Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Where did the court magician run off to!?"

"Do you think he ran and left us behind?"

A hand full of figures were frantically running and jumping across the steep cliffs of a broad valley. They were pursued by a giant mass of emerald-colored stone in a vaguely humanoid shape. Taking turns, they would attack and kite the beast to buy time.

These men were warriors around lv. 70 but they stood no chance in a direct confrontation with the titanic field boss. Currently, the giant was wakened and in a frenzy because of the array trap. Otherwise, they could not have survived this long.

Suddenly, a concentrated beam of golden light, shot from a close mountain peak, penetrated the giant's deformed shoulder. The beast's attention fell on the terrifying flying insect that had just lifted off the mountain top.

Despite the insect's humongous size, it was like a worm compared to the stone giant. It flew around his head as if to provoke it. The clumsy boulder swiped for it, but it was too swift to be caught.

<Ding! You have witnessed the might of Field Boss "Stone Giant Chrysopras". Experience gained.>

Seth heard the notification as he was mid-fall from Puffles back. Only from above could he see the true scope of the mighty Chrysopras. he had jumped off the Ivicers back to land somewhere between the shoulder and nape of the beast.

The blacksmith was wearing the Helm of Hades, confident not to be found.

This stone giant was a good example that there were huge differences in the strength of field bosses. Seth could go up against something like the Pseudo- Swamp Dragon and maybe even a Hangingtree.

However, there was no way he would even dare to fight something like Chrysopras if it was not already severely weakened and he had a watertight plan.

Now, the stone giant was weakened, and Seth had a plan. At first, he thought to lure the beast back into the array formation. That was until he heard that it was a soul dispersion array. After listening to the old wizard's explanation, it became clear what Seth was going to do.

The array did not literally dissolve the soul of a being. The purpose was to dissolve the connection between the target's body and soul. This would leave a completely intact, but empty body behind.

The problem was that the cost of this array and the needed materials did not justify commercial use. If this was not about the princess of a country, there was no way anybody would use this method to hunt.

What this meant was, that Chrysopras was currently weakened because his soul was almost completely disconnected from his body, this also explained the frenzy, clumsiness, and his humanoid shape almost falling apart.

Seth landed on the giant's shoulders with the intention of harvesting its souls. He touched the emerald stone below his feet, but nothing happened. There was no soul he could harvest.

~You probably have to go deeper. This might just be an armor. ~ Al commented.

When he heard this, Seth first imagined the giant wearing an actual stone armor, but when he tried to touch what should be the giant's neck, there was also no soul. Maybe the giant's whole exterior was not its real body?

"A stone mech?" he mumbled at the thought and had an idea.

He would have never guessed that he would be able to use these skills in a fight! The blacksmith equipped his pickaxe and started mining into the giant. Like a woodworm, Seth dug his tunnel bit by bit.

The stone below was much softer once he broke through half a meter of the green quartz shell. The work became much faster and easier. Periodically he would touch the stone walls to see if he reached the true body.

Before Chrysopras in his frenzy noticed that something was wrong, Seth had already dug his tunnel into the giant's back. All that was visible was a hole, the size of a mosquito bite, compared to the creature's size. There was nothing it could do at this point.

On his way down, most of the material was generic rock, Seth couldn't differentiate that. But sometimes he would come was thin veins of ore, like Dawn Ore and even Serenum Ore. These mere metals normally not found on Urth.

Seth had started digging at the shoulder and aimed roughly towards the giant's chest. The entrance to the at become a small dot of light somewhere above and behind him. The only nuisance during his work was the constant swaying and sudden jerks when his host moved.

Still, like a diligent little parasite, Seth kept digging and soon he hit a layer of incredibly hard stone. Even the epic pickaxe had a hard time dealing with this material. It was the more frantic swayed and movements that made Seth touch the pieces of dark stone before him.

He had reached it! This was the rock giant's true body!

No wonder those people had decided to use something like a soul dispersing array. There was no way for physical or magical damage to easily penetrate such a thick cover of rock and ore.

Unfortunately, Seth had taken too long. The connection between Chrysopras's soul and the body was already recovering!

Despite that, he didn't lose hope. He had already reached the true body. It couldn't run, all he needed to do is kill it upfront and personal. Thus he started backing thee pickaxe against the layer of adamantine rock.

Soon even this epic pickaxe started dulling with Seth having dug less than half a meter into the tough rock. Sweat was streaming down his body and he sat down. This was going nowhere. He had no idea how the fight outside was going. He could only hope Puffles was holding on.

Seth stared at the dark rock that barred his way to the giants heard and thought about a solution. Could he maybe heat the stone and then rapidly cool it with something like the freezing chain mail? This was the generic solution for such a problem he knew from novels.

But would that work in this kind of tunnel? H didn't want everything to come crashing down on him...Then he facepalmed himself at his own stupidity. He had an epiphany about the most simple solution.

It had always been there. It was one of his core skills. It was just that he had never used it this way.

Soul Weapons.

The blacksmith could simply forge a pure soul weapon that would ignore the target's defense and directly harm the soul. It was the same principle as the Soul Dispersion Array, just that the soul was directly harmed and not just disconnected.

Once he knew what to do, he quickly put it into action. Seth carved out enough space to summon his anvil and started forging one of the big snake souls into a long spear. These soul armaments made from souls looked like the ghost of a weapon. They were translucent with a dim white or bluish glow.

<Soul Spear

Rare

Soul Damage. 1200

An ethereal weapon created by Craftsman Smith. By the nature of the item, it will ignore any defense and deal direct damage to the soul. >

The description was not much to look at, but it was not supposed to be overly special. Seth did not intend to destroy the giant's soul. He just wanted to weaken it to a state he could harvest it!

He stabbed with the spear into the dark stone that blocked his way, and it sank in. It was a weird sensation, completely different from any experience he had before. As if he was pushing the weapon into a giant block of tofu.

There was some resistance, but the ghostly weapon just kept sinking into the stone.

His actions stayed not without consequences. Much different from the twitches and shakes when he hit the real body with the pickaxe, now everything was rocking and shaking like during an earthquake.

Seth had to cling to the spear and recall the anvil in a hurry, so it didn't squash him. Being thrown around made the spear wiggle and deal even more damage to the stone giant's soul. This caused the giant to convulse in pain even more.

Once he found his footing again, Seth pulled out the spear in one fluid motion, before stabbing it in again with all his might. He kept doing this and checking the souls over and over.

The blacksmith almost felt bad. The giant had not offended him, and he would have preferred to give it a quick end instead of this death by a thousand cuts. However, there was no going back now!

Finally, he did not know how much time had gone by, the soul had taken enough damage for Seth to harvest it.

<Ding! You have killed -Stone Giant Chrysopras lv. 83-. Experience earned>

<Ding! You are now lv. 60!>