When the Strength Spirit/Daemon slammed their body into Forge, both of them turned into a red mist. In a way, it looked like the impact turned them into just a blood spray. Slowly, that red fog grew, becoming almost as large as Viper or Crimson. No one said anything. They just watched as that red cloud changed and changed unit it suddenly stopped. It wasn't even moving anymore, just staying still like a drawing. Suddenly, it jerked towards the Empress aggressively, spikes made out of mist jetting from various parts of the form. It stopped, almost like it was waiting for something before doing the same thing again, this time getting even closer to Hera.

"What is going on?" Vash asked.

"I don't know. This is not what was supposed to happen," the Empress turned to Daskka, "Do you have any idea."

The herald stared at the Ophidianite for a long time before replying in a monotone voice, "You didn't do the thing."

"What thing?"

"The thing you have to do to add a titled blade. The speech."

"Oh! Right," she was too overwhelmed with everything and forgot the most basic part of this. Actually, using her [Bestow Title] skill, "Forge, you have just joined our team but have already proven to be an invaluable ally. In addition, you have the same affinity as the Spirit we just found, a Spirit that was being tortured by the humans who worked in that lab. I can't help but think that the MAZE itself is pulling some strings to make all of this happen. I can't say much about its reason, but I can say that I hope you two travel with me to discover it. I ask you, both of you, to join my court as our forge master. And the title of your position shall be Vulcan, in honor of the ancient god of fire, volcano, and metallurgy. Do you accept my invitation?"

The mist shifted once more, and this time, slowly starting to take shape. First was a pair of very long feet with claws at the end. However, these were, in fact, boots, although Hera could tell that this was the actual form of Forge's new feet. The legs were thick and incredibly muscular, the type that could be seen even through the thick black leather pants he was wearing. Pants that had a hole in the back to give away to a thick brown tail. A blue shirt was tucked into the pants. But the color of this fabric was faded, as if it had been worn for countless years on end. He had a pair of muscular but thin arms, especially when compared with his massive legs. His pecks were extremely well defined, but not in a bodybuilder way. More in the same way, a lumberjack, or well, a blacksmith, would have defined muscles. A tuft of ginger fur coming out of the man's cleavage formed by the V cut of his shirt. When his neck started to form, a large and incredibly thick apron plopped in front of him, covering the entire front side of his body. Finally came his face. It was marsupial-like, very reminiscent of a kangaroo, but with a shorter snout. But, the expected symmetry wasn't there. The right side of his mouth was closed, with the lips closing where one would expect; the left had his lips open wide, revealing rows of sharp teeth that were permanently in the display. His left nostril was black and almost dog-like, but the right one was not white anymore like that of a person. The pupil of the right eye was white, surrounded by a red iris and a vibrant green sclera instead of the white most living creatures would have. The left eye was a simple brown. Both ears had the same shape, but the left one was scarred, with holes, marks of claws, and bites. The other had a red pattern, almost like a natural tattoo, creating the image of scales and feathers. His entire head was covered in fur. At the base of the neck, it was still the brown that followed the rest of the body, but as it went up, the colors turned to ginger, then to red, with the tip of the ears having the same color as fresh blood.

Despite the bulky and imposing appearance, Forge was small. In fact, he was a bit shorter than Flint. While still being wider. Hera waited for a moment as the newly titled blade seemed to look around its own body. She wanted to give him time to understand this new situation, but Crimson's anxiety got the better of her, "Forge? Are you still you, or are you crazy?"

"Can I have a fucking moment to understand this shit?!" Forge snarled back, his voice in a half growl, "This is my voice? Scratchier than I expected," he said. Even when he was talking normally, the half-growl was still there.

"Sorry," Crimson replied meekly.

"Just shut up for a moment!" Forge snarled again, but this time, he noticed Hera raising one eyebrow, "Sorry, give me a sec. This is weird and… Why am I so angry? Everything annoys me."

"Everything?" Hera asked.

Forge rolled his eyes, "I just said it was fucking everything. Do your ears work?" Hera was taken aback, but before she could say anything, Vulcan added, "Sorry, Empress. I don't know what is going on."

"I'm going to check your attributes. OK? See if there is anything there. You can do the same," Hera replied and opened his status window.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Forge Vulcan - Strength

Forging Hammer

Total Attributes: 672

Strength: 137 Endurance: 135 Intelligence: 133

Charisma: 107 Agility: 80 Luck: 80

Mana: 6 000 000/6 000 000

Scaling:

Strength X 30.3 Endurance X 29.8 Intelligence X 29.4

Charisma X 23.5 Agility X 17.7 Luck X 17.7

Active Skills:

Echoing Enchantment:

When active, any item struck by this hammer will receive a temporary enchantment. This boon is random, but it will be something that is usable for the item. All subsequent applications of this enchantment will be the same as the first one. The effect will increase based on the number of targets that are under this effect. This effect cannot happen more than once in an item during the same use of the skill.

Stolen novel; please report.

Skill Duration: 2 minute

Enchantment Duration: 10 minutes

Awakened Potential:

Once per day, an item that is hit by this Forge can be pushed to the limits of the material used in its creation.

Alternatively, Forge can activate this skill on two items at once, but doing so makes the cooldown 10 times longer.

Cooldown: 12 hours

Phoenix Touch:

Forge can temporarily bestow the essence of a phoenix on other items. All items affected by this skill can deal bonus Phoenix Fire damage and regenerate any damages with time. In addition, this hammer is able to use a Phoenix Fire wave attack one time.

Cooldown: 84 hours.

Hearth of a Phoenix:

Due to the essence of a phoenix that was used in the creation of the Cinder Kissed Forging Hammer, if Forge is destroyed, he is able to return to life once every so often. In addition, the time he requires to recover after being destroyed is reduced.

