Moonfire Armoury

  When the world revealed itself, both Raiden and Aira were stunned by its beauty.

  ?An everlasting field of snow as far as the eye could see. Yet it didn’t feel particularly cold, chilly maybe, but not cold. Spread across the field were weapons. Mostly swords, yet also other ones like spears, axes, and so much more.

  ?“It truly is… so this is your inner world,” Raiden said with a genuine smile, holding up a hand and watching as a snowflake landed in it.

  ?“It truly is beautiful,”

  Aira agreed, watching the fire burn at the base of each weapon.

  ?“Seems it works the opposite of a Domain. Instead of erecting a barrier to isolate a part of reality, you brought us to your mental world.”

  ?Raiden looked around, walking up to a particular sword before asking.

  ?“What does this place do?”

  ?She asked, trying to pick up the sword, only to find it stuck in the ground. Trying harder, she failed again, as she turned to Blade who understood the silent question.

  ?He brought out his hand as the sword flew out of the ground and into his grasp.

  ?“That’s Excalibur. A holy sword that can only be picked up by the chosen few… and me.”

  ?“So you can bypass restrictions put on weapons?”

  ?“Correct,” he nodded. He really doubted he could have held it if it weren’t for his authority. Putting it back in the ground.

  ?“Though they fall in groups, each weapon has a rank and these ranks have stages. Like you wouldn’t say that your weapon and a random one sold in the Origin Realm are on the same level.”

  ?“I would question it,” she says, walking up to him.

  ?“Try one. Any weapon, I want to see its capabilities, as many of these are new even to me.”

  ?Blade nods as a spear flies in his outstretched hand. The spear is blood red with a singular pointed end at the tip.

  ?Blade charges it up before throwing it at her, only for her to create her sword and deflect the spear.

  ?Only for Blade to throw the spear at her, which she deflects… wait.

  ?Raiden realized it too late, yet the feeling came crippling. Hadn’t she already deflected the spear?

  ?It pierced her, or at least should have, as it broke at impact when it hit her chest. She felt momentarily out of breath, not quite understanding what had happened.

  ?Touching her chest, she noticed that no damage had been done to her, so what was that? It had been like the spear had already been predetermined to hit her heart, yet there was no way for it to do so.

  ?As she looked up at Blade, he could see the puzzled look etched on her face.

  ?“I’m going to take a guess and say your thoughts are right. The spear was destined to hit your heart, yet because I put no Mora in it, it could only continue changing course to try and fulfill that fate.”

  ?“I see…”

  ?It hadn’t changed time or space, it had simply tried following the fate set out for it. In fact, if it weren’t for Raiden’s keen senses, she wouldn’t even have noticed the changed causality, let alone been able to react to it.

  ?She looked both sides before looking behind her to see lightning spark before the spear was recreated, equally stuck in the ground as before.

  ?“Well then, weren’t you lucky with your presentation…”

  ?Blade looked confused at her words.

  ?“What do you mean by lucky? I don’t really see how luck played a part in it.”

  ?"Don’t you know? Time based attacks don’t work on us. We only existed in one point in time and space without variants, so magic aimed at hurting us in the past doesn’t work, and we don’t exist in the future. Only the present,” she says casually as she takes up the spear and twirls it around in her hand.

  ?“Space based ones could work, like the displacement I did on you, but even that has its limits.”

  ?The words left a lot to be known. And even more to speculate, the biggest being what about Blade.

  ?Actually, when he thought about it, he doubted it would change a lot. If that was something only true for Origins, it wouldn’t change anything, and if it were true for everyone, then nobody would try it on him unless they knew he was human. But in that case, he would have other questions.

  ?Aira glanced at him, noting the way doubt had momentarily tried taking him and how fast he had dispelled it. Walking up to him, she wrapped her arm around him before saying.

  ?“The moon is quite beautiful.”

  ?Blade looked over his shoulder and smiled at her, before noticing how she had dissolved her lower body to hang off him.

  ?“Is it even comfortable like that?”

  ?“You’re the most comfortable pillow ever, if that is what you’re asking.”

  ?He could only let out an amused sigh at her words.

  ?“Sleep well then,” he said, hesitating at first before caressing her cheek. The feeling is still a bit unfamiliar, yet it felt right in its own way.

