[LSB] Chapter 127: Legacy of Old and New

Julian had once asked MEGAN to scour the entire internet and metastream when he first became the Shadow Blacksmith—to dig through every archive, every forum, every scrap of data tied to Otherworld or Artemia in search of a single name: Erin.

But even after hours of relentless digging, there was nothing. No record, no trace.

MEGAN had even gone so far as to approach Victoria directly. Her answer was simple: Humanity Engineering’s written history of Artemia only stretched back a thousand years at most—and even that was unreliable at best.

That meant Erin and the vision Julian had seen of her came from far earlier. A time forgotten, erased, or perhaps never recorded at all. And now, as Julian descended into the heart of a volcano—one shaped and built by Erin herself—he knew this was now a fact.

But Julian didn’t care how old she was. He wanted to understand why.

Why did Erin create this volcano?

…And how?

“Boss…” Juliet's voice echoed softly beside him, careful not to stir the oppressive silence that surrounded them. “I’ve heard stories about legendary blacksmiths. But building an entire volcano? That’s not forging anymore—that’s… creating land.”

Her steps were as cautious as her tone. Even the slightest sound seemed to stretch unnaturally through the mouth of the volcano, bouncing from wall to wall.

At first, Juliet hadn’t believed it. That a single blacksmith had carved out the winding, endless steps spiraling deep into the volcano, looping through caverns, vanishing into walls, only to reemerge like a labyrinth made by tangled thread.

But the shape and size of the steps erased all her doubts.

They were small. Narrow. Sized for a child.

Or, more accurately, for an eldazen.

The path was not built for hyums.

And if Erin had truly shaped this, was she even a blacksmith?

Could one still call her that?

Juliet glanced around the cavern—at the stone, at the smooth precision of each carved edge. To reshape terrain like this… that wasn’t craftsmanship.

This was creation.

But then again, she had seen what Julian could do even before receiving the Shadow Blacksmith class.

Julian had already been extraordinary. Even now, he forged Epic-grade gear as if he were casually preparing a meal.

In the future… would he also be capable of creating something like this?

No. Juliet knew the answer already. He could do it now.

“If anyone in Artemia was meant to follow in Grandmaster Erin’s footsteps, it’s you,” Juliet whispered, her eyes tracing the perfectly symmetrical stairs. “She made the right decision choosing you.”

“Erin didn’t choose me,” Julian said, “The Master of Shadows did.”

“That’s… even crazier,” she murmured. “I still don’t know who the Master of Shadows is, but… from the way the Avatar of Searadyn reacts to it, I’m starting to believe he might be… a god?”

“Hmm.”

Juliet let the silence stretch for a moment. Then her voice grew softer.

“Boss… am I even worthy to walk the same path as you?”

She looked down at her feet as they landed on another step. “You were chosen. By gods and spirits. I just… happened to meet you by accident. Pushed my way into your life and begged to be your apprentice. I’ve learned so much, but I don’t think I’ll ever reach your level.”

Julian paused. Then, with no hesitation, no pride, just a quiet certainty, he turned to her.

“You don’t have to worry, Juliet,” he said. “I also don’t think anyone could ever reach the level I have.”

“T-that…” Juliet’s eyes widened, her step faltering for just a moment before a soft laugh escaped her lips. “For some reason, that actually makes me feel better.”

“Hmm.”

“In any case…” Juliet moved toward the edge of the steps, even more cautious now as she peered down into the depths. And now that they were far enough into the volcano, she could finally see it—strands of glowing orange, molten rock trailing lazily along the base.

“...Should we just jump, Boss? We’ve got rope, and we could use the Frostalons to scale the wall. Makes sense for the Heart of a Golem to be down there, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Julian said, fingers brushing along the carved wall beside him as he continued his steady descent, “But I want to explore the volcano in its entirety.”

“Hmm,” Juliet echoed, unconsciously adopting his habit of humming. “Understood, Boss.”

