The dense azure steam hung like a thick opaque curtain over the stone forge floor. The air in the workshop was sharp and heavy, saturated with burned iron, the biting scent of ozone, and the sweat of the fighters. The enormous arches of the stone vault still echoed with the dull impacts of the earlier trials. At the rear of the workshop, rubble lay beneath the support pillar Silarias and Nyx had split during their test.
Oslo stood at the edge of the oak balustrade. His massive, sandpaper-like hands rested heavily on the copper fittings of the railing. He pulled his heavy magnifying goggles up to his forehead with a dry copper clack, revealing two deep, soot-covered rings around his eyes. His gaze glided slower than usual over the battleground, past Vulkan and Valeria who were still venting steam, until his eye fell on Bonk and Zax.
The contrast could not have been greater. Bonk stood there with his immense muscular frame, but he cringed as if he wanted nothing more than to merge with the shadows of the forge floor. His broad shoulders hung low, his chest rose and fell faster than normal, and his eyes remained fixed tightly on his own calloused knuckles. Beside him, Zax nervously plucked at the Thokcha around his forearms, while the fine drops of sweat on his forehead glowed in the reflection of the cast-iron furnace.
Vulkan lowered his massive arms. The creaking of his chestplate fell silent. He looked back over his shoulder at the two brothers, let out a deep, low sigh, and shook his head.
“Mmm… yeah, makes sense,” Vulkan spoke with a heavy, dull voice that lingered between the stone walls. “That must be the reason I have never really seen you use your true strength.”
Oslo leaned so far over the railing that the oak wood began to groan under his weight. He looked at the pair as if he were staring through their skin right into their souls.
“Yeah…” the old Forgeling spoke out loud. His voice was rough, soaked in a blend of mockery and strange resignation. “Scared of your own powers, kids? Your faces are screaming pure regret. Well… here is something for that so-called regret of yours. If you are so sorry for who you are and what you can do… why in god's name do you not actually do something about it?”
The blacksmith’s words hung in the heavy warm air. They penetrated slowly, deep into the chests of the two brothers.
Zax looked up slowly. His pupils trembled lightly, but beneath them a fiery blaze ignited. He turned his head toward Bonk. “Little brother… he has a point.”
Bonk looked with a glance full of doubt and rising panic toward the edge of the platform, where Davinci was leaning with both hands on his engraved staff. “Uhh… Master… are you sure? I am not sure if… if I can keep this under control.”
Davinci looked at him. There was no trace of doubt in his eyes, only a deep, unwavering calm. “Very sure. We will catch you if things go wrong.”
Zax took a deep and audible breath. In the middle of his chest, a deep orange glow began to ignite, eating its way through the runes of his armor. His eyes transformed into two swirling, bright red pools. With a tearing, fiery sound, two blazing, crackling flame whips shot out from his clenched fists. The heat radiating off them caused the steam around him to evaporate in a fraction of a second.
With a raw sweep, he began to lash the flame chains around himself. An unfamiliar, liberated smile spread across his face, for the first time he felt the beauty of his own element without shutting it away. But the years of suppression made his movements wild. With a fierce swing, one of the fire chains shot off course, straight toward the spot where Miki and Ren were standing. The displacement of heat caused a brutal overpressure in the air. A meter-high wall of fire exploded right in front of their faces, blowing their hair backward in the scorching wind and blackening the stone beneath their feet.
Bonk, whose physical form was already beginning to shift toward the traits of his Beast Anting, charged in between. He caught the shockwave with his massive, hairy backplate. With thick, hot steam blowing from his nostrils, he turned toward his brother.
“Brother… watch out…” Bonk growled with a low scraping voice that no longer sounded human.
Oslo stood on the bridge with his mouth slightly open, gripped by the raw, untamed discharge. At the edge of the testing platform below him, Miki and Ren began shouting in admiration and excitement. Silarias stared intently at the spectacle, raised his eyebrows, and gave a subtle, silent nod to Nyx.
Nyx almost nodded back, but her gaze caught on the Soulbound Gem in the center of his forehead.
It had been beneath his eye before. She knew that face too well to have imagined it.
Vespera had once told her that every body changed in its own way. There had been changes in her own body, too, things she had not understood until she had asked. Was this what Vespera had meant? She was becoming a woman. Did boys go through changes like this? Or was it something particular to Silarias?
Her lips parted. “Silarias, is your…”
At that exact moment, it happened. Miki, swept up in the tension, tried to take a step forward, but her foot caught on a raised rivet in the forge floor. She fell hard forward. Her knee scraped along the rough uncovered stone, and a few bright drops of fresh blood seeped slowly across her skin.
The sharp, metallic scent of fresh blood rose immediately into the overheated space.
