The air of Tartarus was normally damp, sticky, and cold; it burned the throat with the stench of rotting metal, wastewater, and cheap acid. The streets were perpetually flooded with filthy runoff seeping down from the world above. But the moment you stepped into Blacksmith's Alley, that atmosphere changed as if sliced cleanly by a blade.
Here, the air was bone-dry. The heat was intense enough to make breathing difficult, straining the filters of my mask. White jets of steam burst from every corner, and the thunderous pounding of colossal hammers—powered by magma deep below—set the rhythm of the underground city. CLANG… CLANG… BOOM.
That sound was the beating heart of Tartarus.
I pulled my cloak tighter around myself. The filter of my gas mask whined at high speed, struggling to sift the dense sulfur, ash, and metal dust from the air. Both sides of the street were lined not with shops, but with doorless workshops that resembled the open maws of hell itself. Four-armed mutants hammered red-hot iron, elemental mages breathed fire directly into furnaces instead of using bellows, and dwarves engraved microscopic runes into weapons.
But this wasn't the place I was looking for. I didn't want an ordinary sword, an enchanted shield, or mass-produced armor.
I wanted art.
Art that bent the rules.
At the very end of the alley—far from the noise and crowds of the other forges—I stopped before a massive black door carved directly into a block of volcanic rock, one of the city's foundational pillars. There was no sign. No advertisement. No price list. Only a symbol above the door: an anvil made of molten metal that burned white-hot yet never melted.
The Forge of Hephaestus.
As I approached, invisible sensors detected my presence. VZZZT. A red laser swept over my mask.
"Shop is closed," an automatic voice said—metallic, soulless, and threatening. "Unauthorized entry is forbidden. Leave immediately, or defense protocols will be activated."
I smiled. I knew this defense system well. As the author, it had been a small detail I'd added purely to satisfy Hephaestus's ego.
"I don't have an appointment," I said calmly from beneath my mask. "But I have something that will interest your master. Deliver this message to him: 'I have solved the equation of the Everlasting Flame.'"
Silence.
The laser locked onto me.
One second.
Ten seconds.
Normally, anyone made to wait this long would have been shredded by the concealed turrets in the doorway. I was just about to turn as if to leave when the massive door began to open with a deafening roar, the ground shaking as though the mouth of a cavern itself were yawning open. A wave of searing heat blasted outward, snapping my cloak back and slamming into my face like an oven door thrown wide.
The interior was not a shop—it was an industrial cathedral. A cavern so vast its ceiling vanished into darkness. At its center stood a colossal furnace, like a miniature volcano fed by lava veins from deep underground, blue flames roaring from its core. And before it stood a massive figure, rhythmically raising and lowering a hammer the size of a man.
Hephaestus.
Rank: S (Production).
The most feared, most respected, and most ill-tempered name in the Neutral Zone.
He stood nearly two and a half meters tall. Not human, but a Half-Giant. His skin, hardened like leather from years of exposure to fire and radiation, had taken on a deep reddish hue. His beard was braided thickly, and at its tips small, undying flames burned like ornaments. He wore nothing but a fireproof leather apron; his muscular body was covered in burn scars and glowing rune tattoos.
He continued working as if he hadn't noticed me. With every strike of his hammer against the anvil, not sparks but small blue bolts of lightning cracked through the air. Each blow resounded like thunder.
I waited patiently. Interrupting an S-Rank while they worked was equivalent to suicide—especially when they were holding a hammer.
After about ten minutes, he plunged the glowing metal into a tank of hissing liquid.
HISSSSS.
Dense steam filled the cavern. When it cleared, Hephaestus slowly turned around. His eyes burned like live embers, as if he could melt a man with nothing but his gaze.
"The Everlasting Flame," he said. His voice sounded like two slabs of granite grinding together. "The last person who used that term tried to swindle me with a fake formula. I threw him into a pool of molten metal. I still use his bones as decoration."
He walked toward me. Each step made the ground tremble. His shadow fell over me.
"I hope you're not bluffing, little man. Because you're interrupting my work—and I don't like breaks."
I wasn't afraid. Or at least, I didn't show it. The mask hid my expression.
"I don't bluff," I said, slipping a hand into my pocket. "I trade."
I pulled out a sheet of paper—copied the night before from The Journal of the Forbidden God in the library and merged with modern chemistry. It was filled with complex chemical equations, notes written in the Ancient Tongue, and elements unknown to this world's periodic table. I handed it to him.
Hephaestus took the paper with his enormous, calloused, oil-stained fingers. At first, he glanced at it dismissively, like a man looking at an insect. Then his brow furrowed. As his eyes moved across the lines, the anger on his face shifted to surprise—then to pure, professional admiration.
"This…" he murmured, his voice softening. "Using Void Dust instead of dragon blood to stabilize the mana conduction coefficient? But that would disrupt the balance—no, wait. If inverse runecasting is applied during the cooling phase…"
His mind was running the simulation.
