The fog pressed against the forge's windows like a living thing, its tendrils seeping through cracks to curl around Kaden's boots.
The figures outside had stopped circling, their low chanting now a rhythmic hum that vibrated in his bones—a language he didn't recognize, but one that scraped at the back of his skull like rusted nails.
Serena's breath hitched in the brick compartment behind him, her small hand clutching the edge of his tunic.
He'd pushed her there, but her fear wasn't silent; it leaked through the cracks in her composure, a faint, shaky exhale that made him grind his teeth.
Stay still, he mouthed, though she couldn't see it in the dark.
His eyes were fixed on the window, where the emblems glinted—black anvils, cracked, serpents coiled like scars.
The missing smiths.
They all wore these.
His master had warned him once, late at night, when the forge's fire burned low: "Beware the Serpent's Anvil. They don't kill—they collect." Kaden's fingers brushed the hilt of the dagger at his belt, but the blade felt small against whatever this was.
The chanting rose, a guttural crescendo, before cutting off abruptly.
Kaden's spine stiffened.
No footsteps.
No creak of the door.
Just… silence.
He waited, counting heartbeats—one, two, three—before the system's prompt flickered in his mind: Concealment Mode Activated.
Heat signatures masked.
Auditory interference at 80%.
Good.
He needed every advantage.
When the first strike of the hammer echoed through the basement, Kaden thought it was his own pulse.
But Serena's grip tightened, her nails piercing his tunic.
She heard it too.
It came again: thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Slow, deliberate—like someone forging iron, but not with skill.
More like… mimicry.
Serena shifted, her breath hot against his ear.
He turned, and in the faint glow from the smoldering forge, he saw her eyes—wide, unblinking, irises tinged with a sickly red.
Without warning, she slid out of the compartment, her movements jerky, purposeful, heading for the cellar door.
"Serena!" He lunged, catching her by the wrist.
Her skin was cold, colder than the fog outside.
She fought, not with strength, but with a strange rigidity, like a puppet pulled by invisible strings.
"What's happening?" he hissed, but her mouth stayed shut—always shut, since the day he'd found her huddled in the alley, a gag still around her neck.
Then his own hand spasmed.
It rose, trembling, as if drawn by a magnet, pointing at the cellar.
His fingers flexed, reaching for the latch.
Panic spiked—this isn't me—but his arm moved on, slow and unyielding.
Images flooded his mind: a forge larger than any he'd seen, flames licking at the ceiling, a giant of a man with a beard like molten steel, swinging a hammer that split the air with thunder.
Around him knelt figures—hundreds, maybe thousands—their faces upturned in worship, their mouths moving in that same, accursed chant.
"Kaden!" Serena's voice—no, not her voice.
A croak, raw and unused, as if her throat had forgotten how to speak.
She clawed at his arm, her nails leaving red trails.
"Fight it!"
The system shrieked in his head: WARNING.
HOST PSYCHIC INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.
FOREIGN WILL INFILTRATING NEURAL PATHWAYS.
IMMEDIATE COUNTERMEASURES REQUIRED.
He bit down hard on his tongue.
Pain bloomed, metallic and sharp, grounding him.
With his free hand, he slammed it onto the forge's edge.
The metal was still warm from the day's work, searing his palm.
Burn it out.
The illusion flickered—the giant smith, the kneeling figures—dissolving like smoke.
Serena fell against him, gasping.
Her eyes were still red, but the haze was lifting.
She fumbled for the charcoal she kept in her apron, scribbling frantically on the floor: a spiral of runes, intersecting lines, a circle that glowed faintly as she finished.
"Spirit ward," she mouthed, her voice a rasp.
"Keeps… them out."
Kaden didn't ask how she knew.
He'd stopped questioning her secrets weeks ago—how she could read blueprints without being taught, how she'd once mended a cracked blade with a trick even his master had never mastered.
Dawn came slow, the fog retreating like a beaten beast.
When Kaden dared to open the door, the figures were gone.
In their place: three nails, blackened and pitted, lying in the mud.
He picked one up; it burned his fingers, not with heat, but with a cold that sank into his bones.
The system pinged: ANALYSIS COMPLETE.
MATERIAL IDENTIFIED: FRAGMENT OF FORGE GOD'S SOUL.
RECOMMENDED USE: BLOOD AWAKENING RITUAL.
SHOP LEVEL UPGRADED TO WORKSHOP TIER.
NEW MODULE UNLOCKED: PSYCHIC BARRIER (ACTIVE PROTECTION AGAINST MENTAL INTRUSION).
Serena sat at the table, her charcoal in hand.
She wrote: They weren't dead.
They were… woken.
He looked up.
Her eyes—brown, warm, the way they'd always been—now had a faint gold ring around the pupils, like the embers of a dying fire.
A ring he recognized.
The same ring that glowed in his own eyes when he'd first activated the system.
Understanding hit him like a sledge