Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

"It has been a long time since someone reached my abode," the boss greeted him in a warm benevolent voice.

They had now reached the bottom of the chasm the bridges had constantly crossed. The past few bridges were barely solid enough to walk, while the heat and brightness had gotten so overwhelming that Seth had a hard time seeing. He always was a dark mode person, personally.

Now he was facing the source of all the light, sitting cross-legged on a crystal platform. It was a five-meter-tall man, wearing light skimpy robes that revealed the toned muscle underneath. It was totally Al\'Zalsar\'s type if all the light didn\'t make him hard to look at.

"Why are so many high-level bosses so talkative?"

"Well, you can\'t expect everyone to be a mindless beast that attacks anyone in its sight," the bright man answered with a benign smile.

"It would make everything a lot easier if you just attacked me," Seth replied honestly. Simply attacking someone who was peacefully sitting down and talking to him felt weird.

"Oh, don\'t worry. I will make sure to attack and kill you after our little tea party. I just thought it would be a good chance to find out more about my future kingdom."

It was the same warm, friendly voice but what it said was far from friendly or warm, to the point that Seth even raised an eyebrow. His qualms were slowly melting.

"Your future kingdom? You wouldn\'t be talking about Urth, right? You probably mean this dungeon land."

"Urth? What a funny name. I will have to change it once I create my eternal Kingdom here. Are there many humans like you?" Solar Solace completely ignored Seth\'s biting tone.

"Like me?" "Small, smelly, garish, and witless?"

Small... well compared to the boss, sure. Seth also couldn\'t deny that he had been running around and fighting in the dungeon for a day without even using <Life Magic> to clean himself. He could see himself being called garish, but witless? Well, fine, but he was average so.

" A lot actually," he decided to pass on the insult and call the whole populace of Urth short, smelly, garish, and witless.

"hmm, that\'s a problem. I might have to pyrolyze this world then, to get rid of the stains." the boss mumbled.

At this point, Seth was glad the boss had kept talking. All of his qualms were gone. Even if it brought out a legendary item, Seth would allow this boss to buy its life.

"Big words for someone who can\'t even take over the abyss, much less step out of this dungeon."

"Haha, how cute. Do you even know how many dungeons in the abyss are under my control? It\'s not that we can\'t step out, it\'s because we are still not done harvesting this place," it said with a wave of his hand.

"hmm, so you are using the abyss to grow your forces," Seth concluded from his words.

Dungeons grew from the energy of the land, and so did the monsters inside. It wasn\'t stupid at all to take their time and grow their armies with the power in this place, before coming over the rest of the world like locusts. He would do the same.

"Those are great news," the blacksmith exclaimed.

"What?" Solar Solace asked surprised.

"The more of you weaklings are running around, the easier it is to farm experience. By all means, please make sure that there are enough of you for everyone," the bard spoke, his voice oozing with demonic power.

<Voice of Seth> finally shook the benign facade Solar Solace had put up. The brightly shining face like that of a benevolent god, distorted into a displeased grimace.

"You arrogant worm!" it shouted.

"Don\'t call out my pet like that! Puffles may be arrogant, but he is also cool."

~Hey!... thanks.~ the Ivicer wanted to protest but ended up thanking him.

"What nonsense are you talking about!?" it asked angry and confused.

"You shouldn\'t anger my pet, he would teach you a thing or two about how to use light the right way," threatened the boss with Puffles.

~Yeah! Yeah! Let me at him!~ the nightmare centipede was locked and loaded.

~Sorry, Puff, but I\'m not sharing this one.~

"I\'ve had enough!" a fiery wave of blazing light washed over Seth, not harming the bard in the least.

"Oh now you want to fight?" the bard called out amused. He waved his Giant\'s Rod and penetrated Solar Solace with a row of earth spikes using <Quick Cast>, however, the boss just laughed as the spikes penetrated him without dealing damage any visible damage. He floated in the air, mockingly.

"Hahaha, what now? I\'m light, you can\'t hurt me like that. Your fire, your magic, your weapons, I saw them all from here. They are useless against me. What now, will you sing me a tune, little canary?" Solace jeered at the blacksmith with a big grin.

"Don\'t be so hasty~" Seth said with a grin and started firing a single earth spike from the spear/staff.

The boss didn\'t even bother dodging and started chanting a spell. Yet, when the third spike passed through, Solar Solace suddenly fell to the ground, pulled by an invisible force. <Pirithous\' Bind> had triggered and bound the boss to the ground. With a force based on Seth\'s strength of almost 700 points (with an equipment bonus), Solace was glued to the ground.

"What is this sorcery?" he screeched, trying to pick himself up, but was unable to do so.

Seth had hoped to impede his movement and then try several things to see what could deal the most damage to the angel, but he had not expected <Pirithous\' Bind> to work this well. Seth didn\'t know the strength of Solace, he couldn\'t see that much of the status, but even with the resistance of a boss, he seemed to struggle at first glance.

An evil grin appeared on the bard\'s face, seeing the boss struggle on the ground. It seemed like Solar Solace was a caster type with little strength. Since he was light attributed, he was probably a cockroach, hard to damage and harder to kill, since he could just heal himself.

Taking all this into account, the best part of <Pirithous\' Bind> was that it had no time limit. If the boss was unable to break free, he was stuck. This opened a whole new option to the bard. An audience that was forced to listen?

"What did you say again? I should sing? Since you asked for it, I will do just that. Your very personal little concert." he said with a big grin, sitting on a stone beside Solar Solace. "Just don\'t blame me for what comes afterward. This won\'t end with you only dying."

"No, get away from me! What are you trying to do?!" the boss asked panicky, as he saw a dark aura emitting from Seth\'s armor and the weird lyre in his hands.

~Tatzel, stay behind me and follow Oz in the Choir.~

"Hush, child. The darkness will rise from the deep and carry you down into sleep~" a high-pitched, almost angelic voice left the rough man\'s throat, accompanied by a dark tune from the floating pan pipes.

"Loyalty" "Loyalty" the ghostly voices of Tatzel and Oz kept repeating as the darkness of the gorge above started encroaching on the shine of Solar Solace. The far-reaching shine like that was the sun shrank further and further.

"Guileless shit, I will shape your belief, and you will never know that I was the thief~"

From the ground below, shadows seeped up like liquid, swallowing the light and latching to the man\'s body.

" You won\'t understand the cause of your grief, but you will always follow the voices beneath."

"N-No, stop this!" Solace screeched, as the sticky blackness climbed up on him.

"Loyalty" "Loyalty" "Loyalty" "Loyalty" "Only to me~"

A bright explosion spread from Solar Solace and forced back the encroaching darkness, but it didn\'t faze Seth, nor Tatzel, or the instrument, as they were behind the bard protected by <Apollo\'s Shield>. Solace was strong and resisted, but he still couldn\'t get up. Seth on the other hand had nothing to fear and intended to sing for as long as it took to break him.

"Hush, child. The darkness will rise from the deep and carry you down into sleep~"