Chapter 18 – The Forge Below

The elevator didn’t hum. It growled.

They descended through black stone and whispering steel, the walls around them pulsing faintly with runes that didn’t just glow – they breathed. Every ten seconds, a vibration shivered through the floor like something clawing at the underside of the Institute.

Chloe stepped closer to Dan.

“Where are we going?” she whispered.

Kane, standing at the front, didn’t turn.

“Below,” he said. “To the forge.”

When the doors opened, the heat hit them first – wet and wrong, not like a furnace, but like a living lung exhaling into their bones.

Max stepped out first. The chamber was massive – part cathedral, part war bunker. Soulsteel pylons lined the walls, glowing with an inner light like veins running through the earth. Smoke clung low to the ground, and the scent was halfway between molten metal and old blood.

And at the heart of it all stood Ferron.

Ferron didn’t look like a blacksmith.

He looked like the last man standing after the band broke up and the world burned down.

East Asian, mid-thirties, sharp as shattered glass. One iris was storm-grey. The other: a slow-turning lens of molten gold, humming faintly like a war machine at rest.

He wore no apron. No soot-stained leather.

Instead: a high-collared black coat laced with crimson sigils. Silver rings glinted on every finger. Black boots. Matte-black lacquered nails – each etched with runes that shimmered like old scars.

His hair swept back in obsidian waves, singed faintly at the edges. A vertical tattoo ran down one temple in hand-brushed kanji:

火は嘘をつかない– Fire does not lie.

His hammer wasn’t held – it was worn. A gauntlet of red soulsteel curled around his forearm, collapsing into a forge-hammer when summoned. One word etched across its head: Guilt.

Ferron didn’t speak loudly.

He didn’t have to.

His voice was the kind you leaned into. Or bled for.

He moved like a ghost that had chosen not to vanish.

He didn’t look up. “You’re late.”

Max frowned. “We weren’t given a time.”

Ferron snorted. “If you’re not early, you’re prey.”

Victor stepped forward. “You’re a weaponsmith?”

He didn’t answer.

Ferron turned, tossing the cooling metal into a vat of whispering oil. Steam burst upward in the shape of a face and vanished.

“Let’s clear something up,” he said, limping closer. “Fists, faith, raw power? Great start. But all that gets you is killed — maybe five seconds after the screaming starts.”

He pointed toward the forge, where a rack of warped, broken weapons sat like tombstones. “You want to kill demons? Really kill them? You need Blades that bite past the flesh. You need soulbound weaponry.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “You mean like... magic swords?”

Ferron bared yellowed teeth. “You think this is a D&D campaign, princess?”

Chloe held up her hand. “She was asking for clarity.”

Ferron grunted. “I’m giving it. Here’s your truth: mundane weapons can’t kill demons. Not really. Slice 'em, shoot 'em, throw a nuke – it doesn’t matter. If its soul remains, they come back. Some slower. Some angry.”

He walked past Max, slapped his chest with the back of his hand.

“But you lot? You’re special. You’ve got soul resonance now. That means your weapons can be alive – extensions of your will. Tools that grow with you. But only if we forge them here. Now.”

He pointed at the forge. The flames twisted into faces. One smiled. One wept. One screamed.

Ferron pulled back a curtain, revealing five pedestals, each etched with runes in a unique pattern.

“You step on the circle. You bleed. You burn. You bind. The weapon that answers your soul will shape itself.”

Victor crossed his arms. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then it wasn’t meant to,” Ferron said. “And we melt what’s left into something useful.”

Dan hesitated. “This process – has it been tested? Calibrated?”

“Kid, I’ve watched saints break under less. This isn’t a science. It’s an exorcism with an edge.”

Max took a step forward, but Ferron held up a hand.

“Not you.”

Max froze. “Why?”

“Because your weapon already exists,” Ferron said. “You just haven’t had the guts to call it by name.”

Silence. Even Kane looked sideways at that.

Ferron turned, pointed toward a display case off to the side. Inside: a row of ruby-red amulets, each set in silver, faintly pulsing.

Alyssa approached. “Those look familiar.”

“They should. That’s what every Institute grunt wears into the field.” Ferron tapped the glass. “Berserker Stones. One-time boost. Crack it, and you get five minutes of pure, uncut demon strength.”

Dan stepped closer, frowning. “That kind of power... where do you source it?”

Ferron’s face darkened. He turned his back.

Max felt it before Ferron even said it.

“You’ll find out soon,” the forgemaster said, voice low. “Next room over. That’s where the screams are stored.”

He walked back toward the forge. Sparks burst like dying stars.

