Forged Legacy

Chapter 166 - Forgefire

The dragon continued breaking off pieces of reality as it reached toward its younger self. Harvey didn’t know why it was here, but through the widening gap, he saw his real body dipping his hand inside the inkwell.

Shit. Shit. Shit!

His hand didn’t immediately dissolve like everything else he put inside the cauldron, but it was moving to paint the bloody ink onto his face. Harvey still hadn’t decided how he planned to anoint his weave in preparation for his evolution to E-Grade, but a powerful undeath Imprint was definitely the wrong choice.

While he panicked, his consciousness was being constantly pulled back towards Marcus' body. If he reunited with the dead prophet’s legacy, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to break out again. Harvey had no idea what would happen if he got stuck inside this vision, but something deep within him screamed that he had to get out as fast as possible.

Still, try as he might, he couldn’t break free of the pull. He had no body. No weave. No essence. All he had was his aura and his will to live.

Think, Harvey, think! You’re in an inkwell! No… your mind is in an inkwell. What do you need to do?

The answer was simple. It was something he’d done plenty of times before. Take what he needed, and get rid of all the rest.

With a frantic surge of desire, the world around him began to burn. Slowly, at first, but then all at once. The flames were searing and destructive, reminding him of the forge he knew was just out of sight through that window carved into the legacy snowglobe he was trapped in.

As the vision crumbled to ash, he focused his will on the bond that was trying desperately to yank Harvey back into Marcus's body. To his delight, it burned, and once it did, his connection to his own Willpower came roaring back.

Harvey blinked and opened his eyes to see his own, ink-soaked hand an inch away from his face. A beady drop was moments away from falling onto his nose, and he jerked his head back just in time.

[Help…] Julius croaked.

Putting his hand back on the inkwell, Harvey directed the forgefire manifested within to consume all the latent will still held within the Imprint and the dragon bone. The memory world burned away in an instant, but he hesitated once all that remained was the vision of Marcus desperately clinging to the baby drake.

Harvey had so many reasons to hate Marcus. His army killed so many Veilstriders. Harvey watched him boil Julian’s head with his own eyes. He deserved to die back then, and his legacy deserved to burn now, but Harvey understood how he’d become the monster he was.

He’d been a human. A terrified zookeeper who’d made the mistake of trusting an alien who promised strength if he only surrendered. Without people like Julian and Hannah pushing him, Harvey could easily see his old self making the same decision. Letting himself be turned into a starving dog willing to do anything and kill anyone to survive.

Harvey would never forgive Marcus, but at least now he understood him.

For a moment, he considered destroying the resonances altogether, letting them dissipate into the wind like nothing had ever happened.

No. I’ll let your suffering serve a greater purpose.

With more control than ever, he burned the vision within until all that remained were resonance-infused ashes. Normally, the inkwell would break down his ingredients into aetherial streams of energy, but now they remained as physical manifestations of the power once held within.

Like a surgeon, he extracted every mote of ash until all that remained was undeath and thanefire. It appeared he’d picked the right ingredients, having a large pile of resonant ash left to create his ink. Mixing it with his blood, Harvey created a thick clay that his aura carefully molded into the shape of Marcus riding atop his thanefire spewing dragon. The crude figurine reminded him of the first time he saw the prophet. Not exactly, since he’d still been trying to lure Harvey into the same trap he’d fallen into at the time, but the concept was the same.

Marcus, the undying prophet, a vessel bringing undeath to the world through the mouth of his thanefire-spitting dragon with its life-consuming flames. A destiny that would never be fulfilled, but now turned to fuel for Harvey’s own path of adaptive supremacy. Forgefire engulfed the figurine like it was being fired in a kiln, turning it to stone before it disintegrated into a pool of azure ink sloshing around the dormant cauldron.

His chest burned like he’d shoveled hot coals from the forge directly onto his skin, breaking down the flesh around his Tempered Heart Imprint before hardening it like tempered steel. Radiant light threatened to burn a hole right through his t-shirt, but it seemingly couldn’t affect anything outside his body. Even as it began to fade, the rest of his weave ignited, pushing his Profession up 3 levels all the way to level 48. Harvey continued to grip the inkwell so hard that his fingernails began to bleed, not letting go even after the light finally faded away. There he sat, staring at the ink until the liquid settled like a sheet of cerulean glass.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to NovelBin for the genuine story.

[Harvey?] Julius whispered weakly inside his mind.

It’s me. I’m back, Harvey replied.

[What happened? You disappeared the second the Imprint hit the blood, and I had to hold back the dragon bone all by myself.]

