Anvil’s Melody… and the Storm’s Echo
The headache pounding in Arion's skull was truly legendary.
It wasn't an ordinary pain—it was a mix of mental exhaustion, existential shock, and the bitter realization that the whole universe seemed to conspire to make him a cook.
He sat on the cold floor of the dwarven workshop, staring at the forge that now held the most precious "soup" in all the worlds, fighting the overwhelming urge to sleep for a century.
"Forty-seven hours..." he muttered hoarsely, rubbing his forehead.
"What am I supposed to do for two full days in this dark tomb? Play chess with skeletons?"
For a moment, he surrendered to fatigue.
He leaned his back against a cold stone pillar and closed his eyes.
The quiet was tempting.
But in the silence of the depths, he heard another sound—not with his ears, but with his soul.
Leora's faint cry.
Kalin's innocent laughter.
Malakai's arrogant smirk.
And the looming presence of the Ghoul Emperor—unseen but suffocating in its weight.
He opened his eyes. Every trace of sleep vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp resolve, like a dwarven blade.
"No time to rest," he told himself.
"Time is the only weapon I have left. Every wasted second is a bullet to my own head."
He stood.
The forge was no longer a disaster, but an opportunity.
Forty-seven hours weren't a waiting period; they were training time.
This workshop wasn't a prison—it was his school.
---
A Symphony of Organized Chaos
Arion got to work.
His plan was clear: before he even dared touch the star-mithril, he needed to understand the true art of forging.
The theoretical knowledge he'd absorbed from the scroll was just ink on paper.
Now it was time to turn it into sweat and scars.
First—resources.
He scoured the workshop, gathering anything that could be used: rusted iron rods, broken shields, shattered axe heads.
Scrap to anyone else—textbooks to him.
He lit a smaller side-forge, using his skill [Spark of Existential Threat] to ignite some ancient dwarven coal he'd found.
The spark was pathetic as always, but enough to coax the embers to life.
He placed his first piece of rusted iron in the fire.
He waited until it glowed red, then gripped it with the sturdy dwarven tongs and laid it on a side anvil.
He lifted a heavy hammer.
He felt its weight in his hand, the new strength in his arms.
He took a deep breath and swung it down.
Clank!
The sound of metal striking metal echoed through the silent hall.
The blow was strong—but clumsy.
Sparks flew as the hot iron bent the wrong way.
"Damn it!"
He tried again. And again. And again.
The results were disastrous.
What he tried to shape into a short sword ended up looking like a mangled spoon.
What should have been a dagger turned into a twisted chunk of metal that could, at best, serve as a paperweight.
"In games, all you have to do is press the 'Craft' button!" he snarled in frustration, throwing his fifth failed attempt to the floor.
"I had a progress bar! Cool sound effects! This... this is just hard work and the smell of sweat!"
He sat to catch his breath, sweat dripping down his face.
He looked at his hands, covered in bruises and small cuts.
He was about to call it a day—until he remembered something.
"I'm thinking like a human… I need to think like a player… like Arion."
His strength wasn't just in his muscles.
It was in the system that lived in his soul.
He stood again and grabbed a fresh piece of iron.
But this time, he didn't focus only on his arms.
He closed his eyes and activated [Dwarven Rune Comprehension] and [Basic Forging Principles] together.
He no longer saw just a lump of hot metal.
He saw… lines.
Faint energy lines flowing through the metal, weak points, paths the hammer needed to follow.
At the same time, his mind processed the scroll's knowledge—not as words, but as an instinctive feel: the perfect forging temperature, the right strike angle, the precise force.
Everything changed.
Clank…
The first strike was softer, more precise.
It wasn't brute force—it was guided.
Clank…
The second strike followed the metal's energy flow, shaping it gently yet firmly.
Clank… Clank… Clank…
His blows turned into a melody.
A steady, rhythmic beat echoing through the silent forge.
He wasn't fighting the metal anymore—he was dancing with it.
His hand, the hammer, the anvil, and the metal became a single orchestra, playing the song of creation born in fire.
After an hour of steady work, he plunged the final piece into a cold water bath.
Ssshhhhhhhhh…
When the steam cleared, he lifted it in his hand.
It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was real—a simple dwarven dagger, its blade straight and sharp, its grip perfectly balanced.
No runes yet.
No mythical metal.
But it was made with his own hands.
Ding~
> [You have crafted: Simple Iron Dagger (Quality: Common)]
[Your skill 'Basic Forging Principles' has leveled up!]
[Basic Forging Principles (E)] → [Dwarven Forging Techniques (D)]
A wide, genuine smile of satisfaction split Arion's dirty face.
"This is it."
---
A Hint of a Distant Storm
Amid his focus, while his hammer rang against the anvil, he felt it.
A faint tremor—barely noticeable—shook the stone floor beneath him for just a second.
Arion froze, lifting his head.
Silence.
He closed his eyes, trying to use [Vibration Sense] to understand.
But the tremor was already gone.
All he sensed was a ghost of a power beyond imagination, an echo from somewhere far above…
Then nothing.
Silence returned.
"What… was that?"
---
At that same moment, aboveground, outside the collapsed mine entrance, the scene was entirely different.
There was no roaring battle.
No heroes screaming.
No monsters howling.
There was only… silence.
The silence after annihilation.
The earth within a kilometer radius was a chaos of clashing forces.
A massive patch of land was frozen solid, trees sheathed in thick layers of dust and splinters of burnt wood.
Just meters away, the ground was scorched and molten, as if struck by a meteor.
The air still cracked with faint sparks of silver lightning and red flame.
A massive rocky cliff—once part of the mountain—had been cleaved in half with a single clean, sharp strike, as if a thousand-meter blade had sliced right through.
There was no sign of life.
No Valerius, no Kalia, no Imperial Deputy.
All had vanished.
And over it all hung a silence heavier and more terrifying than any scream.
The silence that comes when a clash between beings beyond comprehension ends—leaving only ruin as proof of their power.
A severed arm lay discarded at the edge of the ruin.
---
Far below, Arion knew nothing of this.
He shrugged, dismissing the tremor as a minor quake, and returned to his work.
He still had forty hours left—and plenty of scrap to forge into weapons.
He didn't know the world above had already changed forever…
and that the race against time had ended long ago.