Chapter 608: Metal Gives Answer

Ferra tightened the leather wraps around her calloused knuckles, resting her newly rewired hammer against the rim of her anvil.

Ferra struck the repaired hammer lightly against the anvil horn and listened for a clean ring before taking it back into the foundry.

During the hours before sunrise, she replaced her scorched connection with tightly braided copper coils and insulated amber dampers.

In her vest pocket, the resonance sample Hajin provided rested securely inside a padded crystal socket, pulsing with steady golden warmth.

"The draft is rising in the flue, Mistress," Boran reported from the canyon ledge, holding a pair of iron tongs.

"Keldan restarted his pre-heaters ten minutes ago... the chimney smoke turned a foul, sickly shade of purple."

"Then the rat is back in his cage," the forgemistress growled, hoisting her hammer onto her shoulder with grim satisfaction.

"Stay behind the outer retaining wall, lads... this time, nobody stops until the main boiler is cold scrap!"

Before entering, she held the sample socket against her repaired hammer and let Boran watch the retaining pins beneath the wrap.

The copper braid took the first pulse cleanly, but the vibration slid out of the striking face before she could catch it.

"It passed through without tearing the grip," Boran said, watching the dampers settle.

"Passing through isn’t owning it," she replied. "The hammer still can’t keep that tone, so I get one tuned strike when he gives me a target."

She tightened the final insulating wrap around the haft, preparing it for one damaging strike.

She kicked open the low maintenance hatch, ducking low as she led the charge back into the cavernous smelting hall.

The central chamber roared with thunderous furnace heat, shaking the catwalks as pressurized steam hissed through every joint.

High above the floor, Keldan stood merged within a terrifying mechanical monstrosity bolted directly to the central cupola furnace.

Four segmented crushing arms made of blackened armor plate swung from his shoulders, their hydraulic rams pumping with sickening force.

"You returned to die under my hammers, forgemistress!" the corrupted artisan shrieked, his voice amplified by the roaring flue chambers.

"The Choral Incarnation flows through every rivet and girder in this hall... I am the furnace itself!"

The rogue artisan swung his left crushing claw downward, smashing a massive heap of red-hot clinker directly toward her chest.

Ferra lunged to the right, feeling the blistering heat scorch the edges of her apron as the burning slag shattered against the flags.

She did not retreat an inch, lunging forward with explosive speed while dodging the descending hydraulic shears.

She leaped across a fractured gap in the walkway, bringing her round-nosed hammer down upon the nearest steam manifold.

The concussive strike ruptured the pressure valve instantly, venting a cloud of white vapor directly into Keldan’s optical sensors.

"Boran, Torve, throw the sand bins!" she barked, leaping backward as a second crushing arm smashed into the walkway.

From the safety of the trench, the two apprentices tipped a large trough of dry river sand directly into the secondary draft vents.

The gritty grains choked the combustion flues, causing the construct’s driving pressure to fluctuate and shudder with wild coughing wheezes.

The catwalk lurched beneath Ferra as the furnace diverted its failing draft toward the four crushing arms above her.

Keldan drove one arm through the rail, blocking her route to the sockets while another swept toward the apprentices’ trench.

"Back to the hatch!" she called.

"The rail’s tearing loose!" Torve shouted from below.

"Then leave it. Your job is done!"

Boran dragged Torve behind the retaining wall before the claw scraped across the trench below them.

Ferra planted one foot on the rising arm and let its hydraulic lift carry her over the gap in the walkway.

The borrowed tone bit into the wrap as she steadied her hammer, but the collar swung into reach before her grip failed.

"Blinding me will not save you!" the rogue smith roared, swinging all four crushing appendages in a sweeping, furious arc.

Ferra ducked beneath the primary claw, feeling the searing backdraft singe her hair as the second arm smashed into the flags beside her.

She spotted the exposed pressure sockets nestled behind the construct’s cervical collar, glowing with volatile choral poison.

’There is the rotten core of his borrowed power... right behind the neck valve!’

She kicked off an upright stanchion, vaulting ten feet into the air as two winged tools flared behind her shoulders.

Channeling every ounce of her muscular strength, Ferra brought her hammer down upon the exposed cervical sockets with pinpoint accuracy.

The striking face landed against the pressurized housing with an impact like a thunderclap striking a mountain peak.

The internal conduits ruptured violently, turning Keldan’s own trapped steam pressure back into his mechanical torso.

"No... my grand creation... my song!" the corrupted artisan wailed in agony as his hydraulic lines ruptured one after another.