And he could see that it worked.
He snapped his head up and looked at me—not like an insect anymore, but like a rare ore.
"Where did you find this? This formula has been lost for centuries. It was considered theoretically impossible."
"Where I found it doesn't matter," I replied, clasping my hands behind my back. "What matters is whether it's useful to you."
"It is," Hephaestus said, slipping the paper into his pocket as if it were his most precious treasure. "With this, I can finally finish that cursed sword I've been working on for ten years. Very well, masked boy. You've got my attention. What do you want? Money? A unique weapon? Or the key to a city?"
"A weapon," I said. "But not one of the toys in your display. Custom-made. Designed for me."
Hephaestus laughed. The boom echoed through the cavern, dust raining from the ceiling.
"Custom-made? You'd need to be at least A-Rank just to lift my hammer. And my custom commissions require a kingdom's budget. Do you have the money?"
I took out the black chip in my pocket and tossed it into the air.
"85,000 Credits. And that formula."
Hephaestus caught the chip midair with his massive hand, like swatting a fly.
"Not bad. The formula is priceless, but the cash is light. Still… not enough for the time of an S-Rank master."
"It isn't," I agreed. "Because I'm not asking you for a finished weapon. I want something without a barrel or a blade. Just a hilt."
Hephaestus paused.
"A hilt? A sword without a blade? Do you want a razor handle?"
I extended my right arm, swept my cloak aside, and removed my glove. Grim writhed over my arm like a living black tattoo. Irritated by the intense heat and Hephaestus's overwhelming aura, it had risen into a spiked, swollen form atop my skin.
"This is my weapon," I said, indicating Grim. "It's a living weapon. It can change shape. But maintaining its form consumes my energy, and it disperses under physical impact. It's unstable."
I met Hephaestus's gaze.
"You need to make me a hilt that this creature can enter and form the 'blade.' The hilt must transmit my mana perfectly, serve as a mold for Grim—and most importantly—not shatter under my Chaos energy. Ordinary metals rot at my touch."
Hephaestus leaned closer to Grim, squinting until his nose was almost touching my arm.
"Void Slime…" he murmured in awe. "Rare. Extremely rare. And dangerous. This thing devours living matter. If I use ordinary steel, it'll corrode the metal. If I use mithril, it'll reject the mana flow."
He stroked his beard, alloys forming in his mind. A true artist in the grip of inspiration.
"I can do it," he finally said, his eyes gleaming. "I like this challenge. But I don't have the materials. I'll need Starsteel—it conducts mana and maintains physical form. And for the core of the hilt, Dark Iron."
"You already have Dark Iron," I said. "Tartarus itself is built on it. But Starsteel…"
"That part's your problem," Hephaestus said, turning back toward his forge. He picked up his hammer again. "I'm a blacksmith, not a miner or a thief. Bring me a pure ingot of Starsteel—and the rest of that formula. I know it's incomplete. Do that, and I'll forge you a hilt that even the gods would envy."
I hesitated.
Starsteel—metal harvested from fallen meteors, worth a fortune by the gram. The Academy vault had some. But breaking in was impossible. Outside, it could only be found in one place.
The Auction House.
And by sheer luck—or authorial convenience—there was a major auction tonight.
Midas's private collection.
"Deal," I said. "I'll bring you the metal. But I have one more condition."
Hephaestus glanced back over his shoulder.
"You're pushing your luck, little man."
"When you forge this weapon…" I said, the violet rings in my eyes flaring behind the glass of my mask, "…don't sign it. I don't want it recorded. I don't want anyone knowing it was made by Hephaestus. This will be a Ghost Weapon."
Hephaestus grinned. His teeth were metal-plated.
"Ghost weapons are my specialty, Raven. My unsigned works sell for more than the signed ones. Go. Bring me the metal. Return before my forge goes cold."
When I left the shop, the sudden drop in temperature fogged my mask's visor. I took a deep breath. The cold, filthy air filling my lungs grounded me.
Phase one was complete.
I had convinced the master.
Now came phase two—the harder one: getting into the Auction House and taking that metal from competitors who were richer, stronger, and almost certainly far more ruthless than me.
I touched the chip in my pocket. 85,000 Credits.
It might not be enough. Even the opening bid could be fifty thousand.
Grim, I thought. We may need to gather a bit more "loot" tonight.
At auctions, money isn't the only currency. Sometimes there's barter. Sometimes… coercion.
Prey, Grim replied, twisting beneath my skin. More prey.
I slipped into the dark alley. The lights of the Auction House shone at the city's center, calling to me like a lighthouse.
But before I went there, I had one small matter to deal with.
The second shadow following me.
Not a street thug—someone professional, hiding their aura and breath. An assassin.
Was he Draven's man? Or an agent of the High Tribunal?
It didn't matter.
In Tartarus, the rule was simple:
If you don't want to be hunted—be the hunter.
I turned into a side alley and melted into the shadows.