  It would’ve been enough if he wanted to give reign to the Core’s Aura and let it dictate the pattern of affixation, but if he did, that purple flame would die. The two Auras's strengths and natures contrasted too greatly to meld cohesively. Still, it was the logical decision. He’d probably still get a useful trait. But there was a different course he could take, wasn’t there?

  Didn’t he have one more source of Essence that had gone untapped? He could feel it—not nestled within his soul, but blazing like a sun, large as the whole damn thing… It was his Vital Essence.

  He remembered his Master’s words:

  “Any smith who refuses to invest their own soul into the process hasn’t earned a place in my forge.”

  Alex chuckled: a deranged sound. He knew his Master hadn’t meant it literally. If the man had thrown his hammer for not forging with passion, he damn well would’ve bludgeoned him with the thing for even thinking of this.

  Christ, he’d never even heard of someone attempting something like what he was thinking of. And gods only knew why. It was a stupid idea. It would require convoluted execution and only had downsides.

  Hells, there wasn’t even a reason to if you had inkling of Essence to spare or the full abilities of a Class. And what experienced blacksmith didn’t have their goddamned Class?!

  The circumstances that had brought him to this decision were extraneously stupid. But that didn’t matter. He was here, and this was real. And when the purple flame gave its last flare, he knew something else with certainty: it would work.

  That was what led him to feed the flame his soul.

  [Soul Bond Established]

  ERROR: Only one Soul has been detected.

  Soul Bond has been limited to only partial integration for your safety.

  WARNING: Soul Bond is unstable. The binding is currently open-ended. Please close the binding before Vital Essence leakage occurs.

  Alex doubled over, seeing triple in his vision.

  He was experiencing himself from outside his body. It took painstaking effort to plant his feet into the ground and stop himself from keeling into the fire. It took even more to swing his hammer, much less with any discernible technique.

  His soul had already started leaking, and if the Death Aura hadn’t noticed it earlier, it sure did now. The Aura bristled, practically salivating as it rushed in. It bit into him, trying to consume his soul.

  He let it.

  And watched as a purple fire rose up to consume it instead. He watched as that fire grew darker and gained power. The Death Aura tried to fight it, but all was a feast for the flames, and all was consumed.

  A black-purple flame now danced within the metal—a flame made of death and something else, something he couldn’t quite make out. It twisted and writhed in its own form, the binding complete but—

  WARNING: Soul Bond is unstable. Please close the bindi—

  The fire twisted in its confines, purple-black aura flowing against Alex’s will, affixing in harrowing patterns. It dragged the Essence in the binding along with it, attempting to overwrite his control. It didn’t even have enough Essence for what it was trying to accomplish, but it knew where it could find more.

  No.

  Alex began hammering.

  Not just hammering—shaping. Not just the weapon, but his new life.

  Not just a vague idea. He needed something concrete—an actionable plan, a clear goal. He’d stalled long enough. If he couldn’t find it now, he never would.

  He’d always been like this—vague notions of the future for a man who didn’t expect to live through the day. He’d dreamed of switching out of his class, of being anything but a blacksmith, but even when the opportunity came, had he thought about what else he might be? For fuck’s sake, he’d imagined this moment a million times—not like this, but still. Here it was!

  You don’t have to walk the same path, an old, broken voice told him, You can do anything you want now.

  But then he felt his bloodline there, within reach, his again and his trait buzzed in his skull, reverberating. Something about it all just felt so right.

  He laughed.

  He hammered.

  His mana pool dipped further as he crammed more behind the strikes. The aura tried to tug at his soul, to fight him for control over the binding’s pattern. As it realized it was losing, some of it tried to escape—dark spots at the edges of the flame flickered and tapered off. He couldn’t stop it. But if he could retain just 30% of the aura...

  Then, I’ll have a solid common-grade weapon on my hands.

  No, fuck that.

  That was the old Alex speaking. The one who’d lost everything he’d treasured. The one who’d gotten thrown on his ass out of his Master’s forge.

  Swallow your emotions; don’t contaminate the piece.

  But hadn’t his greatest creation come from an overpour of emotions? A passion so powerful even the Constellations couldn’t stop it? Isn’t that what it meant to put himself into his creations?

  He laughed again, reaching for his bloodline to steady his arm.

  Strength +8!

  The heat of the forge tinged his skin. Electricity coursed through sore muscles as he realized he was still charged. His hair stuck to his forehead and sweat soaked through his clothes. He ripped off his shirt, and flames licked his body. His hammer struck down.

  Over and over.

  Again.

  Strength +9!

  And again.

  Strength +10!

  And again.

  Strength +11!

  Alex’s mana pool dipped to 9%. The aura tugged at him, leaching all it could from his soul, but he trapped it back in the metal. Then, the unintegrated necromantic aura on the fringe of the flame began to disperse, and he couldn’t have that either. He fed just a sliver more of his Vital Essence to the flame as bait

  Mana: 7%

  The purple-black aura greedily absorbed all he had given and hurled its will back at him. It latched onto his soul, continuously feeding, and he kept beating it back. It was a race to finalize the blade’s shape before he ran out of mana, to affix its essence pattern before it formed its own—and to close the Soul Bond before he died.

