CHAPTER 269: IN THE NORTH

In his room, after a refreshing bath, Adam decided to contact his father. He activated a communication rune, and a screen flickered to life, revealing not a throne room, but the heart of a legendary forge.

The scene was one of controlled chaos and immense heat. The forge was a vast, cavernous space carved into the living rock of a mountain. The walls were lined with tools of every imaginable size and purpose, hanging with a sense of sacred order. A massive, enchanted furnace glowed with a fierce, orange heart, its heat making the very air in Adam’s room feel warmer. In the center of this sanctum stood Yardim Gnomus, King of the Dwarves.

He was, like all dwarves, shorter in stature but built with a density of power that made him seem as immovable as a mountain. His body was a masterpiece of muscle, forged by a lifetime at the anvil. A thick, long brown beard, intricately braided with metal rings, fell to his chest, and equally long brown hair was tied back from a face set in lines of intense concentration. He was a more mature, broader, and even more formidable version of his son. His brown eyes, usually focused on his work, now held a piercing intensity. Renowned as the most exceptional craftsman of his generation and the creator of several of the Seven Artifacts, Yardim was currently swinging a hammer that glowed with an inner, stormy light—the Sky Hammer, one of the very artifacts he had forged.

CLANG! CLANG!

The rhythmic, deafening strikes echoed through the connection as he tirelessly worked a piece of glowing metal, not even glancing at the screen. Adam was not surprised; this was his father’s way.

"Father," Adam began, his voice cutting through the noise. "My friend Nero has awakened a second Law: the Law of Lightning."

The hammer froze in mid-air.

Yardim turned his head, and his full attention landed on his son. Those deep brown eyes seemed to emit a palpable, piercing energy, a weight of focus that Adam could feel even across thousands of kilometers. It was a formidable presence, a reminder that while Yardim was a peerless blacksmith, he was also a Knight who had reached the very apex of power—a Zodiac, like Solomon or Azariah. Wielding the Law of Earth, he was a force of nature, a bedrock of power who could put up a formidable fight against any on the continent.

After a long, assessing silence, Yardim set his hammer down with a definitive thud.

"A second Law..." he rumbled, his voice like grinding stone. "The boy’s very soul is a new kind of ore. Unprecedented. Volatile."

He picked up the hot metal with his bare hands, studying it as if seeing it for the first time. "For such a man, an ordinary blade is an insult. To force two such potent Laws through a common conduit... it would be like channeling a flood through a straw."

He looked back at Adam, his gaze sharp and strategic. "Your path is clear, my son. Stay by his side. Be the friend he can trust when others see only a tool or a threat. Provide him with any assistance he needs." A fierce, proud light entered Yardim’s eyes.

"And you will elevate your craft. You will study this phenomenon and will learn the song of this lightning and the echo of his fire. Then you will forge for him a sword worthy of his spirit—a blade that can sing with both storm and inferno without shattering. The perfect sword."

Adam nodded, a grim smile of agreement on his face. "That was my intention anyway."

With the weighty business concluded, the tension broke. The two dwarves, prince and king, then fell into a more casual chat about techniques, materials, and the goings-on in the mountain halls, their conversation as solid and comfortable as the earth they commanded.

••••

In the northern hemisphere of the continent, a land existed where winter was not a season, but a permanent, frozen reality. Snow fell in an endless, silent curtain, blanketing a desolate landscape of ice and rock. Dominating this stark horizon were gigantic black walls that seemed to defy nature, their peaks piercing the low, heavy clouds, a stark dividing line between the world of man and the realm of nightmares. Beyond these formidable fortifications and a shimmering, invisible magical barrier lay the Monsters’ Territory, a blighted land from which grotesque abominations constantly sought to breach the defenses.

And beyond even that, it was whispered, dwelled their King—the most powerful and dangerous entity on the continent.

Tonight, a breach had occurred. Something massive and cunning had torn a temporary rift in the magical barrier, allowing a tide of horrors to spill through. Standing between this tide and the rest of humanity was a single man: Azariah Raizen, Patriarch of the Raizen Clan and Warden of the North.

He stood on a plain of churned snow and ice, his golden hair, untouched by the filth of battle, whipping around a face as cold and sharp as the surrounding peaks. His golden eyes held no warmth, no fury, only a profound and chilling emptiness, as if he were not a man, but a force of eradication given human form. In his hands, he held his legacy and his burden: one of the Seven Artifacts, Caladbolg, the Sword of Ruin.

The blade was a terrifying sight—a dark, blood-red metal that seemed to drink the scant light, and along its length, not fire or light, but dark red lightning crackled and snapped with a sound like breaking bones.

Before him loomed the breach-maker. It was a monstrous, six-legged behemoth, its hide a patchwork of stone and glistening chitin, with a maw large enough to swallow a house whole. Around it skittered smaller, yet still deadly, insectoid monsters, their claws scraping against the ice.

"All units, fall back!" Azariah’s voice cut through the howling wind, not a shout, but a clear, absolute command that brooked no argument. "Create a perimeter. This is beyond you."