Blacksmith Of The Apocalypse Novels & Stories

"But she was a paranoid bitch who knew how to arm a rebellion." ​He looked at the thousands of bolts, the experimental rifles, and the vials of concentrated 'Marrow-Blight'—a toxin that could turn an Imperial army into a heap of shivering, human meat in minutes. ​"Marcus, call the blacksmiths. Tell them we aren't just smithing swords anymore. We're smithing an apocalypse." ​"Alpha," Marcus said, his voice trembling. "If the Emperor finds out we have these, he won't just exile us. He'll erase the Silver Moon from history."

Clamped in the tongs was a shimmering, semi-liquid ingot of unrefined Starfall moonstone—the last pristine sample retrieved from her mother's deep-vault archives on the Moonhaven Coast. Beside her, Rhys sat on a low stone pedestal, stripped to the waist. The **Apex Core** remained securely locked over his chest, its crystalline channels pulsing in a slow, rhythmic cadence that matched the heavy, measured thud of his heart. Sweat glistened across his broad, scarred shoulders and the intricate dark tribal tattoos lining his ribs.

Ribs pressing against his skin like a washboard. The blacksmith was a one-eyed old man with a vicious temper who forged blades that never broke. Every soldier in the camp came to him for repairs. Rex crouched outside the smithy for three days, watching the old man work the iron. The metal in the furnace bloomed orange-red. The old man pulled it free with tongs, laid it on the anvil, and struck. Sparks burst with every hammer blow. Burn scars covered his hands, layered over each other like the bark of an ancient tree.

"They're already waiting for you." The research center's lab was even more advanced than I imagined. One of the elderly men, wearing a white lab coat, was introduced to me as Professor Uriah Emerson. Before the apocalypse, he was the country‘s top virus researcher. He was holding my blood test report with trembling hands.

They were huddled together around the campfire, looking up at the shattered sky with expressions of profound, unscripted terror. "Look at the Blacksmith," Marcus whispered, pointing. Standing near the anvil was a massive, bearded NPC named Brog. In the base game, Brog existed solely to repair player armor for a small f*e of copper coins. His only line of dialogue was, "Steel wins battles, but gold wins wars. Need repairs?" Brog was not offering repairs. He was holding his heavy forging hammer in a two-handed combat grip. He was pacing furiously back and forth, muttering to himself, his pixelated face contorted in a very real expression of panic.

But after years of repeated pregnancies, my body was weak and fragile. He easily grabbed my neck and slowly crushed my windpipe. He told me that the daughter who had been sent away had already died of illness long ago. Everything went black before my eyes, and I violently coughed up blood and died. After my death, he threw my and my daughter's corpses into the wilderness to be devoured by hungry wolves. He then ceremoniously married Briar, who was five months pregnant. Damien was focused on getting sons to inherit the throne, but I learned that I had awakened the Creator Goddess bloodline after my death, and my daughters would have inherited ancient power to end this apocalypse.

Clutching the Beast Supreme Bone, he gathered all his strength and smashed it right into the ape's brow. The demon ape staggered as a crack split open between its brows. At the same moment, the light faded. Attwell sensed it. His heart skipped a beat when he saw it. "Young man, instead of running, you actually went on to attack!" Gideon ignored him. He pulled out the bronze, broken blade and jammed it into the crack in the ape's forehead. Then, with the Earthcore Flame in one hand and the netherflame in the other, he forced the crack open, aiming to grab the supreme core inside.

"Harl, give me the heaviest hammer in the Great Forge. The one your father used to break the first obsidian vein." ​Harl nodded, returning minutes later with a massive, rusted sledgehammer that smelled of sweat, oil, and ancient iron. ​I took the hammer in my silver hands. I didn't use my strength; I used the connection I had with the mountain. I felt the pulse of the survivors, the fear of the lunar exiles, and the stubbornness of the smiths. I channeled it all into a single, massive strike against the primary intake valve of the silver engine.

Yet one day, they would be her subjects. The blacksmith stood dutifully at the anvil, his massive frame silhouetted against fire. His ashen, both by colour and the ashes of the coal, made some sense as to why his hair was tied back. Revealing a face lined with soot and scars. His arms, corded with decades of labour, swung a huge hammer, as though it were weightless, in a rhythm that seemed to shake the very ground. Sparks leapt like dying stars around him, but he didn't once flinch. This forge, like all forges, was run by the Wingless.