Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“Originally, their representative Natina and her troops were supposed to enter Delta through the System Church next Week. After their arrival, we were supposed to return to Chrona and leave the branch to Spatia's priests,” Simon explained how Spatia was meant to arrive if everything went as planned.

Seth, Leana, Mary, Commander Garroun, some others, and Simon sat together at a table in the System Church of Delta, to make a rough outline of the current situation and their plans from now on.

Their biggest problem was that they didn't know how much longer they had before the troops of Spatia arrived. Simon's information revealed that they had at least five days until they would try to enter through the system church.

Considering the demon attack, they guessed that they planned to wait for the demons to wipe out Delta and the remaining soldiers, before using the church's teleport formation to officially enter Urth and “heroically” strike back the demonic forces. At least this plan was thwarted with the entrance of Minas Mar and their takeover of Delta.

“We should occupy the System Church in Delta and block cross-world travel until people from the order of Minas Mar have completely taken over operations here,” Mary suggested the obvious next step.

Over the past months, and with Simon's help, Minas Mar had reared their own branch of the System Church in Minas Mar, made up of urthan priests and personnel. Like the Adventurer's Guild, the church's only official affiliation was with their god. But obviously, they were not really removed from the secular world and every greater power had their own orders or branches of the Church, more loyal to them and their ideals.

Everyone nodded at Mary's suggestion. With the teleport portal at the center of Delta blocked, Spatia would have to enter Urth somewhere else and travel to Delta. Nobody on the table suggested using this to set a trap. Letting the enemy in and fighting them in the middle of the city, was almost guaranteed to lose them the city, even if they won the battle.

“How long do you think they will need to come to Delta when they realize that the teleport is blocked?” Mary asked in the round. Although some of them had experience with Spatia, especially Garroun as a military expert, they couldn't guess how much longer they would have.

“Unfortunately, we have no information about the location of Spatia's entry point to Urth. there could also be more than one,” Leana shared her worries. “ The best guess would be that they have at least one close to Y-City since they approached that district first.”

“We also don't know how fast the travel,” Garroun added, enforcing the point that they pretty much had no idea at all.

“Which means that the only thing we know for certain is the five days until they were originally scheduled to arrive,” Seth summed it all up. “In that case, I don't have the time for these tea parties. I will leave the management and rearrangement to you. I will be at the workshop,” the blacksmith added and stood up.

Seth was of the opinion, that he had something more important to do. The last two encounters had raised a concern in his mind. Apart from the immortal, both incidences had demons that were close to attaining the legendary status as demons.

Bragmomal himself was “just” a legendary demon, but he had several demons comparable to Al'Zalsar in level when she was a lich under him. Then what about Spatia? They were undoubtedly a greater force than Bragmomal as they had an undetermined number of legends under them.

Of course, there weren't tens of them, but that wasn't the point. Just how many near-legendary people would they have? Even when they didn't send their full forces to Urth, what if there were more than they anticipated? Maybe not many legends, but dozens of people in the late 100s were just as bad.

He had spoken with Leana about his worries. As the princess of an empire comparable to Spatia, she was the best source of information. However, even she as a Princess had no idea about the number of legends her own empire had, much less how many Spatia was actually hiding. It was similar for people in the late 100s.

She only had slightly more than the common knowledge of the topic. Usually, the kingdoms across the Pathworks, with enough power to make a name for themselves had 2-3 legendary people. Normal factions within a world, seldom even had one.

The princess had assured him that Minas Mar was doing very well. With the addition of Al'Zalsar, there were now four confirmed legends in Minas Mar. Apart from her, there were many beings with the potential of becoming legends in the near future, as well as the inner members who were all decked out in legendary and relic-rated equipment.

Still, Their opponent was a terrifying Necromancer. Natina wouldn't have stayed idle either. Not after she got an undead dragon. Just how many undead would she have gathered in the meantime? It was a lot easier for her to kill and resurrect a strong beast than it was to make a golem. Even with the golem forge.

Necromancers fought in numbers and nothing stopped her from farming a high number of super-powerful troops. Seth simply worried that they still didn't have enough firepower to ensure their victory.

Everyone intended to prepare for a gruesome battle and hoped for a hard-fought victory, but not the blacksmith. Some may say he lacked emotional maturity, or maybe he was even “naive”, but Seth wasn't ready to accept the loss of people as an inevitable outcome of war. What he wanted was a certain, overwhelming victory. The enemy should bash their head in against their defenses and die before anyone even had the chance to get harmed.

To get as close as possible to this ideal, he had five days. Just five guaranteed days. Would making Nam's or Dowloon's items help a lot? No. There wasn't any time for them either. Weapons and armor wouldn't help much. His thoughts wandered to his talk with Al'Zalsar a few days ago, after she suddenly appeared in the meeting.

...

“So my dream was true, you actually became a legend.” the blacksmith said. The two were sitting together in a cozy room adjacent to the meeting room and drank a cup of hot beverages the sorceress had brought from her journey.

The mysterious coffee she bought from the people of Mistec actually permanently raised his attributes, which had been stagnant for quite a while now. His Agility had reached 325 points and his Endurance 343.

“But why did you only come now?” Seth asked her. They didn't have much time to talk about her story, when she arrived earlier, however, unlike the others, Seth knew that she had been a legend for a while. And that she slew a dragon.

“... I didn't know legends could already enter this world...” she admitted a little embarrassed. “ I stayed close to a port to Urth in a different world and waited for news to enter. "

“So, how did you kill the dragon?” Seth asked the juicy stuff.

As they drank the coffee, Al'zalsar told him the story of her advancement, which almost had him spit out the coffee again. He heard about the dragon Tydis and her quest for revenge for the first time.

Ultimately, the sorceress had managed to slay the beast that had interrupted her first ascension to become a legend and reach this goal through this very feat. Of course, he congratulated her from the depth of his heart, but there was a more pressing question on his mind.

“Did you dismantle the body? Since you asked me to meet you separately like this, is it because you have a gift for me?” the blacksmith asked. Even if it was just a “lower” dragon, the materials from its body were legendary dragon stuff. How could he not look forward to it?

At Seth's glistening eyes, Al'Zalsar actually hesitated for a moment before she continued speaking.

“Yes, I dismantled it. And yes, I brought most of its body with me.”

..

After that, she had shown him the materials she harvested from her archenemy's body. Tydis was a sky-blue dragon, a sub-species specialized in magic. The damage negation couldn't compare to those of an ancient dragon, but they also had the effect of improving the power of magic and mana regeneration.

All of them were top-class materials and would make for some of the best legendary armaments he made so far, but he still remembered the process of making his own armor. Dragon materials were equally as tough to work with as they were powerful.

With the five days remaining, he wouldn't be able to finish many items. Maybe not even one. No, there was something else- One thing he was confident in. Something he kept pushing back because of the tournament and five days, may just be enough to do it.