The Boundless Expanse(An Epic System Apocalypse LitRPG)

Over the next few hours, Karamodo altered the structure of his metal temple, turning it into a forge as large as a cathedral. In the very center was a pool of bubbling lava, above which a crucible glowed with the blue heat of a supermassive star. An anvil five times larger than Sam had ever seen before stood by the lava forge, while row after row of tools surrounded the entire forge. The carvings and statues were gone, replaced by utilitarian steel.

"A lava forge allows for the melting of higher order metals," Karamodo explained as he adjusted the height of the crucible. "A normal forge could not even heat some of the materials that I frequently work with. Adamantium. Mithril. Sunstone. Once I incorporated a shard of a black hole into the engine of a battleship as large as a world. To work it into shape needed heat comparable to the birth of the universe."

"And you used this forge for that?" Sam asked, his eyes wide. "It can get that hot?"

"No," Karamodo admitted. "I used two other black holes to generate tidal forces between them. That generated enough energy to power a forge I made from the core of a dead sun."

"I thought I was a passable smith," Sam said, wincing. "I feel like a monkey playing with sticks next to the best engineer in the world."

"There are different levels of smithing. Once, I was like you are now. Since then I have learned much. I had millions of years to hone my talents. You had months."

"Still... Can what you do even be called smithing? It sounds more like magic."

Karamodo's eyes glinted in the light of the forge, the fiery orange spheres twinkling like a ruby bathed in sunlight. "Magic is simply a name we put to things that we do not understand. I am sure that smiths far above myself walk the greater Multiverse. I am near the pinnacle for this universe, but it would be foolish to assume that is true everywhere."

"Still, you must be the most talented smith I've ever met," Sam assured Karamodo. "Just the fragments of your story that you told me make me very eager to see how this hammer turns out. My last weapon was made up of seven mythical weapons from my world, fused into one, yet was only E Rank. Who knows what a hammer crafted by an actual god of smithing can do?"

"That we shall soon see," Karamodo declared, sweeping his gaze across the forge. "Now, let us begin. Our first choice is that of material. Do you want a rampaging brute of a weapon that can blast a planetoid apart, or a slimmer weapon with the speed of a lightning bolt and the grace of an angel?"

Sam thought about it for a moment. He had a certain affinity towards larger weapons, evidenced by his fighting style while using Terra's Will. In serious fights, more often than not, he had found himself using the hammer in its largest form. With his superhuman strength, he could probably swing an asteroid around, as long as he had a long enough handle.

"My previous hammer was able to change its size to suit the occasion. Could you make something like that for me?"

"Of course," Karamodo chuckled. "Though it will require the use of some more... exotic materials. There will be a price to pay to bond with such a volatile weapon. Are you willing to pay it?"

"I am."

Karamodo started pulling ingots of shimmering metal from a hole in space he had opened with a deft flick of a claw. Each was a different color, seven in total. "Prismatic Iron only forms in the hearts of the Jewels of Baltharn. Each is a gemstone the size of a planet, condensed over billions of years by the gravity of the black hole they orbit. Retrieving the metal is incredibly dangerous. Anrya herself has to do it from afar with telekinesis."

"That sounds expensive," Sam replied, whistling softly. "Will those be the base for the weapon?"

Karamodo glanced at Sam, flicking his reptilian eyes in an expression that almost looked like mockery. "Do you think so little of my skills, Sam Atlas? This weapon will be my finest work to date! In this new world of the System, personal power is more important than that of the collective. As my people grow stronger, I can finally forge personal weapons powerful enough to be worthy of my touch. You are simply the first."

Neat stacks of metal soon surrounded the anvil, with Karamodo finally drawing the last component out of his storage. It seemed to tug at reality, as if it possessed enough gravity to command even the void of space. It was a strangely ordinary gemstone, looking like a rough yellow diamond pulled straight from a mine. It was uncut, but still drew the eye for the faintly flickering light that dwelt within its center.

"This gem is worth as much as the other materials combined," Karamodo explained, lifting it up to his eye between two claws. "Sunstone normally comes in a far more aesthetic form, but that says nothing about its power. Like water strains to fill its space, and gravity to form spheres, sunstone seeks the ordered structure of a prism. A misshapen stone like this is one in a billion, and far more powerful for that."

"How much more powerful? How much energy is in sunstone in the first place?"

