The next morning, the shop's air still carried the tang of smoldering coals from the previous day's work when the door creaked open.
Kaden didn't look up at first—he was midway through grinding the edge of a dagger, the whetstone's rhythmic scrape a familiar lullaby.
But when the draft that followed the visitor carried a scent not of metal or smoke, but of damp wool and fear, he froze.
Serena usually arrived with a clatter of boots and a quiet nod, her hands already dusted with charcoal.
This was different.
He lifted his head.
Melissa stood in the threshold, her face the color of old parchment.
Her lower lip trembled, and her fingers dug into the edge of a small journal, its pages frayed at the corners.
The fog outside seeped in around her, curling like serpents through the gap, as if hesitant to cross the threshold.
Kaden's jaw tightened.
He 'd seen that fog before thickening whenever the lingering malice, a physical manifestation of the lingering malice.
"Melissa," he said, keeping his voice steady.
The dagger slipped from his grip, clattering to the workbench.
He didn't bother to retrieve it.
"What happened?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she held out the journal, her knuckles white.
The pages were smudged with ink, the handwriting frantic, letters overlapping: I heard the anvil.
It's not just metal.
It's… alive.
Below that, a sketch of a hammer—no, not a hammer.
The lines curved too sinuously, the head shaped like a heart split by a blade.
Kaden's stomach dropped.
He recognized that symbol.
It was the mark of the forged god, burned into the inside of his own wrist since birth.
"You heard it," he said, more statement than question.
His throat felt dry.
The last time someone mentioned the anvil "speaking," they'd vanished three days later—one of the missing blacksmiths from the gossip that haunted the town's taverns.
Melissa nodded, her eyes wide.
"It… whispered. Last night, when I walked home. Like metal scraping on bone. Told me curiosity was dangerous. Then—" She pressed a hand to her temple, her breath hitching.
"Then I started hearing it in my head. The anvil. Not the one here. A different one. Bigger. Burning."
Kaden's fingers flexed.
He felt that presence too, in the nights since he had activated the soun-melting furnace system - an itch at the back of his skull. a shadow that lingered in the corners of his dreams.
But Melissa was human, not a blacksmith.
If the remnant soul was reaching her...
"It's the spirit of forging," he said, low.
"It feeds on fear, on curiosity. You're too close to the forge, to me. It's latching onto you."
Her face paled further.
"Can you… stop it?"
He hesitated.
Soul forging was his only tool against spiritual taint-something he 'd only practiced once on a rusted family heirloom that had held a child's ghost.
But a living person?
The risk of burning her mind to cinders was very real.
But he couldn't let her become another statistic.
Not when he might be the reason the soul had stirred in the first place.
"Follow me," he said, stepping around the workbench.
He paused, glancing at the door.
The fog outside had retreated a few feet, as if sulking.
"And keep the journal. I'll need to study the writing later."
In the back of the shop, behind a curtain of leather hides, the soul furnace glowed faintly.
Its stone walls were etched with runes—Kaden's own, Youdaoplaceholder0 after the system had unlocked the blueprint-meant to channel into spiritual energy.
He lit the coals with a snap of his fingers the flame flaring blue at his touch stirring he suspected).
"Take off your necklace," he said, gesturing to the simple silver chain around her neck.
When she did, he pressed a thumb to his palm, wincing as a bead of blood welled.
"I need to forge a resonance pendant. My blood will anchor it to my soul - if the remnants try to take you, it'll have to go through me.
Melissa swallowed.
"Will it hurt?"
"Probably." He smeared the blood onto a sliver of mithril, the metal hissing as it absorbed the drop.
But if we don't do this, the remnant won't just whisper. It'll consume you.
He dropped the mithril into the furnace.
The coals flared, turning from red to white-hot.
The system's voice pinged in his mind: Soul forging detected.
It Requires 50 craftsman spirit values.
Proceed?
He mentally clicked "yes," wincing as a familiar drain settled in his chest—the cost of bending magic to his will.
The mithril melted, then re-formed, stretching into a pendant shaped like a tiny anvil.
As he lifted it from the furnace, it hummed against his palm, a vibration that traveled up his arm and settled in his chest.
"Put this on," he said, dropping it into her outstretched hand.
"And close your eyes."
She did, her lashes fluttering.
Kaden placed his hands on either side of her head, focusing on the warmth of the pendant against her collarbone.
The system prompts flickered: Heterologous will interference detected. Should the purification program be initiated?
"Yes," he breathed.
The pendant glowed.
At first, it was a soft light, like moonlight through glass.
Then it brightened, spilling over Melissa's skin in tendrils of white.
Kaden's vision blurred - he could see the soul now, a wr