Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2058

In the forge, sweat rolled down Sunny's body as he hammered the incandescent bar of blessed alloy. Furious white sparks danced in the air — these ones not the immaterial sparks of soul essence, but the very real, white-hot particles of burning metal. The heat was sweltering, and the shadows flowed as the brilliant flames danced in the immolating furnace.

Sunny would have already singed his hair and received countless terrible burns if not for the Onyx Shell, which protected him against heat and fire. His expression was focused, and his hand was steady, delivering devastating blows of the black hammer at a steady rhythm.

The cadence of his blows and the ringing of metal filled the dark expanse of the forge chamber, which was hidden from the world in its own dimension, with a furious, but beautiful melody.

The force he unleashed with each blow was enough to shatter the gates of a castle and topple its walls, sunder mountains and split the earth. However, the blessed alloy resisted it stubbornly, putting up an exhausting fight.

Still… Sunny was not one to lose a battle.

He hammered the bar of alloy to flatten it, then folded it and repeated the process — again, and again, and again, layering the blessed steel over itself countless times. This was not done to remove impurities — there were none — but rather to make the composition of the future blade uniform, spreading the ashes, the obsidian dust, and the remnants of his blood across its length evenly.

From time to time, he would thrust the bar of alloy back into the furnace and allow the incinerating white flames burning within to lick it freely. He also steadily fed more fuel to the fire — wood of the ancient, abominable trees that grew in the Hollows of Godgrave, and from the Burned Forest as well.

And then, at some point…

Something strange happened.

The fire suddenly grew weaker, forcing him to add more fuel to feed it, and do it more frequently. Sunny studied the furnace for a few moments before realizing what was happening.

The blessed alloy was absorbing the soul flame. Every time he thrust it into the furnace, the incandescent metal drank the fire like a man dying of thirst in the desert. As such, the holy white flame permeated the alloy, changing it on a fundamental level and becoming one with it.

And at the same time, the weave of the Memory he was still keeping from collapsing blazed with a new radiance, infused with the flame, as well.

The ethereal string of essence suddenly burned his fingers, and his inky-black hands caught fire. For a few moments, the hands made of shadows were wreathed in blinding white flame. Then, they started to crumble. Only Weaver's Needle, which he held in his real hand, remained unaffected, still emanating a soft golden glow.

But one needle was not enough.

Gritting his teeth, Sunny endured the blinding pain and called upon the shadows, rebuilding his hands at the same speed as the flames were devouring them. Just like that, he continued to weave while burning — suffering, being turned to ash, and then being reborn from the shadows.

His already pale face turned deathly white, but Sunny did not halt his work even for a moment.

Just as his other incarnation was weaving a vast tapestry of essence strings in the dream world, he was doing the same here, repeating its every motion with absolute precision.

At first, the two spellweaves were identical. But soon, the patterns of essence strings diverged, each creating a unique tapestry. These tapestries, however, were intimately tied — each was one part of a single whole, meant to be seamlessly connected like two pieces of a vast puzzle.

The forging hall of the Marvelous Mimic was filled with deafening ringing, flashes of light, and unbearable heat for a while.

After some time — and eternity, perhaps — Sunny wiped the sweat off his brow and inhaled deeply, feeling the sizzling air scorch his burning lungs. His muscles were burning, too, having endured more strain than they would have in the most dire of battles.

But he was finally satisfied with the alloy, having judged that it was ready to be shaped.

Thrusting the incandescent bar of blessed metal into the furnace one more time, he allowed himself a moment of respite. The cool water from the Endless Spring touched his lips and flowed into his parched throat, replenishing his strength and making him feel a sense of tranquil bliss.

Pouring some of it on his head, Sunny shook his wet hair and let out a satisfied sigh. Then, grasping the handle he had fashioned out of scrap metal, he pulled the blessed alloy out of the furnace and placed it on the anvil once again.

'Grow heavy…'

Raising the Soul Serpent, he made his hand as heavy as a mountain with the help of the Onyx Shell and delivered another crushing hammer blow to the radiant metal.

Now, it was time to shape the sword.

Alternating between heavy blows that were meant to draw out the metal and light blows to shape it, Sunny set about the difficult task of turning the bar of the blessed alloy into a blade. �

He was forging a longsword — Neph's preferred type of sword, as well as the original form of the Dream Blade. The blade had to be more than a meter long, with a very slight taper, and the tang adding another thirty centimeters or so. In the end, the entire sword would be close to one and a half meters in length, which was a lot of steel to forge, quench, temper, polish, and sharpen.

There was also the crossguard, the pommel, and the hilt to be fashioned and fitted onto the tang.

There could be no mistake, no time to rest.

The work was only just starting…

Absolutely focused, Sunny continued to hammer the blessed alloy. The incandescent metal stretched out under his blows, turning into a semblance of a long, narrow blade…

Sweat poured down his face, boiling and evaporating moments later.

***

In Neph's dream, Sunny continued to create the weave. _{ƒrēewebnovel.com}

It was vast and infinitely complex — much more complicated than what he was simultaneously creating in the forge of the Marvelous Mimic.

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify