Chapter 98- Forging completed.

Chapter 98: Chapter 98- Forging completed.

The bone powder went into the steel hearth and refused to melt.

Leo watched the gray dust settle into the molten metal like it had no interest in joining it — a pale little island floating stubbornly in liquid steel.

Caelum leaned in closer. "Is that supposed to happen?"

"Don’t think so."

Leo pulled the heat down and ran Forge Sight over it.

[Material Analysis...]

[Devil Bone Mineral Residue: Stable]

[Primary Composition: Calcium Phosphate Ceramic]

[Organic Matrix: Removed]

[Corruption: None]

[Compatibility with Steel: Incomplete]

Which, honestly, tracked. Leo had half expected something like this.

In theory, the bone had once been part of something living — marrow, collagen, all the soft parts that made a bone a bone instead of a piece of steel. The holy fire had scoured all of that away, and what was left behind was just mineral: calcium and phosphate locked into a rigid structure.

Not a metal. Which meant it had no intention of melting like one.

"It’s not going to dissolve," Leo said.

"So what now?" Caelum asked.

"Relax. I’ll run a few tests first."

He picked up a pair of tongs and pulled out the clumped bone powder — it had hardened under the heat into a brittle white lump. One hit from his hammer and it shattered back into flakes.

"Too brittle," Caelum said.

"Yeah. I need the steel carrying the stress, not the bone." Leo was already grinding the flakes down again, finer this time, until the mineral looked almost like flour under the forge light.

Then he poured the molten steel in thin layers into a shallow mold, scattering bone powder across each one before the next layer went down.

First layer. Powder.

Second layer. More powder.

Third layer, and on it went.

He kept stacking until it looked like alternating sheets of steel and mineral. The bone still wouldn’t melt into it, of course — it just sat there, holding its shape while the steel tried and failed to flow around it.

The first attempt cracked apart.

[Composite Bond: Failed]

Caelum studied the mess. "You sure this is your area of expertise? I figured you’d just sharpen the bone and inscribe something on it. Simpler. Or, I don’t know, weld some metal onto it."

He rubbed his forehead, looking faintly lost.

"I could do that," Leo said. "You’d end up with an average sword. That what you want?"

He didn’t wait for an answer.

He scraped the failed attempt back into fragments and started over — this time adjusting the heat.

The eternal flame roared through Hugh’s smithy before settling into a steady, controlled burn around the metal. The composite began to glow, and Leo summoned his epic-rank Starfall Hammer.

Tang. Tang. Tang.

He folded the mixture before the layers could separate.

Hammer, fold, reheat.

Hammer, fold, reheat.

Each strike pressed the steel tighter around the mineral core. Each fold forced the two materials closer together — the calcium-phosphate particles staying solid while the steel grew around them, filling every gap the way water finds its way into stone.

Caelum had gone quiet, just watching. He’d never seen forging like this.

Leo hadn’t either, if he was honest. This wasn’t anything close to normal forging.

It was his first time attempting it this way — though not his first time trying something borderline reckless at the forge.

The material kept fighting him — resistance building, collapsing, building again. The third fold held. The fourth started to split.

He hammered the crack shut before it could spread, redirecting the force into a different angle.

[Ding~]

[Structural Integrity: 41%]

[Warning: Brittle fracture risk detected]

"That doesn’t look great," Caelum said, watching the fracture line.

"It really doesn’t," Leo admitted. "Could still break on us."

"Should we stop?"

Leo looked up, something fierce crossing his eyes. "You wanted a sword that could get around shields without getting trapped. That means a clean edge, a flexible spine, and weight forward enough to carry through armor. We’re not stopping."

Caelum didn’t argue.

Leo turned the billet slowly, watching the color shift across the surface. Hot enough to shape — but not so hot the transformed mineral lost what made it useful. It had to stay evenly distributed the whole way through.

He trusted himself to hold that line. Using the eternal flame to heat the core, he brought the temperature under control, and the steel finally stopped fighting him.

[Metallic Structure Stabilizing]

[Mineral Integration: 63%]

He raised the hammer again — and pain lanced through his skull, the bill finally coming due for hours of holy power running through his body.

His arm shook. The grip on the hammer nearly slipped from his hand.

