The ceaseless hammering of glowing steel echoed through the cursed halls.
This was no common forge. No blacksmith's rhythm. These were war hammers—massive, merciless—slamming again and again into a slab of dense, unyielding metal, as though each blow sought to awaken something buried far beneath the world itself.
Not one hammer.
A dozen.
They rose and fell in unison, perfectly timed, wielded by hands that had long abandoned peace. Hands shaped by conquest, by slaughter, by centuries of war. Inside the shrine, the Aoratoz worked without words.
Day and night lost their meaning. Time blurred, collapsed, and vanished. They hammered on—not by command, but because stopping was no longer an option. The forge consumed them, generation after generation, until death itself became part of the work.
More than a dozen Tenets passed.
Still, they forged.
No commands.
No spoken goal.
Instinct alone drove them forward—to create something that should never exist.
Those were not the Forgemasters of legend.
Not the disciplined smiths of fallen kingdoms.
No—they were older than that.
And far more dangerous.
The Ancient Smiths.
And the Warriors?
Yes—Warriors.
Pure-blood Aoratoz Warlords—names that had shaped eras. They had been called War Gods, Conquerors, Tyrants. Men and women who shattered nations before sunrise and erased empires by nightfall.
Yet here they stood.
Choosing to die at the forge rather than fall on the battlefield.
They melted metal without a cause.
Struck without declared purpose.
Worked without command.
Long before this, the sky itself had burned.
Fire rained from the heavens—fragments torn from the distant void—as they searched for metal not born of this world.
One massive burning meteor, obliterated them all.
A colossal shard of blood-red stone tore through the sky and struck Tertha with world-ending force. Later, it would be named Bartharov.
An empire vanished in an instant. No survivors. No ruins. No proof it had ever existed—only a vast crater where history had been erased.
The fragment was claimed.
Carved from its shell of stardust and stone, the steel remained unyielding.
It would not be wasted.
It would become a sword.
A weapon without a master.
A blade without a name.
Not for knights in polished armour.
Not by royal command.
Not for hunters, heroes, or champions.
Not for dragon-slayers or chosen saviours.
Not for demon lords, prophecies, nor the will of the Celestials.
It sought no loyalty.
No justice.
No revenge.
Only destruction.
It was meant for no one—
save those it chose itself.
Thirty-eight Tenets passed.
At last, the metal—now called Bartharune Ore—yielded.
After countless cycles beneath relentless blows.
The first sign of annihilation.
"Bring it here—now! The sword is still empty! You bastards are all slow snails!"
The order cut through the shrine. Warriors dragged a bound creature across the stone floor, its body locked in Arathov Chains.
It fought. Screamed. Thrashed.
The chains tightened with every movement.
They hauled it to the altar.
The elders formed a circle. The air grew heavy, suffocating. Their voices rose in an ancient chant—ritual words bound by forbidden law.
The creature collapsed inward, crushed an unseen force. It howled in terror as its soul was torn free and driven into the unfinished blade.
"Stop—this is wrong!"
"It's unstable—get back!"
"We can't—!"
The screams came all at once. Then, silence.
The ritual succeeded.
And failed.
The shrine turned cold—unnaturally so.
A sword now existed, caught between life and death.
Deadlier than famine.
Colder than any storm.
More violent than the sea at its worst.
The soul had merged.
But the blade was incomplete.
It screamed.
A hunger ripped through the air, stripping life from everything it touched.
Not just the shrine.
A temple vanished.
Then a village.
A city.
An entire kingdom.
Gone.
Bodies meant nothing. Breath meant nothing. Souls were torn away and consumed, feeding a power that should never have been touched.
Raw.
Unstable.
Cursed.
Thousands—innocents, warriors, priests—all lost.
Just for a single, Nameless Sword.
And what power fed it?
Soul.
One of the taboo energies of Tertha.
The strongest, the purest, the most damnable of them all.
"Cursed be those who dare to use the Soul as Power."
And on the eve of the Blood Moon Eclipse...
A weapon was born.
A Sword without master.
A weapon without title.
Forged from the Abyss.
Those few, those damned few, who laid eyes on its form...
...called it only one name:
.
The Soul Sword.
.