The city gates closed behind them with a heavy thud, the watchmen barely glancing at the weary group as they entered. The others sighed in relief, already discussing food, baths, and beds.
But Shadow didn't join them.
While the trio and Rena made for the bustling taverns, Shadow's steps veered away from the noise of the market and deeper into the city's quiet veins. His body still ached from past battles, and his ribs protested with every movement, yet he ignored it all.
He had something far more pressing than rest.
The abandoned blacksmith's shop stood just as he had left it—dusty, silent, and filled with tools no one else would touch. The moment he crossed the threshold, the air seemed to shift, as though the forge itself had been waiting.
He set the gauntlets on the anvil.
The once-gleaming metal was scarred, cracked in places, with faint traces of mana leakage that shimmered like dying embers. The fight against the guardian had left wounds not only on his body, but on his weapon as well. He brushed his fingers across the surface.
"…You fought harder than I did," he murmured.
The gauntlets pulsed faintly, as if in agreement.
Shadow stoked the forge, feeding the fire until it roared. Heat flooded the shop, sweat beading across his forehead as he prepared the monster spoils they had gathered. Fangs, scales, and cores lay neatly across the workbench, each one humming with power. He studied them in silence, his muscle memory guiding his hands even as his mind wandered.
Rena's sword, cleaving through a beast in a single strike.
Her defense, unshaken even against monstrous power.
Her speed, overwhelming even his trained eyes.
His armor had been useless in that fight. Every strike she landed had pierced through his defenses as though they didn't exist.
Shadow clenched his jaw.
"If I can't withstand her," he muttered, hammer striking metal with a sharp clang, "then I'll never reach the truth I'm after."
He began melting down monster scales into molten streams of shimmering green, carefully pouring them across the cracked surface of the gauntlets. The metal hissed as it fused, drinking in the essence of the beasts they had slain. At times, the gauntlets twitched, the embedded ego within them groaning or shivering as though the process was painful. Shadow ignored the sweat stinging his eyes and kept going.
Hours passed. Sparks danced. Each strike of his hammer echoed like a heartbeat in the empty shop.
And yet, as he worked, another thought grew inside him.
Armor.
Not just repairing the gauntlets—no. If he was to fight at his full potential, he needed something more. An assassin's armor, not bulky or ornamental, but an extension of himself. Something light enough to move silently, strong enough to absorb blows, and layered with abilities that could bend a fight to his favor.
He closed his eyes, picturing it.
Scaled plating from the ravager beast, woven with the silk-like sinew of the mantis.
Cores embedded across the chest and shoulders, channeling mana to reinforce strikes and cloak his presence.
Cloth treated with venom, a natural resistance against poison.
An armor that would vanish in shadows and reappear in silence.
His lips curved into the faintest smirk. "Yes. That's what I need."
The gauntlets pulsed again, louder this time, almost approving.
By dawn, the workshop was a storm of glowing embers. Shadow hammered one last time before leaning back, chest heaving, staring at the results.
The gauntlets, though scarred, gleamed anew. Their surface shimmered with veins of scaled plating, their edges sharper, and their presence heavier—as though they had awakened hungrier than before.
And beside them, laid out in pieces, was the beginning of something new. Not yet complete, not yet whole, but undeniably the foundation of his assassin's armor.
Shadow wiped the sweat from his brow and exhaled slowly.
"Soon," he whispered to himself. "Not just a weapon, not just armor… but the edge I'll need to cut through this world."
As if answering him, the gauntlets let out a faint, distorted chuckle.
And for the first time in days, Shadow allowed himself to laugh as well.