Chapter 343: Forging The Shards
Eamon didn’t waste time.
He tied his hair back, rolled up his sleeves, and let his fingers hover above the tools. Each one pulsed in a rhythm he didn’t understand, like they were alive, waiting for him to touch them. One looked like a hammer, but it had no weight. Another looked like a chisel, but it moved on its own, twisting slightly in the air.
He picked up the hammer. It settled in his hand, cold and quiet. The kind of quiet that meant it had seen more than it wanted to.
He looked at the broken shard again—spinning slowly above the forge, still glowing with the memory of what it had done. Of what it had failed to do.
Then he started.
The first hit wasn’t loud. It didn’t ring. It felt like cracking the surface of a dream. The shard rippled, not physically, but in memory—flashes of the fight, the scream that wasn’t sound, the eyes that didn’t blink, the girl bleeding in the alley, Cain’s voice yelling something, Mabel’s hands shaking—
He pushed past all of it.
Struck again.
The forge responded, lighting up in pulses of emotion. Not flames. Just... emotion. Rage. Regret. Loss.
It was like working with ghosts.
He didn’t know how long he kept at it. Time didn’t move right here. There was no sun. No sky to track. Just the shifting world, the humming silence, and the forge.
The shard cracked open under the pressure of memory. Not broken—transformed. From a weapon that remembered what it saw... into something that learned from it.
That was the first key.
He didn’t write it down. He didn’t need to. His hands remembered what his mind couldn’t explain. This wasn’t metalwork. This was something deeper. Something between life and death.
Eamon shifted to the next tool. A scalpel of bone and time. He used it to slice the shard’s edge—not physically, but spiritually. Stripping away the part that resisted. The part that feared failure.
He whispered as he worked—not prayers, not spells. Just thoughts. Quiet ones.
"She was seventeen. Had dreams. Didn’t even scream when it grabbed her."
He cut deeper.
"It didn’t kill her. Just... opened her. Like it wanted to see what was inside."
The shard glowed brighter.
"She didn’t deserve that."
His hands stopped shaking.
By the time the first piece was done, it no longer looked like a shard. It looked like a truth carved into shape. Thin, black like obsidian, with veins of light moving through it. Not gold. Not silver. Just... light. Raw and searching.
Eamon let it hover beside the forge and started on the second.
Each new shard took more out of him.
Not energy. Not sweat. Just... him.
Every blow of the hammer pulled something loose. Every cut with the scalpel peeled a layer. Not skin. Not muscle.
History.
He lost count of how many pieces he made. Three? Five? Ten?
Each one was different.
One glowed with fury, the kind that made your chest ache.
Another hummed like a lullaby, sad and still.
One bled when he touched it. Not blood. Memory again. A memory of someone screaming for help too late.
And one was cold—so cold he nearly dropped it. A weapon made of guilt. The kind you never speak about.
At some point, someone came.
He didn’t look up at first. Just kept working.
Then the voice spoke. Soft. Old. Genderless.
"You understand it more than you think."
Eamon looked up.
An angel stood at the edge of the platform. Not armored. Not glowing. Just wearing a robe that looked woven from night sky. A script angel, maybe. Holding a thin tablet made of smoke.
"You brought the blueprints?" Eamon asked.
The angel nodded. "Yes. But you’ve already deviated."
Eamon wiped his hands. "Not intentionally. It just... happened."
The angel studied the shards floating around the forge. "They’re different. Not just tools. They’re... judgments."
Eamon’s eyes narrowed. "You said you wanted something that could kill it."
"We did. We do." The angel stepped forward, tablet floating beside them. "But these are more than weapons. These are truths made sharp. Are you sure you can handle what they’ll become?"
Eamon looked at the shard that bled.
"No."
The angel didn’t press. They just left the tablet near the forge and disappeared like smoke in the wind.
Eamon didn’t touch the tablet. Not yet.
He wasn’t done.
The next shard came harder. He had to pour a part of himself into the forge just to make it respond. He let it take his memories this time. One specific one.
His mother’s face.
She was never part of the war. Never part of the monster stories. Just a woman. Warm hands. Long nights. Tired eyes.
She died screaming.
Not because of the creature. Because of a church fire. Lit by humans. The same kind that prayed to Heaven and asked why it let the world rot.
He forged her memory into a blade. Pure white, with no edge. Just a shape. It hummed with the kind of sorrow that made your chest cave in.
He didn’t name it.
Didn’t have to.
The forge slowed.
The air felt heavier now. Like the world itself was breathing with him.
Eamon leaned against the platform and finally looked at the tablet the angel left.
The blueprints shimmered.
They were... ridiculous.
Parts of them looked like language. Others looked like sound. One section was written in heartbeat patterns. Another was just a tear, pressed between pages.
It was a map of how angels would’ve built the shard. Efficient. Clean. Without emotion.
Eamon shoved it aside.
He wasn’t building divine weapons.
He was building something dirty.
Something real.
Something that hurt back.
He reached for the next tool—something like a wrench made of wire and whisper. It adjusted resonance. The kind of thing that didn’t work in the real world. Here, though?
It was perfect.
He used it to tune the shards—one by one. So when they were used, they wouldn’t just kill. They’d remind the target what it was. What it had done.
Memory was the forge.
But remorse was the fire.
He kept going.
Alone.
The forge, the shards, the silence.
He didn’t know when he’d see the others again. Didn’t know what wish he’d make. Didn’t even care anymore.
This wasn’t about a reward.
It was about building something that mattered.
Eamon picked up the bleeding shard. Stared into its pulse.
Then turned back to the forge.
And kept hammering.