IRM Chapter 60

The Dragon of Despair that blotted out the sun roared toward the heavens, its deafening cry echoing throughout the entire sea area. The seawater surged in the invisible sound waves, and terrifying waves crashed against the floating island, causing the entire island to tremble slightly.

Ji Chi admired the dwarves’ expressions of utter dismay for a moment before turning back to respond to Tang’s words. “Yes, it is Nidhogg. So I’ve always been curious—what’s the significance of your mercenary group naming itself after it?”

Tang didn’t speak, only raised his head to gaze steadily at the giant dragon in the sky.

After a long while, he finally sighed softly. “You might not know this, but in the beginning, the Nidhogg mercenary group was the most hated and feared organization in the Northland. As long as it could make this world a little worse, we would do anything…”

Tang said indifferently, “At that time, there was only one condition for joining Nidhogg—being desperate enough to want to destroy everything.”

He recalled the past and shook his head with a light laugh. “But that was all a long time ago. Many changes happened afterward, and now we’re a reasonable, moral mercenary group! We keep the name Nidhogg as a warning to ourselves not to lose our way again…”

This should have been a heavy memory, this should have been a name shrouded in despair, but somehow Tang’s gaze kept falling meaningfully on the lustrous white half-eggshell in Ji Chi’s hand. For some reason, he was strangely concerned about that.

Tang couldn’t help himself and pointed at the eggshell. “Speaking of which, what exactly is that?”

Ji Chi looked down at the palm-sized eggshell. “Ah, um, this…”

Ji Chi’s expression was somewhat strange. He remembered the trigger conditions for the world boss Nidhogg in the game and couldn’t bear to shatter someone’s adolescent fantasies about the Dragon of Despair.

Nidhogg never appeared in the game’s main or side storylines. It wandered in an unremarkable forest, and only players bored out of their minds would have the fortune to encounter it.

It was a plump, adorable little black dragon, wearing a half-shell of snow-white eggshell, flying laboriously through the air as if searching for something.

At that moment, when a player bored to the point of molding suddenly encountered it, what would they do?

Did they even need to think? Of course they’d flip off that very incongruous eggshell!

What followed was a story mixed with blood and tears.

Ji Chi had been only in his twenties at the time and had even mischievously stuffed the eggshell into his backpack. Then he was chased by the giant dragon form of Nidhogg for five whole days!

It wasn’t until he couldn’t take it anymore and threw the eggshell back onto its skull that the massive black dragon finally spared him, turning back into a chubby little dragon and continuing its search for the other half of its eggshell.

Ji Chi glanced at the dwarves who were wailing and scurrying about from being scorched by dragon flames, and gave an ambiguous answer to deflect Tang’s inquiry. “Perhaps for some souls, growing up is a very despairing thing.”

Under Ji Chi’s command, Nidhogg wasn’t attacking at full strength. At most it served a deterrent function, and the dwarves were mostly just scared half to death, now huddled together in disheveled embarrassment.

Especially Anthony—he wasn’t a combat profession, and carrying all that fat flesh and heavy golden jewelry, he looked so pathetic it was as if he’d reverted to being the slave’s son from years ago.

Bard walked up to Anthony and looked down at him, just like when they first met—a revered and beloved master craftsman examining a grimy mining slave.

The difference was, this would be their last meeting.

Anthony’s eyes widened as he stared in shock at the strangely shaped weapon in Bard’s hand. The weapon had a long handle, and the damage-dealing part at the front of the handle looked like two rows of beast fangs.

This weapon could leave very natural beast bite marks on a person’s body, difficult for even experienced hunters to distinguish from real animal attacks.

Bard’s aged hands gently caressed the weapon as he spoke. “I’ve taught quite a few students over the years, and I’ve always had a habit of collecting the first pieces of equipment my students made.”

Bard looked at him. “I remember you handed me a mining tool back then, and I was secretly delighted for a long time…”

“But,” Bard raised the weapon and mercilessly struck Anthony with it, “I never could have imagined that this weapon was actually your true intention! That you had already planned how to kill Fitos!”

Anthony rolled around dodging, letting out inhuman screams. With each strike of the weapon against his body, it savagely tore away chunks of his greasy flesh.

Blood splattered onto Bard’s face, but he didn’t care, continuing his actions with a rigid expression. “Do you know why you’ve come to this end? Because you never forgot that you’re a lowly person! You’ve always looked down on yourself! And you’ve always used vile brutality to cover up this fact!”

Anthony looked as if he’d been mauled by a pack of forest wolves. He tremblingly raised his bloody, mangled face and weakly pleaded to his attendants. “Save… save me…”

His attendants all remained silent and turned their faces away, pretending not to hear.

