Free Web NovelChapter 21: Chapter 21- To the heart of the Forge.
Leo and Shen made their way to the next chamber through a similar-looking corridor.
Except that the corridor was scarred with blade marks in the walls, old blood in the stones. Leo could see the dark stains that had seeped into the stone, never to fade.
"Looks like the seven elders couldn’t stop the invaders in time," Shen added.
Leo nodded, his hands on the sword hilt, ready at any moment to draw it, while Shen had a bunch of talismans ready to be activated at a moment’s notice. The blood stains had them on guard.
Leo gazed at the corridor. "Looks like this path leads to the inner forge area. My eternal fire is reacting more the closer we get to the center."
Leo added, "Whatever hit this place made its way through this space. Hopefully they did not succeed, otherwise we would have come here for nothing."
Shen interrupted. "Well not entirely, I can’t level up until I clear this quest, unlike someone."
Leo"..."
They walked in silence for another minute. This place had a deep history related to his class.
Soon, the corridor opened into a chamber. Not just any chamber, but what looked like an armory, at least whatever remained of it. Fifty meters long and thirty meters wide, walls lined with empty weapon racks, shattered and thrown aside. Obsidian floors cracked and cratered, scorched by fire for so long that they had vitrified. Broken weapons lay across the floor everywhere: swords snapped at the hilt, spears splintered, shields caved in as if struck by something massive.
"This... this place has been almost destroyed. How is this possible?" Leo muttered. "The previous chamber showed no signs of such destruction." A hint of disbelief laced his voice.
At the far end of the chamber was another door, sealed. It should have been the entrance to the inner forge.
Before the door, ahead of them , lay the remains of a battlefield.
The spectral echoes were already forming, rising from the stone floor like smoke condensing into shapes, translucent and wreathed in cold ash, their forms more solid than the specters they had seen in the first chamber.
These were the specters of warriors, their posture still disciplined even as specters, holding their translucent weapons with practiced familiarity.
The specters formed a loose line, blocking the path to the door.
Leo’s hand tightened around his hilt of the sword.
He swept the chamber with his forge sight and counted twelve figures.
"Twelve ahead of us. Ready your elemental talismans," he warned Shen.
"Twelve? That’s doable," Shen said remembering the swarm of specters attacking in the first chamber.
"Thirteen, if you count the one behind us."
Leo added " Oh and I think they are different from the weak specters we faced in 1st chamber. Be careful and stay alert."
Shen glanced back. His eyes went wide. Another specter was forming in the passage they’d just walked through.
The first wave came from the front—three specters charging in tight, synchronized formation, a spear, a sword, and an axe bearing down on them at once.
Leo met the sword head-on. Last time, his blade had passed through these things like smoke with no resistance at all. He was expecting same results. But...
This time it clashed against solid steel, and gold sparks scattered into the dark.
A second specter lunged at him. Leo turned the strike aside with a tempered parry and drove his counter through the echo’s chest, his sword blazing with eternal fire.
[-118 DAMAGE]
[Tempered Strike — parry counter]
Armor Penetration: -20% DEF, 5s
The specter dissolved into ash. The two remaining specters adjusted their stance, flanking him.
Shen’s talisman hit the ground between Leo and the specters just in time.
Fiery ink-chains erupted from the floor, binding both in place. Leo finished them before they could break free.
"Are these ghosts learning to fight?" Shen called out. "Before, they could barely land a hit."
"They’re not learning." Leo wiped sweat from his brow. "The earlier ones in 1st chamber were probably low-ranked soldiers in life. However, the ones we are facing now should have ranked higher."
"Great. Just great." Shen’s voiced annoyingly. "Please tell me we’re not fighting an emperor’s specter the deeper we go."
Leo shook his head at Shen’s Banter.
Five more specters surged forward.
Leo charged to meet them. He wasn’t a swordsman. His class was the Eternal Forge. And yet, every so often, his body reacted with an instinct that had nothing to do with his real life experience or any forging activity. This was one of those moments.
A translucent specter thrusted a spear at his throat. The attack was unexpected, he hadn’t even had time to process it but, his body moved before his thoughts could catch up. He found angles he shouldn’t have been able to see, parried strikes he never consciously registered coming. The Ember-touched sword carved through specter after specter, leaving trails of golden fire hanging in the air behind it.
His feet carried him through the gap between their strikes, like he’d run exact pattern of fighting thousands of times. He could see everything more clearly. His reaction speed was currently off the charts.
Its happening again. I have never trained with swords. Hell!! I have never had any experience in fighting nor ever learned any martials arts. But for some reasons my body is comfortable when I use sword.
Right now anyone seeing Leo fight would call him a veteran swordsman. The precision in strikes, Clean lines, no wasted motion, no wasted breath, Every parry and every counter with minimum movement.
He looked at the sword.
The sword. All the times I felt like this was when I held a sword.
Something in him stirred—a buried instinct tied to battle, to the sword itself, waiting to be unlocked. He couldn’t name it. He could only marvel at how natural it felt, as if his body had been waiting its whole life for a moment exactly like this.
Meanwhile....
Shen anchored the space behind him, talismans flowing in different sequences: ink chains, bind, warding talisman, body talisman....
His new talisman, the warden’s pact, pulsed, transforming the area around him into a territory seal that slowed his enemies.
Shen saw a specter attacking from Leo’s blind spot. Just as he was about to warn him, "Leo, left! Left!"
Leo had already pivoted on his right foot, dodging an axe that passed above him. A spectral echo had swung at him. Leo swept the Ember-touched sword through its knees, and followed with a rising slash that bisected the specter from hip to shoulder.
[-94 DAMAGE]
(Rising Forge — launch)
Rising Forge Proficiency: +3.2% (Adept → 10.3%)
Four down, nine remaining.
The specters closed in. Leo kept fighting back. His stamina was holding up, but the drain was slowly showing its effect. He was burning through his reserves faster than he had predicted. The iron gate was still far across the specters; the thirty meters felt like miles.
"Let’s push forward. Let’s stop trying to clear all the specters and just clear the path to the door," Leo voiced out. freёwebnovel.com
Shen nodded; he understood what Leo meant. He immediately planted a wide warden’s pact talisman at his feet. Green-white light expanded in a fifteen-meter radius. All the specters within the zone slowed, their movements dragging against the talisman seal’s pressure and weight.
"It will last for 15 seconds," Shen said. "Go."
Leo started sprinting towards the gate at full speed. He crossed the chamber without stopping to fight, cutting through the specters that were in his way. An axe caught his forearm; the impact jarred him, but the damage was not deep enough to make him stop.
[-22 DAMAGE]
Forge-Born Body: -12% incoming physical damage applied.
Leo was getting closer to the door. He would reach it in five seconds.
He finally blew past the specters and arrived in front of the door. He slammed his palms against the door’s surface.
Eternal fire surged.
It spread across the iron in a flash, tracing the seams.
The door groaned....
Leo waited for the door to open. But the groaning stopped.
The door remained shut.
Shen shouted, "Why are you just standing before the door?"
"It’s not opening. I need a moment," Leo replied.
"You have eight seconds until all the specters rush at you."
Soon the seconds passed, and Shen’s warden’s pact collapsed. The specters rushed forward with boundless fury.
Leo still had his hands pressed against the door, eternal flame pouring into it. Golden flame flowed through the metal like blood through veins, lighting up a network of seals and mechanisms that had lain dormant for centuries—and finally, they began to shift.
A groan...
Then.....
Rumble.....
Behind him, Shen fought to hold the line. "Ink chains—warding talisman—hold, damn it, hold—"
The door tore open. A wave of heat and amber light flooded the chamber, blinding and fierce. Leo squinted. He saw even vaster chamber inside, its ceiling so high that they were lost in shadows, Floor polished obsidian, and at the center, a forge.
It burned with its own fire, its hearth thrumming with a flame that looked like it had never once gone out. Eternal....
A pulse of wave rippled out from the forge, washing over Leo like warmth against his skin.
However, the specters felt it differently— the heat wave burned the specters as if it was disgusted by their presence alone. They let out a collective howl of anguish and dissolved into nothingness.
Silence settled over the chamber.
....
Shen, who’d been on the verge of being overwhelmed, stood frozen, gasping for breath as he stared at the forge. His pendant flared to life again, as if in recognition. He could only watch in awe.
"This is the heart of this place," he breathed.
Leo was already standing before the anvil. He called his flame forward, and the forge’s own fire rose to answer it, washing the chamber in gold hue.
He reached out and pressed his palms on the anvil.
And then—
...
He stood frozen...
A vision was shown to him. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
The same chamber, only more alive—the forge roaring, its light dancing across the walls casting shadows.
Tools hung in neat rows. Blades rested on the anvil, glowing cherry-red with heat.
And at the center of it all stood a figure.
The same smith. The same golden eyes.
The same figure from his vision before.
A wave of déjà vu rolled through him.
The smith’s golden gaze met his own across the time and space, transcending the boundary between life and death once again.
This time, the vision didn’t shatter.
The smith turned toward him and smiled.
"You who carry the Eternal Flame," he said, "have finally arrived."
