Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

---Adventurer Guild's Holy Land, Border of Kozdam---

The Kingdom of Kozdam had grown further after the last time Seth was here. It now reigned over a vast part of the surface and upper levels of the canyon. Many of the dungeon entrances were now fortified with manned garrisons, while the Orcs deeper in the heartland actually started building villages and farms.

One could have gotten the notion the Orcs were intelligent or civilized, but those who had these ideas and tried to approach them for trade or negotiations quickly landed in soups. They were different from the old Mur Empire that tried to conquer the land and its people.

After failing in the Abyss, the orcs only wanted the land because of their exploding population. They didn't care for power or control. One could say they were settlers, not conquerors. Since they couldn't be talked to or reasoned with...

“I finished setting up the formation. You can start at any time now.” Tano'Mol informed him as he returned to Seth's side, riding on a demonic creature that looked like a seven-eyed lizard. The direction he came from was their first target.

In the distance was a small garrison, built on a shallow cave-style dungeon. It was one of the newest Orc dungeons and relatively small, according to the guild. It was fortified by a stone wall, raised with , and fortified further with wards and a barrier. It was better than the one Seth had visited previously to test Haa'Skon.

No wonder the common adventurer avoided Kozdam Quests. Once they fortified it, it was like having to siege a city, But the bounty, the dungeon, and the experience it protected were not worth the effort. It was good that Seth was not here for the dungeon loot or experience.

“Alright, then let's do this quickly!” he said and went to work.

Seth had a stack of almost fifty quests in his inventory and wasn't in the mood to waste time. The Salamander Skin below his armor flared up as he activated . The Trignis Gloves unlocked advanced spells of belonging to the system for Seth. allowed him to access the magic of the fire demon, which went in a different direction, unlocking a variety of demon spells. For Example-

“Demon Flame Meteor!” he cast, not needing to do a chant thanks to of the Cloak of Hekate. From far above in the sky, a meteor shaped like a burning demon skull, enveloped in dark fire started descending toward the barrier of the garrison. The roaring of the meteor seemed like the cry of the skull and it crashed into the barrier.

The barrier held on, but not for long, as a second skull followed the first, thanks to the cloaks . The Demon Flame Meteor was weaker than ultimate fire spells like explosion or the actual meteor spell, but it was good enough for the first step.

When the barrier was shattered, Seth waited for a moment as a tumult started in the garrison. Orcs frantically sounded alarm and soldiers manned the walls while spell casters tried to repair the barrier. This was what he had wanted.

The next moment, the garrison was bathed in bright light, as if the sun had broken through the layers of clouds, and decided to focus on the orcs alone. The rays of light split into exactly 300 as they fell on the garrison as a target-seeking rain of death.

Seth had lured the orcs into the open and simply fired using the Mind Reaper bow. The kill notification rang incessantly in his head for the next 10 minutes. Almost 200 Orcs, Goblins, and Hobgoblins ranging from lv.50 to 65

Despite only made magic damage, which the Mind Reaper didn't have, all of them died. Although Seth had switched back to the Sky Set to improve his base magic damage and had many other items that improved the power of the light arrows, the main point was the Mind Reaper's effects of aiming for vitals, as well as causing stun and decay. Many died over the course of 10 minutes, because the critical wounds grew gradually worse, while they were unable to do anything against it.

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“How is it?” Seth asked the demon beside him, who looked at a small crystal in his hoof-like hands.Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs ɴo(v)elꜰɪre.ɴet

“150 Small and 43 medium-sized souls. Not bad for 15 minutes work,” Tano'Mol gave him the number of their spoils, the souls that had been collected by the formation he set up. The blacksmith suppressed a sigh. He was a little disappointed, but he realized that he was a little spoiled since he was previously able to buy great numbers of souls like this from Mol.

“I guess getting medium-sized ones with this method is still good.”

Had he harvested them personally he might have gotten better results, but now that he hunted souls himself this method was much more convenient. How long would it take to kill and take souls one by one? He could just strengthen the medium souls using the small souls later on with the Soul Refinery. In the long run, he was making more this way.

“Alright, let's get inside and clean up.”

While the blacksmith entered the small dungeon, Tano'Mol stayed outside, collecting the corpses of the orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins, in case there were any useful ones among them. It was more advantageous to use their original bodies that were modified by the Golem Forge than build frames for all of them. Even if he wasn't giving them a soul, golems made of bodies could still make up for numbers.

The cave dungeon below the garrison was a small dungeon with five floors that were no different from a natural cave. Originally, it was a low-level dungeon filled with simple monsters like bats and rats, and scorpions around lv.15. It didn't have the size or age to sustain a lot of Orc troops.

As such, inside the dungeon were far fewer enemies than on the surface. It was hardly worth entering, except for the lv.70 dungeon boss and master. Although he was a massive orc warrior, he had nothing to resist Seth and quickly lost his life when he was pierced by a stone needle.

Not even 20 minutes after entering, Seth stood before the defenseless dungeon core, pondering. The top of his Giant's Rod was teetering above it, as it spat out a pitiful few silver coins. The orcs had really used up all the energy to get troops over.

What the blacksmith was pondering over was the future of the dungeon core. Should he destroy it and eradicate any chance for Kozdam to retake it? If he were to simply destroy all the cores on this journey, he was sure the dungeon god would get mad at him. He didn't mind offending some demon general, but getting the ire of a god rivaling the System God made him think twice.

At one point he had threatened a core that he would come back and destroy it if it ever took a dragon newt as a dungeon master. If he did the same here, wouldn't the orcs just destroy a dungeon that wouldn't obey them? This could also fire back at him.

Seth got one other idea as he thought about how to prevent Kozdam from taking the dungeon again. Take it himself! If he could go around claiming dungeon like Kozdam did and left a boss mob the orcs would have a hard time defeating, would this solve it?

Opening a gate to Legion's space, a golem knight stepped out. It was one of his very first golem knights. One of those he had created from the giant monkey corpses he brought from Alpha. Despite their slow growth, this golem had enough time to reach lv. 92, while having stats that rivaled a player of the Oathguard at lv.99 in full armor.

“Touch the dungeon core,” he told the golem. “Accept him as your new dungeon master!” he commanded the core once the gauntlet of the golem knight touched the crystal. However, despite threatening the core's existence, it glowed in a deep red and resisted doing so.

Seth was a little taken aback. It had obediently spat out the money, but it vehemently denied taking the master Seth chose! Why? What was the difference between the dungeon empires that kept conquering dungeons and him...?

“Does one need the blessing of the dungeon god to become a dungeon master?” he finally asked the core in a voice that made it clear he could be reasoned with. Hesitatingly, the core started glowing a dim green light, which Seth counted as a yes.

“Alright, I will spare you for now,” he said and decided to leave. The bard had an idea of what to try next. He actually felt stupid that he had not done it earlier. But this was not the dungeon or time to test it.

This and the next few dungeons were just small ones at the border. By the time he was finished that border would be pushed much further back. He would try it at a stronger dungeon. He left the dungeon and returned to Tano'mol.

“Let's go to the next one, “ he said, looking at the , where he was able to see all the quest markers for the quests he took.