Only the mage he had previously pushed forward for the trial stared at him for a long time, finally letting out a cold laugh filled with satisfaction.

Anthony died in pain, despair, and pleading. Even dressed in fine clothes and jewelry, he was no more dignified than the slaves who had died by his hand.

Half of Bard’s body was stained with blood. He dropped the bloody weapon with a clang, causing the dwarven attendants to shudder.

Bard bent down to pick up Anthony’s magic bag, searched through it for a while, and found a special control device.

He examined the device and looked up at the remaining attendants with an ambiguous expression.

“You will all leave here immediately and no one is to speak of today’s events. If I hear even the slightest rumor…” Bard’s finger somehow moved, and all the attendants felt something hard jump heavily at the back of their necks.

The attendants were already scared out of their wits. They wished they could forget this terrible memory and dared not say anything. They helped each other up and left the nightmare-filled island without hesitation.

After the light of the water-repelling formation disappeared from view, Bard finally caught his breath, exhausted in both body and spirit. He threw the control device beside Anthony’s corpse and crushed it to powder with his foot.

Seeing that the matter was concluded, Nidhogg, which had been hovering above the island, slowly descended. It didn’t land on the narrow island but extended its neck toward Ji Chi, gently nudging him with its massive head and snorting as if urging him.

Ji Chi laughed and, when the black dragon turned its head to the side, pressed the eggshell onto the top of its skull.

The snow-white eggshell was even smaller than the scales on top of the black dragon’s head, yet it miraculously sealed all its power. The massive body rapidly shrank and transformed back into the adorably chubby little dragon.

Wearing the swaying eggshell, it huffed and puffed as it landed on Ji Chi’s shoulder, its rounded curves fitting perfectly next to his neck as it nestled there contentedly.

Tang looked at the two of them with a complex expression.

To be honest, their mercenary group had long regarded Nidhogg as a spirit or totem—powerful, mysterious, and despairing. Just hearing the name was incredibly cool, and even the mercenaries of different professions in the group’s top seven seats used black animals as their codenames.

[Black Panther] the rogue, [Black Cat] the alchemist, [Black Wolf] the warrior… Everything in the group aligned with their supreme faith, the [Black Dragon] Nidhogg.

However, now Tang felt his faith was about to collapse—the Dragon of Despair absolutely could not be this foolish creature!

Tang was so devastated that he frantically deceived himself.

The little chubby dragon was ice-cold all over, making it an excellent cooling tool in this perpetually hot summer sea area, so Ji Chi wasn’t in a hurry to put it away.

Although he felt a bit sorry for Tang, holding it really was very comfortable!

Ji Chi ignored Tang’s resentful gaze and scooped the little chubby dragon from his shoulder into his arms, cradling it. The smooth, ice-cold black scales dispelled the increasingly scorching midday heat, bringing a touch of soft coolness.

After killing Anthony, Bard took out a handkerchief from the box. He walked to the edge of the island, dampened it with seawater, and wiped the blood from his face. Noticing the now-calm sea surface, he suddenly spoke, “Ten minutes are up.”

At some point, the trembling sensation on the island had stopped.

Ji Chi discovered that the stone platforms standing at the seven points of the seven-pointed star had already turned to ash during the earlier trembling, and the metal island was now completely flat, with only the central temple standing quietly.

After the island quieted down, it was Chloe’s turn to begin changing. Her body was shifting and moving, but unlike the combat form that had appeared before, this time she was decomposing.

Chunks of metal of unknown composition were falling off, but instead of crashing to the ground, they flew upward toward the temple as if attracted by magnets, defying gravity.

As more and more metal fell away, Chloe gradually shrank. The colossal structure that had been nearly fifty meters tall was reduced to just its core after all the outer shells had shed away.

The core’s form was very similar to Yuan Yuan—both were luminescent spiritual entities invisible to ordinary people, though this one was pale gold, the color that appeared beside every engineer in the Magic Sword online game.

Chloe’s core was humanoid, about five feet seven inches tall, with a vague, smooth face like an unfinished clay sculpture.

It noticed the gaze behind and turned around, its flat face directly facing Ji Chi.

In that moment, Chloe’s features began to change. Contours rose and fell, features fine-tuned, and soon the “clay sculpture” became more and more refined, more and more lifelike.

A beautiful young woman stood before them—this was the real Chloe, youthful and beautiful.

Her face bore seven or eight points of resemblance to Ji Chi’s current appearance, the difference lying in their demeanor.

One showed calm composure in the face of anything, the other displayed innocent bewilderment.