But the material was clean now. The corruption gone completely.

[Structural Integrity: 82%]

The sword was already taking shape — long, narrow, weight sitting toward the tip exactly the way Caelum had asked for. The spine stayed flexible even as the edge hardened beneath the hammer.

Leo finally understood the logic behind Caelum’s design. It wasn’t built for raw power. It was built to control the rhythm of a fight.

Two more hours of hammering, and the shaping was done. The blade had held its heat the entire time.

He almost quenched it right away — then stopped himself. This wasn’t a normal sword anymore. A normal quench could ruin it.

Instead he wrapped the blade in soul fire — cold by nature, meant for handling the dead — and let it pull the heat out evenly, layer by layer, before finally lowering the steel into the water for the real quench.

Steam exploded across the smithy. Leo held the blade steady until the hiss died down. When he lifted it out of the trough, it had gone a dark gunmetal gray, with a faint silver sheen catching along the edge.

[Quenching Complete]

He reheated it once more, just to hammer out a few stubborn edges, then started carving runes — covering nearly the whole body of the blade by the time he finished.

A rune of flexibility.

A rune of strength.

A rune of agility.

A rune of sharpness.

He also worked in a basic version of the rune of intelligence — a combined form drawing on Mnemos, Genesis, Logos, Experience, Curiosity, and Harmony, the same foundational runes that made up the Starfall Hammer.

He wanted this sword to grow alongside Caelum, not just sit there as dead weight — maybe even develop something like a spirit of its own, given time.

Last step: he burned every rune in permanently with the eternal fire.

[Ding~]

[Forging Complete]

[Weapon Created: Unnamed]

[Rank: Epic]

[Type: Growth Weapon]

[Grade: Flawless]

[Attributes: STR +50, DEX +50]

[Damage: 87–112]

[Growth Status]

Level: Lv.1

Growth Type: BOND-GROWTH — scales with user level and bond depth

Cap: NONE

[Bond]

Status: Unbound (awaiting a worthy wielder)

Recognition: Open

Effect: Bonds to a single worthy owner; grows to match their intent

[Armor Piercing +150% — will scale further as the sword’s level increases.]

[Durability: Infinity]

[Skill: Law Breaker]

Can cut through any magical ability, of any attribute.

[Description]

The sword was forged from the combined effort of a blacksmith and a swordsman. The blacksmith worked the bone of a Devil into the metal at a molecular level, fusing them so completely that bone and steel can no longer be separated. It was built on the blacksmith’s own instinct and vision — a weapon capable of growing without limit, developing alongside its wielder, and manifesting new abilities as that wielder’s needs demand.

Leo stared at his own work, honestly a little stunned by what he’d made.

Caelum stepped forward, eager to look it over.

"No name?" he asked.

"Let’s call it Caelum’s Sword," Leo said, grinning.

"That’s not a name."

"You wanted a sword. There it is. Name it yourself." Leo shrugged and passed it over.

The moment Caelum’s fingers closed around the grip, the blade seemed to settle — like it had been waiting.

"Drop some blood on it to bind it to you," Leo added. "It’ll develop a consciousness eventually. When that happens, come find me."

Caelum nodded, obedient as anything, and did exactly as told.

[Ding~]

[Wielder Registered: Caelum]

[Growth Weapon Synchronization: Beginning]

[Future properties will develop through use]

He turned it over in his palm, took a few practice swings.

"Balance is right," he said.

Leo slumped against the anvil. His arm had gone numb past the elbow, and the ache in his muscles had settled in for the long haul.

Caelum, riding the excitement, swung a little too hard — the pressure wave rattled the whole smithy.

"Don’t swing that thing around in here, you brats!" Hugh barked from across the forge.

Both of them apologized at once.

The crowd outside had thinned hours ago. The whole forging process had eaten up nearly a full day, and the rune work alone had taken half of that.

"So," Leo said, smiling. "About that duel you promised me."

"Let’s go a few rounds," he added.

"Few rounds? I never agreed to few rounds."

"You’re about to." Leo’s smile crept wider as he tapped the hammer against his palm.

It was, genuinely, an unsettling smile. Caelum felt the goosebumps rise on his arms.

"...Okay."

Reluctantly, he agreed to the duel.