He chuckled dryly, the sound echoing in the empty room.
"Turns out, no one wants a good, honest sword when they can have flashy railguns."
He lowered his blind gaze, setting the heavy hamr down carefully. His thick fingers trembled ever so slightly.
He had been born with a rare, highly sought-after ability: Weapon Manifestation. But unlike the flashy others who could conjure screaming energy-blades, cursed, bleeding daggers, or sentient, talking firearms, his creations were strictly plain.
Ordinary. Physical. Just tal and wood. Incredibly reliable, yes—but visually unimpressive.
When he was young, the neighborhood people called him "Forge Boy." A hopeful, starry-eyed kid. He had even once tried to be a hero himself, wielding a heavy, custom iron staff he’d made with his own hands. But it had snapped in two during his very first brutal fight with a street-level villain, and his naive dreams had broken right along with it.
No family. No friends left. Just the cold sound of ringing tal.
As he sat there in the dark, breathing slow and shallow, a faint, raspy ow echoed near the drafty entrance. He lifted his head slightly, his ears twitching.
"Hmm? That you again?"
A small, incredibly skinny cat padded in—gray-furred, its tail bent at an odd angle, one ear half-bitten off from a street fight. It leapt onto a broken, wobbly stool with surprising feline grace, blinking its yellow eyes at him.
"Don’t look at like that, Cleo. I know I’m a massive disappointnt," he said, tossing a small, oily scrap of his leftover roll toward the cat.
The cat sniffed it disdainfully, then ate it anyway.
He leaned his heavy head back against the cold concrete wall, letting the black hamr rest on his broad chest. His eyes—milky, clouded, and empty—looked up at the ceiling he couldn’t see.
"I wonder... if I just vanished tonight, would anyone even notice?"
The cat purred softly, jumping down and curling warmly against his thigh.
He closed his sightless eyes.
"...At least you would."
And with that, a heavy silence filled the warehouse again. The kind of suffocating silence that wraps itself tightly around absolute failure and keeps it warm until the next miserable morning.
CLANK!
The sharp, distinct sound of heavy tal hitting the concrete jolted him upright.
He shot forward, his breath held, his honed senses instantly sharpening. His ears twitched slightly as he tilted his head toward the source of the noise. Sothing—soone—had deliberately stepped inside his sanctuary.
A trespasser.
His large hand reached instinctively to the heavy iron staff leaning against a rusted water pipe. It was thick, brutally blunt, and entirely inelegant—just like him. But it had imnse weight, and in a fight, that was usually enough.
"Tch... Not today," he muttered, gritting his teeth as he moved with surprising agility, his heavy boots crunching lightly over scattered steel screws.
He crept silently along the deep shadow of a large tal storage cabinet, the gray cat slinking back into a dark corner with a hiss. His heart was beating furiously fast—fast enough to painfully remind him he was still very much alive.
He reached the half-open, screeching inner gate that separated his ager living space from his actual workshop.
Another sound. A very soft, calculated step. A faint whisper of expensive cloth brushing against jagged steel.
Then—he moved.
With a deep, guttural yell, he lunged forward. "Stop right there, you thief!"
He swung the heavy iron staff with brutal, practiced force—calculated, aiming low to shatter knees and disarm rather than kill—but just as the heavy tal neared its target—
CLANG!
It stopped dead. Not because it missed, but because it had been caught.
By a single hand.
A small, delicate hand.
He froze in shock, the vibration of the impact jarring his shoulder.
It was a woman.
He guessed that imdiately due to the surprisingly light weight of the hand blocking him, the precise pressure he felt, and the sudden, intoxicating wave of expensive, sultry perfu that assaulted his heightened senses.
She stood perfectly still in the dim, buzzing glow of the workshop’s hanging lamp. The flickering light caught the pale, flawless skin of her fingers as they effortlessly held his massive iron staff mid-air, making it look like it weighed absolutely nothing.
Her other hand hung casually by her side, encased in a sleek, tight leather glove.
Her curvy figure was tightly cloaked in a fitted black coat, heavily tactical but tailored to accentuate her narrow waist and full hips. Her hair—choppy, short, and jet-black under the harsh light—frad a sharp, incredibly beautiful yet entirely unreadable face.
His mouth opened slightly, utterly confused, his mind racing to find the words.
"What the hell...?"
But before he could demand anything further, another, smoother voice rang out from the shadows.
"Still a little too stable..." the man said casually from behind the main workbench, currently crouched near Surben’s pile of discarded, prototype weapons.
The blind man tilted his head sharply, his grip tightening on the staff.
Footsteps. Slow. Not rushed. Utterly calm.
He turned his sightless eyes toward the sound.
"I might be incredibly lucky to find you at the absolute lowest point of your miserable life, Surben," Cruxius said, stepping into the light. He casually held a sleek tal rod that looked exactly like a masterwork sword not yet fully forged. He glanced sideways at the imposing blind man, whose heavy walking stick was still currently being effortlessly blocked by Darithi’s bare hand.
The blind man stood completely still, subtly tilting his head to catch the precise sound of their breathing and aggressively assess the terrifying situation unfolding around him.
’!’
"Wh-who the hell are you?!" Surben demanded, clearly taken aback. First, the arrogant intruder knew his actual na, and second, he wasn’t alone—he had co with an incredibly powerful woman. This strongly suggested they weren’t here just for petty theft of scrap tal.
Especially considering the terrifying, casual force that woman seed to possess, it was glaringly evident she had so kind of high-tier superpower.
Naturally, for soone with a valuable superpower to stealthily infiltrate the crumbling ho of a blind, washed-up smith—who possessed absolutely nothing but a few ragged clothes and a street cat—was deeply, terrifyingly suspicious.
"Oh, ? I’m Cruxius Blac. You might’ve heard about on your little radio," Cruxius said smoothly, recalling the older days when he saw this man at the very peak of his career—still stubbornly listening to outdated FM radios for the daily news since he couldn’t see the screens, yet globally renowned as one of the top three weapon masters. He was often heavily hired by top-tier heroes who surprisingly preferred gauntlets or minimal, organic bodily enhancents over lasers.
Superpowers naturally granted heroes imnse strength, of course, but sotis a small physical enhancent—a perfectly balanced, strong weapon—could instantly make them comparable to the much higher-ranked ones.
A perfectly forged, powerful weapon could deal a fatal, physical blow to a monster, making it the secret choice of certain veteran heroes, though in today’s flashy world, it was often seen as sowhat shaful.
Simply put, having to rely on a physical weapon as a hero implied an inherent weakness—a pathetic crutch to compensate for a lack of raw, flashy power.
That’s precisely why physical weapons were mostly used by weak, low-ranking heroes. At least, that was the harsh case until a few true weapon masters—like the broken man standing in front of him—rose to sudden, massive prominence.
’!’
"C-Cruxius Blac? The billionaire playboy?"
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