Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“Did you get what you wanted?” Mike asked curiously.

“Yeah, a really good catch. I’m all giddy to go back to Minas Mar and see if my idea works.” the bard answered gleefully.

“Then we should return,” Mina stated with a smile. Seeing Seth all excited made her happy, too.

“Already? Fin still wanted to walk around a little more with everyone.” the fairy moaned in disappointment.

“We’ve already been here for hours,” Lyxiss commented.

“Yes, but Seth wasn’t with us.” Fin argued.

“We are soon going on a journey together. You can spend as much time as you want with him then.” the half-elf countered.

“She’s right, Fin. Once everything is prepared, we will probably have to travel for two or three weeks just to find Hyperboreas.” Seth explained.

Hearing that they would once again travel together seemed to cheer her up quite a bit. The party walked back through the crowded streets. Looking up at the night sky, they could witness one of the new spectacles of Delta.

As the sun left the sky, the floating islands above their head glowed in mystic lights. Using far sight, Seth was able to see the giant formation Al’Zalsar had roughly carved in a hurry. The colorful lights were caused by the abundant mana leaking from them.

In the night, it was as if many magical moons were filling the almost starless sky above the cityscape. It was a fascinating and alien sight to them, even now.

Arriving at the system church, they used the teleport formation to return to Minas Mar. It was late, so they split up. While everyone else went to bed, Seth got on his way to the workshop. He didn’t want to wait until tomorrow.

“Please join me quickly,” Mina said before leaving for their private quarters. She understood that she wouldn’t be able to convince him to wait, so she just told him to hurry.

Seth nodded before teleporting to the workshop.

What he wanted to make was a wielder for the Sacrilegious Labrys and for that he had come up with a few experimental methods to test.

The first step was separating Ceres from the Spear of bitter Mercy.

~Are you finally giving me a body? ~ it asked excitedly

~No, I just need the from the spear. You turn come later. ~ the blacksmith dashed its hopes.

That was right since the from Polter’s grandfather was not here yet, he decided to recycle the spear of bitter mercy. It was completely made of the precious metal. This was more than enough for a few golem cores.

Or one golem’s “nervous system”.

Seth added the spear, a simple small soul, copious amounts of , , and the Minotaur’s body to the storage of the golem forge, before selecting them as materials for the automated customization.

There was one more material, the arguably most important one for this experiment. The third of the hide of the white bull. The cursed material that had given the wyvern cuirass one of its most fearsome abilities and could have ended Seth’s career at one point.

A material he would still be unable to process, if not for the golem forge. As long as he was not the one processing it, nothing could happen. Of course, he wore his full equipment just in case… If this curse, unlike the dragon curse, was to lash back at him, he had a final trump card.

The Lucky Trinket. One of the items Al’Zalsar had once promised to enchant for him. It had now two additional options. The first was a skill called Little Laplace, which had a probability to change one’s own action to get a certain result in crafting.

Secondly, there was a 75% Curse Resistance option added to the ring. He trusted on these two and his luck, in case something went wrong.

He waited with bated breath as the golem forge went to work. As expected, the automated process chose the best fitting materials for the different parts of the golem, while transforming the original body.

This time, the process completely dismembered the body. Its bones and horns were strengthened with , while a fine net of formations was inlaid with the harvested from the spear.

A point to note was that the golem forge also added the function of mana gathering into the webs of formations on the bones. Seth had done a similar thing with and on some of his golems.

However, the effect of improved mana regeneration did not quite justify the cost of the materials. Although it meant that a golem would be quicker back on its feet, after losing all their mana, it was simply not worth it, doing so with all golems.

The network of refined all led to the golem core in its chest where the small soul was infused. The embalmed flesh and muscle were added back onto the reinforced skeleton. Then came the most crucial moment.

Instead of the original skin, the golem forge chose the hide of the white bull to re-skin the still muscular body. Although Seth had prepared for anything, he sighed in relief, when nothing happened. It was as he expected, as long as the curse had no direct target, it did not trigger.

With the last stretching, the finished Minotaur-Golem was released from the golem forge. It slowly opened its dim eyes, the soul was simply too small to power something so massive. But Seth had a reason for this because it was still far from finished.