  He was done with compromises, done with pacing himself.

  He’d been given another chance at life. What was the point if he didn’t live how he wanted? Hadn’t he told himself no regrets? Hadn’t he wished so desperately for that freedom?!

  Then what did he want?

  I want to save my sister.

  What else?

  I want to surpass those who left me behind. I want to save everyone I failed. I’ll kill that bitch Anne before she even has the chance to—

  No. Deeper than that. What is it at the core of his being? What did he need more than anything else?

  Sparks flew.

  Like the ones Alex would watch as a kid. The shadowy billet whistled as—no, it was no longer a billet. It was taking shape. He could tell what it wanted from the aura’s anticipation of his hammer, the shrill vibration of its remnant essence.

  Their wants were almost aligned now.

  So what is it I want?

  His hammer struck, one last time. And the answer appeared before him.

  * * *

  There was a low-pitched hum. A sound like a rough scrape.

  No, not just a sound—a feeling. A familiar rhythm. Monotone, yet strangely melodic. It reverberated in his skin—grainy, grounding… calming, like a lonesome night under a roof pelleted by rain.

  He’d been tempering his sword… no, fitting it? It was all a blur, but he remembered holding it against the grindstone, feeling that rough-hedged vibration on his fingertips. It always calmed him after an intense forging. He could still hear it now if he closed his eyes. The wheel spinning, the shaving and sharpening of cold metal.

  Then the noise stopped.

  Alex opened his eyes, feeling like he’d taken his first full night’s rest in years. The auburn hue leaking through the shed told a different story, though. He rubbed his head where a bump protruded.

  Shit… I must’ve conked out at some point.

  His notifications pinged, demanding his attention, but he waved them away. He didn’t need the system to tell him he’d managed to close the Soul Bond—he could tell well enough from the fact he was still alive…and still had a soul.

  Instead, he opened his System to get a full rundown of what had changed.

  Alex Smith

  Tier 0 - Level 10, Unranked

  Class: None

  Bloodline: Forged in Fire

  Trait: ???

  Health: 90%

  Mana: 11%

  Stamina: 31%

  > Attributes

  Half-Dead Persistence

  > Stats

  Vitality: 3

  Strength: 12

  Dexterity: 4

  Fortitude: 7

  Perception: 5

  Arcane: 5

  > Skills

  Stealth (Novice)

  Metalwork (Novice)

  Meld (Novice)

  Examine (Novice)

  He grunted then nodded once. Truthfully, he was more relieved than anything. Though it was hardly a full night’s rest, Alex’s sleep had done wonders for recovering his Stamina. It was almost back to a functioning level, though his perspective on the matter may have been a skewed one.

  Then as he stood from where he’d napped on the floor, he noticed that there was a lot more that had changed as well.

  His body was different—tall and lean still, but also slightly wider. There was a subtle build to it, and he could tell from the ease of movement and the confidence in his step just how large the boost to his Strength must have been. It wasn’t enough yet, but he’d gone from sub-human to something almost greater than. He could at least let himself celebrate that.

  Lethargically, his hands trailed the dust of the workspace. The lighting was darker now that the fire had gone out, but his soul was fixed and whole, and he wasn’t dead. That was enough to know he must have completed it. On his work table he saw a fragment of shadow that seemed to blur darker than all the others and reached for it, only to halt as he sensed a presence.

  Someone had entered the forge.

  Their soft, shallow steps barely made a sound on the packed dirt as they approached. Alex wasn’t surprised. His being here was in no way a secret, as the chimney had been smoking for hours. And also…

  He glanced at the scant sunlight feeding through the shed’s cracks, dimming faster than ever. It seemed his respite was over.

  “We were worried about you, Alex,” the voice said as it came closer. “You didn’t show up to the adventurer’s registration like the others.”

  Ah, it wasn’t just anyone. It was him.

  The mayor, Samwise, moved closer and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t intend to bother you, of course. I know you—”

  That was the last thing he’d said before his head rolled from his neck. A trail of blood followed it until it stopped close to the doorway. His eyes were glassy as they stared up in shock at Alex.

  They then started to melt, along with all his flesh, until they were nothing but empty sockets in an old skull. His decapitated body turned to bones as well where it collapsed. Alex noticed how those spindly phalanges were positioned towards a rusty knife beneath his clothes. Alex’s own fingers instinctively went to his eye where his oldest scar had once been.

  The skull’s teeth chattered with humor. “Ruthless bastard, how did you even kno—”

  He ran his new blade through the skull’s crown, and this time it was silenced for good.

  You have slain an Undead Mayor!

  +50 Essence Crystals

  Alex supposed he’d just enacted his first act of revenge, but even that didn’t matter to him right now. He paid no attention to the notifications as he trailed his fingers along his blade’s edge.

