Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“The giant was a disappointment. Something this big isn’t worth it without a fitting soul.” he lamented, looking at the 40-meter tall giant knight in the golem hangar.

At this size, the compatibility of the soul to the body also became a question. The blacksmith had used a massive snake-soul to operate the giant. This had worked on similarly sized snakes, but it was barely able to sustain the giant for 10-20 minutes.

The lack in synergy between the soul and the item it was used on became a big question when it came to golems. Something he had never experienced with weapons. Sure, a synergy was a great power-up, but things usually worked just fine without it, too.

“Tatzel, i will need your help with something. There is someone I have to introduce to you.”

There was no way around it. If he wanted to create a real trump card that could substitute for Al’Zalsar this was the only way. However, before he, once again, spent weeks on making something that wouldn’t work, he needed to gain her cooperation.

~Who? ~ the snakelet asked curiously

“Your birth mother.”

— Keväti Kuinen–

The giant pile of bones beside her was growing and finally taking the shape of a dragon. Maybe twenty meters in height and fifty in length. Almost double the size Nidhog once was. It still ached her heart to have lost the partner that accompanied her for this long.

Although the giant seemed to have problems, she wouldn’t leave anything to chance! She kept strengthening it using the various skills she had absorbed from the Sparks, such as . This bone dragon would make short work of the giant and then crush that cocky bard once and for all!

As she was concentrating on her new baby, her undead hordes surged against the ramshackle defense line. The ugly golems and slimes had been reinforced by the golem knights and the sparks that fled back.

At some point, they even erected an earth wall as a fortification. Did they try to buy time? It mattered not! Time was her ally, too. She was confident that Kalzemir would be able to deal with the sea monster.

Everything was over once he returned if things had not ended at that time. Even if they had another way to counter the new bone dragon, with all the souls she had absorbed back, she had an almost infinite mana pool. She could just keep summoning undead and resurrecting bone dragons.

A crazed smile appeared on her lips, as she dreamed of subduing that cocky bard. She would be his master and he would grovel at her feet, creating an army of golems at her bidding. Natina would savor it, to humiliate him as a lowly servant as revenge for making her dance in such a humiliating way to his tunes.

“Hey, necromancer girl!” a voice causing seething hatred to bubble up, suddenly called out to her.

It was the cocky bard, who had stepped onto the earth wall.

“Are you wasting materials on creating trashy undead again? What is that going to be, a bone dragon? Is that all you can do?” he mocked her.

She tried to ignore him. Natina had to concentrate. Soon his words would get stuck in his throat.

“Cat got your tongue? You were so talkative earlier. Well, it doesn’t matter. I actually only wanted to tell you two things. One of the things I always respected, no matter how powerful I have gotten since the world changed, was Fall Damage. And, we already bought enough time.”

Suddenly huge area of the ruins sank, and a giant head broke through the surface of the earth as if it was water. Like a sandworm in the desert, a never-ending body emerged from the earth until the head was suspended roughly 100 meters above the ground.

Massive crystalline eyes observed the battlefield from a bare skull covered in armor. The gaze fixed on her and the almost finished bone dragon as if they were a frog. The beats roared and an unimaginable pressure descended on her and the army.

It had taken hours of talks and persuasions until they finally came to an agreement and Seth could start working on her body. Their relationship had actually turned quite amicable after talking things out.

They all just wanted the best for Tatzel and the patriarch decided to forgive him, for the chance to protect her child once again. However, they both agreed that this would not be a resurrection. Her original boy was strong, but Seth intended for it to be even stronger.

During his work on the golems, he found one of the fasted growing skills was which he used to strengthen the bones, used as the base for the golem knights. The skill had already risen to level 7 when he started his work on the matriarch’s body.

The first step was to thoroughly reinforce every one of her bones. Over three hundred meters of ribs and vertebra. Even with Cerberus helping it had taken them almost two weeks. Seth’s skill has evolved to . had also risen to lv.9.

It was the first but also the longest step. Following the reinforcements of the bones, which already imbued the skeleton with several affinities and resistances thanks to the bestowal effects of Charon’s Obol.

The bard abstained from using any smithing ballads on the bones since he simply lacked the endurance to keep going for so long. He made the excuse to himself, that too many magical effects would also get in the way of each other.

Since it was a Pseudo-Swamp Dragon in life, it had a high affinity for water and earth to begin with. There were few metals with water affinity, this was why Seth used and to cover the bones in the needed circuits to turn it into a functional vessel.

The blacksmith mostly used rare because it was the only material, he could create reliably with little material costs. Little was relative, as ordinary silver was cheap compared to any materials used for equipment.

His hours spent on refining the silver at the edge of the magma furnace did not stay without results. Seth’s ability reached lv.9.

The circuits of and did not only improve earth affinity and durability, but also the overall magic conductivity. After finishing the basic framework, came the bodywork.

One of the first things he made were the eyes. Seth used the he had once looted at the Theocracy’s stronghold. It had a high affinity to water and was a material usually used as the nucleus of wands.

As for the fangs. While reinforcing the several hundred sword-like teeth, most of them experienced the blood drinker treatment. The rest, the 4 main fangs and some other more vicious fangs, were enchanted with decay and penetration.

For the beast’s body armor, he used the matriarch’s own leather using to harden it. This time he used smithing ballads and etching to further strengthen its pseudo-draconic trait of damage reflection and once again the affinity to earth and water.

Her head, where the main core would be placed, was covered in long overlapping plates of making it look almost feathered. When he finally finished the vessel, came the most important step.

~ Are you ready? Don’t forget our deal. ~

~Yes. I won’t. ~

After a last check, Seth began the infusion of the Pseudo-Swam Dragon Matriarch’s soul into the cores of her body. Because of the incredible length, Seth had prepared several sub-cores to enable a smooth control, similar to secondary brains.

Splitting off parts of the souls, he walked down the 300-meter-long body and animated one sub-core at a time. Finally, the blacksmith crawled into the skull, where the casing for the main core was placed.

The core itself used the snake’s original Monster Core, but it was enveloped in a sphere of , like a black box. With intense anticipation, after weeks of work, the blacksmith infused the matriarch’s soul.

has strengthened your creation.>

has strengthened.>

Several things happened at once as various effects covered the bone of the surrounding skull.

“Hey, hey, let me out before you start stretching!” the blacksmith called in a panic.

The giant head had started shaking and he hurried to leave the snake’s body as he jumped down and left through the gap between the head and the ribs.

From outside he watched the colossal body rear its head.