CLANG… SSSSSS…
The deafening strike of a massive hammer against an anvil echoed through the cavernous depths of the Grand Forge, followed instantly by the sharp hiss of superheated metal plunging into a vat of cooling oil.
Alden stood near the entrance of the personal workshop of Herman Blackwood, his arms crossed over his sleek, black trench coat. Even with the heavy leather apron Herman wore, the sheer, stifling heat of the room was enough to make anyone sweat through their clothes. But Alden didn't mind. The blistering temperature actually felt somewhat soothing against the chaotic, dark-gold energy constantly roiling in his chest.
"Done!" Herman's booming voice broke through the ambient roar of the forge fires.
The SS-Rank Demi-God turned around, wiping a thick layer of soot and sweat from his forehead with a massive forearm. He walked over to a polished stone workbench, his heavy boots shaking the floor, and picked up a small, unassuming object with a pair of delicate, runic tongs.
Alden stepped forward, his single crimson eye narrowing in anticipation.
Herman tossed the object through the air.
CATCH.
Alden snatched it effortlessly with his right hand.
It was his storage ring.
But it looked completely different now. The dark, jagged, warped metal had been flawlessly smoothed out, reshaped into a sleek, elegant band of dark iron. The spatial crystal in the center, which had been cracked and milky grey, was now a vibrant, deep sapphire blue, glowing with a stable, heavy hum of spatial magic.
"I had to completely restructure the anchor," Herman grunted, grabbing a massive barrel of ale and taking a long, hearty swig.
"Whoever hit you shattered the pocket dimension into about four thousand fragmented layers. If you had tried to open it one more time with brute force, everything inside would have been crushed into atomic dust. But, the Blackwood name isn't just for show. The matrix is stable."
Alden felt his heartbeat spike.
He didn't waste time. He closed his eye and carefully, incredibly delicately, pushed a microscopic thread of his volatile Chaos mana into the sapphire crystal.
ZIIING!
A familiar, comforting spatial window popped open in his mind's eye.
He scanned the inventory.
A mountain of sparkling gold coins—billions of them, completely untouched. The cheap, plush sea creature he had won at the festival. The woven blue bracelet.
And there, sitting safely in a small spatial pocket... the magical imprinter.
Alden let out a long, shuddering exhale. The tension that had been gripping his spine for nearly a month finally, truly snapped. The photos of Alisia, the memory of her quiet smile on the beach... they were safe. He hadn't lost her.
"Thank you," Alden said, looking up at the towering dwarf. His voice was quiet, but the absolute, raw sincerity in it made Herman pause.
"You have no idea what this means to me."
"Bah, think nothing of it, boy," Herman waved a massive hand, though a proud grin tugged at his iron-grey beard.
"Just keep my idiot children safe if they ever decide to wander into the woods again, and we'll call it even."
Alden slipped the ring onto his finger. It fit perfectly, cold and familiar against his skin.
As he looked at his inventory one last time, his gaze brushed past the gold and the photos, landing on a completely different item.
'Right,' Alden thought.
'While I'm standing in front of the greatest forgemaster on the continent...'
"Hey, Herman," Alden said, his tone shifting from emotional to intensely curious.
"Since you're the Grand Forgemaster... I have something I need you to look at. I acquired it recently, but I have absolutely no idea what it is or what to do with it."
Herman slammed his empty ale barrel onto the stone table, his eyes lighting up with genuine interest. "Oh? A weapon? Let's see it. If it was forged on this continent, I'll know the maker just by looking at the hilt."
"Funny you should mention the hilt," Alden muttered.
Alden willed the item out of his storage ring.
VWOOM.
Space distorted slightly as the object dropped into Alden's outstretched palm.
It was a sword hilt. Just the hilt. There was no blade, no crossguard. It looked ancient, forged from a dark, porous metal that seemed to absorb the light of the forge fires rather than reflect it. Faint, jagged runes were etched into the grip, looking more like violent claw marks than actual writing.
"Here," Alden said casually, extending his hand to offer the hilt to the dwarf.
Herman reached out, his massive, calloused fingers closing around the dark metal.
"Hmm, the balance is a bit—"
The moment Herman's skin made full contact with the grip, the SS-Rank Demi-God stopped talking.
He didn't just stop talking; he stopped breathing.
To an outside observer, absolutely nothing changed. The forge fires continued to crackle. The air remained hot. There was no explosion of light, no sudden shockwave.
But Alden, with his newly forged Chaos core, could feel it.
The hilt was drinking.
A terrifying, invisible vacuum had suddenly opened up inside the dark metal, and it had latched its jaws directly onto Herman Blackwood's soul. It was sucking the SS-Ranker's mana out of his body at an absolutely horrifying, blinding speed. It was like watching an ocean being drained through a pinhole in a matter of seconds.
Herman's face, normally flushed red from the forge's heat, turned the color of old chalk. His eyes widened in pure, unadulterated terror. The muscles in his massive arms locked up, completely paralyzed by the sheer, existential violation occurring inside his spirit.
CLATTER!
With a desperate, violent jerk, Herman managed to tear his hand away. He threw the hilt onto the stone workbench as if it were a live grenade.
The heavy piece of metal bounced once and lay perfectly still.
Herman stumbled backward, his boots sliding against the stone floor. He hit the wall of the forge, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. He was sweating profusely, his hands trembling violently.
An SS-Ranker. A man who could casually forge weapons of mass destruction. He was backed against a wall, looking at a piece of metal like it was the grim reaper itself.
"Are you out of your damn mind?!" Herman roared, his voice cracking with genuine panic.
