Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Nox had just lost his head, something usually not lethal for a vampire. However, the bullet shot was clad in holy power, so Nox was already disintegrating to respawn at the medical win. At this moment, Seth's phone rang. Not his communication orb, but the phone.

"Joannia? Why are you calling all of a sudden?" the blacksmith asked a little confused that she called him so early.

"I did it!" she only said into the phone excitedly.

"You did what?" Seth asked confused. He doubted she already made a new prototype or something along those lines.

"I managed to reactivate the mech!- Well, the systems that are still able to run. It seems like a massive energy spike destroyed the energy reactor, but we are lucky it didn't completely fry the main board. I only had to supply some energy to gain access to the software," a flood of words spilled from her mouth.

"Wait-Wait! You did what? You activated that thing? Why didn't you call me right away- No, why did you do that without asking in the first place?" Seth asked alerted. After all, this was a highly advanced technology that fought a long battle with Ceres. It was incredibly dangerous.

"I waited for today's events to end before I called you. I didn't want to interrupt you," she answered hesitatingly. "I'm coming there right now. Don't touch that thing, it would be best if you cut the energy for now. I will be there in a minute," Seth said quickly and rushed off.

"Guys, shit hit the fan, I have to go~" he called out in passing as he left the private booth.

Shit-Shit-Shit, Seth kept cursing in his mind as he rushed through the air towards the city center. He kept using <Feather Fall> and spamming <Star Escape> to travel through the air and between the crown scrapers of Little Gamma.

The blacksmith had not expected that she would start reactivating the thing. Not anytime soon at least. They only talked about her studying and learning from it, not repairing the actual thing! He was close to the branch office where Joannia was working, when a massive laser beam shot out from the building, burning a hole the diameter of a tunnel into the hardwood wall.

He saw something move close to the blast radius. If it wasn't for Theia's Vision, he would have had a hard time making out what it was. Yet, he still had a hard time making out what it was supposed to be. Seth saw it clearly despite the distance and speed it was moving, but the best description he was able to come up with was a fist-sized ruby with six mechanic legs.

The ruby was scuttling away from the building when a figure appeared in the smoke at the hole. "Stay right here, you little shit!" Joannia roared as she started pursuing the six-legged ruby. What in the world was going on?

"What in the world is going on?" Seth asked the huffing fleet commander as he caught up with her. Surprisingly, she was able to keep up with the speed of the ruby so far. The thing in question was running along the walls ahead of them.

"This thing was ejected from the cyborg. I bet it's some kind of autonomous black box. I think it got charged when I powered and activated some of the systems I was able to access," she gave her assessment of what happened.

"And the massive laser beam?" Seth asked, to which Joannia suddenly evaded his gaze.

"N-Now isn't the time! We have to catch that thing! It is probably full of invaluable information," she changed the subject quickly. Seth gave her a serious look, suspecting that she was the one who blew a hole in his building, but she was right.

Unlike Joannia, Seth had some inkling about the cyborg-mech's deeply concerning background. Whatever mechanic being wreaked havoc in the Unclaimed Mountains, had built this thing to fight Ceres, putting up a fight against the legendary elemental. Who knew what would happen if that thing managed to escape with information on the fight and their city?

He really didn't need another crisis on top of the problems that were already brewing everywhere. Seth started running full speed, using <Gait of the Lame>, <Scorpio Star Escape> in addition to passives such as Alecto's Wings, which granted +20% movement speed when hunting a target activated.

Of course, Seth could have destroyed it, but-

Leaving Joannia in the dust, he shot off like a bullet train. Before the running ruby, the size of a fist knew what had happened, the phantom of Seth had already rushed past its position, where only its six legs remained. The ruby in question was firmly held in Seth's hand. It had some cracks from the impact with his palm at high speed but was otherwise intact.

..Now he just had to decelerate somehow... Seth jumped and turned in the air, a move he was only able to thanks to his passive <3d Maneuver Assistance>. In the air, he used the plane of <Scorpio Star Escape> that had turned vertical with the direction of his feet, to teleport higher up in the air.

Having his velocity turn straight up in the air, he quickly became slower and then started falling gently thanks to <Feather Fall>. After accelerating for five seconds to catch the ruby, it took a whole minute to deal with his speed in a way that didn't cause damage to the surrounding buildings.

Of course, the high-speed chase and graceful breaking maneuver didn't stay unnoticed. Seth had not worn his Helm of Hades. With the streets and buildings filled with people he blew past, it would have been weirder to not have caused a commotion.

"You caught it!" Joannia cried out in glee, as she caught up, to the blacksmith in dark armor, who was bombarded by all kinds of magical image-taking contraptions. Little Gamma was filled with tourists from the Pathworks, but even for them, this was a great show. Since the tournament had ended, they had more than enough free time to guffaw about this.

"Yeah I got it," Seth said with a serious tone, pushing his way through the crowd. The shine vanished from her eyes. She quickly realized that she had done something incredibly stupid in her scientific curiosity.

Ever since Seth became more proficient as a bard, he had gotten better at reading people's expressions. And these were clearly Joannia's worries. The blacksmith deliberately picked up the ripped-off legs, not looking at her.

"I'm sorry. I acted rashly. I think I was a little too eager, working in a lab again," she said in a grave voice.

"Yeah, you did. Make sure it does not happen again," Seth said with a friendly smile and handed her the parts of the autonomous black box, as Joannia called it. The blacksmith remembered the damaged black box that had been recovered by Lydia and the others. He had yet to hear any news from Baker's people researching the thing. Maybe Joannia was a better choice for that, too?

"Let's get back to the branch, this is not the place for serious talk," Seth reminded her and they quickly fled the crowd.

<Ding! Your title "Master Skywalker?" had changed to "Master Skywalker!">

Seth lost control over his facial expression for a moment. A title he had almost forgotten made its return, only to change the question for an exclamation mark...

...

"What happened here?" Mina repeated his earlier question. While Joannia and Seth rushed back, the main party of Minas Mar had returned from the stadium to find a giant hole in their branch building. Seth turned to the fleet commander beside him.

"Errm, I can explain.."