The Forge Beasts were nothing but scrap metal now. The colossal underground chamber still vibrated with the lingering mana of a god-tier slaughter. Ijji stood by the central furnace with wild, glowing eyes, the forge no longer spewing destructive fire, but pure liquid gold and deep shadow.
“The smithy recognizes you,” the blacksmith growled, his voice hoarse with adrenaline. “Bind your soul to the steel or be consumed by it!”
Nyx stepped forward first. Her mastery over Substance Control had taken on a terrifying shape here in the extreme heat of the furnace. The newly acquired Soulbound Lunar Veil fell smoothly over her shoulders. She raised her hand and sliced through the scorching air with a fluid motion. Where she once simply froze her surroundings, the icy cold of absolute moonlight darkness now flowed seamlessly with her shadows. A wall of midnight-black ice erupted from the floor with a loud crack, the lunar glow radiating from it so intensely cold that the flames of the furnace instantly hissed and died upon the slightest contact.
Beside her, Kael let his mechanical arm slide open. His own Substance Control focused entirely on the metal around them. He closed his eyes, and the ground and air bent to his absolute will. With a single thought, he activated his new Vector-Core. Metal shards from all over the smithy began to tremble, charging themselves with a blinding amount of mana and forming a lethal, humming halo around him.
“Let them come,” Kael spoke coolly, as the hovering metal shards aligned themselves like spears, ready to be launched at the destructive speed of a railgun. “Everything made of iron bends to us today.”
On the other side of the furnace, Juro lit his pipe with a calm motion. He was not a man of physical manipulation, but an absolute master of the spiritual arts of the Anima-Caster. The moment the tobacco ignited, the Ashen Plate responded. The heavy plates of his new Soulbound armor began to shift, forming a terrifying skull emblem on his chest that glowed brightly with the trapped souls of the slaughtered Forge Beasts. The thick, gray smoke from his pipe was drawn through the armor and expelled from the back, where the tendrils clumped together into colossal smoke monsters possessing brutal, tangible strength.
“A forge needs fire,” Juro murmured between two puffs, “but a revolution needs spirits.”
A loud blast interrupted him. Beat flew past, propelled by pure Mana Manifestation. His new Sabatons captured the raw energy thrusts he projected directly from his core, converting the spiritual force into violent, controlled kinetic explosions beneath his feet. It launched him through space like a bullet. He kicked off against a massive boulder, and before his foot even made actual contact, the built-up blue mana energy caused the stone to pulverize into fine dust with a thundering crash.
Vespera watched with amusement as the dust settled. As a Weaver, she rearranged the reality around her into tangible constructs. The Crown of the Void, the legendary hat of the Witch-queen, now rested on her head, opening floodgates to a nearly bottomless reservoir of mana. Her razor-thin threads were no longer just meant to bind enemies. With a subtle flick of her fingers, she wove the threads into invisible, razor-sharp traps and small shadow puppets that began to fight independently. She took a step back, gave a slight tug to an invisible string in the air, and a heavy anvil across the smithy folded in half silently as if it were made of paper.
“The threads of fate are sharper than any sword,” she whispered with a chilling smile.
Big Ren set his own blood in motion. His Morph-Class Chimera powers allowed him to transform his own flesh and blood, but the heavy Totem-Bracer on his arm now gave him absolute control. He no longer had to choose between the beasts within. The traits of the tiger, the wolf, and the dragon flowed through his body simultaneously. His arm swelled to monstrous, terrifying proportions, covered in a thick layer of ash and impenetrable dragon scales, while the claws of a tiger shot from his fingers. Behind him, the fierce, spiritual aura of the three apex predators loomed, ready to tear the world apart.
Meanwhile, Silarias stood in the exact center of the smithy, knee-deep in the white-hot ash of the central furnace. Upon his arms rested the legendary brother and sister. Frey formed the unshakable sentinel on his left arm, his mana throwing up a heavy gravity barrier that distorted the air. On his right, Freya flamed wildly, her solar energy so destructive that the stone floor beneath began to melt. Yet her energy was unstable, desperately searching for something she had lost along the way.
Then, the deepest core of the forge trembled. From the liquid gold rose a staff, woven from a mystical metal that seemed to weep with pure joy. Odr.
The moment Silarias closed his fingers around the shaft, the entire atmosphere in the room shifted. The wild, destructive flames of Freya calmed instantly, flowing over the metal of the staff like a warm, loving embrace. Frey and Freya were kin, but Odr was the missing half of Freya’s heart. By holding the staff, Silarias became the absolute pivot for these three divine souls. He spun the weapon around, and the gauntlets lit up in perfect harmony. Behind his back, the shadows merged into the mighty form of the Bansaday Flying Lion. The creature did not release a distorted roar, but unleashed a shockwave of pure presence and emotion that cracked the walls of the smithy and shattered every remaining illusion in the room into a thousand pieces.