Now that the frame was finished, Seth re-captured the small soul and harvested it from the golem. The beast’s eyes went completely dim. He did this because he had to make space for the Minotaur’s original soul, which he had refined in the meantime.

It had been necessary to take such a roundabout approach, because of the very last step. Seth didn’t have and could not make a blueprint that incorporated covering the embalmed body with a foreign

leather. He simply lacked the specific knowledge to plan this process.

Unfortunately, the Golem forge lacked a button for the “skinning and upholstering an embalmed golem body”. Seth had looked for it, he really did. This left the automatic customization as his only option to obtain this result.

His next step was infusing the original soul.

The soul of a mighty beast warrior, retaining a lot of its experience and skills of its previous life.>

The blacksmith had infused roughly twenty of the muddled souls he had managed to bring back from Keväti Kuinen increasing its size just enough to reach the massive label. It was thanks to the option to refine the souls, that he felt confident in doing so.

There was no armor big enough ready for the golem, but it was not important at this juncture, Seth had other plans.

Before infusing the new soul into the core, the only thing he connected the soul to other than the interface was the Sacrilegious Labrys. It felt right for it to be part of the golem, even when it was a risk for the next step.

He was working on it as if he was in a trance. As inspiration flooded through him. As he infused the soul into the core, a magic circle appeared around the golem, and Seth started singing in a deep demonic hum, to awaken the soul’s desires.

At his side, the demonic lyre appeared from his inventory and joined in into the tune. This was something Forgebrand was probably never able to do. Seth’s own method for artificial life, or even revival in some cases.

Was it a risk to revive a dungeon boss? Yes. But would it stop him? No.

Using the frame created by the golem forge as a base, flesh started growing on the hardened, desiccated-looking muscles. Life was flowing into the husk and recovering its former strength, no, even attaining new power.

After a bath in the waters of Styx, he heard a row of notifications.

Trait: Unlimited Stamina, Savage Warrior, Blasphemer

Race: Artificial Minotaur

Age:0

Affiliation: Minas Mar

Durability: 1000/1000

Mana: 10050

Strength:500

Dexterity:400

Agility: 400

Intelligence: 250

Willpower: 300

Endurance: 800

Personality: 20

Defense:

Physical: 20000

Magical: 15000

Poison Immunity

Mental Immunity

Status Anomaly Resistance: 70%

Magic Resistance 60%

…

Active Skill: Axe Mastery (Journeyman) lv.4

Active Skill: Berserk lv. 5

Active Skill: Warrior’s Roar lv. 4

Passive Skill: Physical Damage UP lv.6

Passive Skill: Improved Strength lv.5

Passive Skill: Close Quarter Combat (CQC)(Adept) lv. 3

Passive Skill: Curse of Nature

…>

Steam shot from its nostrils when it gave a loud snort, showing it was alive. Asterion grasped the labrys in his giant hands tightly. It fit his size perfectly. Intelligence was visible in the golem’s dark eyes.

Seth couldn’t help the big smile creeping on his face. Despite just being made, the Minotaur easily rivaled his elite golems that had been growing for a while. A harvested soul, revived in a frame made of its own body was the optimal condition to inherit most of its previous skills and a fairly developed ego, despite not having an ego soul.

On top of that, it had inherited the curse of the white bull. As it was alive, it could later equip armor, but not wearing any could also be a great advantage, as anyone who lands a strike would be hit by the curse of nature.

After it had assessed the situation, the Minotaur finally started moving.

“Master,” it said and the giant bull kneeled before him on one knee. One hand holding the Labrys, the other formed a fist above its core, showing fealty. Kneeling Asterion was on eye level with Seth.

“What are your commands?” it asked with a deep rumbling voice.

Despite its traits as savage warrior and blasphemer and the stories he had read about the Minotaur, Asterion seemed like quite the intelligent and serious fella. Seth patted the giant’s muscular shoulder.

“Relax a little. Welcome to Minas Mar.” he tried sounding cool, holding back the urge to hug and climb around on the giant golem. It had really worked!