“Mo—Mother—?”
The blonde girl stared at Lustrous, stunned.
Across from her, the black-haired girl lounged, cross-legged, elbow to knee.
Her palm braced her temple; her hair hung loose; fatigue veiled her eyes.
She looked like a black cat starved of sleep, ready to drowse at the first sunbeam.
Aerin stole a glance at the giant cross.
Dark-green vines crawled over it, all green yet utterly lifeless.
The longer she looked, the more a chill pricked her skin.
Even at a distance, a cold seeped out—no mere temperature, but a bare, pure deprivation.
A stripping of life-force.
All things breathe with life; when that breath is taken, they die.
Staring at that cross felt like facing death and darkness head-on.
Eerie, ominous—maybe that’s exactly this sensation.
And Lustrous had called that cross her mother.
Aerin reeled, tongue tied.
The black-haired girl nodded lazily and tilted her head.
“It’s complicated, and a pain to explain,” she said.
“Just know that cross gestated me.”
“Gestated…”
The word stuck like a thorn, drove hard, and made her heart buck.
Thunder cracked through her skull as a memory shard spun, tore the fog, and surfaced.
Then, in the next breath, a vast force clamped down and dragged it back into mist.
“Yes. Gestated.”
Thinking of something, the black-haired girl’s mouth drew a faint smile.
That smile was so light, so familiar, Aerin froze and forgot the earlier dread.
She turned the thought, and the familiarity clicked—that smile was like Master Bai.
Then another question burst up in Aerin’s chest.
Just now… Lustrous only said her mother was that cross.
She never said—
Who is Lustrous’s father?
…
…
In a narrow, dark chamber.
“Rise.”
The blacksmith stretched his spine.
His hands pressed upward, and the stone roof groaned under his palms.
His bent knees straightened, and the dead volcano beneath began to hum.
A kilometer-high dead volcano lay under the stone room, dark gray and barren.
It had stood mute in the wilds for millennia, and now it shook madly.
Boulders tumbled; shards sprayed; dust flooded the air.
Sky and earth smeared into one gray sheet.
It was like a volcano frozen for thousands of years, paying it all back in an instant.
“Rise!”
The word rolled from his throat, heavy as rockfall.
The man gritted his teeth; his muscles surged; veins bulged like coiling dragons.
He was only holding a roof, yet it felt like he held the whole mountain.
In a heartbeat, sweat fell like rain; heat steamed off him.
The dim stone chamber seemed to boil.
The next heartbeat—eruption.
“Get—” the blacksmith roared, “—up!”
Heaven cracked; earth heaved; the mountain shook.
The dome blew clean off; thunder burst; daylight touched him for the first time in years.
Freed at last, he didn’t cheer.
The summit was tiny, barely enough for one man.
He let the mountain crumble underfoot, didn’t rest, and hauled in his breath.
Calmly, he bent and hugged the iron pillar.
Half-kneeling, he hooked the thick pillar into his chest with his left arm.
One end stood on the summit platform; his right hand clenched and swung.
For thousands of years he’d only tapped, inch by inch.
This was his first time to wind his whole arm and let it fly.
As he wound his arm, a gale screamed across the peak.
Stones whirled; dust danced; under Nightfall a gray storm took shape.
He spun a full three circles, the hurricane roping him, then hammered the pillar’s crown.
Boom.
A deafening impact tore the sky.
Invisible pressure surged; the summit platform sank nearly a hundred meters.
Within the blast radius, dust and rubble were crushed to powder and fused hard to the stone.
The massive force punched down the iron pillar.
The black pillar shot into the mountain like a hell-forged shell, slicing through like tofu.
After the feat, he went still.
He stayed half-kneeling, as if listening.
Crimson eyes fixed; his focus narrowed to a blade’s edge.
Until he heard—
Ka.
A latch seating—two mouths meeting.
The most beautiful sound in this [World]; even an iron mountain of a man shivered in his bones.
His soul trembled.
After thousands of years, he finally smiled.
“Go.”
He reached down and stroked the ground under his palm.
He stroked the whole volcano, gentle as a father soothing his child.
His other hand lifted and aimed across the sky, at the black-haired, black-eyed, black [Demon King] watching.
Twin pupils held a volcano’s eruption.
“Don’t—let—me—” his voice went soft, “—down.”
He stopped breathing; his life-force snapped.
With one hand on the earth and one finger to the sky, half-kneeling, the [Blacksmith] died like a statue.
He had endured, suppressed, and suffered a thousand years to finish “her.”
Today, he died, utterly.
Boom.
The next moment, the volcano erupted for real.
…
…
The black [Demon King]’s pupils mirrored a grand firework.
Dazzling violet-red flooded his black eyes and swelled without end.
A roaring blaze burst from the dead volcano, burning the blacksmith’s body and the flying stone.
Half of Nightfall blushed red, the stain even reaching the silver domain of the moonlight.
That moonlight stood for [Its] power.
This sword was brazen, arrogant, outrageous.
Yes—those red flames weren’t lava.
They were a sword.
A long sword with a black hilt and a violet-red blade.
With the blacksmith’s death, the sword tore free of the volcano.
The black pillar driven into the mountain was just a section of its hilt, less than a tenth.
You can imagine the sword’s size.
It was over a hundred meters long and dozens wide, lying across the void like a burning river.
“Beautiful,” Ye Weibai said, from the heart.
“To forge this sword, the [Blacksmith] killed over a hundred volcanoes,” He said calmly.
“One part per volcano.”
“And for this last piece, when he was close to finishing, [It] imprisoned him.”
Ye Weibai looked at Him and listened as He said:
“Not at the start, and not midway.
Right at the end, [It] sealed the blacksmith—sealed him onto the half-finished blade.
He felt her breath every day, yet could never take the final step.”
“Make him yearn and never have,” the [Demon King] said. “Cruel hobby.”
“[It] did it to say something,” He said. “To warn.
[It] knows that for some, in this [World], death isn’t the worst thing.
[It] has other ways to break what those [Impurities] hold dearest, not just threaten their lives.”
“Ha.” Ye Weibai smiled, noncommittal.
He looked at Ye Weibai. “Do you know for whom the blacksmith forged this sword?”
Ye Weibai gestured for Him to go on.
“It’s—” He breathed out a name.
“Augustine.”