“Now,” he barked. “Who’s first?”

And one by one, they stepped forward into fire.

…………………

The forge was alive.

It breathed through the walls – slow, deliberate exhalations of heat and soul-pressure that made the air shimmer like the inside of a kiln. The room wasn’t just hot. It was judgmental. Like walking into the belly of something ancient and angry that had chosen – for now – not to burn you alive.

Max and the team followed Ferron through the labyrinthine corridor, boots echoing faintly on blackstone. The deeper they went, the quieter it became. Not silence – absorption. Sound here wasn’t lost. It was taken.

Ferron stopped in front of a massive obsidian door framed with what looked like bone and glass fused under pressure.

“This is my sanctuary,” he said proudly.

He tapped a sigil etched into the wall. The door didn’t swing open – it melted open, rippling like oil under a blowtorch.

Inside, the forge glowed red and gold and something deeper – something without a name. Runes burned across the walls. Tools hung in perfect order. In the centre stood the anvil: ancient, cracked, bound with chains that pulsed like veins.

The group stepped in slowly.

Victor let out a low whistle. “This doesn’t look like any blacksmith shop I’ve ever seen.”

Ferron didn’t look at him. “That’s because I’m not a blacksmith.”

He stepped toward the forge. His coat trailed behind him like smoke, heat curling at the edges without burning the fabric.

“I’m a Soulforger,” he said. “And this place doesn’t make weapons. It makes consequences.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “You’re dramatic.”

Ferron ignored the jibe and turned. The forge cast half his face in firelight, the other in shadow.

“Mundane weapons break bones. Guns tear muscle. But demons don’t bleed. If you want to kill one – truly kill it, soul and all – you need to scar its existence.”

He gestured to the nearest rack. Rows of weapons gleamed with unnatural edges – blades that shimmered with faint echoes, staves humming with captive resonance, whips that left afterimages even while still.

“Each of these,” Ferron continued, “was forged with demon essence.”

Dan stepped forward, studying a short sword with a green core. “What happens if you use regular weapons?”

Ferron met his gaze, expression cold.

“You get killed. Or worse, you survive – and they remember you.”

A heavy silence fell.

Max finally spoke. “Where did you learn this?”

Ferron paused.

Then, slowly, he reached up and pulled the glove off his right hand.

His fingers weren’t flesh.

They were bone.

Not old bone – living bone. Covered in black etchings that crawled when you looked too long. Firelight danced through the knuckles like through stained glass.

“I was born in Nagoya,” Ferron said quietly. “My parents were shamans. They had a long history with demons.”

He flexed his skeletal hand.

“I made a deal when I was thirteen. Forged my first blade at sixteen. It screamed for two days before quieting.”

Chloe whispered, “What happened?”

Ferron’s voice was colder now.

“I became the weapon I tried to build.”

Max said nothing. He knew that tone. That weight.

Ferron pulled the glove back on.

“Now I forge for others. So they don’t make my mistakes.”

He walked to a bench and tapped the surface. Holograms blinked to life – design schematics made of soul-flame and memory wire.

“Each of you will craft your own weapon. I’ll guide you. But it will be yours. Tied to your aura. Your essence.”

Alyssa looked intrigued. “What happens if we get it wrong?”

Ferron smiled faintly. “You won’t. Because you’ll feel it when it’s right.”

He turned to a nearby wall.

And pointed to a long glass case.

Inside it: a ruby the size of a child’s fist.

“This,” Ferron said, “is your last resort. Every Institute soldier carries one. A one-time berserker burst. Crushed against the heart, it floods your system with stolen demon energy. For five minutes, you become... something else.”

Max stared at it. The gem pulsed faintly, like a trapped heartbeat.

“Where does this energy come from?” Victor asked.

Ferron didn’t answer.

He turned away.

And across the room, in the distance, something screamed behind a locked vault door.

Ferron’s voice was almost a whisper now.

“Welcome to the forge. Let’s see what kind of monsters you really are.”

…………………

They stood in front of the forge – five souls, five unfinished stories.

The room had shifted. Not physically, but perceptually. The temperature didn’t rise, yet the air grew heavier, more intimate. The walls themselves felt closer, as if the forge was listening. Waiting.

Ferron moved between them like a conductor preparing a symphony, his gloved hands trailing over racks and runes.

“You don’t choose your weapon,” Ferron said. “You just find out what’s been waiting for you.”

He tapped the first glyph – Chloe’s. A small metal platform rose from the floor, hovering inches above the forge’s molten core.

“You first, phase-girl.”