Rebirth Cooldown: 7 days

Recovery time reduction 50%

Sacred Flames:

Forge can imbue his attacks with Sacred Fire. In addition, he can create waves of fire to both harm his enemies and heal his allies.

Imbue mana cost: 100 000 mana/s

Damaging wave mana cost: 300 000

Healing wave mana cost: 600 000

Daemon Form:

The Daemon that joined Forge still lingers inside of him. By activating this form, Forge is no longer able to use any skill or spell that does not use strength mana. He becomes more aggressive and may be unable to differentiate friend from foe, with the Empress being the only exception. In exchange, his attributes and scaling are doubled. After the duration of this form, or if he is dismissed while in this form, Forge will return to the legacy to recover.

Duration: 30 Minutes

Time to recover: 12 hours

Passive Skills:

Spirit Bound:

When the Empress uses a spell that asks for Strength Mana, Forge can pay half of the mana cost of the spell desired. Doing so will make him spend only a quarter of the total mana cost for the spell. Forge himself only requires a quarter of the total mana cost to cast spells with Strength Mana.

Daemon Bound:

Forge was bound to a Daemon and was able to maintain his sanity due to the Wardbearer title held by the Empress. However, the Daemon still exists within him, giving him strength but also heightening his more aggressive emotions. He gains a 1% buff to his scaling and attributes for each % of Daemonic influence.

If the Daemonic influence reaches 100%, Forge will be forced into his Daemon Form, any buffs applied by him will be removed, and he will attack everything in sight, with the exception of the Empress. However, he won't be compelled to protect her, even if she is in danger due to his actions. His attributes and scaling will triple instead of double, and he will be constantly damaging himself as his body is unable to contain that power. In addition, the time it will take for him to recover after using his Daemonic Form will be 4 times longer.

While Forge is out of the legacy, the Daemonic influence will continuously increase depending on his surroundings.

Once he recovers from the Daemonic form, the Daemonic Influence will return to 0.

Current Daemonic influence: 86%

Master Crafter.

Forge is more likely to bring out the special attributes of the items he creates.

Buff given by this Forge to other items will be increased by 40%

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They read everything in silence, Hera liked a lot of the things she was seeing, but the Daemonic Form and the Daemon Bound parts worried her. At least it did say that it would only increase when he was out of the legacy. This means she could keep him in there if she was in a situation where triggering the form could be a problem.

"That… makes some sense. Fuck I got the short end of the stick," Forge grumbled.

"You have a revive skill. How is that the short end of the stick?"

"I'm going to be angry all the time. How is that any good?"

"No one said that you will be angry, and I don't think you are angry right now. Just grumpy," Hera replied.

"Even so. That is not great," Forge mumbled.

"Moving on to another topic, do you know if the recovery reduction is already applied to the [Hearth of a Phoenix] skill?"

"I don't know," Forge just shook his head.

"Daskka?" Hera turned around, but the herald just stared back at her. It didn't take their connection for the Empress to feel the rage coming from the snake, "Look. I get that you are angry with me. We can talk about that later. For now, can you help? Please?"

Daskka paused for a moment before huffing, "Fine," she floated over and, after a moment, replied, "OK, right. So it works like other things. If an item or a skill says 'reduce cost/cooldown of X,' then that reduction is already applied to the skill or item itself on the notifications."

"Got it, I thought it was the case, but I wanted to make sure."

"Empress. Can I ask for a favor?" Forge's voice was calmer, but the growl was still there, showing that it wasn't something related to his mood.

"Already asking for favors?" Hera smiled, but seeing Vulcan's intense eyes, she stopped joking, "Of course."

"Order me to always know how much Daemonic Influence I currently have. I can tell if it's a lot or a little, but I don't know the exact number."

Hera nodded, understanding his worry, "OK. Forge, I order you to always know how much Daemonic Influence you currently have without looking at your status window."

Vulcan hesitated but then smiled, "Thank you."

"Is he OK? I mean, is he going to go nuts?" Neria asked.

"Forge? How about you tell them. Honestly, that's an order," the last line was more for the rest of the team. If they knew she was giving an order, they would believe what Forge said.

"I'm not going to go crazy, not any more than any of you, at least," Forge huffed, "But there are some things I have to control," he gestured to his face, the exposed teeth and the ear filled with scars, "Being a half Daemon comes with some issues. I have to use a skill that makes me lose my mind, and if I don't use it, things can go south."

"How about your memories? Can you remember things in the lab?" Flint asked.

Hera also turned to Forge expectantly. Understanding what they were asking, Vulcan nodded, closed his eyes, and started to think, "I remember… a room. White and red, someone was talking and... UGH!" Forge growled, slamming his feet on the ground, cracking some of the stone beneath him, "I'm at 90%."

"OK, stop. You can remember, but maybe because of what happened with you or the Spirit, the Daemonic Influence grows very fast. We can try this later, and little by little. OK?" her question wasn't just directed at Forge but at the rest of the team. Everyone agreed, and they decided to wait a bit before asking more questions. Instead, they turned to the bodies of the humans.

"He has to get rid of their bodies, right?" Roan asked.

"Yeah," Skyler replied

"How about their gear? Spoils?"

"I mean… It feels weird, but I guess that's the best option. At least we should take everything with us. Maybe they have something else that can help. If everyone is OK with it," Skyler nodded.

"If no one wants it, I'll take the katana," Hera said, getting strange looks from everyone, even her court, "What? Those bastards killed Silah and tortured Forge, but that doesn't mean their items are bad. That katana had some cool features. Also, I have an open space in my court, so I might as well fill it up."