They kept descending until the steps spilled into a wide cavern. Juliet’s pace slowed as she fidgeted with the lantern clipped to her waist. Julian didn’t seem to notice the darkness at all—he just kept walking.

It wasn’t until Juliet passed him the lantern that he even seemed to realize that it was dark.

“I’m good,” he said, gesturing that he didn’t need it.

Juliet clipped it to the end of her war axe’s shaft instead, holding it near the blade to cast a light ahead.

The caverns were nothing like the mouth of the volcano—no magma, no faint red glimmer, just shadows that swallowed everything. Juliet had never been inside a volcano before, but she was pretty sure one this hot should be pouring with lava.

Still, neither of them was fazed by the heat. Juliet, especially—this kind of temperature was her element. Her body could touch molten rock without burning, a resistance forged along with everything she has made..

And Julian? With the spirits dwelling within him, he might as well have been in a comfortable hot spring.

They walked for a while in silence, the only sound the echo of their steps. But then Julian suddenly stopped and raised his fist.

Juliet reacted instantly. She unhooked the lantern, placed it carefully on the ground a meter away, dropped her bag, and took hold of her war axe with both hands, pressing her back to Julian’s.

“How many, Boss?” she whispered.

“Three,” Julian said. “Two in front of you. One in front of me.”

“They followed us?” Juliet narrowed her eyes, turning the war axe in her hands and hooking the lantern on its end again. With a quick flick, she flung it down the tunnel behind them—the light bounced and rolled across the stone floor, casting shadows—

—but revealed nothing.

The path behind them was empty.

Juliet’s grip on her weapon tightened, but then she looked up.

And there, clinging to the ceiling, were two pale figures.

She squinted. They were… limp-looking, elongated. Tapered toward the top.

“Is it just me, or do they look like…” She hesitated, struggling to find another word. “Uh. I don’t want to say it, Boss.”

“They look like a penis.” Julian, however, did not share her decorum.

“Y… Yes!” Juliet gasped, then immediately turned red as she shot a quick glance over her shoulder. “W-wait—it’s not like I actually know what they look like in detail! I… I haven’t seen one in so—Ack. Guidance!”

She abruptly called upon the Guidance of Artemis to save herself from spiraling into self-destruction.

[Vulkrid, Lv. ? | Observe the creature for more information.]

The vulkrid’s skin was a pale, rubbery sheen, already disturbing on its own—but paired with its four limbs that eerily resembled a hyum’s arms and hands, the result was just… wrong. It was only slightly larger than a normal hyum, but that somehow made it even worse.

But perhaps, as Julian explicitly detailed without any hesitation, its neck and head, which were shaped eerily like a man’s private part, were its most ominous-looking feature.

It wasn’t only the way it looked, but the way it moved.

It was erect and bouncing from the ceiling like it was twitching. It had no eyes, no face—only a gaping vertical slit that expanded as it seemed to smell Juliet and Julian with its long tongue.

Perhaps the creature’s only saving feature from its ugliness was the veins that were glowing under its rubbery, pale hide.

And now that they were close to them, the veins started to glow, branching like roots of magma, pulsing with heat enough to cause the air around them to distort.

“What… even are these things!?” Juliet gripped her axe even tightly now. Her grip, however, slightly faltered a second later as the vulkrids let out a deep, low-pitched scream that caused her entire body to shudder.

It wasn’t only her that trembled, the metal in her axe did too—it was responding to the vulkrids’ quiet roar.

And almost as if it sensed her hesitation, one of the vulkrids dropped to the ground, slamming its penile-like head on the rock when it did so.

The rock beneath it began to tremble, and the veins in the creature’s neck started to glow even more violently. Its long tongue then speared through the ground that became soft from its descent, and with a pulse crossing its entire body, lava flew out of its tongue, injecting the ground itself with magma. 

Magma, which exploded from the ground and violently crawled toward Juliet.