The internal furnace fires collapsed backward into the boiler, consuming the willing operator in a blinding detonation of sparks and soot.

With a final, shuddering groan of collapsing girders, the mechanical abomination crashed forward onto the flags, dead and motionless.

Ferra landed cleanly in a crouch, letting out a long, ragged exhale as black smoke billowed upward toward the broken roof.

The apprentices waited for the pressure gauges to stop climbing before stepping onto the cracked walkway to reach her.

"He’s done, but the feed isn’t," she told them. "Bleed station four and leave the jacket shut until I see the outlet."

Translucent interface notifications materialized before her eyes, glowing with radiant silver text that illuminated the smoky haze.

[ Qualifying craft & combat contribution complete ]

[ Ferra: +800,000 EXP Awarded ]

[ Evolution threshold attained: 1,500,000 / 1,500,000 consumed ]

[ Wing 3 unlocked: Answering Metal ]

[ Current EXP: 0 / 7,500,000 ]

A sudden rush of incandescent power flooded her veins, causing her three pairs of winged artisan tools to blaze with brilliant amber radiance.

The newly awakened Wing resonated with the crystal socket in her vest, and for the first time, her hammer accepted the supplied tone without burning her palms.

Answering Metal allowed her personally forged masterwork to embrace external frequencies, stabilizing the volatile vibrations into a harmonious, unified hum.

She touched the sample to her hammer against an isolated scrap plate away from the relay.

Three notes rang from the plate before the braid heated enough to warn her to release the tone.

"It answers," she said, easing the sample away. "It doesn’t make the whole furnace my anvil."

"So we don’t restart the relay yet?" Boran asked.

"First we trace its outlet, then we cut its feed. I won’t pass his poison into another grove."

She tapped the round-nosed hammer lightly against the horn of her anvil, listening with closed eyes to the pure, ringing chime.

The hammer sang with clean clarity, holding Hajin’s golden resonance in steady equilibrium without suffering a single hairline fracture.

"That is how living ore answers a true artisan," she muttered with a fierce grin, tapping the hammer head lightly against the dead construct.

Hajin jogged into the smelting hall, his dual blades lowered as he surveyed the shattered wreckage and the extinguished hearth.

"You brought the whole house down, Ferra," the summoner observed, his lips curving into a proud, admiring smile.

"I brought the trash out," she corrected with a hearty laugh, wiping black soot from her cheek with her forearm.

"And my new Wing lets my hammer speak to your tone without melting the grip off the haft!"

Boran and Torve hurried into the chamber carrying survey lanterns, carefully navigating around the smoking debris.

"Mistress, look what we found in the operator console!" Torve called out, holding up a scorched parchment scroll.

Ferra took the document, unrolling the scorched diagram across the horn of a fallen anvil to examine the faded ink lines.

"This is an operational distribution chart," she murmured, tracing a series of interconnected red vectors leading south.

"Keldan was not working alone... this foundry relay fed directly into the national viaduct crossing near the border!"

"Then the main body of the choir is massing at the viaduct," Hajin concluded, his gaze hardening with resolute purpose.

"We dismantled their local furnace, but the real battle awaits along the southern supply roads."

"Our next task is securing the relay groves before the choir cuts the living roots," the summoner added, looking out over the mountain ridge.

"Eirwen and her scouts will need to move quickly if we want to intercept their forward vanguard."

The celestial broadcast filled with donations for Ferra as viewers watched her new Wing flare above the ruined furnace.

[ Seoul_Tactician: "Wing Three unlocked! Ferra is an absolute legendary powerhouse!" ]

[ StarlightScholar: "Answering Metal is such an incredible progression mechanic, her personal craft directly fuels her combat evolution!" ]

[ IronVanguard: "Hajin and Ferra make one terrifying forge team. That new edge is already glowing!" ]

The smith grinned, slinging her newly awakened hammer across her back while her three pairs of winged tools folded neatly behind her.

"Let them mass at the viaduct," she declared with fierce determination.

"Do not melt the surviving plates," Ferra told the apprentices, pointing to the ruined command rack.

"Their serial marks can tell us which viaduct furnace supplied this junk. The southern tenders need a warning before anybody opens another live conduit."

Torve compared one scorched plate with the distribution chart and found its workshop stamp beside the southern outlet.

"Same maker?" he asked, turning the plate toward her.

"Same order book," Ferra answered. "We can follow the parts even where Keldan scratched off his name."

One apprentice wrapped the marked pieces in dry cloth while another shut the live feed, leaving the enemy no route back into their own machinery.

"When we meet them on the road, my hammer will forge the answer they deserve!"