Ijji looked at the reunion with open mouth and deep awe. “The search is over, Silarias. You have reunited the lovers. Use their power to reshape this world.”
“It is time,” Silarias said resolutely.
Gripping the staff Odr firmly, he walked toward the giant doors of the smithy. Frey and Freya pulsed on his fists with a divine, concentrated calm. The doors flew open, and the group stepped out into the howling blizzard. Behind him followed the Sovereigns in their new, overwhelming glory. Nyx walked by his side, the air around her freezing from her icy lunar glow. Juro followed like an unshakable, smoking tank. Beat left blue, kinetic explosions in the deep snow with every step he took. Vespera’s Crown of the Void gleamed in the dark, while Kael was surrounded by a constant whirlwind of razor-sharp metal, and Ren broke through walls of wind like a hybrid monster through the blizzard.
Down in the valley, the Inquisition commander held his breath. On the screens of his high-tech warships, all scanners went completely haywire at the same time. Seven bright lights emerged through the dense mist on the mountaintop.
“Those… those aren’t humans anymore,” the commander whispered with trembling fingers, blindly reaching for the fire button.
Silarias raised the staff Odr to the heavens. It was an surreal sight; bright sunlight and mystical moonlight broke through the thick cloud cover at the exact same moment. The seven Sovereigns stood side by side, their Soulbound gear shining in the storm. The silence that followed was oppressive, until a mad sound from the shadows of the smithy made the hair on their arms stand straight up.
“HAHAHAHAHA!” Ijji drove his sword into the central console of the smithy with brute force. “EVERLASTING SECRET FORGE… ACTIVATED! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!”
Above the furnace appeared a gigantic, floating hourglass of liquid mana. The sand, consisting of glistening soul dust, began to pour down at a racing speed. The walls of the mountain began to pulse and crack dangerously deep.
“Wait a minute!” Kael roared, his mechanical scanners immediately red-lining. “Is that thing restarting now?! If this entire mountain explodes, we’re getting kebabbed!”
A short, panicked silence fell among the warriors. Without exchanging a word, the seven Sovereigns immediately huddled together. A rapid circle of feverish whispering, nervous glances, and muttered murmurs followed. They looked at the hysterically laughing Ijji and then back at each other, until a new plan was forged within seconds in the absolute chaos.
With a loud blast, a collective eruption of aura exploded from the center of the group. The shockwave was so gigantic that the floating hourglass above the furnace froze for a fraction of a second. Silarias stepped forward again with the staff in his hand, though this time he scratched the back of his head a bit awkwardly.
“Uh… Ijji? Can we maybe share that spot in there? Because there are quite a few people who need to know about this…”
Before Silarias could finish his sentence, the blacksmith drowned him out with a voice that shook the deepest foundations of the mountain: “LET US FORGE TODAY AS IF THERE IS NO TOMORROW!”
That was the signal everyone had been waiting for.
A broad grin spread across Beat’s face. He reached deep into his sombrero, rustled wildly through the lining, and pulled out an item that instinctively made the others cover their ears. The Horn. The legendary instrument that long ago had sparked the very first flame of the rebellion and forged the Outcasts into one unbreakable family. Beat took a deep breath, braced himself, and forced his entire mana core through the instrument.
The resonance that followed was deafening, cutting straight through different dimensions. It vibrated audibly through the Iron Federation, echoed across the vast ice fields of the Benale, and penetrated deep into the command rooms of the Inquisition fleet.
The gigantic doors of the smithy flew completely off their hinges with a supersonic bang. As the Sovereigns stormed out, the sky above them split open. The clouds above the mountain spiraled together at a furious pace until Moria shot down from the sky like a blood-red comet. Her impact in the valley was gargantuan; a thirty-meter crater formed instantly, and the thick layer of snow turned into boiling steam in a fraction of a second. She rose to her feet, her blood-red aura so sharp that the descending snowflakes were sliced in half before they could even touch her body.
“Training is over,” Moria said with a chilling, calm voice. “Time for the real work.”
At the edge of the cliff, the ground began to tremble dangerously. The shadows of the massive rocks grew thicker and more compact, until Jorick simply stepped out of them as if walking into a familiar room. On his broad shoulder, he carried a giant stone pillar covered in glowing runes. His pure aura and presence were so heavy that nearby Inquisition reconnaissance drones spontaneously fell out of the sky from the intense gravitational pressure he unconsciously radiated.
Two bright flashes then illuminated the dark valley. Sato arrived with a wildly roaring sound on a motorcycle constructed entirely of pure light and mana. Beside him, Kaellen floated through the air with deadly elegance, surrounded by hundreds of humming, silver swords. Sato’s eyes sparked with brand-new techniques, his fists enveloped in a bright blue mana flame that refused to die in the freezing cold. The swords around Kaellen spun in perfect, synchronous formation, forming a deadly lotus flower of gleaming steel.
