Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

What was left of Valen after Cerberus was done with him had hardly any resemblance with a living being. This was how far they had to go to bring it close enough to death. Vampire really had a scary vitality.

The fire from below had now reached where he had fought Valen. Seth had no idea what other useful thing there could be on these minced remains and decided to use the system option to harvest them.

He got one vampire fang and a claw. And a grey powder he could not identify. Not much.

In exchange, the vampire gave an extraordinary amount of experience despite Seth harvesting the soul. His level was already close to leveling up to lv. 44 but was now already 35% of the way to lv. 45. He got 9 AP and used them to bring his INT to 60.

On the way down his <Pyrokinesis> leveled up and became lv. 5. He used the ability to put out the fires on every floor he came past. This was why he saved his mental energy in his fight with Valen. If he left the fire alone it would probably spread and devour part of the city.

He wanted to make this place his home. It was not very nice to burn down a place when you just moved in. This was also enough. The building was completely burned out, making it unusable. He didn't need to completely burn it down.

There was only one room that was almost untouched by the wild flames. The door had damages but looked almost pristine compared to the surroundings.

~ This thing had strong magic defenses. Someone put a lot of time and thought into this. ~ Al commented on the strange room.

Seth pushed the door expecting it not to budge, but it slowly swung open.

~ The defenses were probably exhau- Eww.~

The door had swung open and revealed a dark room with a chair in the middle. A smell wafted out of the room, and it reeked similar to ozone, but it made Seth feel perturbed. The black walls of the room were covered in all kinds of runes and formations.

The Lich's reaction the moment this came into view didn't help alleviate Seth's worries. Was this "the room"? The sorceress seemed to have read his thoughts and answered.

~ From what I can garner, this is a place to break down and resemble someone's mind. It's the step above brainwashing. The user can literally mold the victim's memories, thoughts, and even personality. It's just disgusting. ~

"Eww."

Seth summoned the furnace. Normal soul fire seemed to not be enough, so he would bring the heat. There was no way he would leave this thing here. The jet flame of the furnace shot into the room.

The ordinary stool was vaporized in an instant, but the room itself resisted. A thin layer of magic covered the formations and stubbornly resisted. Seth could not help but crank up the heat. The protective membrane only slowly started showing signs of damage.

Despite the various power-ups, he felt his mental energy decreasing at a terrifying speed as he ramped the power to the highest degree. But he fully concentrated on the slowly melting defenses. His eyes were focused on the bright flame and his mind on controlling this terrifying power.

At some point, only the fire was on his mind. All there was, was fire, and the goal he wanted to reach.

<Ding! Your Skill Fire Affinity lv. 7 had become Fire Affinity Lv.8!>

And suddenly the flame broke through the defensive membrane. With increasing momentum, it destroyed the defenses and started devouring the formations below. Once there was a crack it was over.

In just a moment the soul fire had spread and destroyed this architectural abomination. Seth was happy about the improvement, but the exhaustion dampened his joy. There were still a few floors he needed to extinguish before he could leave.

When he finally reached the lobby, he used <Home Call> and returned to the church, and then directly to his bed in the tower. He should have checked up on his comrades. That was what a really good leader would do, even when he was tired.

Seth never claimed to be a really good leader, so he was fast asleep.

He was woken by the tower's notification.

~Master. The members wish for your presence. ~

"Tell them to wait."

~ They insist. ~

"Meeeh..." he rolled off his bed and sluggishly propped himself up. He wore some casual comfortable clothes. The aftereffects of overusing mental energy led to a serious lack of motivation. Or maybe it was just Seth's morning mood.

"Okay, I'm ready."

~ You aren't wearing any pants. ~

He was ported just after Al's remark.

The seats around the round table were all filled and only he was missing. Nobody was missing and there was an additional chair for Drosi. There were some weird looks, but Seth played it off as nothing and simply sat down on his seat.

If he didn't acknowledge that he had come in underwear, the others could not say anything. It might have worked if not for one person in the room.

"Wow! Did Seth manage to make invisible trousers?! Can Fin have some, too?"

She didn't mean to do any harm, but everyone on the table was holding back a chuckle. Seth sighed.

"Just a second."

He returned to his quarters and got some pants before he returned again.

"Let's start. How did it go on your side yesterday? You are all here, so I guess nobody died."

"Actually..." Mike said a little embarrassedly. He was the leader as he had experience with it.

"I died! It was awesome. I had spent most of my mana and became a super-strong death claw!" Evee exclaimed ecstatically. Who would have thought he would ever see someone so pumped about dying...

"She made a real massacre..." Monique commented and gave Evee a weird side glance. The girl had turned into a really terrifying undead if one wanted to call it that. It was more of a demon, the ugly monstrous kind.

Her claws had split the enemies and the corpses fouled away in a matter of minutes. They fled after killing about half the enemies when they saw the fire light up the building. They were supposed to be a diversion, not an execution commando.

"How was it on your side?" finally came the inevitable question and Seth narrated what happened on his side.

"You did what?!" Mina jumped up in worry when he came to the fight with Valen. But Seth looked fine, so she reigned in her feelings and sat back down again. But it didn't take long.

"You killed their leader?!" this time it was Mike reacting.

As the deputy leader of the party, they had come up with the plan together. Originally, they just wanted to burn the Willis Building to take away their main base of operations. The party would get their attention and Seth would set the building aflame before everyone would run off.

Once Al'Zalsa's cooldown was off they could have sent her to end him in silence.

"Hey, don't blame me, okay? I was there, already at the store. The milk was on sale. So, I picked up some on the way back."

"What?" Mike was slightly confused.

"He wanted to fight, and I entertained him. I saw a chance and took care of him. Not every 200-year-old is a beast is like Al. Some end up as pickings on the way."

~ Don't compare me to that thing. It's not a question of age. I could have gotten rid of that guy in my teens. ~

Everyone looked at him weirdly. Even if Valen was not as strong as they had expected. He was still an old vampire. Most of them had at least some experience with vampires. Especially Jonah with his class.

Vampires were strong, especially for humanoids. And they had a similar mind to a human. And Valen had to be at least an Ori Vampire. It was nothing the Seth they knew could really fight one on one. They realized that Seth had some trump cards even they could not predict.

When he explained what exactly happened everyone gained a new respect for the creepy Golem that was normally silently working in the back when Seth was smithing something.

The most surprised was Drosi who had just listened silently and had gotten a glimpse of Seth's power for the first time.

"let's get to the most important question! Did it drop something good?" Fin couldn't hold back.