I got sucked into a vision. I was Marcus, strung up in the cave where he got turned into a revenant. How long was I gone?

[Seriously? I don’t know… a few minutes?]

Harvey chuckled as he shook his head, pushing the inkwell aside so he could put his head down on the table.

For me, it’s been weeks.

The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. He knew it had taken that long for Marcus to get from the cave to the hatchery, but everything in between was hazy. It was like the vision had been a long train ride, but he could only remember the stops and not the time spent rolling along the tracks.

[How’d you figure it out? That you were stuck in a vision, I mean.]

I didn’t. If that dragon hadn’t poked a hole in the sky, I’m not sure I would’ve made it out.

[Well, it’s a good thing I’m here then. The latent will from the dragon bone started attacking you, but I managed to hold it off until we both sensed an echo of its power in the Imprint. I think it was trying to snatch it so it could overpower me.]

That made sense. The dragon only started pounding its way inside the vision when Marcus bonded with its younger self. That experience had been the foundation for the Prophet’s Imprint, and the dragon bone recognized itself in the legacy’s power. It accidentally broke the illusion, giving Harvey the chance to escape.

I need to figure out how to break myself out of the vision if we’re ever going to do this again.

[Maybe that new Mark will help?]

At that, Harvey peeled off his shirt and strained to look down at his chest. New flames appeared around his Tempered Heart Imprint when he made his weave visible, but he couldn’t get a good look without a mirror. He could easily pull up his Legacy screen to see an image of the new tattoo alongside the description, but the vain side of him wanted to see how it looked on his skin.

Pushing inside, he found his mother walking out of the hallway bathroom.

“Harvey? Why is your shirt off?” she yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he laughed, giving her a quick hug before rushing into the bathroom.

His Tempered Heart Imprint, which rested right over his actual heart, was now surrounded by a stone forge gushing flames. It looked just like the one he’d used back in Veils End, or at least what he thought it looked like before time and the elements got their chance to eat away at the stones and the mortar.

“Nice,” he smiled.

“What?” Cassandra asked, pushing through the half-open door to stand beside him. “Whoa! Is that new?”

“Just got it. What do you think?” Harvey asked as a screen appeared in front of them.

Mark | Forgefire:

Fire. One of mankind’s first and greatest discoveries. Your ancestors used it to stave off the cold, ward off predators, and light their way through the darkness. You have carried it to a higher purpose. In the forge, fire is both a tool of destruction and creation. With it, you break down the mundane and mold it into something magical. The hotter your forge burns, the more you can master the world around you. Let your will burn that which must be burned, and reforge the world in your image.

Effect: +5 Strength, +5 Wisdom, +5 Willpower

“I don’t know?” she mused. “It kinda gives me evil villain vibes.”

“Really?” Harvey gave her a deadpan stare. “You don’t like my vibes? You sound like a teenager.”

“Don’t blame me. I’ve had multiple living in my house for the past decade,” she chuckled. “Now put your shirt on!”

Harvey stuck his tongue out at her, earning himself a punch on the shoulder before happily complying. They walked back out into the hallway, Cassandra turning towards the kitchen while Harvey moved toward the garage.

“Love you, mom,” he said.

“Love you too! Do you want me to make you something for breakfast? Eggs? Pancakes?” Cassandra asked.

“Eggs sound great! You’re the best!” Harvey smiled.

“Should I bring them out to the garage, or are you going to be burning the house down with your new forge powers?”

“You can bring them out,” he laughed. “I’m waiting until later to burn the house down. For now, I’m just going to be carving some dragon teeth.”

Cassandra froze, hesitating as she decided whether or not she wanted to ask a follow-up question, then rolled her eyes and gave up. Harvey just laughed and returned to his workbench. Carefully, he poured the contents of the inkwell into a bottle. Before, he’d been too frazzled to check out the fruits of his labor, but now he couldn’t wait to inspect it. The blooming pattern of heated iron appeared around his eyes as he activated his ocular skill, pulling up the description of his new ink.

Prophet’s Suffering Ink | F-Grade | Legendary:

Ink mixed from the blood of Harvey Thorne, the bones of a thanefire drake, and the bereft legacy of Marcus the Undying Prophet. Combining the prophet’s endless need to consume life to sustain his transformation with his bonded dragon’s thanefire, this ink burns with the suffocating desperation that once drove Marcus down the path to undeath.

His first legendary creation. He’d thought gaining three levels at once was excessive, but now he understood why.

Thank you, Marcus. Who knew killing you would still be powering me up after all this time?