For Bonk’s beastly senses, this was the final blow. The scent breached all his mental barriers. His pupils narrowed into two bone-dry, black slits. Animal madness took over. With a roar that sent dust particles fluttering down from the stone vaults, he turned around. He dug his claws into the stone and charged with destructive mass straight toward the group.
Davinci did not hesitate for a second. He stepped calmly forward and slid his body directly into the path of the oncoming beast form. He absorbed the monstrous impact and spoke his magical incantation in an ice-cold, clear voice.
“Anatomia Etheria.”
Bonk’s giant claw struck, but the impact transformed into a clear red rift in the air. The kinetic and animal energy was completely canceled and filtered out on a molecular level. Almost simultaneously, Davinci made a short fluid motion with his staff and gently tapped the bottom against Bonk’s forehead. The engraved sigil at the tip of the wood lit up with a soft, golden-white light.
“CounterNature.”
The savage beastly fury in Bonk’s eyes extinguished in that same instant. His strained muscles relaxed, the coarse hair and beastly features retreated back into his skin, and his eyes closed. He dropped to his knees and drifted off into a deep, dreamless rest, his form returning completely to human.
Ren crouched beside Miki, checked her scraped knee, and helped her to her feet. She steadied herself against his arm, then put her weight on the leg. It stung, but she could stand. They stayed together at the edge of the platform.
Silarias looked at Nyx with wide eyes and muttered under his breath, “Maybe it is time we actually talk to him.”
Zax stepped forward with quick strides, carefully lifted the limp, sleeping body of his little brother onto his shoulders, and looked around the circle with a face full of guilt. “I… uhh… I am usually the one who lets people walk over me. Not him. My little brother is much softer than he pretends to be… please do not hold it against him.”
Silarias looked at him completely dryly, without a trace of anger. “What are you talking about? This was nothing. No, no… I actually want to talk with you guys, but we will do that once Bonk comes back to his senses. Good?”
Zax looked at him questioningly, surprised by the lack of anger or judgment. He nodded slowly. “Sure… I will let him rest for a bit.”
Oslo looked down from the bridge at Davinci and rubbed his chin with a knobby hand. “Mmm… have not regressed over all these years, I see.”
Davinci stretched his back, his vertebrae audibly popping. “Mmh… definitely gotten a lot stiffer though.”
The two old masters burst simultaneously into a raw, short laugh that blew the tension out of the room.
When calm had somewhat settled, Renuardo stepped forward onto the stone platform.
Oslo flipped the extra lenses of his goggles down, making his eyes appear gargantuan and distorted as he looked at the boy. He leaned over the wooden railing and spoke in an inquiring, almost challenging tone. “SO… So Tamerboy… let us see what you have got. How do you guide those beasts of yours when your hands are full of steel?”
Renuardo inspected the forearm pieces of his Thokcha gear, furrowed his brows, and looked around questioningly. “Uhh… where did the whistle go?”
“Hold out your fingers,” Oslo said dryly.
Renuardo extended his hand. The moment he set his fingers at a specific angle, the ambient air rushed through the microscopically small milled openings in the metal. A clear, polyphonic whistling rolled through the workshop. Renuardo looked with wide eyes at his own gauntlet. “Wait a second… let us see how this responds… ah, yes!”
He changed the position of his fingers. A beautiful pure sound echoed against the wall. With a flash of spiritual light, a giant winged Dire Wolf appeared. The beast set its paws on the stone, stepped toward Renuardo, and sniffed his palm. The wolf began to calmly wag its tail and lowered its head, instantly recognizing Renuardo as its master.
Renuardo laughed softly. “Mmm… what else do we have?” With a new hand gesture, he summoned a glowing, feathered turtle with a long flexible tail, which nestled comfortably beside his feet.
Miki and Ren began shouting enthusiastically from the sidelines, “Another one! Another one?!”
Renuardo positioned his fingers in a strange angular stance. With a dry popping bang, a giant Bulletshrimp appeared.
Beat pointed a finger instantly. “Shrimpy!!??” Then it hit him that it was simply a member of the species. “Oh… never mind.”
Oslo looked sharply at the three summoned creatures. “So? How does the conduction feel?”
Renuardo examined the seams of the armor around his joints. “I can only truly judge that once I have combined everything.”
Valeria raised her hand, her spirit fans glowing faintly as she stepped forward into the light. “Oslo, the way the Thokcha binds to my fans, I noticed that my spirit energy is starting to change and...”
“Focus, girl!” Oslo roared, swatting the air with his massive hand. “We analyze the spiritual binding later! Right now we test the limits of the metal! Renuardo, do not keep me waiting!”
Valeria pressed her lips together and stepped back, while Renuardo grinned and prepared himself.
Silarias looked at him from the side with raised eyebrows. “Wait… since when are you able to keep more than one in this world at the same time?”
Renuardo's gaze briefly caught on the gem in the center of Silarias' forehead. Hadn't it been beneath his eye before?
