Outside looking in, the Zhen Clan scions were rather perplexed as to what Zhen Liu was doing to Zhen Guo at this mont.
One minute, he’s coordinating a sneak attack that would, in his words, "create an opening to fix their cousin’s brain," the next, he was manhandling the man with the help of his jade warrior lady puppet. And then, after the aforentioned manhandling, Zhen Liu proceeded to grab Zhen Guo’s hamr holding hand and began to do...sothing with it.
They assud he was either breaking or absorbing the curse, honestly it could’ve been either or given their cousin’s track record as of late. The only indication that sothing was happening though was the sign of tears forming in the corner of Zhen Liu’s eyes.
"Wait...ya think maybe he’s getting injured by that hamr on a spiritual level?"
"Spiritual? Not ntal?"
"Zhen Liu is able to control multiple aether puppets at once. I tried controlling one once, and it hurt my brain for like three days afterwards."
"Ah."
Evidently, they weren’t exactly wrong about Zhen Liu being attacked on a spiritual level
_____________________________________________
By the ti the talsmith returned to his village, the people, the flowers and the buildings were dead, burnt and destroyed.
He was the only survivor, by the simple act of being gone when it happened.
Most people would be absolutely ecstatic over surviving such a catastrophe, for being able to avoid such a terrible fate. But he didn’t. Instead, he felt an almost indescribable amoung of guilt that threatened to tear his heart into pieces.
But he didn’t have ti to let this pain stop him, after all, he was just a talsmith and he had work to do.
For three days and three nights, the talsmith worked to clear whatever rubble was left behind, to bury his dead friends and neighbors and replant the flowers that had all been turned to ash.
The rubble was easy to clear, he simply smashed them into pieces.
The bodies, less so, the only place he coukd bury them was where the flower fields once blood brightly.
And as for those aforentioned flowers, he could only find one type of seed that had been left intact after all of this devastation: spider lilly seeds.
In a strange way, this was appropriate, as spider lilies were often used as offerings to the dead. Besides, he planned to find other types of flower seeds anyways, perhaps borrowing seeds from other villages, he just had to take care of sothing first.
With the rubble cleared, the bodies buried and flowers now planted, the talsmith now had only one thing left to do: get revenge.
"Sothing I had made had caused this devastation. It is only right that I be the one to destroy it," the talsmith vowed.
And thus, the talsmith traveled forth, bringing his trusty hamr along, to right the wrong that he wrought from fire and steel.
The hamr felt familiarly heavy.
...
’Huh. And here I was expecting a widower. Strange...but perhaps the mory simply faded? Whatever the case, this next bit seems more...solid.’
...
Having no clue as to who this man was exactly, save so physical traits and the weapon he made for him, the talsmith walked to the next village over to try and see if anyone there knew what he needed to know.
(Un)fortunately, he went in the right direction.
"No...not again."
Like sothing out of nightmare, the neighboring village was a repeat of what had happened to his own village, with signs of deaths and destruction everywhere. Once more, his heart threatened to burst from the guilt of surviving and once more, he tried to resolve it by doing what he had done before in his own village, albeit at a faster pace.
He once again believed that he could’ve done sothing had he arrived at this village earlier, but failed to imagine how.
After all, he was a simple talsmith.
It took him two days instead of three, but having done these deeds of andnt once more, the talsmith once again left to go and find the one that had done this.
His hamr felt a little heavier than before.
Eventually, he ca upon a third village and just like the other two, it was devastated. But it was at this third village, the smith had a very...interesting idea.
At his own village, he buried the dead with their rights and with flowers.
At the second, he had to build a mass funeral pyre as he didn’t have ti to dig up all those holes. He did, however, make sure to plant a few spider lilies as a an of reberance.
At this third village, he realized that most of the labor in funeral preparations was in the simple act of hauling the bodies to their destination. So, he thought, what if he made the bodies easier to transport?
What if he chopped up their corpses and moved them like that?
As a talsmith, he didn’t have anything sharp enough to slice up the dead in an efficient manner, but he could use his hamr to break their unneeded bones. And without all of those bones, it was much easier to pile their bodies for a funeral pyre than before.
By performing this macabre task, he managed to finish his task in one day this ti, but his hamr was feeling even heavier than before sine it was covered blood and bone dust.
By the ti he reached his fourth destroyed village, the talsmith had finalized his routine of grief. Or to be more accurate, he finally beca numb to all of the death.
He no longer cried and bemoaned the fate of these innocent people, he didn’t have ti to shed tears.
He didn’t bother to carefully remove each piece of rubble for reuse, finding it easier to just render them to dust.
He didn’t bother to haul every dead body he ca across, finding it more efficient to crush their bodies into a paste so that he could transport them to a single fire no bigger than one built for camping.
He didn’t even take the ti to make sure every flower seed he planted was able to grow properly. He simply tossed them to the ground, and allowed nature to decide whether they would live or die.
It only took him half a day, but by now, his simple hamr had beco heavier than even a stone pillar, and completely covered in rusted blood.
The once humble and quiet talsmith had been transford through the fires of guilt and hamred by the cruelty of the universe.
By the ti he had found the man, wielding the sword that had caused all of this pain, all of this loss, all of this death and destruction...he felt nothing.
No guilt.
No rage.
Not even a modicum of disgust at the man’s existence or the fact that he was misusing his blade by butchering innocent people.
Instead, what he felt was...well...best sumd up in this conversation.
...
"Well, well, well. If it isn’t the talsmith that helped to fix up my trusted blade here. I thought I killed you back at that village. What’s the matter? Did I shortchange you on the paynt and you want the paynt in blood, or are you here for revenge because of what I did to your worthless little town and its fields full of weeds?"
"Well, I am here to kill you." the talsmith replied, his voice as quiet as grave while his face was as still and pale as a corpse. "But it’s not because of sothing as inane and mundane over greed or grief."
"Oh? Then pray tell, why are you trying to kill ?"
"Because you’ve given too much work as of late. And I won’t be able to take a break until it stops. So please, do a favor, and drop dead already so that I can finally take a break."
"HAHAHAHAHA! Is that it? Truly? Well, if that’s the case, then I’ll be sure to kill you quickly so that you can finally take that rest you wanted. I hear dirt naps are quite good for one’s complexion."
In response to this obvious goading, the forr talsmith let out a long, deep sigh.
"One more body for the fire then..."
...
Neither smithy nor warrior survived this day, and their bodies having long since been turned to dust.
The only signs that any fighting occured, that these two had existed in the first place were in form of two items.
The first, a broken sword that once radiated with dark majesty and killing intent, now rendered a broken piece of scrap.
The other, a rusted blacksmith’s hamr that if one were to hold it closely to one’s ear, they would hear the cries of the dead. Or to be more accurate, they would hear their eternal lant.
_____________________________________________
"Heroes and villains are said to be made from the sa forge that we call, trauma and desperation. It’s what we’re made of that determines the end result."
-the words of an old villain turned hero.
_____________________________________________
[Hamr of the Damned] has been subdued.
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