Chapter 24: Helion Core [9]
The dragon’s claw came down. Its shadow swallowed both Leon and Legion completely.
"...Damn it." Leon tried to move. His legs had stopped listening entirely.
Legion’s hand was still on his sword. His grip was barely there. "...Guess this is it."
CLANG!
A crimson scythe appeared between the claw and the two of them, not quite touching the dragon’s scales — a gap of a few inches, raw mana holding the space, the impact sending a violent shockwave rolling through the entire chamber.
The dragon’s claw stopped. Couldn’t descend another inch.
"...Huh?" Leon looked up.
Seris stood in front of them.
One hand held the scythe overhead. Crimson mana churned around her. She just stood there, holding back an S-Rank dragon’s claw.
The dragon pushed harder. She didn’t move back. Not even half a step.
"...How rude." Her crimson eyes lifted to the dragon’s face. "I was perfectly content watching from the side. And now you’ve made me work." The aura around her shifted. "How troublesome."
BOOM.
The crimson aura erupted outward in one violent pulse.
The dragon’s claw launched backward. Its whole body staggered three steps, the stone floor cracking under its retreat.
Leon and Legion stared at the empty air where an S-Rank dragon’s claw had just been redirected by a single burst of mana from a standing woman who still hadn’t changed her expression.
Neither of them said anything. There wasn’t much to say.
_____
At the back of the chamber, under a pile of broken stone, one eye opened.
Alden looked at the notification hovering in front of him.
’...Third Act?’
He pushed rubble off himself and sat up slowly. Pain ran through everything. He ignored most of it and focused on the screen.
[Soul Forge]
[Description: A manifestation of creation born from harvested souls. By analyzing the resonance between compatible Blueprints and their Concepts, the forge reconstructs soul patterns into entirely new existences.]
He read it twice.
"...Who wrote these descriptions?"
He opened the interface anyway.
"Soul Forge — open."
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Soul Forge
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Available Blueprints:
▶ Spider
▶ Wolf
▶ Owl
▶ Firefly
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Available Concepts:
▶ Keen Hearing
▶ Predator’s Instinct
▶ Razor Claw
▶ Thread
▶ Prediction
▶ Glow
▶ Insight
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Select: Blueprint + Concept
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Alden stared at it.
’Don’t tell me...’ His heartbeat picked up.
’I can make something?’
Every Act of Soul Rendering had surprised him. Soul Extraction. Soul Library. He’d thought he understood the pattern. Then Soul Forge opened up and now he was sitting in rubble bleeding from his temple looking at a crafting screen while an S-Rank dragon tried to kill his companions.
A grin started forming before he could stop it.
’This skill is absolutely insane.’
He focused.
’I need something that can deal with that dragon. Right now. What do I have?’
Spider. Wolf. Owl. Firefly.
’Spider’s my strongest. B-Rank. If Blueprint rank determines what comes out, that’s my best option.’
He looked at the Concepts.
’Dragon breathes fire. Counter that somehow. Spider and Glow — maybe the light interferes with its heat? Or blinds the eye?’
He selected them.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Selected Blueprint: Spider
Selected Concept: Glow
Analyzing...
Compatibility: 12%
Warning — Crafting Success Rate: Extremely Low
High probability of structural collapse during creation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
’Twelve percent?’ He cancelled immediately.
’Can’t gamble on twelve percent in the middle of a boss fight. I need something stable.’
He looked at the list again. Prediction. Thread. Glow. Predator’s Instinct. His eyes kept coming back to the Wolf Blueprint.
It was a C rank beast for which he hesitated before proceeding with it.
’Can I combine multiple Concepts into one creation?’
He tried it.
Wolf + Prediction + Glow.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Selected Blueprint: Wolf
Selected Concepts:
Prediction + Glow
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Analyzing Compatibility...
Prediction ✔ Compatible
Glow ✔ Compatible
Wolf Blueprint naturally enhances instinct.
Prediction synchronizes.
Glow mutates the soul pattern.
Compatibility: 73%
Result: Stable Configuration
Proceed?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
’Seventy-three percent? That’s much better!’
"Yes." He didn’t hesitate. "Proceed."
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Crafting Requirements
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Wolf Soul Fragments ×10
Owned: ×39 ✓
Firefly Soul Fragments ×5
Owned: ×52 ✓
Spider Soul Fragments ×3
Owned: ×19 ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Proceed with Crafting?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
’Ten Wolf Fragments?! Spider Fragments too?! This burns through my reserves!’ He clicked his tongue. ’So, Soul Fragments are the fuel for this whole system.’
He looked at the battlefield.
Seris was exchanging blows with the dragon, her scythe leaving sparks on its scales with every collision, crimson mana flaring with each hit. Leon and Legion were trying to get back on their feet. Neither was ready to fight again yet.
’No time to hesitate about costs.’
"Proceed."
Brilliant white light erupted from the space in front of him.
Soul particles gathered from everywhere at once, swirling inward, condensing, moving too fast to track individually. The whole chamber lit up with it.
Alden narrowed his eyes and watched the silhouette forming inside the light.
Four legs. A long tail. A head tilting upward with quiet dignity.
The light faded.
A wolf stood in front of him.
Larger than the ones he’d hunted in the Ravenveil grounds. Snow-white fur without a single dark strand. Flames danced at the tips of its ears and along its tail, burning steady like they’d always been there. Crimson eyes, framed by red markings that spread outward like embers caught in wind, looking directly at him.
[Soul Successfully Forged!]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Unregistered
Type: Forged Soul
Beast: Fire Wolf
Rank: B
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"...Whoa." He actually said it out loud.
The Fire Wolf stepped toward him. Then it stopped and slowly lowered its head.
’It’s... bowing to me?’
"You recognize me as your creator." He couldn’t help the smile. "Is that it?"
He reached out carefully and put his hand on top of its head.
The wolf’s eyes closed. A deep rumble started low in its chest, satisfied. The flames along its tail swayed back and forth with obvious enthusiasm.
Alden laughed despite himself. "...You’re actually kind of adorable for something I made to fight a dragon."
ROOOAAARRR.
The chamber shook.
Alden’s smile dropped immediately.
’Wait, I completely forgot about the dragon.’
He looked up. Seris was still at the front, trading blows with the regenerating beast, and while she was holding it she’d been doing that for a while now and even she wasn’t going to hold an S-Rank indefinitely. Leon and Legion were on their knees. Getting up, but slowly.
Alden pushed himself to his feet.
He looked down at the wolf.
’It needs a name doesn’t it?’
"Hmm... how about—"
"...Pyrion?"
The wolf’s head came up immediately. Crimson eyes fixed on him, waiting.
Alden raised one arm and pointed at the dragon across the chamber.
"You ready buddy?"
Pyrion tilted its head back.
"AWWOOOOOO!!"
White flames erupted around its body in a sudden wave, the fire spreading outward across its fur and then pulling back in tight, contained and intense and bright. The howl rang through the entire underground chamber and bounced back from every wall.
Across the space, the dragon’s remaining eye turned toward the sound.
Alden grinned.
"...Let’s hunt ourselves a dragon."