  It was a light blade—lighter than it had any right being at thirty-five inches of length, thanks to the Oslumnen material. He’d grown used to wielding relatively lengthy swords and he wasn’t ready to give that up, nor his one-handed wielding style. But if there was one area he’d gone outside his comfort zone with this night—aside from risking his soul—it was the shape.

  He knew that Oslumnen’s inherent brittleness was the sword’s greatest weakness, so he’d modeled it after the Persian Shamshir with a steep, backward curve—tapering off to a thin and sharp tip, shaped like the crescent end of Death’s sickle. It would allow for a non-confrontative style of attack, with sweeping slashes and glancing blows.

  It was a sword made for striking with speed from shadows rather than to be used waging a war amidst the heat of the battlefield, but he’d forged it with a passion he’d been unable to replicate since Lys. Even if it wasn’t a rare grade weapon, even if this blade wouldn’t last him all his years… it was perfect.

  He brushed his finger further up the spine. There was a dark glint along the crescent’s edge where the undead’s blood disintegrated—a presence that made him feel as if that armor’s spirit wasn’t entirely gone.

  He’d thought about it, in those final moments of shaping. That set of armor had been resurrected against its will, and yet it had been abandoned for so long, forgotten and never worn—had that necromancer really come along at such perfect timing to reap the rewards of soul formation in its final stages?

  No, he’d surmised, it must’ve lost hope of forming a soul long before that. But not having the will to live… that’s not the same as wishing for death, now is it.

  He held the blade’s flat gently across his fingers and it shimmered, resonating in his bones.

  Bloodline activated.

  [Undeath’s Bane (Uncommon, F Grade)]

  A fragile blade of death and newfound purpose.

  Trait: [Cleanse] - purges the undead.

  Title obtained!

  [The First Spark]

  You’re the first person to craft a weapon in Nightmare! You’ll find it easier to obtain higher grade modifiers when forging.

  Alex walked out into the crimson dusk, striding past two burly adventurers—the ones he’d sensed trailing him since he’d left the guild hall. Their eyes were drawn to the sword, the ash of the mayor’s blood dissipating off the tip. Their hands went immediately to their own weapons and yet they didn’t draw. Their limitations must’ve been lifted the moment Alex struck the mayor, they no longer had reason to hesitate, but they did so anyway.

  Across the way, a whole legion of townsfolk had gathered. The woman who’d been selling flowers waved at him, a child’s ball dropped and rolled to his feet, and the child looked up expectantly at Alex. Dusk fell, and their flesh all fell away with it, making way for chattering bone and stubborn sinew.

  A witless townsman stepped within range of his blade, and immediately the night erupted into violence.

  My deepest desire, Alex mused, carving another limb.

  He still hadn’t the slightest idea. While he’d been forging, for a moment he’d felt like he’d found the answer, but the words had faded from him like sand, flowing into the blade itself.

  Still, there’d been one other revelation of late. One that’d been bothering him since he’d first come back to this world, or perhaps even long before then. It seemed the freedom he yearned for—true freedom—was only obtainable by one method.

  The blade’s edge sheared through air, singing at a higher pitch than steel as it sliced bone.

  By becoming so powerful no one can take it away.

  Alex twirled, decapitating two undead Adventurers and whipping the blood off his blade in the same motion. The nearest wave of undead gave pause and he lifted the blade to his lips, giving its face a soft smooch under the new moon.

  Alex was firm on his resolve. There were things he wanted now, and that was reason enough to resume his old path. When the sun rose, and he left this accursed town, it would be as a Blacksmith-Warrior.

  His lips curled in a smile.

  “Seems we’ll be seeing some action tonight,” he whispered.

  * * *

  Mandatory scenario has been triggered.

  Scenario 2 — Night of the Undead

  This wicked town has sold their souls for unfathomable power, and now they will feast upon yours! The High Council enlists your help in putting this great evil to rest once and for all!

  Player Count: 25

  Rewards:

  3,000 Essence Crystals

  1 Skill Trial Token

  Intermediate Skills Catalog

  Items and potions will be purchasable in the Shop.

  Bonus rewards will be unlocked based on point tally:

  Undead Villagers: 1 point

  Town Mayor: 2 points

  Undead Adventurers: 3 points

  Undead Captains: 10 points

  Guild Master Lionheart: X

  Bonus Rewards:

  15 Points: x1 Status-Recovery Potion

  45 Points: x1 Common-grade Weapon from the Shop, up to 5,000 EC in value

  75 Points: x1 High-grade Potion Set

  100 Points: x1 Skill from the Shop, up to 20,000 EC in value

  150 Points: You may obtain a Special Quest from your Local Guild.

  X: ???

  Warning: Points can only be earned before midnight.

  Additional bonus rewards will be awarded based on a graded assessment of your performance.

  Clear Conditions: Survive until sunrise.

  Good luck!