Chapter 709: As the Hammer Rang Out
Outside looking in, the Zhen Clan scions were rather perplexed as to what Zhen Liu was doing to Zhen Guo at this moment.
One minute, he’s coordinating a sneak attack that would, in his words, “create an opening to fix their cousin’s brain,” the next, he was manhandling the man with the help of his jade warrior lady puppet. And then, after the aforementioned manhandling, Zhen Liu proceeded to grab Zhen Guo’s hammer holding hand and began to do…something with it.
They assumed he was either breaking or absorbing the curse, honestly it could’ve been either or given their cousin’s track record as of late. The only indication that something was happening though was the sign of tears forming in the corner of Zhen Liu’s eyes.
“Wait…ya think maybe he’s getting injured by that hammer on a spiritual level?”
“Spiritual? Not mental?”
“Zhen Liu is able to control multiple aether puppets at once. I tried controlling one once, and it hurt my brain for like three days afterwards.”
“Ah.”
Evidently, they weren’t exactly wrong about Zhen Liu being attacked on a spiritual level
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By the time the metalsmith returned to his village, the people, the flowers and the buildings were dead, burnt and destroyed.
He was the only survivor, by the simple act of being gone when it happened.
Most people would be absolutely ecstatic over surviving such a catastrophe, for being able to avoid such a terrible fate. But he didn’t. Instead, he felt an almost indescribable amoung of guilt that threatened to tear his heart into pieces.
But he didn’t have time to let this pain stop him, after all, he was just a metalsmith and he had work to do.
For three days and three nights, the metalsmith worked to clear whatever rubble was left behind, to bury his dead friends and neighbors and replant the flowers that had all been turned to ash.
The rubble was easy to clear, he simply smashed them into pieces.
The bodies, less so, the only place he coukd bury them was where the flower fields once bloomed brightly.
And as for those aforementioned flowers, he could only find one type of seed that had been left intact after all of this devastation: spider lilly seeds.
In a strange way, this was appropriate, as spider lilies were often used as offerings to the dead. Besides, he planned to find other types of flower seeds anyways, perhaps borrowing seeds from other villages, he just had to take care of something first.
With the rubble cleared, the bodies buried and flowers now planted, the metalsmith now had only one thing left to do: get revenge.
“Something I had made had caused this devastation. It is only right that I be the one to destroy it,” the metalsmith vowed.
And thus, the metalsmith traveled forth, bringing his trusty hammer along, to right the wrong that he wrought from fire and steel.
The hammer felt familiarly heavy.
…
‘Huh. And here I was expecting a widower. Strange…but perhaps the memory simply faded? Whatever the case, this next bit seems more…solid.’
…
Having no clue as to who this man was exactly, save some physical traits and the weapon he made for him, the metalsmith walked to the next village over to try and see if anyone there knew what he needed to know.
(Un)fortunately, he went in the right direction.
“No…not again.”
Like something out of nightmare, the neighboring village was a repeat of what had happened to his own village, with signs of deaths and destruction everywhere. Once more, his heart threatened to burst from the guilt of surviving and once more, he tried to resolve it by doing what he had done before in his own village, albeit at a faster pace.
He once again believed that he could’ve done something had he arrived at this village earlier, but failed to imagine how.
After all, he was a simple metalsmith.
It took him two days instead of three, but having done these deeds of amendment once more, the metalsmith once again left to go and find the one that had done this.
His hammer felt a little heavier than before.
Eventually, he came upon a third village and just like the other two, it was devastated. But it was at this third village, the smith had a very…interesting idea.
At his own village, he buried the dead with their rights and with flowers.
At the second, he had to build a mass funeral pyre as he didn’t have time to dig up all those holes. He did, however, make sure to plant a few spider lilies as a mean of rememeberance.
At this third village, he realized that most of the labor in funeral preparations was in the simple act of hauling the bodies to their destination. So, he thought, what if he made the bodies easier to transport?
What if he chopped up their corpses and moved them like that?
As a metalsmith, he didn’t have anything sharp enough to slice up the dead in an efficient manner, but he could use his hammer to break their unneeded bones. And without all of those bones, it was much easier to pile their bodies for a funeral pyre than before.
By performing this macabre task, he managed to finish his task in one day this time, but his hammer was feeling even heavier than before sine it was covered blood and bone dust.
By the time he reached his fourth destroyed village, the metalsmith had finalized his routine of grief. Or to be more accurate, he finally became numb to all of the death.
He no longer cried and bemoaned the fate of these innocent people, he didn’t have time to shed tears.
He didn’t bother to carefully remove each piece of rubble for reuse, finding it easier to just render them to dust.
He didn’t bother to haul every dead body he came across, finding it more efficient to crush their bodies into a paste so that he could transport them to a single fire no bigger than one built for camping.
He didn’t even take the time to make sure every flower seed he planted was able to grow properly. He simply tossed them to the ground, and allowed nature to decide whether they would live or die.
It only took him half a day, but by now, his simple hammer had become heavier than even a stone pillar, and completely covered in rusted blood.
The once humble and quiet metalsmith had been transformed through the fires of guilt and hammered by the cruelty of the universe.
By the time he had found the man, wielding the sword that had caused all of this pain, all of this loss, all of this death and destruction…he felt nothing.
No guilt.
No rage.
Not even a modicum of disgust at the man’s existence or the fact that he was misusing his blade by butchering innocent people.
Instead, what he felt was…well…best summed up in this conversation.
…
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the metalsmith that helped to fix up my trusted blade here. I thought I killed you back at that village. What’s the matter? Did I shortchange you on the payment and you want the payment in blood, or are you here for revenge because of what I did to your worthless little town and its fields full of weeds?”
“Well, I am here to kill you.” the metalsmith replied, his voice as quiet as grave while his face was as still and pale as a corpse. “But it’s not because of something as inane and mundane over greed or grief.”
“Oh? Then pray tell, why are you trying to kill me?”
“Because you’ve given me too much work as of late. And I won’t be able to take a break until it stops. So please, do me a favor, and drop dead already so that I can finally take a break.”
“HAHAHAHAHA! Is that it? Truly? Well, if that’s the case, then I’ll be sure to kill you quickly so that you can finally take that rest you wanted. I hear dirt naps are quite good for one’s complexion.”
In response to this obvious goading, the former metalsmith let out a long, deep sigh.
“One more body for the fire then…”
…
Neither smithy nor warrior survived this day, and their bodies having long since been turned to dust.
The only signs that any fighting occured, that these two had existed in the first place were in form of two items.
The first, a broken sword that once radiated with dark majesty and killing intent, now rendered a broken piece of scrap.
The other, a rusted blacksmith’s hammer that if one were to hold it closely to one’s ear, they would hear the cries of the dead. Or to be more accurate, they would hear their eternal lament.
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“Heroes and villains are said to be made from the same forge that we call, trauma and desperation. It’s what we’re made of that determines the end result.”
-the words of an old villain turned hero.
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[Hammer of the Damned] has been subdued.