Chloe approached slowly, glancing back at the others. Max nodded. Alyssa gave her a thumbs-up. Dan smiled, reassuring.

Ferron handed her a sphere of translucent crystal, filled with swirling smoke. “Soul-seed. Breathe into it. Focus. Think not of your powers, but of your path.”

She closed her eyes.

A soft hum filled the air.

The sphere pulsed.

Light bled from her skin – cool, spectral silver. The sphere cracked, then melted, forming strands of metal that snaked into the forge like liquid thought.

From the flames rose a weapon.

Not quite a blade. Not quite a staff.

It was a mirror-blade – a curved weapon of shifting light, its edge phased slightly out of sync with reality. When she moved it, it blurred.

Ferron raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. It doesn’t exist fully in this world. Like you.”

Chloe took it, her hands steady. “It feels like… me.”

Ferron smiled faintly. “Then you’re ready.”

Next: Victor.

Ferron didn’t even need to ask. The moment Chloe stepped aside, Victor stepped forward.

His soul-seed boiled almost immediately in his hand. Heat radiated off him – pure, grounded fury wrapped in calm control.

The forge roared.

From the molten heart emerged a monstrous cleaver, nearly four feet long, jagged along one edge like a sawblade, the other side smooth as obsidian. Its hilt was wrapped in sinew-like leather that flexed slightly when gripped.

“Behemoth steel,” Ferron muttered. “Reacts to rage. Grows heavier the harder you hit.”

Victor tested its weight. It bent slightly in his grasp, then snapped straight again. He nodded. “Perfect.”

“You’ll break walls with that,” Ferron added.

“Good,” Victor said. “I’m tired of asking for doors.”

They laughed. Even Max cracked a smile.

Alyssa was already next, cracking her neck, fire in her stride.

Ferron handed her the soul-seed. “Yours will fight you. Don’t flinch.”

She didn’t.

The crystal pulsed – then exploded in her palm. Not destructively, but like a shrapnel bloom of energy. Ferron didn’t even move.

From the forge, gauntlets emerged. Armoured, brutal, etched with rune channels that glowed blood-red. Each knuckle bore a spike. The exoskeleton crawled up her arms, locking into place around her elbows.

“They feel… heavy,” Alyssa said.

Ferron tilted his head. “They’re weighted by your will. The harder you want something dead, the faster you move.”

Alyssa grinned. “Now we’re talking.”

She slammed one fist into her palm, and the room shook slightly.

Dan stepped forward slowly. Not reluctant – deliberate.

Ferron watched him with an unreadable expression.

“Yours will be the hardest,” he said. “Your soul doesn’t want to hurt.”

Dan nodded. “It won’t. But it still wants to protect.”

Ferron handed him the soul-seed. It pulsed soft gold in Dan’s palm. Warm. Comforting.

But then—

It shivered.

The glow darkened for a split second, flickering toward red. A blade began to form – jagged, ugly, born of fear. A weapon for someone desperate to survive.

Dan flinched. “No.”

He closed his eyes. Focused. Centred.

The heat subsided. The forge slowed its breath.

The soul-seed bloomed in reverse, collapsing inward, then unravelling into something entirely different – light and form wrapped in compassion.

From the heart of the forge rose a caduceus-staff. Not a weapon, but a ward. Two feathered wings curled around the top, shielding a softly glowing sphere. The light pulsed gently – alive, and completely unwilling to harm.

Ferron stared for a long moment.

“Seraph steel,” he whispered. “Rare. Beautiful. Forged not to wound, but to heal. You just did what most can’t:

You turned down the kill.”

Dan gripped the staff, expression calm. “Violence doesn’t scare me. Becoming like them does.”

Ferron gave a slow nod.

Finally, it was Max.

He didn’t step forward immediately. Just stared at the forge, eyes flickering gold-blue.

Ferron said nothing. Just handed him the soul-seed.

Max breathed into it.

And the forge screamed.

Flames surged. The floor cracked.

From the fire rose not a blade. Not a weapon.

A chain.

Thick. Black. Glowing from within with golden Hellfire. The links clanked as they hit the ground, then coiled like a serpent around Max’s arm.

It fused to his wrist. Became part of him.

Max stared at it.

Ferron stepped back. “That… wasn’t me. That was you.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Max muttered.

“But you need it,” Ferron said. “Binding and burning. You’re not a warrior. You’re a warden.”

Max didn’t argue.

The chain pulsed once – alive, hungry.

Behind them, one of the glass cases cracked.

Ferron’s expression darkened.

“You’ve drawn its attention.”

