Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Solemnly, the hammer struck the metal, giving the rhythm to the song. Oz joined in with a dark demonic tune, as the blacksmith's voice rose in the workshop.

"I'm roaring blaze, ashen rain, I'm coming on like a hurricane,

My light is burning across the sky..."

The flames in the forge behind licked up to the ceiling in joy as power kept building up around the blacksmith. Seth kept broadcasting his music in the aether, as he forged a small piece of legendary <Olympian Silver>.

"You think you're smart, but you're gonna die, I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives

Nobody's putting up a fight I got my spell, I'm gonna send you to hell,

I'm gonna get ya, he's gonna get ya!

Hell Spells! You got me using my, Hell Spells!"

The blacksmith kept envisioning his enemies going up in flames. Whoever touched him should face a horrible retribution. He wanted to imbue this power into the circlet he was currently working on. His raging melody awakened several presences at first but many left when faced with his intentions.

I'll give you black scorching up and down your spine,

If you wish me evil, you're no friend of mine,

See the white sparks flashing, combust and ignite!

Cos if you start the fight, I will show you the night.

I won't take no prisoners won't spare no lives...

Nobody's putting up a fight I got my spell, I'm gonna send you to hell,

I'm gonna get ya, he's gonna get ya!"

Only one presence stuck with him, and it was a dark presence full of heat and violent, deceitful thoughts. Through <Channeling> the blacksmith got the impression of a leopard enveloped in flames, a demon he vaguely remembered, but could not recall the name of.

"Hell Spells!"

Flames of a bloody dark color surrounded his hand as he worked the metal and soaked into the silver, turning it a light rose color. It kept darkening to a cherry red and Seth kept singing and roughly finished the circlet.

<Ding! You have created an epic-rated piece of music. Proficiency gained."

Three notifications followed, telling him his <Singing(Journeyman)> had become lv. 6 and his <Song Writing(Adept)> jumped from lv.5 to lv.7. The fact that he was so easily able to write an epic piece had to be because of the effects his armor lent him.

Whether his intention worked or not, he only found out once he checked the roughly finished circlet. He felt relieved since it seemed that it had worked on the first try. In an impulse, he had directly started using legendary material. Failing would have been a tragic loss.

The effects of Hell Spells was a tyrannic counterattack effect that would use the demon's full power to eradicate an attacker. It also came with a slight defensive option against mental attacks and curses.

The circlet so far was good, but it was only a workpiece without any clear descriptions. He was not finished with it. Next, he had to refine and enchant it at the Jeweler's Table to make it a complete item.

Of course, the enchantment in question was the Mind Cocoon he had purchased earlier. He combined it with improved Willpower, to further strengthen the wearer's mental power and mental resistance. One could never be too careful.

He didn't immediately get any notifications that the item was finished, as the system seemed to know, that he intended to add a soul armament. For the soul, he fused 9 big fragments of the 24th Ethnarch to get one massive-sized fragment.

As he already used the one Olympian enchantment he was sure could protect the mind, Seth didn't want to try his luck by using a random one. Instead, he engraved the soul with an ordinary Barrier, improved Intelligence, and another Willpower enchantment for good measure.

<Ding! You have finished a legendary item! +1 to all attributes.>

<Ding! A synergy between powers has changed your item.>

The notifications sounded as he took the circlet from the waters of Styx. He was a little surprised to find the circlet a little special. Up to now, the high-grade items Seth made had been oozing with effects. Despite the circlet not being like that, Seth was pretty satisfied with the outcome.

<Flauros' Firewall

Legendary

Durability: 9000

1. Blessing of Wind

2. Flauros' Firewall

3.+110 Willpower

4.+60 Intelligence

5. Barrier

A circlet with a connection to Flauros, a great duke of Hell. It was created by the ill-humored hand of Craftsman Smith with the intent to strike down anyone who touched his people.>

The name finally helped him to remember the name of the demon he had managed to channel. Flauros was a demon of fire similar to Xaphan, but the blacksmith knew little more than that since the leopard-shaped demon was not in his focus at any time.

Even though he didn't know too much, the primary effects of the circlet made it quite clear what the demon could do.

As a secondary effect, Flauros Firewall blocked all kinds of mental attacks and curses. The effect had fused even better with the enchantment of Mental Cocoon than Seth had expected, which led him to believe that the demon had a similar aspect, to begin with.

The primary effects of Flauros Firewall were to strike down enemies that started these kinds of attacks. Reading the effect made Seth glad that he had used a massive soul on the item because the decryption was quite terrifying.

It knew no mercy. If an attack was blocked by the effect, the demon would channel as much power as possible to eradicate the enemy. The attacker's life would be the price for this intervention. This was strong, but not the terrifying part.

If the attacker could not be eradicated, or the price was higher than the worth of the target's life, the difference would be paid by the wearer of the circlet in a kind of resource burn. Mana, Mental Energy, Stamina, Item Durability, and finally Life Force in that order would be burned away until the price was paid or the item and user were destroyed.

This was why Seth was glad to have used a massive soul, as the effect would have to burn through a buffer of roughly 10 000 mana first, before touching anything else. He hoped Mary or Jane would never meet anything that was so powerful, that the price to kill it would be higher than the item's mana.

Aside from this absolute success of an enchantment, there were Barrier, which could create a temporary barrier with the same durability as the circlet to block a physical attack, and Blessing of Wind. It was the same effect as the one on Tatzel's Sacrifice, increasing attack speed and movement speed.

By finishing the circlet, his skills also had improved, with <Enchantment> jumping to close to 40% and <Goldsmith> reaching roughly 10%. Checking his stats, the blacksmith rubbed his eyes. He had not realized it earlier, but he was really tired.

With the sudden wave of inspiration waning, he noticed that it was already late at night. He stretched his tired bones and quickly made his way up into the warm embrace of his mattress.