Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Chapter 1385. Fastest Members

Since Nädel provided the boots, it was time for the boots.

Sivri carefully placed down her tools as Cerberus, Oz, and Seth assembled in front of the Anvil. Shortly after, the workshop, once again, was rattling and the tools she had just put down threatened to jump off the workbench. Oz struck its chords, and Sethʼs voice joined the fray with a low rumble. His demonic chanting threw her into a shallow illusion.

In front of her, she found a dirty black river that promised escape from the surrounding darkness. I beckoned for affection, but she stepped forward to follow. It was an untouchable darkness, and she dove into a completely different world, like a distorted dream.

She fell into a mouth of madness. Deep down into a darkness, a hollow that held no tomorrow. In the darkness rose pictures of a past she had never experienced. Pictures of a better dream surfaced, bleached and distorted.

Only now did she realize that she was actually moving. moving along the dirty black river, and it was her passing that distorted these memories into a macabre nightmare. In this mouth of madness, she was breaking through a tomorrow that never came as she dove into the hollow. Like a demon, she was speeding through the dream and tainting it with her presence.

The pictures and acceleration became crazier as time went on, as if elevating the madness she was experiencing. As a pure onlooker, unaffected by the vision, she actually started to appreciate a kind of fiendish beauty in this journey. It was like a metaphor. One could not pass a place without changing it, and just because things became distorted from the original dream, it didnʼt mean they were worse.

The golden dwarf had just started gaining profound insight when the vision started fading away, and the ballad fell silent. She had no idea how much time had passed, but the scale that had been lying on the anvil had turned into a pair of greaves and sabatons that had been attached to Nädelʼs pair of boots.

“What song was that?” Sivri asked, curious, seeing that Seth took a short break. He took a swig from the water bottle before he looked up to answer.

“Itʼs called Speeding Demon, a ballad calling upon the favor of Seere. Itʼs a song from one of my favorite demon bards,” the Infernal Scald shared with her.

“Seere? What kind of demon is that?” the golden dwarf asked, interested. What kind of demon would facilitate such a nightmarish, yet profound vision? She couldnʼt help but be curious.

“Itʼs one of the more good-natured ones. You could say he is similar to Hermes in some ways, as he acts as a kind of messenger across the world,” the blacksmith tried to explain based on his own, rather limited knowledge. He couldnʼt be an expert in every demon that existed; there were a lot.

“I see...” the dwarf said in thought. She ended the conversation there and left Seth to continue on the boots, while she returned to her bench, still thinking of the insight she thought to have gained. However, the more she tried to grasp it, the quicker it fled from her mind. Just like a dream.

...

Speeding Demon was actually a very important ballad for the whole armor, considering the overall focus of the set was speed. It created the Ability of , which had actually cost Seth a couple of souls to get even a low-ranking version of.

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There were two big benefits of this ability. One was a power similar to , or short-range teleportation, except it wasnʼt. It was actually the ability to ignore oneʼs own inertia, enabling the user to create erratic and counterintuitive movements in battle.

Although Seere was known as a demon that could vanish and appear wherever it wanted, this wasnʼt a power he could get with a simple ballad. But that wasnʼt the point; the actual goal was the second effect of the ability.

Someone moving at high speeds also needed the ability to react. Seth had solved it for himself by using , which gave him incredible dynamic vision and some increase in reaction time; raised both to a certain extent to allow the usage of the power. This way, Faenys would be able to keep up with her own speed, once the armor was equipped... hopefully.

For the further enchantment of the boots, Seth acquired an enchantment that made the demonic skill even more necessary. He bought the Glide Boots, a relic-rated pair of shoes, from the Auction House to get it.

The Enchantment granted the effect Water Striderʼs Step, and allowed one to move in a similar fashion to a water strider, was the description. What it felt like when he tested the boost was like it lowered air resistance and increased inertia, so one didnʼt lose speed until their next step.

That was Seth trying to explain the feeling in technical terms. What exactly it was, he still couldnʼt understand even after learning it. What he understood was that it was fundamentally different from the usual increase in movement speed, which just felt like running fast became easier.

Despite only giving only 10% additional Movement speed, it felt like he was at least 30-40% faster, thanks to the Water Striderʼs Step effect. Seth had the inkling that the enchantment really shone the higher the speed got.

The only drawback was that it was a set- enchantment. So he couldnʼt put one on each boot, but needed to engrave one half on each piece. Considering how interesting its effect was, it wasnʼt a big price, in Sethʼs opinion.

Especially when he imagined Faenys as a blue silver knight gliding around as if she were skating on ice, but with speeds close to a bullet train. Yes, Yes, she would definitely need , and if it was only to kill her momentum and brake ...

And like this, Seth already reached the stage of forging the soul armament. Had Seth known there would be so much flight speed boost, he may have tried to get a soul that could allow Feanys to smile. If he had the points to spare, he would have used the Soaring Immortal effect on the boots.

Although he had also gained the Soaring Immortal enchantment when he dismantled the sword of Elder Gack, he lacked the needed materials for Rún to even try. Even then, the golem judged his chances of succeeding low. Despite both being legendary cultivator enchantments, the Soaring Immortal was a few steps above the Ten Thousand Poison Valley enchantment.

Alas, he could only keep forging forward on the path he had laid out. Still, this was a good soul, as it would solve the stamina problem that could come with extreme speed. The blacksmith smiled a little when he remembered TanoʼMolʼs slightly uncomfortable expression when selling this soul.

There was not a lot to it, and it was not overwhelmingly impressive, but it covered some of the weaknesses that were expected to come up. They all came as passive effects that raised stamina and lowered the energy needed to move.

No matter how far the goal or how steep the mountain, Faenys would become the little engine that could. And to go even further and tie in with the Water Striders Step, Seth engraved the soul boot with Olympian Levity once they were finished.

As the name implied, the enchantment made one feel lighter, by increasing strength, agility, and speed multipliers to a certain extent.. Seth was sure this would be enough to help Faenys become one of the fastest members of Minas Mar.