Chapter 710: Forge
[There's something divine here.]
The words weren't a warning.
They were recognition.
And the moment Vitaliara whispered them, Lucavion stilled—truly stilled.
His gaze swept the forge again, slower this time. Deeper. Not just admiring the architecture or sensing the mana, but listening beneath it. To the cadence of heat. To the rhythm of molten aether. To the deliberate, sacred stillness that only came from one kind of hand.
'Old man…'
His jaw tensed just slightly, eyes narrowing.
'So you're here too.'
Of course he was. This forge wasn't just powerful—it was aligned. Structured like a ritual. Precise, but full of soul. Only one man he knew had ever worked iron like it was prayer and made even the gods feel unnecessary.
A certain old man that he had met before.
The forge-mad hermit of flame and purpose. The man who once scolded Lucavion for sharpening a blade "like a butcher folding arrogance." The man who had refused to forge for kings but once made a sword from the blood-steam of a dying wyrm just because it challenged him.
Lucavion hadn't seen him in years.