Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"Ah, but you can't store this in your inventory or this ring, Tower Master," Bement said hurriedly.

~Affirmed. Target cannot be stored.~ Legion affirmed Bement's statement.

"Why not?"

"It's because of the nature of these materials," Bement started his explanation.

Of course, he was not a wizard so the explanation was not very technical. The crux of the matter was that these materials had a lot of traits that interfered with and stabilized space. This was the reason why they were needed to create a teleport hub and the same reason why they messed with spatial storage.

For that reason, the adventurer guild had to bring them here the ordinary way. They had been brought here with a carriage, just like the adventurers. What this ultimately meant was that Seth couldn't just pack them up and take them along.

But he also couldn't leave them here. Even if they closed the vault, at least the Adventurer guild knew about it and if they came back before them, they would obviously keep their materials.

"Fine, then I will just store them in the same place as the beacon..."

Although Seth had thought about setting up a teleport hub at Agra Mountain or maybe along the Tree Route using these materials, it wasn't really that important to him. He could just leave them here and they would build their own teleport hub in the Holy Land sometime in the future.

Accompanied by Bement, Seth set off to find a place to set up the temporary spatial beacon and store the materials for later use. Since the revelation of treasures had bummed him out, Seth was not in the mood to look for long to find the right place.

The blacksmith found a tight crevasse, just wide enough for him to squeeze through, and judged it good. Swinging the pickaxe with practiced moves, Seth simply created the perfect place to set the temporary beacon with his <Mining Skill>.

While he started on the place to store everything, he sent Bement and some of the golem knights to retrieve the materials. In the crevasse, Seth dug a similarly tight tunnel deep into the rock of the mountains, before widening it into a chamber. The rubble of this work appeared in legion for later use.

Once it reached roughly the size of a shack, Seth brought out Evee to take a look and set up the beacon herself. Following her instruction, he modified the room a little further. In the meantime, the immortal witch set up her beacon and the corresponding formations.

It was different from the time when Seth simply cut a rough formation into the stone, following Al's instructions. Evee drew a much more complicated magic circle on the floor using a special chalk, that turn into a thin layer of crystal when she finished it with a spell.

According to her, the portal they opened using this beacon and formation, would be much more stable and predictable than the makeshift solution Seth experienced the first time. Before Evee returned to Legion, the golems and Bement had already returned with the Materials.

"Bement? What is he doing here? Why is he with the golem knights?" "I wanted to leave the explanation for when we were out of this place..." Seth said with a sigh and started giving Evee a summary of what had happened.

"Can I leave explaining it to the others to you?"

"Fine, I will make sure the guild guys don't rip Bement apart before he gets a chance to talk."

The immortal witch had aptly read his intentions and agreed to make sure there were no unfortunate circumstances before they returned to Delta. With that, Evee and Bement both entered Legion, while the golems started bringing in the chests and boxes of materials.

One by one they squeezed through the tight entrance and tunnel. Since there were not too many it didn't take long to cut a groove into the wall of the tunnel and store them inside. With everything set in place, Seth started filling up the tunnel and crevasse with the rubble from his mining.

Having the tight natural crevasse at the from and everything filled in with rocks, there was little chance anyone would find the place easily. Stepping outside, Seth switched back to the Helm of Hades and turned to return the golems to legion.

"Where do you little birdies think you are going?" a screech echoed through the valley.

Before Seth could store the golems, one of the golem knights suddenly had a hole punched through his chest from behind. A shard hand was sticking out from its breastplate. At the end of the arm, Seth saw a man covered in dried blood.

His eyes widened in surprise, ripped open from shock when he saw the man's status with <Theia's Discerning Eyes>. The man was a monster.

<Dragos Cernat lv.97

Name: Dragos Cernat

Title: "Chosen of Ammit"

Level: 97

Blessing:

Age: 23

Class: Agent of Gluttony

Race: Ori Huma

…..>

With almost all his attributes above 600, he was even above Seth in his full load out, rivaling the base strength of the better golem knights. But this was not the most shocking thing, the man's list of skills was so long that Seth didn't even have to time to scroll to the end, much less read any of them before things progressed.