"A chunk of sunstone the size of a fist has enough energy to power a medium sized transport vehicle for a week. Say one that weighs five tons. This piece here would be strong enough to power that same vehicle for a millennia."

Sam instantly saw a problem. "But the amount of power that this hammer will have to channel is far higher than what you just said. Will it only last for a few dozen fights before running out of energy?"

Karamodo tossed the piece of sunstone at Sam without warning. Sam caught it in his right hand, instantly feeling a strange tug on his mana pool. The stone glowed brighter and brighter as that tug became a whirlpool drawing in more and more of Sam's mana. He dropped the stone, surprised.

"You will be able to recharge the stone," Karamodo explained. "Its imperfect shape leaves it as an energy vacuum of sorts. There is a constant leakage, but that allows for the introduction of more power."

"Damn, that was stupid," Sam muttered. "You probably had this all planned out already. I don't know that much about smithing compared to you."

"Perhaps you shall learn more today. Regardless, I believe that you will be happy with the result."

Karamodo held out his hand and the sunstone rose into the air. It thumped into his palm a moment later, and he set it down on top of the anvil. "This will be the core that we build the entire hammer around. The elements of the weapon that are most power-hungry, mainly the shapechanging, will have to be in close proximity."

The seven ingots of Prismatic Iron floated into the air, heading towards the crucible. They dropped in, the intense heat of the bowl softening them before they even entered it fully.

"To stabilize the Prismatic Iron we will need a latticework of Void Diamond to keep it from tearing apart the entire hammer." A milky white gemstone rose into the air and Karamodo grabbed it. He tapped two claws to the surface of the gem. Fiery light spilled down his arms and into his claws. The Void Diamond softened and he drew out a filament between his claws. Draping it over the sunstone chunk, Karamodo's hands became a blur, dozens and then hundreds of threads crisscrossing the sunstone in the blink of an eye. The stone lifted from the anvil, allowing him to evenly coat the entire rock in Void Diamond strands.

Sam watched this all, mesmerized by the display. There was no deviance in Karamodo's work, despite the irregular shape of the sunstone. Each strand of Void Diamond was somehow in exact proportion to the others without taking the shape of the sunstone into account. It was some sort of reality warping, but not one that Sam was familiar with. He couldn't do the same thing with his Authority, as he was still bound by the rules of physical reality. It seemed that Karamodo was not.

Sam used his Authority to peek into the crucible, realizing that the Prismatic Iron was barely melted. Only its surface was softened, running like wax down the sides of the ingots. Each of the ingots blazed with light, each one of the colors of the rainbow. It was a surprisingly beautiful sight.

"I have a task for you," Karamodo called out, not looking up from his work. "I would like you to sort through the Blood Tungsten. Find the one that calls to you the most. It will help during the final binding process."

Sam nodded, looking through his perfect memory to find which of the metals was the Blood Tungsten. A small pile of shimmering red ingots lay next to a much larger heap of mithril. Sam moved over and started to sort through them. He wasn't sure what he was looking for at first, but as the pieces of tungsten started to shake at his proximity, he realized what was going on. At about five feet away, one of the ingots rose into the air, snapping into place over Sam's heart. It remained there, vibrating slightly.

Sam plucked it free and pushed it over to Karamodo with his Authority. The attractive force was surprisingly powerful, needing more of his Dao than he had expected to overcome it.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Karamodo snatched the piece of Blood Tungsten out of the air with one hand, continuing to layer the Void Diamond strands with the others. He slammed it into the anvil, summoning a layer of steel over it to hold it in place.

Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours as Karamodo waited for the Prismatic Iron to fully melt, working on smaller tasks in the meantime. The weapon he had in mind had a hundred interlocking parts, by far the most complicated armament Sam had ever seen. If this was the sort of work that went into high Rank weapons, Sam had no confidence in his own abilities. His only experience with higher Rank smithing was during the Tower, which had really just consisted of him melting together various powerful materials. This in comparison was a form of art.

The heat of the room rose and rose, though considering that it had started at the temperature of outer space, it was only noticeably different now. The room was the temperature of a blast furnace, though to Sam and Karamodo it felt like a warm summer's day. Had a normal human set foot in the forge, they would have been reduced to ash in an instant. The amount of heat required to melt Prismatic Iron was mindboggling. Because of the compression of the Jewels of Batharn, each piece of Prismatic Iron grew exponentially more durable the closer to the core one reached. The outer layer would melt at about ten thousand degrees but the inner core would require millions.

