Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

---Delta, Minas Mar---

After a moment of communing with Oz, his demonic lyre possessed by the soul of a great demon bard, Seth decided to give Azzo’s suggestion a chance. “I will survive” was not necessarily a song fit for engraving.

The song showed its best effects when used as a forging ballad or directly sung in battle. In the former case, it could allow an item to repair itself when durability fell below half. The latter could buff, and help allies to recover when they were close to death. However, it could only act as an emergency aid since the power of healing was proportional to the missing health.

~ It used to be my favorite song, so much so I would even sing it during Karaoke. But I always lacked the talent to become a bard myself. ~ Azzo swooned, remembering her favorite song. If she wasn’t a demon, the bard may have expected there to be a deeper meaning behind her loving this song.

~ Do you like it enough to have it etched on your soul? ~ Seth asked her with a smirk. As a matter of fact, the soul enchantment was not as important as usual to the blacksmith, since adding the soul was mostly to power the master-tier enchantments on the shield.

This was why he was ready to experiment a little. Azzo was an ego soul, with a voice skill and she liked the song itself. Experience told him that there might be an interesting synergy hidden somewhere in there.

~Etch on my soul? That is what you are going to do? ~ he could hear her excitement. After signing the soul contract, she had accepted her subordination and acted now quite open with him

~Do it! Finally, I can connect to this song on an even deeper level! ~ the demoness answered enthusiastically.

~That’s the spirit,” the blacksmith spoke out loud and started forging Azzo’s soul into the spectral mirror image of the Mountain borer scale shield. It was when he wanted to start etching that-

He found that his acid well was empty. Only then did the blacksmith remember that he had emptied it when he finished the Fangs of Apep.

~ Give me a moment. ~ he told the soul and left the workshop with quick steps. Although it had started because of a slight curiosity, now Seth wanted to etch this song onto the soul and wouldn’t settle for anything less.

As such, his quick steps led him out of the workshop, where he stopped when he realized what he was doing. “Tower, to the alchemy labs!” Using the wizard tower's teleport technology he instantly appeared at the doors of the alchemy laboratories, where Alison, Evee, and the other alchemists that joined them were working.

“Alison, did you already finish the new batch of soul acid for me-?” he barged into her office behind the lab, where instantly stopped, rooted to the ground. Standing face to face with a half-naked Alison and an almost completely undressed Neeco Booz, Seth was locked in an awkward silence as the two parties stared at each other.

She was unmistakably telling Seth with her stare to screw of, however, the blacksmith pretended not to get the hint. He wanted the acid; he wasn’t going to leave without it. It was a contest of will, and the blacksmith finally won.

Finally, Alison lifted one of her arms, while covering herself with the other. “It’s in the cabinet over there,” she said, her voice full of restrained emotions. Taking a deep breath and throwing another glance, Seth stepped to the cabinet where he quickly found the vial with acid.

“Cool, thanks and... We will not talk about this but... go to your room to do that. Someone could barge in and catch you two,” leaving behind these wise words, Seth quickly fled the room, leaving an Alison bursting with anger behind.

Three steps out of the lab, Seth called upon the power of teleportation and reappeared in front of his workshop. Safe from Alison and her lust-fueled rage.

“Tower, Alison is blocked for the rest of the day from using the teleport function to get close to the workshops,” he gave a restriction, just to be sure.

With a new pot of Acid, Seth could finally return to the task at hand. There had really been enough interruptions in the making of this single shield. It was time to finish this once and for all! Energetically, Seth started etching the song onto the spectral shield while acting as the medium that channeled the demonic power of the song into the runes.

He had never used the ballad itself, so the process of etching was a little awkward, as he was a stranger to the demon backing this text. What he could feel from the energy flowing through him was unlike what he got from most demonic ballads.

The essence was quite positive. Like the song text, it felt like righteous anger, but also hope, resistance, and love. A combination that did not fit the image of demons, but Seth knew, that there were many demon gods, and there were some that were not that bad in nature. Although he had never heard of the demon Gory’A Naygor, it seemed to counts to the better ones.

~I can feel it! This power! YES! ~ Azzo exclaimed before falling into a murmur of unintelligible moans and finally stopping. Seth was glad the demon had stopped telling him, as he felt very awkward, having a foreign voice moaning in his mind.

The next steps were already routine for the blacksmith, Inserting the soul into the shield, and baptizing it in the water of Stys happened almost automatically.

<Ding! You have created a legendary item!>

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

<Ding! A synergy between materials has changed your item!>

The familiar announcements rang in his head as the shield with the soul were fused to become a completely new item.

<Azzo, the Pangolion Shield

Legendary

Phys.Def:2500

Mag.Def: 2000

Durability: 3200

1. Ground Defense

2. Trait: Predator’s Rule

3. +35% Earth Affinity

4. Azzo’s Combat

5. +125 Strength

6. +125 Endurance

7. Toggle Effect: Hymn of the Survivor

8. Active Skill: Earth Escape

9. Active Skill: Earth Shackle

A reforged and improved legendary shield, fashioned from the scale of a Mountain Borer. This new refined rendition is the work of Master Smith, the first Master Enchanter and Master Blacksmith of Urth. A mix of mysterious and demonic means have given new life to the formerly plain and broken shield originally created by Master Muck.

Requirement: Azzo’s or Smith’s Acknowledgement>

Seth was inspecting the various effects that had been added to the shield. Most of them were what he expected, others were a welcome surprise. For example, he expected for the master tier enchantment to experience an improvement through his various means, enhancing the addition of 100 to 125 points per enchantment

A welcome surprise was that Azzo’s affinity for combat had directly turned into an effect that could improve the wearer's combat awareness and skills by several levels, depending on the skills affinity with Azzo’s fighting style.

Another was the skill <Earth Shackle> which was a snare with the wearer at the center and a radios of ten meters. Most likely this was the effect of Azzo's affinity for earth elemental skills and the scale's disposition.

The most interesting one, the one he had been looking forward to, was the effect of “I will survive”, which had fused with Azzo’s <Lion Roar> skill. The blacksmith actually had to chuckle when he read the effect of this option, which counted neither as a skill, nor as a normal effect, but a toggle effect.

<Toggle Effect: Hymn of the Survivor

When the wearer is close to death, he can activate the Hymn of the Survivor. Azzo will proceed to sing the hymn of the survivor.

Effect 1: Constantly recover the wearer’s and his allies' health up to 50% as long as the music is playing. The song plays until the effect is stopped, or Azzo has no more mana.

Effect 2: While the music is playing, Opponents may lose focus as agro is reduced.>

This could greatly enhance not just the wearer's survivability, but even that of their party as it could affect anyone who heard it. This was a truly great power for a tank to wield, although they would have to see how good it would really be in the field.

There was just one thing that Seth couldn’t come to like. The name. This time he really was a little satisfied with the name, as “Pangolion Shield” sounded a little stupid for anyone who knew that it was a mix of the words pangolin and lion.

In light of the new effect that had been created, which technically allowed the shield to literally sing, Seth decided to change the name of the shield to “Azzo, Caroling of the Mountain King” since it was a singing shield, with a lion (the king of beasts) demon’s soul and made of a mountain borer’s scale.

At this moment, he finally put down the shield, really glad that he was finally able to finish this shield. All it took was making an enemy of a demon king and, maybe even more dangerous, disrupting Alison during the deed. He felt like this item had come at a much higher cost than many of his previous legendary items...

Seth hoped Bement would know to appreciate his new shield, if he didn’t the blacksmith would have to teach him a lesson.