CHAPTER 241: TRAINING 3

The completion of the soft armor was not an end, but a catalyst. The rhythm of the forge was in his blood now, the heat a part of his breath. Setting the finished mail shirt aside, Adam looked over his remaining materials. The creative fire was still burning brightly within him, demanding more outlets. A true master smith didn’t stop at one masterpiece; he filled the armory.

He started with a dagger. He selected a bar of good, honest steel, wanting this piece to be about speed and balance rather than esoteric materials. Back at the anvil, the great CLANG of his hammer was replaced by a quicker, sharper TINK, TINK, TINK. He shaped the steel with rapid, precise blows, drawing it out into a slender, deadly triangle. He wasn’t just making a sharp piece of metal; he was creating a tool for swift, final work. He gave it a needle point for piercing armor and a wicked edge that curved slightly for devastating draws and slashes. When he quenched it, the steam hissed aggressively. The final step was the hilt, which he wrapped in rough, black leather for a sure grip. It was a no-nonsense weapon, elegant in its lethality, a silent promise in the dark.

Next, his ambition turned to a spear. He chose a different metal this time, a dark iron known for its flexibility and toughness. The work on the spearhead was a different kind of dance. He hammered the iron into a long, leaf-shaped blade, using fuller tools to carve a deep blood groove down its center, making it both lighter and stronger. He worked carefully on the socket, ensuring it would fit perfectly onto a haft. But the true art of the spear was in its balance. He took a shaft of straight-grained, incredibly resilient Ironwood and began the process of marrying it to the head. He didn’t just attach it; he shaped the wood, shaving minute amounts away, feeling the balance point in his hands until the entire weapon felt like a single, living extension of the wielder’s intent. It was a warrior’s weapon, demanding skill and courage, and he forged that spirit into it with every precise adjustment.

Finally, he turned to a sword. This was the king of the battlefield, and it demanded his full respect. He returned to the Mithril, but this time he folded it over a core of the dark, flexible iron, creating a layered structure that would give the blade a unbreakable spine and a razor-sharp, hard edge. The hammering was a symphony now, a complex rhythm of folds and twists. CLANG... turn... fold... CLANG. Sparks flew like fireworks as he painstakingly built up the layers, hundreds of them, creating a subtle, wavy pattern along the blade’s length—the tell-tale sign of masterful folding.

He shaped it into a classic longsword, a double-edged blade with a central ridge for strength, a long hilt for two-handed use, and a simple, heavy pommel for perfect counter-balance. When it was time for the quench, he held his breath, lowering the glowing blade into the oil with a steady hand. The metal screamed as it cooled, locking in its legendary strength. The final hours were spent at the grinding wheel, where the real personality of the blade emerged. He honed the edges to a mirror finish, so sharp they seemed to cut the light itself. The finished sword was a masterpiece. It was lighter than it looked, perfectly balanced, and when he gave it a experimental swing, it cut through the air with a whisper-soft shing, a sound of pure, deadly potential.

As the first hints of dawn tinged the high windows of the forge, Adam stood amidst his night’s work. The dagger lay on the bench, sleek and deadly. The spear stood upright in a rack, its point catching the dim light. The sword rested across the anvil, a thing of silent, beautiful power. The forge was cooling, its great heart settling back into slumber.

His body was weary, his hands smudged with soot and grime, but his spirit was deeply satisfied. He had answered the ancient call. He had taken raw, shapeless metal and through fire, force, and will, given it purpose, form, and a soul of its own. He extinguished the forge’s final embers, leaving the new-born weapons to rest in the quiet dark.

•••

Back to Nero’s location.

Nero could feel it—a gathering storm in his second core, a prickling, electric anticipation just beneath his skin. The barrier to his second star was thin now, stretched taut like a drumhead. It wouldn’t take much more. He needed to push, to find the pressure that would make it snap.

His flame wings carried him higher, his prana sense casting a wider, more demanding net over the ancient forest. He was no longer hunting; he was summoning a challenge. He sought the densest, most aggressive concentrations of power, the auras that felt like fists clenched in defiance.

He found the first one in a place of death. A boggy swampland, where the water was black and the air thick with the stench of decay. The High Orc here was a shaman. It was taller and more gaunt than the warrior he’d faced, its grey skin covered in swirling blue tattoos that pulsed with a sickly light. In its hand was a staff topped with the skull of a large predator, from which hung fetishes of bone and feather. It stood in a clearing of skeletal trees, chanting in a low, guttural tongue, and as it chanted, the very swamp seemed to writhe. Vines thick as pythons slithered with unnatural life, and pockets of marsh gas ignited with ghostly green flames.

Nero landed at the edge of the clearing, his boots sinking slightly into the soft ground. The shaman’s head snapped up, its eyes glowing with the same foul green energy.

"Fire-bringer," it hissed, its voice like mud bubbling. "This is a place of rot. Your flame will be extinguished."

It slammed its staff into the bog. The ground trembled, and two massive, corpse-pale hands, fashioned from mud and bone, erupted from the muck and grabbed for Nero’s ankles.

Nero didn’t try to break free. He let the fire within him surge outwards.

"Searing Aura.

" A wave of pure, dry heat exploded from his body. The watery mud of the grasping hands instantly flash-hardened, cracking and crumbling to dust. The nearby patches of green flame were snuffed out, overwhelmed by his superior fire.

The shaman shrieked in outrage and began a new, more frantic chant. The black water of the swamp began to rise, forming into a dozen faceless, watery warriors armed with spears of sharpened bone.

Nero didn’t wait for the army to form. He became a blur of motion.

"Scattering Embers." He swung his sword in a wide, horizontal arc, but instead of a single wave of fire, a thousand fist-sized fireballs shot forth like a volley from a catapult. They slammed into the watery constructs, each impact a violent explosion of steam that tore them apart before they could fully coalesce.

He charged through the dissipating steam, his sword trailing a line of incandescent white fire. The shaman raised its staff, a shield of swirling dark water and necrotic energy forming before it.

Nero didn’t slow. He poured every ounce of his intent into his blade, focusing his Law of Fire into a single, unimaginably hot point.

"Sun-Piercer Thrust!"

His sword met the dark shield. For a moment, it held. Then, with a sound like shattering ice, the shield exploded. The pure, focused heat of his thrust vaporized the necrotic energy and the water instantly, not even allowing it to turn to steam. The shaman had a single moment to widen its glowing eyes in shock before Nero’s blade punched straight through its chest.

The foul green light in its eyes and tattoos died. The swamp fell silent, the unnatural life gone from it. Nero yanked his sword free, the body collapsing into the muck. One down.

He didn’t pause to rest. The electric feeling under his skin was intensifying, becoming a painful, wonderful ache. He launched back into the sky, his senses screaming for the next, the final catalyst.

He found it on a windswept mountain ledge, overlooking the entire forest. This High Orc was a chieftain. It was broader and more powerful than the others, its grey hide covered in scars and trophies—necklaces of fangs and claws. It held a massive, cruel-looking cleaver in one hand and a spiked shield in the other. It wasn’t patrolling or performing rituals; it was simply standing there, as if it had been waiting for him. It had felt the death of its kin.

As Nero descended, landing twenty paces away, the Chieftain let out a roar that shook loose stones from the cliff face. It didn’t speak. It didn’t need to. Its fury was a physical force.

It charged, not with wild abandon, but with the terrifying, ground-eating stride of a seasoned veteran. Its cleaver came around in a blow meant to cut Nero in half.