The lava beneath the crucible was white hot at this point, far beyond the temperature at which normal stone would have vaporized. It was a part of Karamodo's Intrinsic Domain, the nature of which Sam still wasn't sure about. It was very similar to his Authority, but seemed to only function when used in a way mirroring Karamodo's powerset. For tasks like forging, it seemed to have few limits. Only crafting beyond the pale, such as Karamodo's experimentation with black hole forging, was beyond its limits.

The more Sam watched Karamodo work, the more hopeful he was about the future of his faction, what with the Grakoth on their side. If the other two Ancestors were on the level of Karamodo in their respective domains, the Grakoth Empire was almost certainly one of the strongest factions in the entire universe. The fact that they had allied with Sam showed that so was his own.

In the world of the System, individual power was much more important than the power of a group. While the Grakoth Empire was mighty in its own right, even without the Ancestors, they represented most of their effective strength. Sam was confident that he could take on his entire faction and win if he had to, even if Jacob stepped in. He was just that much stronger than them. That would probably change as his captains headed into the Tower, but for now, he was a D Ranker while most of them were F Rankers.

In the same fashion, the three Ancestors could take on the entire Grakoth Empire. It would be a lot more time consuming than Sam doing the same for his own followers, but it was inevitable. They were just that strong.

Lost in his thoughts, Sam didn't notice that Karamodo had finished his work on the core of the hammer. The Grakoth brushed past him, heading towards the crucible. The Prismatic Iron had finally melted all the way through.

Karamodo sheathed his hands in layers of steel and gripped the sides of the crucible, lifting it up from the lava pool. If the intense heat bothered him, he didn't show it, even though the metal surrounding his hands soon glowed blue. He carried it over to a mold that rose out of the ground, shaped like a hammer. A thick, brick like head at the top and a long shaft at the end. It was about six feet long and two feet wide at the largest points.

"Put the core into the center of the mold, will you?" Karamodo asked. "The more contact you have with that Blood Tungsten, the more favorably it will react during the binding process. Hold it in the center with your Authority as you do so."

Sam teleported to the anvil and lifted the sunstone core. It was surprisingly heavy, but only compared to its size. He was more than strong enough to lift it with a single hand.

He teleported again, this time landing next to the mold. The heat coming from the crucible in Karamodo's hands was actually painful at this point, reddening his skin. Sam ignored it and floated the sunstone down into the center of the mold.

Karamodo tipped the crucible over, pouring the Prismatic Iron into the mold. In melting, the ultra compressed metal had massively grown in size, easily filling the hammer mold. It settled in rapidly, already beginning to cool as the temperature equalized.

The Grakoth smith carefully tossed the crucible back into the lava pool. It landed without splashing.

"Good," Karamodo declared, peeling the melting metal from his fingers and claws. "Now we can begin the hard part. Prismatic Iron is exceedingly difficult to work with. It will lose its structural integrity if alloyed, but for the purposes of this hammer, it will need to be reinforced. Otherwise expanding the weapon will make it as weak as regular steel."

"How are you going to do that?" Sam asked. "The metal's already cooling."

"That is what the rest of these resources are for. They will wrap around the core of the hammer, and as you bind it to yourself, the Blood Tungsten will be pulled out from the center, fusing all of the components together."

Karamodo immediately got to work, melting down other metals and hammering them into shape. He created dozens of bands of various crystals and metal, adjusting their size depending on where they would fit on the hammer. All the while, the weapon cooled, the Prismatic Iron returning to its base state. It shrunk slightly as it cooled down, but it seemed that its initial heating had reduced its density permanently.

By the time the weapon was ready to be worked, Karamodo had created fifty or so metal bands, enough to completely cover the surface of the hammer. They were made from various materials, some of which Sam had never seen before. The only constant were the veins of mithril and adamantium running through them for strength.

With a pleased grunt, Karamodo lifted the hammer from its mold, cradling it in his hands. He walked over to the anvil and set it down. With a wave of his hands, the bands of metal rose from where they sat, and started clamping down around the hammer. Soon its entire surface was covered in a layer of silvery-grey metal, shot through with a few more striking colors.

