Chapter 345: Chapter 345 – “Warmth of the Weapon”

The forge had not cooled.

Rivers of molten metal still flowed through their channels, glowing white-orange beneath the iron grates. The bellows breathed like a sleeping beast, each exhale sending sparks drifting lazily into the air. The heat pressed down, familiar and constant.

Elder Thrain stood near the anvil, hammer resting against it, eyes fixed on the doorway Luca had just passed through.

He did not move.

Behind him, Durgan Blackvein remained where he was told to stop—arms crossed, posture relaxed, gaze indifferent. Like a mountain that had decided waiting was beneath it.

For several heartbeats, neither spoke.

Thrain finally turned.

He did not look angry. He did not look curious.

He looked… measuring.

His eyes traced Durgan slowly—from the set of his shoulders, to the relaxed readiness in his stance, to the faint, controlled aura that never fully left him. An aura that did not belong to a slave.

“…You’ve changed,” Thrain said at last.

Durgan didn’t react.

The silence stretched again.

Durgan clicked his tongue softly. “If you dragged me here just to stare, old man, speak your mind. I don’t have the patience to waste.”

Thrain’s gaze sharpened.

“Why,” he asked bluntly, “are you so adamant about following that boy?”

Durgan’s lips curved—just slightly.

“So?” he replied. “What of it?”

Thrain snorted. “Don’t insult me. I’ve known you longer than most mountains standing in this hall. You don’t bind yourself to anyone unless it serves a purpose.”

Durgan said nothing.

That alone was answer enough.

Thrain turned back to the anvil, fingers brushing against the scorched metal surface as if grounding himself.

“You could have walked away,” Thrain continued. “Agreement or not. No dwarf here could have stopped you. Not even me.”

Durgan’s smirk deepened. “True.”

“Then don’t pretend this is about honor alone,” Thrain said flatly. “You have a motive.”

The forge crackled.

Durgan’s eyes gleamed faintly in the firelight, but he still did not answer.

Thrain sighed.

A long, tired sound.

“…Figures,” he muttered. “You were always like this. Either charging headfirst into a war—or standing perfectly still while everyone else tried to guess why.”

He glanced sideways at Durgan again.

“That boy,” Thrain said slowly, “is walking a road that bends the rules we’ve lived by our entire lives. Space. Time. Endurance beyond reason.”

His grip tightened on the anvil.

“He is dangerous,” Thrain said. “Not because he seeks power—but because power keeps finding him.”

Durgan’s smirk faded. Just a little.

Thrain turned fully toward him now, eyes hard, voice low.

“Whatever it is you’re planning,” he said, “keep it to yourself if you must. But hear me clearly.”

He pointed the head of his hammer—not threatening, but absolute.

“Do not harm that kid.”

The forge fell silent between bellows.

Durgan stared at Thrain for a moment longer than necessary.

Then— He laughed.

A short, low sound.

“Harm him?” Durgan said. “That’s the last thing I want.”

Thrain searched his face.

For once, he found no mockery there. No deception.

Only certainty.

“…Hmph,” Thrain grunted at last. “Then maybe following him will do you some good after all.”

Durgan turned toward the exit.

As he walked away, his voice drifted back through the heat and fire.

“Worry about your armor, old man.”

The forge doors closed behind him.

Thrain stood alone again, staring at the molten metal flowing endlessly before him.

“…Troublesome brat,” he muttered—though whether he meant Luca, Durgan, or both, even he wasn’t sure.

The hammer rose.

And fell.

The forge answered.

The corridors were quieter now.

The forge’s roar faded behind Luca as he moved slowly through the stone passageways, crutches tapping softly against the floor in a steady, uneven rhythm. The heat thinned with every step, replaced by the cooler, cleaner air of the infirmary wing.

Luca barely noticed.

His mind was elsewhere.

Blades of the cosmos…

Elder Thrain’s words replayed again and again, refusing to settle into anything understandable.

They should be placed in the cosmos…

He frowned faintly as he walked, brow drawn tight beneath the bandages. The sabers rested within his storage ring, their presence familiar—comforting, even—but suddenly heavier than before.

“What does that even mean…” he muttered under his breath.

Place them where?

The cosmos wasn’t a location you could walk to. It wasn’t a forge, or a realm, or some hidden chamber he could unlock with mana. And yet… Thrain hadn’t spoken metaphorically. Luca was sure of that.

His steps slowed.

A memory stirred.

Not recent.

Older.

Before Moonslayer.

Before time reversal, before the Crucible, before everything spiraled out of control.

There was an attack.

Luca’s eyes narrowed slightly as he walked.

He remembered it clearly now—the feeling rather than the form. A moment where the world seemed to stretch outward, where the sabers didn’t just cut through matter, but through something deeper. Space itself had bent. The strike had felt vast, overwhelming, as if he were borrowing strength from somewhere far beyond himself.

He didn’t know its name.

He’d never tried to name it.