Chloe walked up to Ji Chi, looked at him for a long time, and repeated what she had said before. “Chloe wants to become a human like you.”

After speaking, she continued to gaze steadily at Ji Chi without expression, but he could sense her nervousness and anticipation.

Ji Chi’s current mood was very complicated. He had thought that after this matter was over, he would never have anything to do with this face again. But… he discovered this seemed far from over.

Ji Chi had a feeling that not refusing her would lead to something strange happening. However, when he saw those clear, pure golden pupils, the words of refusal circled around his lips before being swallowed back. He averted his gaze and sighed softly. “Do as you wish…”

Chloe didn’t know what malfunction she was experiencing. She felt something warm and sour in a certain part of her chest, and the corners of her mouth uncontrollably curved into a tiny arc.

She touched that possibly malfunctioning area and, following her impulse, said softly, “Thank you.”

Crack—Chloe’s voice was drowned out by the tremendous noise coming from above the temple.

Ji Chi looked up in surprise to see Chloe’s “body” assembling into the shape of a giant key above the temple, now deeply embedded in the temple, turning in their direction.

Like a gift box, the temple opened from above, its four smooth, seamless walls tilting outward and falling down, exposing the interior of the temple to the entire barren metal island.

Inside the temple was also empty, with only a massive statue standing in the very center.

That was the God of Forging—Hephaestus.

The statue depicted a young man gazing gently and compassionately at his own hands, which were held one above the other in a loose embrace, as if protecting or creating something.

Bard was already speechless. His gaze was fixed dead on the statue’s head, where there was a golden crown with a very… abstract design. To directly call it ugly would be impolite, but it definitely couldn’t be called attractive.

Set: [Inspiration of the God of Forging (2/3)]

Quality: [Legendary]

Component: [Crown of the Contemplator]

Component Effect: [Increases the probability of engineers crafting epic equipment]

Component Description: [The crown legendarily worn by the God of Forging. The great deity was not only contemplating but also taught objects to contemplate]

Ji Chi carefully examined the oddly-shaped crown and recalled Chloe’s previous appearance, concluding that this God of Forging definitely had problematic aesthetics.

Bard’s thin body began to tremble slightly as he stared unblinkingly at the crown. “It’s real… these components really exist. I really have hope of forging it…”

Crystalline tears flowed down the furrows of Bard’s face, pattering onto the metal floor and stirring up tiny motes of dust.

The statue was very tall, and no one could reach the crown. Ji Chi released the little chubby dragon from his arms and had it help retrieve the crown.

The crown worn by the statue was large, but after leaving the statue, it gradually shrank to normal size.

Under Bard’s terrified and worried gaze, the little chubby dragon, carrying the crown that was about as large as itself, swayed unsteadily as it came to Ji Chi.

Ji Chi took the crown, which was dampened with some unknown liquid, and examined it closely, secretly sighing that it was indeed ugly! No wonder he had immediately sold it back then. Except for fanatical engineers, who would be foolish enough to wear this thing!

He immediately handed it over to Bard.

Bard reverently received the crown and immediately used the clean inside of his sleeve to wipe away the little chubby dragon’s drool.

He gazed at the crown for a long time, and as if making up his mind, said to Ji Chi, “I’m truly grateful to you. Without you….I never would have been able to see it in my lifetime.”

Even Bard’s movements to caress the crown were gentle, not daring to use too much force. “If I’m fortunate enough in this life to collect this entire set, and if I’m fortunate enough to personally forge that legendary item, I will return them all to you.”

Bard smiled. “Of course, if I don’t have that qualification, after my death, someone will deliver them back to you.”

Ji Chi was somewhat surprised. He understood this old man’s fanatical obsession with legendary artifacts very clearly, and making this decision must have been very difficult for him.

Ji Chi shook his head in refusal. This set was really of no use to him, and there was no need for him to compete with an old man whose heart was set on forging. “There’s no need. They’re more meaningful in your hands.”

After Ji Chi finished speaking, without waiting for Bard to respond, he surveyed the empty island and said, “It seems this is all there is here. If there’s nothing else, we should…”

The words “go back” were still in his mouth when he was startled back into silence by Yuan Yuan suddenly appearing.

“Yuan Yuan? I didn’t call you.” He frowned.

Yuan Yuan acted as if it hadn’t heard him and flew toward the statue of the God of Forging. The blue, glowing cube stopped for a moment at the statue’s palm, then quickly burrowed into the space formed by the statue’s cupped hands.

In that moment, light invisible to Bard and Tang but reflected in Ji Chi’s pupils bloomed from within the statue’s palms.

TL/N:

Forging God → God of Forging