“Whose?” Dan asked.

Ferron didn’t answer.

He turned to the sealed vault door at the end of the forge – behind which something had just growled.

Something massive.

Something angry.

Max looked at Ferron. “Where does the Institute get the demon souls for the ruby amulets?”

Ferron didn’t blink.

He simply turned toward the vault.

And said: “Follow me.”

…………………

The air changed the moment they crossed the threshold.

Ferron led them through a corridor that descended in slow, circular steps. It was narrow – too narrow – with walls that pulsed faintly as if alive. Veins of red light flickered beneath the stone like blood flow behind skin.

No one spoke.

Even Alyssa stayed silent.

At the bottom, a vault door loomed – ten feet high, lined with binding glyphs that burned at the edges with an unearthly crimson. Not digital. Not mechanical. Alive.

Ferron placed his hand on the centre.

It hissed.

The door shuddered, then opened.

The heat hit them first.

Not flame. Not fire.

Soul pressure.

Max staggered, catching himself against the wall. Chloe flinched. Dan groaned softly. Alyssa grit her teeth. Victor growled.

Inside was a chamber unlike anything they’d seen before.

Chains.

Hundreds of them. Hung from the ceiling like spider silk woven from anguish. Each one etched with symbols that changed when you looked away.

At the centre of the room, suspended in a cruciform position, was a demon.

A corruptor-level demon.

Much stronger than anything they had seen before.

Twisted and regal. Its body was shaped like a man – but wrong. Too symmetrical, as if a sculptor had made something beautiful and then fed it through a meat grinder. Eyes sewn shut with black sinew. Horns twisted back like antlers grown from bone. Its skin was smooth obsidian – cracked in places, revealing burning veins of soul-energy beneath.

It didn’t struggle.

It didn’t speak.

But it was awake.

And it watched them with its mind.

Dan clutched his chest. “It’s inside my thoughts.”

Chloe was pale. “I feel it walking through my memories.”

Max’s eyes flared. “It’s not attacking. Just… cataloguing.”

Ferron didn’t look back.

“This is what powers your berserker rubies,” he said. “What gives your little red stones their one glorious burst of hell-forged might.”

Alyssa turned to him slowly. “You’re feeding off that thing?”

“Not feeding,” Ferron snapped. “We take slivers. Fractions.”

He gestured at the glowing chains.

“The runes bleed it – drip by drip. Like tapping a volcano. Except this one hates us.”

Victor snarled. “That’s torture.”

“It’s survival,” Ferron snapped, turning sharply. “Do you think demons will give us their power nicely? You think we can fight a war by wishing hard enough and hoping the next generation is tougher?”

Max stepped forward. “How long has it been here?”

Ferron’s voice dropped.

“Twenty-six years.”

Chloe gasped.

Dan whispered, “That’s a lifetime.”

Ferron nodded toward the chains.

“We don’t know its real name. We call it The Mirror. Because if you stare too long, it shows you the version of yourself you’d kill to forget.”

The Corruptor stirred.

Only slightly.

And the chains screamed.

Each link burned red-hot for a moment, and in that instant, Alyssa saw herself – blood-covered, laughing, fists dripping with gore.

Dan saw himself failing to heal Chloe, surrounded by the dead.

Victor saw the beast fully unleashed. A monster, not a man.

Chloe saw herself vanishing. Not dead. Just erased.

Max saw Liz – burned, broken – whispering, “You failed again.”

“Get out,” Ferron barked.

None of them moved.

“GET OUT!”

The pressure snapped.

Max grabbed Dan and Chloe. Victor hoisted Alyssa, who’d collapsed to one knee.

They stumbled into the corridor.

The vault slammed behind them with a sound like a god choking on its own name.

They breathed.

Hard.

Sweat poured. Tears too.

Silence held them there.

Until Max finally spoke.

“This is the cost?”

Ferron stood calmly beside the sealed door.

“This is the reality,” he said. “You want weapons? Strength? Victory?”

He turned and faced them all.

“Then understand: our strength is borrowed from pain. Our victories are built on suffering. And the moment you start pretending otherwise, you become no better than the monsters we fight.”

Dan looked back at the vault.

“Why do you stay?” he asked quietly.

Ferron didn’t blink. “Because someone has to paythe price.”

And with that, he walked away – coat trailing behind him, bootsteps fading into the dark.

No one followed right away.

The hallway was quiet.

But in the vault, deep behind the sealed door, The Mirror smiled.

And for the first time in years, it spoke.

Only one word.

Max’s name.

Whispered like prophecy.

“Jaeger.”