He had used it twice—once—against Professor Emeron. A desperate, instinctive slash born from pressure and emotion rather than understanding.

After that…

Moonslayer had come.

A cleaner power. A clearer path. Something he could grasp, refine, improve.

And so he’d stopped thinking about that other attack.

Stopped reaching for it.

But now—

The cosmos will nurture them.

Luca’s grip tightened slightly around his crutches.

Could it be connected?

Could that attack—whatever it truly was—be what Thrain meant?

If Moonslayer was about expanding space within himself…

Then that strike back then had felt like he was drawing on space outside himself.

No.

Not space.

Something larger.

His steps faltered as his thoughts spiraled, and before he realized it, the familiar doorway of the infirmary stood before him. He had walked the entire distance without consciously registering it.

“…Already?” he murmured.

Inside, the room was quiet. Warm. Safe.

Luca moved carefully to the bed and lowered himself onto it with a slow exhale, crutches resting against the side. His body protested faintly, but he ignored it.

His hand drifted to his storage ring.

A soft pulse of mana.

The twin sabers emerged into the air above his palms, settling gently into his hands as if they had always belonged there.

Their blades gleamed faintly in the infirmary light—quiet, restrained, yet unmistakably alive.

Luca rested them across his lap.

For a long moment, he simply looked at them.

Then his fingers moved, slow and careful, tracing along the flat of one blade, then the other. He didn’t grip them like weapons. He held them like something precious.

Like companions.

“…What does it mean,” he whispered softly, voice barely disturbing the air, “to place you in the cosmos?”

His thumb brushed against the hilt.

“Where am I supposed to put you?”

The sabers were warm.

Not physically—there was no heat—but something subtle, like a low vibration traveling up Luca’s palms and into his wrists. It was faint, fleeting, but unmistakable.

Luca’s breath caught.

“…You feel it too, don’t you?” he murmured, lowering his voice instinctively, as if afraid to scare it away.

The blades rested quietly across his lap, but the sensation deepened—an almost imperceptible pull, like a tide responding to the moon. His fingers tightened around the hilts.

“What do you want to tell me?” he asked softly. “What does placing you in the cosmos even mean?”

For a heartbeat—

Something shifted.

Not sound. Not light.

Awareness.

It felt as though the space around the sabers thinned, stretched, as if the world itself were holding its breath. Luca leaned forward unconsciously, eyes narrowing, his entire focus collapsing inward toward the blades in his hands.

Yes… that’s it. Just like before—

Then—

“That’s what I thought.”

The voice cut through the moment like a hammer to glass.

Luca flinched violently.

The fragile sensation shattered instantly, snapping back into ordinary silence as his head jerked up.

Standing near the doorway, leaning casually against the stone frame, was a red-haired man wearing a familiar, infuriating smirk.

Kyle.

“How could all those hammers do nothing to you,” Kyle continued lazily, arms crossed, “if you didn’t go a little mad?”

Luca’s hands clenched so hard around the sabers that his knuckles went white.

His lips twitched.

Slowly.

Dangerously.

“If I wasn’t on crutches,” Luca said through clenched teeth, voice perfectly calm in the way that meant the opposite, “I would have strangled you to death by now.”

Kyle stiffened.

He felt it.

That death glare.

“…Okay, wow,” Kyle said, holding up both hands. “Noted. Very hostile energy. But—uh—what? Did I interrupt something important?”

Luca stared at him for a long second.

Then exhaled.

Long. Heavy.

“I was,” Luca said flatly, “this close to establishing some kind of connection with my sabers.”

He gestured vaguely at the blades.

“And you.”

He shook his head once, irritation draining into resignation. Without another word, he lowered his gaze again and tried to refocus—breathing slowly, hands steady.

Come on…

But the sensation was gone.

No warmth. No pull. No response.

Just steel.

Luca’s shoulders sagged slightly.

“…Tch.”

He looked back at Kyle, eyes sharp. “Why did you come here?”

Kyle blinked. “Oh.”

Then snapped his fingers. “Right! I totally forgot why I came.”

Luca stared at him.

Kyle grinned sheepishly. “There’s someone who wants to meet you.”

“…Hmm?” Luca frowned.

He didn’t press further. Instead, he carefully slid the sabers back into his storage ring, the faint disappointment settling quietly in his chest. With a small grunt, he pushed himself up using the crutches.

“Let’s go,” he said, already turning toward the door.

Kyle followed him out, watching until Luca disappeared down the corridor.

Only then did Kyle stop.

He glanced around, then shrugged.

“…Well,” he muttered.

He slipped a hand into his own storage ring.

A spear materialized in his grip—sleek, balanced, faintly humming with mana. Kyle held it upright in front of him, expression oddly serious now.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Can you hear me?”

Silence.

No response. No vibration. No miracle.

Kyle’s face slowly flushed red.

“…Of course,” he muttered, looking away. “I’m an idiot for believing it.”

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