  ?As it happened, a burst of Mora brought them back to the abyss. There, Blade watches as she fully dissolves into the abyss so she can sleep. Afterwards, he and Raiden decided to take a walk.

  ?“Back there you never finished your words. Mind telling me more on how these ranks and stages work?” she asks, having been curious for a while now.

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  ?“Well, weapons are split into different categories. Mora, mythical, divine, and normal. Within these, there are ranks. From E, D, C, B, and A… well, there’s also the EX, but that’s outliers.”

  ?“I see, and so A-rank would be the highest of the category. What would even fall into EX?”

  ?Blade thought about it for a moment, not really sure himself. He knew the rank existed, but had no proper measurement of what qualified for it.

  ?“I guess it’s just things that wouldn’t normally qualify under the concept of a weapon. Like a lightning bolt or your sword. There have been gods who used lightbolts as weapons and your sword is just an amalgamation of lightning. To even understand it, I had to create it from scratch using my existing knowledge to give it form.”

  ?Creating Caliburn in his hand to show what he meant. She studied the weapon and saw that it truly was a perfect copy of what she made when she used her lightning.

  ?“It truly is fascinating. So I guess EX doesn’t automatically mean better, but simply that they’re an outlier to the conventional.”

  ?Nodding at her words, he made Caliburn dissipate as he said.

  ?“You can think of the ranks like a game, where each rank has a value increasing by ten. So E-rank has a value of 10, and A-rank a value of 50.”

  ?“Then I wonder, what are these stages then?”

  ?“These stages signify their potential. A weapon can’t normally surpass its rank. Naturally, an A-rank weapon is going to be better than a B-rank one.”

  ?She nodded in agreement as it was common sense really.

  ?“Well, the stages show potential. Where under specific conditions and circumstances, it can momentarily surpass its own grade.”

  ?“I see, do these have any numerical value or name?”

  ?“Not really, and honestly for some of them, the conditions are so specific, you will never see their full potential.”

  ?“So weapons that don’t always have their full power available would be in a stage signifying that?”

  ?“Yes… I guess the best way to formulate it is by splitting them into the always full power, full power under specific conditions, and full power under specific circumstances.”

  ?“Shouldn’t conditions and circumstances be in the same category?” she mused.

  ?“Not really. When I speak of conditions, I’m talking about those where you need specific strength or heart capabilities. Things the wielder is capable of changing. Circumstances are more things out of your control like who you are fighting, when, or where you are fighting, and so on.”

  ?The difference wasn’t so much the words, but how the limits worked and when they were active.

  ?They stayed silent as they continued to walk. The sound emanating from their steps being the reigning sound in the silence. Eventually, Raiden asked.

  ?“You have a lot of Mora, right?”

  ?The question caught Blade a bit off guard, as he had been half in a daze from the silence, though he quickly nodded.

  ?“I thought so. The stuff you pulled off at the arena was far too costly otherwise, and to think even then you were heavily restrained by your Mora.”

  ?“Well, we were both restrained in our own way, I guess, though I would say yours was more painful.”

  ?“Don’t worry. I’m not holding it against you. I’m simply curious. Why don’t you try to overload your weapons with Mora?”

  ?“Huh?”

  ?“Well, you said it yourself, for weapons not from the Origin Realm, or in other words, weapons not imbued with any Mora whatsoever, can’t harm us. I’m guessing you therefore coat them in Mora. Well, why not imbue them with more than they can handle?”

  ?The idea was one Blade had never thought of. Give the weapon more Mora than it could handle.

  ?“Wouldn’t that just break the weapon?”

  ?“No, not necessarily. You said your core has gone berserk before, right?”

  ?Blade nodded, not sure where she was going.

  ?“That follows the same principle. When our core goes berserk, it’s because it’s about to collapse. The reasons vary, but the outcome is always—especially if you have an Authority—that you find yourself unable to control it and it goes berserk.”

  ?Blade thought back to when his core had gone berserk, and how swords had sprouted all around them destroying the village and nearby vicinity. No, actually when he thought more about it, he realized it had actually helped him improve. The same happened after his fight with Severance.

  ?“Seems you realized. I’m not saying collapse is a good way to train, by no means. A wrong move could lead to the death of who you are, yet when put in such a situation, we improve.”

  ?“Sure, but how does this translate to weapons?”