"What the- What is this empty thing?" Dragos exclaimed pulling his arm out of the unfazed golem and evading the golem counter strike.

He evaded the golem's attack and with an overwhelming kick, he folded the walking armor like a piece of paper. The golem knight in question was catapulted into the mountainside where it was buried in broken rocks.

But when Dragos turned to the other figures he had seen, they were already gone. Seth had sneakily packed them away and decided to observe the man. Combing through his list of skills while he was struggling with the golem.

There were a lot of magic skills, but it didn't seem like the man in question was trained to use them in battle. He was mostly fighting using a mix of hand-to-hand combat and weaponless martial arts. But this was enough to make the golem struggle like a helpless rag doll thanks to his tremendous stats further buffed by many passive skills.

<Passive Skill: Heart Eater lv.9

A fraction of the power of the great Goddess Ammit. By eating the heart of another player, you sacrifice his power to the goddess, in exchange you are blessed with part of this power yourself.

Based on the enemy's powers: High chance to gain AP

Medium chance to gain stat improvements

Low chance to steal one of their skills.>

...Just how many people had that maniac killed to gain so many skills!? More importantly, could he keep this guy alive? At this point, it was quite obvious that he was the one behind the attack on the Adventurer Guild and probably even more people.

"I heard of these things...So I was right that you would take this route. You are the guys from Minas Mar, right? You have to be hiding somewhere around here, right?" he cried out with a crazed look, after ripping the golem knight apart.

This guy had not hesitated for even a moment to attack, like some beast. His existence alone already posed a great danger. But this sentence sealed Seth's decision. He had decided not to kill lightly, but this guy was something else.

In a quick, decisive strike, the blacksmith swung the Ravenous Sog to take the man's head. After his battle with the Ethnarch, the sword had grown to become one of his strongest weapons. Wishing to end it in one strike, he could only trust in this blade.

Against his expectations, Dragos seemed to instinctively sense the danger of the blade aiming for his nape, turned around, and blocked the Ravenous Sog at the cost of his left arm. In the exact same movement, he automatically took a stance and rammed his hand into the chest of the invisible attacker.

Blood splattered everywhere, but it was only his blood that soaked the ground. Not only had his left forearm fallen to the earth, his right hand was crushed to a pulp like a chicken that was shot into a concrete wall with a cannon.

It was completely unusable but already showed signs of healing. The same could be said for the stump of his left arm, which barely stopped bleeding but didn't show signs of regenerating the limb.

Seth on the other hand was shocked, that the man had managed to react, despite being under the influence of the Helm of Hades. At least Seth could trust his armor, which easily blocked and reflected the monstrous man's strike. The blacksmith had barely felt the impact.

The bard was quicker to overcome his shock and hacked away at the man, who managed to stay alive by evading and at the cost of some more parts of his arms and legs. Even using Sight of Theia, Seth was unable to finish him cleanly! It was clear that the man's overall combat power was above his.

Yet, it was the man who grit his teeth and turned around to flee into the holy land. Seth was ready to pursue him, there was no way he could escape Seth if he changed his helmet to Laraweg. However, the man used a magic similar to the one the hive used to flee and vanished before his eyes.

All that was left of the man were cut-off toes, fingers, a hand, and slices of his forearms. Slightly frustrated that Dragos got away, Seth collected all of them in a box he stored in his inventory. Although it was a little disgusting, these things might come in handy when making preparations for the future.

Seth look back at the massive canyon one last time. Although they had managed to accomplish what they had set out to do, they had barely scratched the surface of this place. If it wasn't for the fact, that he didn't like playing into someone else's hands, they may have stayed a little longer.

With a big sigh and the resolution to return, the blacksmith finally left the Holy Land, traversed the border storm, and was finally able to use Home Call outside to return to Delta.