Alden blinked, entirely unfazed, though he took a cautious half-step back.
"I just asked you to identify it. What's the problem?"
"What's the problem?!" Herman bellowed, pointing a shaking, thick finger at the hilt.
"Where in the deepest, darkest pits of the abyss did you get that weapon, boy?!"
Alden shoved his hands into the pockets of his trench coat, his expression flattening into a calm, unreadable mask.
"I found it. Dropped it in my pocket. You know how it is. Finders keepers."
"You found it?!" Herman looked like he wanted to rip his own beard out. "You don't just find something like that! And more importantly... how the hell are you still alive?!"
"Excuse me?" Alden asked, his red eye narrowing.
"That thing," Herman breathed heavily, pushing himself off the wall but keeping a very safe, ten-foot distance from the workbench.
"The moment you touched it with your bare hands, it should have drained your soul until you were nothing but a dry, shriveled husk. It just tried to eat my mana, and I have the capacity of a Demi-God! You're a D-Ranker! You should have evaporated the second your skin brushed the metal!"
Alden stared at the hilt lying innocently on the table.
'Ah,' Alden thought, a realization slowly dawning on him.
'The trials. That's why the final trial tested my intent and gave me the Void-Walker authority. It wasn't just a reward; it was a prerequisite to hold the damn thing without dying.'
And now, with a Chaos core that actively devoured and nullified hostile energy, the hilt's draining effect probably couldn't even dent him. To the sword, trying to drain Alden's Chaos mana was likely like trying to drink acid.
"I have a very sturdy constitution," Alden lied smoothly, offering a nonchalant shrug.
"Now, are you going to tell me what it is, or are we going to keep staring at it?"
Herman ran a trembling hand down his face. He walked over to his ale barrel, his hands shaking so much he spilled half of it before managing to take a massive gulp. He needed the liquid courage.
"It's... it's a myth," Herman said, his voice dropping into a reverent, terrified whisper.
"A nightmare whispered among the oldest grandmasters of my lineage. That hilt belongs to a Dragon Slayer sword."
Alden's eyebrows shot up.
"A Dragon Slayer?"
"Not just any Dragon Slayer," Herman corrected, his brown eyes haunted. "Its true name is 'Vajra'. The Weapon of Heaven's Wrath."
Herman slowly pulled a heavy iron stool over and sat down, his eyes never leaving the dark metal on the bench.
"It doesn't have a blade because it doesn't need one," Herman explained, his voice echoing softly in the hot forge.
"When the true wielder commands it, the blade manifests from pure, concentrated annihilation. But its true terror isn't its sharpness. It's its hunger."
Alden tilted his head, listening intently.
"Vajra possesses a cursed, parasitic ability," Herman continued, taking another nervous gulp of ale.
"Every time it strikes a killing blow, it doesn't just end a life. It consumes the victim's existence. It absorbs their strength, their residual mana, their very vitality... and uses it to permanently boost its own power."
Alden's breath caught in his throat.
'A weapon that scales infinitely?' Alden thought, sheer amazement and excitement warring in his chest. 'A sword that levels up by killing? That's… that's an absolute cheat code.'
"But there's a catch," Herman said, his voice grim.
"A horrifying catch. It's cursed. Thousands of years ago, during the primordial era, the ancient 'Celestial Dragons'—the undisputed rulers of the sky—realized what this sword was capable of. Before the last of their kind was slaughtered by it, they pooled their dying souls and placed an absolute, unbreakable blood-curse upon the metal."
Herman pointed at the hilt.
"The curse ensures that Vajra will inevitably devour its own master," Herman whispered.
"Anyone who holds it will have their mana, their life force, and their soul slowly sucked into the hilt to feed its insatiable hunger. That is why I asked how you are still breathing. Merely touching it is a death sentence for any normal mortal."
Alden looked down at his own hands.
'Normal mortal,' Alden mused internally.
'Well, it's a good thing I'm currently a walking, chaotic Nephalem bomb.'
His SSS+ Rank Fallen Angel bloodline and his Chaos element actively rejected the laws of the universe. A curse placed by ancient dragons was just another rule for his body to completely ignore.
"How do you know all this?" Alden asked, looking back up at the dwarf. "If it's a myth, how are you so certain?"
Herman let out a bitter, prideful laugh.
"Because, boy," Herman said, puffing out his massive chest, though his eyes remained fearful.
"I know the forging techniques etched into that grip. I know the dark-iron folding methods. It's a closely guarded secret, passed down only to the heads of our house."
Herman looked Alden dead in his crimson eye.
"I know it's Vajra," Herman said softly, "because my ancestors were the ones arrogant enough to forge the damn thing."
Alden stood perfectly still, the silence of the forge broken only by the crackle of the fires.
A sword forged by the ancestors of the Dwarven Demi-God. A weapon cursed by Celestial Dragons. A blade that grew stronger with every life it ended, completely incapable of killing him because his body was too stubbornly chaotic to die.
A slow, terrifying, entirely arrogant smirk spread across Alden's face.
Liam thought he had stripped Alden of all his weapons. The Human Empire thought they were hunting a wounded animal.
'Oh, Liam,' Alden thought, looking at the dark hilt resting on the stone table, anticipation thrumming wildly in his veins.
'You have no idea what's coming for you.'
Alden stepped forward, entirely ignoring Herman's panicked flinch, and casually picked Vajra up with his bare hand.
No pain. No draining sensation. Just the cold, heavy weight of absolute, world-ending potential resting perfectly in his palm.
"Well," Alden smiled, tossing the cursed hilt into the air and catching it playfully. "Looks like I finally got my sword back."