"This next part will be the longest," Karamodo warned. "You will need to shed your blood on the weapon until it is satisfied. Given its strength, that will be at least a day's worth. It will be a grueling process, even with your regeneration."

"I'm up for it," Sam said confidently, already imagining his new hammer. "Whatever it takes."

Using his D Rank bodily mastery, Sam opened up a large cut on the palm of his hand. He started forcing his blood out of it, laying his hand on the hammer. Rather than pooling on the metal, it started to sink it, drawn to the Blood Tungsten. The drain was minimal at first, not even budging his health pool. It picked up as the seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes to hours. After two hours, Sam's health dropped noticeably. Thankfully, the drain seemed to have leveled off somewhat.

Time continued to pass with Karamodo standing there. He was completely still, save for his eyes which flicked back and forth over the hammer.

Sam started meditating, pondering his Daos. It was very little time for the stage that he was at, but every little bit helped. Reaching the next stage of his Dao Sapling would take months at the very least.

By the time twenty hours had passed, the drain suddenly exploded in ferocity, dragging thousands of points of health out of Sam every minute. He grunted as pain started to spread through him. The weapon had started drawing more than just blood. It was devouring his life force, the power that thrummed through his fused being. Of Body, Mind, Soul and Dao.

Sam bore it regardless, watching as his health neared zero. Once the drain brought it down towards twenty thousand points, he was forced to use Dao Juggernaut to supplement his power. With the power of a Dao Sapling reinforcing it, his Unique Skill was able to stave off the drain, with the hammer finally sated. Sam backed away, panting. The weapon had transformed completely. It was now a smooth construct of red tinged metal. The colors of the rainbow flickered in the light of the forge as the light shifted. It was otherwise plain, with no adornments.

However, the physical form of the weapon was hardly its most striking aspect. The steel beneath it warped like it was in a gravity well and pressure buffeted Sam like a gale as he approached. Dancing flames surrounded the hammer, in every color of the rainbow. The weapon itself would have been almost invisible had Sam's senses not been so sharp.

Almost reverently, Sam picked it up and scanned it.

(Name Pending)

The display did not appear as usual, instead prompting him to name his hammer. Thinking about the power of the weapon, and his own, Sam quickly came to a decision.

Worldbreaker

D Rank Artifact(Hammer)

Forged by Karamodo, the Grakoth God of Smithing, and infused with the life force of the Dao Incarnation of Existence, this hammer is a true masterpiece. Its very metal is infused with the raw might of a Dao Sapling, giving it incredible strength. Formed out of the most powerful materials its universe has to offer, it is nearly peerless at its level.

Weapon Abilities: Malleability of Baltharn, Dao Avatar, Solar Overcharge.

Malleability of Baltharn: This weapon may increase or decrease in size, up to the limits of its wielder's Authority.

Dao Avatar: As a weapon personally bound to a Dao Incarnation, its power will grow in tandem with the wielder's Dao.

Solar Overcharge: Tap into the stored power of Worldbreaker's central sunstone to empower the weapon with the power of a star. Will require recharging after full depletion.

A cloud of red light started to ooze from Worldbreaker, surrounding the weapon in its entirety. It pulsed within Sam's hands. He felt the strength of the hammer on a metaphysical level. While it was completely malleable in size, its durability was constant, due to the Blood Tungsten. Whether the size of a needle or the size of a city, it would conduct Sam's strength the same.

Karamodo looked at his creation in pride. His eyes glinted, the orbs of flame-orange light inscrutable. "That is by far the most potent weapon I have ever created for a single person. I hope you will spread its legend, and you own, far and wide."

"Thank you for making that for me," Sam said solemnly. "I'll do my best to live up to your expectations. Whatever you need, within reason, I'll do."

Karamodo gave a smile not unlike that of a beneficent uncle, wanting nothing but his nephew's happiness. "The terms of our deal are good enough. Crafting is my prerogative. Creating that weapon helped me as much as it helps you."

Sam gave Worldbreaker a few test swings, feeling it hum in his hands as it moved through the vacuum of space. Karamodo started packing up his temple, the metal making it up melting away and flowing into cracks in space. The Grakoth gave Sam a single, encouraging nod, and then teleported away. Sam stood there with his new hammer in his hand, already imagining the possibilities that his weapon would bring.