Forged Destiny [Book 6: Ch. 12]

My eyes glowed and my hands – bare, but glowing red – sunk into the man's breastplate. He struggled, no longer to bring his sword to bear, but to escape. His armour kept him locked to me, however, and as it heated up, he learned just why my Passive – Fire from the Forge – was so useful.

The Knight burned alive in his own armour. At the last, he let out a horrible, ear-piercing scream. "Aieeeeeeeeee!"

The soldiers stepped back. "W-What?" the commander hissed.

The metal around my hands, steaming and melting before me, was decent quality. Not the best, but enough. I drew on it, shaped it, extended and moulded it in my hands and with my mind. There was a shape I knew, a shape I'd forged time and time again, imprinting it into my mind. No matter how many times I'd found a new weapon or new material, I'd defaulted back to this blueprint, not because it was the best, or the easiest, but because I was used to it.

Because it was familiar. Comforting. I couldn't make it perfectly. The fabric used for the hilt and pommel weren't to be found in the man's armour and those carried a weight of their own. Instinctively, I accommodated for the difference, adding more weight to the pommel, balancing it perfectly. It was a construction wherein the blade, cross guard and pommel were from one piece of seamless metal. Not an ideal forging, but enough for its purpose.

To those watching, it must have seemed like I reached in and drew a sword from the dying Knight's armour.

Perhaps I had, but it was neither so quick nor so simple. Their shocked silence, and the willingness to let me get away with wrestling with a man far weaker than me, bought me the time to create and draw it. Burning hot but rapidly cooling, the blade hissed in the afternoon breeze, steam pouring from it. She was just as I remembered her. Just as I'd ever made her.

Crocea Mors breathed the air once more.

—Forged Destiny [Book 6: Ch. 12]