A heavy, rhythmic stomp shook the earth once more. The legendary Benzao appeared from the mist, seated on the back of an immense spiritual bear larger than an armored tank. Directly behind him marched the children who had been protected by Bogard back then. They were no longer frightened, helpless orphans; they walked bone-straight, carrying their own powers with a pride that made the world shiver. Bogo walked at the very front, his gaze unshakably focused, a small but mirror-like reflection of the Sovereigns themselves.
The smithy behind them had unmistakably been upgraded in the meantime. The cold, gray metal had given way to a deep, pulsing purple Anima glow. The hourglass was reset, and the pace became lethal. Ijji hung wildly over the glowing furnace, his raw laughter echoing through the different dimensions as the walls of the mountain literally seemed to expand to make room for the returned legends.
Sato glided into the smithy on a rolling wave of pure, tangible sound. In his hands, he held his Shamisen firmly. With a brutal, hard strike, he hit the strings, sending physical Shockwaves of pure mana shooting through the air. Blue flames in the shape of mystical samurai ghosts manifested with every heavy note he struck.
“You hear that?” Sato shouted across the battlefield with a wide grin. “That’s the rhythm of your end!”
Right beside him, Kaellen landed. He swung his heavy staff around, the weapon housing the dark power of the Bat. The moment the tip of the staff hit the stone floor with a sharp click, the power activated. A shrill, sonic scream burst forth, instantly causing the advancing Forge-Guardians to stagger and become disoriented. Large shadow wings shot from the staff like razor-sharp knives. Kaellen moved swiftly through the narrow silences between Sato’s musical notes, an intangible ghost striking before anyone could hear his approach.
Ijji roared with pure ecstasy. “YES! MORE! THE FORGE IS HUNGRY!”
The walls of the smithy now audibly began to scream names. The heat in the room rose to a bizarre level, so intense that only those with an absolutely unbreakable will could still stand. Silarias looked around at the massive group that had gathered. The Sovereigns, Moria, Jorick, Sato, Kaellen, Benzao, and the young Outcasts formed a perfect, closed circle. With their backs to each other, they stood there like an impenetrable, unyielding bastion of pure rebellion.
“Everyone…” Silarias called out, his voice hoarse, and raised the staff Odr high into the air.
The heavy gauntlets Frey and Freya on his fists began to sing at a high frequency that blended perfectly with the rhythm of Sato’s Shamisen.
“SHOW THEM THAT THE OUTCASTS WILL NEVER BOW AGAIN!”
At the loud command “OUTCASTS UNITE!” their separate auras melted together into one massive, blinding pillar of pure power. The beam of energy shot through the roof of the smithy with a thundering roar, bored straight through the thick cloud cover, and was immediately visible to every existing realm and every imaginable dimension.
Sato set a killer tempo on his Shamisen, while Beat immediately caught the roaring vibrations and projected them through his Sabatons. Every heavy strike in the music created a synchronous, kinetic explosion on the battlefield, precisely to the beat of the melody. At the same time, Nyx drew her dark Lunar Veil over the sonic waves of Kaellen`s staff. The piercing scream of the bat was shrouded in the freezing shadows of the moon, rendering enemies not only deaf but entirely frozen from the inside out.
Silarias rammed the staff Odr into the cracked floor with brute force, charging Juro’s dense smoke and Vespera’s fine threads with intense solar energy in a single blow. A deadly web of burning, glowing smoke spread across the entire smithy, leaving the Guardians not a single centimeter of space to escape. Kael took advantage of the confusion by firing hundreds of metal shards, which were flawlessly steered in the right direction by Ren’s beastly transformation power, while Jorick locally neutralized the gravity around the targets so that every impact came down with the devastating force of a falling star.
Ijji looked gleefully at the total wreckage his children were causing and could not stop laughing. The hourglass ticked on mercilessly, but the entire atmosphere in the room had definitively shifted. They were no longer fighting to simply survive; they were fighting to claim absolute dominance over the Forge.
Silarias remained standing in the exact center, the staff Odr resting on his broad shoulder, completely surrounded by his family. Behind his back, the once-cold smithy was definitively transformed into a paradise of gleaming steel and living fire.
“The world thought we were nothing,” Silarias spoke with a deep, calm voice, fixing his gaze on the distant horizon where the Inquisition ships were desperately trying to scan the flashes on the mountain. “But today, we forge a completely new world order.”
Beat grinned, planted his feet firmly in the ash, and straightened his sombrero with a confident gesture.
“Hear that, world?” he called out loudly. “THE OUTCASTS ARE HOME!”