“Boss!” Juliet slammed her axe into the ground, halting the surging magma with the impact. The recoil launched her forward, sending her into a rapid spin mid-air. With one swift motion, she brought her axe down in a devastating arc, striking the vulkrid square on the crown of its monstrous head—hard.

The vulkrid’s head recoiled as it violently hit the ground, and the magma from its tongue rippled out everywhere. Juliet did not stop there; she landed on the vulkrid’s back and raised her axe again before swinging it down its head one more time.

If there was one universal truth every adventurer knew, it was this: when facing an unknown monster, you never hold back—and you always go for the kill.

In this case, it would seem that wasn’t enough.

“What!?” Juliet stumbled slightly as the vulkrid beneath her still twitched and moved. Despite bleeding lava and having its gaping maw split nearly in two—its skull dangling open like a cracked shell—it was still alive. And then, it spewed a jet of lava straight at her.

“Nope!” Juliet blocked the blast with her axe just in time. But while she was fending off one attack, the second vulkrid hanging from the ceiling had already aimed its grotesque, throbbing head at her. With a deep, rumbling pulse, it fired a concentrated beam of lava her way.

Juliet turned, eyes catching the burning beam a second too late to dodge.

But she didn’t flinch.

In a blink, a translucent shield flew into place in front of her, intercepting the blast. It gave her just enough time to duck under the beam, pivot, and swing her axe at the mangled head in front of her.

The earlier damage had already softened the vulkrid’s skull enough that her blade cleaved through cleanly, splitting it in two.

Juliet exhaled sharply and glanced toward where Julian had been. He was gone.

In his place lay another vulkrid, already dead—its neck severed in multiple parts, but its head was missing.

Her gaze snapped upward back at the remaining vulkrid. Julian was there, suspended from the ceiling by the Frostalons, latched onto the vulkrid’s neck.

With a silent breath, he swung both hooked blades in a brutal swing, shredding the creature’s throat.

He dropped down as the frostlanos unlatched themselves, lava sizzling against his shoulder as it sprayed from the creature’s fatal wound. Julian walked calmly forward, sliding the Frostalons back into the shadows behind him.

The vulkrid’s corpse hit the floor with a heavy, wet thud—then immediately began to sink into the spreading blackness beneath it, swallowed entirely by the shadows.

Juliet watched all of this with wide eyes, and she also watched as Julian pulled something from the darkness.

A helmet. Fashioned from the vulkrid’s grotesque, penile-shaped head.

“Wear this,” Julian said, stretching it out to her. “I made two for us. The Guidance says it’s highly resistant to flame.”

“I know what the Guidance of Artemis says, Boss. But… please don’t make me wear that.”

***

Meanwhile, back in Maldan’s village, the Shield Saint and the soldiers of the Order of Artemia had already set up camp. Tents now dotted the snowy ground between the cottages, blending in with the simple life of the locals.

At first, the villagers were wary. But that wariness quickly faded when the soldiers began distributing vegetables, fruit, and red meat—rare luxuries in a land like Dodona.

As for the Shield Saint herself, Cyrus had yet to catch a glimpse of her since she arrived. She had been inside Maldan’s cottage for hours.

Still, he now understood how they’d found this place.

“You shouldn’t have brought them here,” Cyrus muttered, glancing at the woman beside him. “You’re messing with Julian’s quest.”

A thin, but obviously toned woman, a striking beauty with a delicate, porcelain face framed by her dark bangs. All this, combined with her almond-shaped eyes, was a complete contrast to the dirty hide armor covering her athletic figure.

And if Julian were here and saw the massive bow strapped across her back, he would have quickly recognized her.

It was Kitty, Otherworld’s current No.1 Streamer—and also one of the highest-leveled players in Artemia.

She and a few people from her guild were the ones who led the Order of Artemia to Maldan’s village.

“Hey. Don’t be too aggressive. I’m also just doing my quest. Sharing is caring, which, honestly, you should have learned by now.”

***

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I'm back from the holidays, and now I'm literally out of money. LOL. Hope you guys had happy holidays!