He almost asked, then paused. Silarias spoke so casually, as though nothing about his own face had changed. Perhaps he had moved it deliberately. There would be time to ask after the demonstration.
Renuardo met his eyes with a calm, confident gaze. “Since you have been gone, everyone has been training insanely hard, Silarias. Thanks to the help of the Menehurions, the passed-down techniques of the Feline Tribes, and the addition of the Flora Kingdom to our lines… you do not know the half of what we can do. Even all those letters we sent you…”
Silarias looked at him questioningly and pointed firmly at the floor. “Show me then.”
Renuardo nodded and looked toward the edge. “Beat, if you would be so kind?”
Beat’s eyes instantly turned a deep blazing crimson red. All around him, static red lightning bolts began crackling through the air. The forge floor started vibrating rhythmically. The strikes of the vibrations and the red lightning began to sync up perfectly with a deep, invigorating resonance spreading through the forge.
Renuardo let out a broad grin. “Mmm… I can work with this.”
The Thokcha around his form became liquid and started shifting. Simultaneously, the three summoned beasts lit up brightly and burst apart into thousands of glistening essence fragments. Renuardo’s armor absorbed the fragments entirely. His whole body began to morph into a grotesque, imposing fusion form.
His torso became covered in a thick layer of feathers, a massive gleaming shell formed on his back and knuckles, and broad scaly wings broke out from his shoulder blades. His face changed into that of a fierce wolf, but with three eyes, two fiery beast eyes on the sides and his own human eye right in the middle. His legs transformed into powerful wolf claws with heels shaped like the cutting shears of the Bulletshrimp.
Thick gray clouds of smoke popped up everywhere on the platform. Only the giant dark silhouette remained visible. When the smoke was blown away by the airflow, the three gleaming eyes snapped through the haze with a gargantuan spiritual pressure that slammed the steam against the walls.
Silarias did not know what he was seeing. “WHAT THE ACTUAL…”
Nyx added, but could not get her words out. “Holy…”
Before they could finish their sentences, Renuardo shot through the room like a madman. The shears on his heels snapped with the force of an air pressure explosion with every step, so he was not simply running, but literally being catapulted through the forge. The combination of flying, running, and explosive bangs made him an unreadable blur of shadow and feathers.
His roaring laughter echoed between the stone walls, until the sheer speed and unusual mass took over his balance. With a deafening crash, he slammed full force onto the hard forge floor.
A deep crater formed in the stone. Debris flew everywhere. Renuardo lay on his back in the middle of the rubble, his eyes rolling slightly, and his chest heaving heavily. He was not unconscious, but the impact of the landing and the immense power surge had completely paralyzed his muscles. He lay there staring at the ceiling with a dull gaze, softly muttering, “Yeah… please… and make sure to add something to drink…”
The fusion began to unravel. The shell, feathers, wings, and altered limbs dissolved into streams of spiritual light, separating from his body as the Thokcha settled back into its fitted shape. Renuardo lay in his own form at the bottom of the crater. Around its broken rim, the three summons reformed and slumped onto the stone: the winged Dire Wolf lay with its wings spread, the feathered turtle rested with its long tail stretched across the rubble, and the Bulletshrimp lay beside a fractured slab, its limbs stirring.
Oslo looked over the railing at the smoking crater, then looked at the rest of the group and wanted to say something, but everyone was standing in stunned bewilderment looking at the wreckage. This could have gone horribly wrong, but it demonstrated with razor clarity how absurdly far their powers had grown.
Faustus, clad in his thin Void attire, flashed through the shadows to the edge of the crater. He stepped between the scattered rubble and the resting summons, lifted the paralyzed Renuardo effortlessly out of the crater, then flashed up to the observation walkway and laid him down calmly against the stone wall.
Faustus tapped him peacefully on his forehead and muttered, “You go catch your breath, little trick box.”
With a second shadow flash, Faustus was standing back on an intact stretch of the testing platform beside the crater. Renuardo’s three summons remained beyond its opposite rim, clear of the space in front of him. He began loosening his shoulders and neck calmly. “So, Oslo… let us see what you have planned for me. What is your vision?”
From atop the observation bridge, Oslo’s deep maniacal laugh suddenly sounded. “Faustus… I was hoping you would ask. I have a LOT of ideas for you…”
Faustus looked at him sideways and suspiciously. “I… uhh… what exactly?”
Oslo shook his gray beard back and forth with a wild glint in his eyes. “Well, I just so happened to study EVERY single remaining Void slinger figure and picked apart every old lorebook about your kind down to the last page!”
Faustus rolled his eyes slowly, turned his head toward Davinci, and saw how hyperactive and hyped his Master was standing there, a broad grin on his face. Faustus thought to himself, You too, Master…?
He sighed deeply, wiped his hand across his face, and looked the giant blacksmith dead in the eye. “I… goddammit… let us hear it then.”