  ?“Your weapons are remade in your inner world, meaning you can destroy the originals all you want.”

  ?“I mean yeah, they do. The cost is really just about creating something new and bringing it here from my inner world.”

  ?“Then use that. By using the concept of collapse and pushing it beyond—past your weapon’s limit, but just before they break.”

  ?Now he finally understood what she meant. To make the blades and overload them with Mora so it barely keeps itself together. He can then break it to unleash a greater version of the weapon. Though the theory was only useful for weapons that had special skills or abilities, that was still a lot. It would even raise the power enough to raise the rank of the weapon. The only problem would be the increased Mora taxation it would crave and the fact he couldn’t really be close by when doing it, lest he wished to be caught in the radius.

  ?“Can you make a lightning clone? I just need a target.”

  ?She obliged, very much interested in seeing if he had it all figured out.

  ?Now it was the choice of weapon. What could make a good test?

  ?Eventually, he created a spear, which looked more like an arrowhead than anything. To Raiden, it looked like a rusted spearhead with gold wrapped around its middle.

  ?Turning Severance into a bow, Blade turned the spearhead into an arrow, before Mora began overflowing from him as he began imbuing it in the arrow. When Blade first reached past the limit of the weapon, cracks began forming along it. Those cracks became bigger, until eventually, it collapsed, shattering.

  ?“I guess they aren’t strong enough…”

  ?She studied what had happened before saying.

  ?“Well, what if you add a chant beforehand to strengthen the weapon?”

  ?A chant? The only one he knew was the one for Moonfire Armoury, and even that had simply come to him. Using the same one for a normal weapon seemed excessive and long, but what if he shortened it?

  ?Drawing back, he readied himself before saying remade the same spear that had broken before adding Mora to it.

  ?“I am the architect of my own design. Spear of Longinus

  ?Cracks began forming along it just like before, yet the cracks were quite weird. Not necessarily destroying the weapon, more like warping it.

  ?Calling its true name to activate it, before he fired at the clone. When it hit, it caused quite the explosion as the clone was sent back, but not dead. Then it began. Blood dripped from the wounds that had been caused from the spear. At first, it was nothing new, of course, it would bleed, so it simply healed itself. Yet then the weird began. The places where the clone had healed began swelling, bigger and bigger, until they popped and more blood continued leaking. It didn’t matter if the clone healed or not, the blood would not stop.

  ?Falling on its knees, the clone fell in horror as its own blood continued flowing from it, unable to be stopped, and its movements slowed. Not from death, its movements began slowing as if it was being crucified by its own blood, and eventually it died, dispersing into lightning.

  ?Raiden followed it to its last breath, before turning to Blade.

  ?“Explain.”

  ?“The Spear of Longinus. An anti-divinity and demon weapon, and the weapon. It alters the person’s destiny to make it impossible to stop the bleeding the spear makes, giving victory to the user.”

  ?“And the broken version?”

  ?“Increases the effectiveness of the destiny alteration, so that more of the body is hit.”

  ?“How simply terrifying.”

  ?“Are you sure you aren’t just bored?”

  ?“Don’t worry, there is a lot to clean.”

  ?“You like cleaning?” It was a surprising fact, and not one he could see from here, yet she nodded.

  ?“It was a hobby of mine. It’s calming and helps me relax.”

  ?Blade smiled at her words, finding them both intriguing and a bit funny. He eventually got serious though as he asked.

  ?“You have been with the Overseer more than anyone, so do you think I could defeat her in a fight?”

  ?“Well depends, what is your goal? You defeated me and made me lose, despite being weaker. What do you see as a victory here?”

  ?He already knew his answer there.

  ?“Some of it is personal, some of it is for revenge, but most honestly, I guess I want answers. Answers I believe and want only from her.”

  ?“So that’s your victory. Well, she is weaker than me and the twins, so do you believe yourself capable of defeating any of us?”

  ?Confidence, huh? How confident was Blade?

  ?“I’m sure of my own strength. There is nothing more.”

  ?Raiden chuckled at his answer, surprising Blade. When it died down, she said.

  ?“If you have your answer, don’t be afraid to explore it. That is the best advice I can give you.”

  ?He smiled at the advice.

  ?“Thank you, Raiden, you have been a lot of help.”

  ?He opened the portal back, ready to meet back with everything.