The sword felt heavy in my grip, but not in the way a poorly balanced weapon would. It was something else. Something deeper. The resonance between the blade and my Echo had finally settled into something workable, but that only made the weight of it more noticeable.
Because this wasn't free.
I knew that.
The smith was watching me, his expression unreadable beneath layers of soot and exhaustion. For three days, he had put up with me, pushed me, forced me to adjust to the blade's growing resonance. He had worked like a demon possessed, not once asking for coin, favors, or blood in return. He had only demanded labor, and now I had a weapon I could actually wield.
That didn't sit right with me.
Demons weren't kind. Not in the world I had written. Every exchange had a cost, every deal a trap hidden beneath false generosity. That was the fundamental nature of the Demon Realm. If you wanted something, you paid for it—with coin, with blood, or with something worse. Yet here I was, standing in a forge with a completed weapon, and the only thing this old bastard had taken from me was sweat and effort.
That wasn't how it was supposed to work.
I tested the weight again, letting the blade hover just above the ground before swinging it in a slow arc. The resonance hummed—still not perfect, but no longer resisting me. It was a start.
I glanced at the smith.
"Alright, old man. What's the catch?"
The demon grunted, wiping his hands on a rag.
"What are you talking about?"
I lifted the sword slightly.
"This. You should've bled me dry for this kind of work. Either you're an idiot, or I just signed a deal without realizing it. So which is it?"
Aiden, who had been sitting on a stack of scrap, let out an amused whistle.
"Damn. Give the guy a little credit, Damien. Maybe he just likes you."
I shot him a look.
"Bullshit."
The smith chuckled, shaking his head.
"You're sharper than you look. But no, there's no hidden price. No blood contract. No debt hanging over your head."
He leaned against the forge, arms crossed. "You worked, I forged. That's the deal."
I didn't buy it. Not for a second. But if he was hiding something, it wasn't something he was willing to say outright. Which meant I'd have to figure it out on my own.
I exhaled through my nose, sheathing the blade.
"Fine. But if this thing starts whispering in my sleep, I'm coming back to shove it down your throat."
The smith laughed. "I'd like to see you try."
Aiden stretched, rolling his shoulders.
"Well, now that we've got your existential crisis out of the way, what's next? You've got, what—two days before Blackthorn? Gonna practice swinging that thing around or just stare at it suspiciously until time runs out?"
I ignored him, lost in thought.
If the rules of the Demon Realm had changed… how much else had changed with them?
Had this smith always been like this, and I had just forgotten? Or was this another shift, like the beast's Echo, like the way things were playing out differently from how I had written them?
My grip on the sword tightened.
There was only one way to find out.
I tightened my grip around the sword, rolling my shoulders as if that would make it feel more natural in my hands. It didn't. The weight felt wrong—not too heavy, not unbalanced, just... foreign. Like my body knew it wasn't meant to wield a weapon, that my hands weren't used to the roughness of the hilt. Because they weren't.
'How the hell am I supposed to fight with this in two days?'
I exhaled sharply, turning the blade in my grip, watching how the dim light of the forge slid across its edge. The resonance was there, I could feel it humming beneath my skin, but it wasn't responding the way I needed it to.
The beast's Echo wasn't just about raw power—it was about resonance, about turning every strike into an avalanche of force, about overwhelming opponents with the relentless repetition of a single cut. But swinging a sword and using an Echo properly weren't the same thing. Without technique, without control, the Echo meant nothing.
Aiden, ever the observer, was watching me struggle with a lopsided smirk. He wasn't saying anything yet, but I could feel the judgment radiating off him.
I let out a slow breath, steadying my stance.
'Alright. Just try something simple.'
I lifted the sword, adjusting my grip, then brought it down in a basic overhead slash.
The moment the blade cut through the air, the Echo pulsed—but instead of cleanly following through, it lagged, hesitated, then lurched forward in an uncoordinated second strike. The force was uneven, the timing all wrong. Instead of looking like a warrior harnessing power, I looked like an idiot swinging a broken sword that was trying to attack twice and failing miserably.
Aiden finally let out a low chuckle.
"That was pathetic."
I scowled.
"I don't need commentary."
"Yeah? Cause you look like you need help."
'I hate that he's right.'
I grit my teeth, lowering the blade. The Echo was doing what it was supposed to—partially. But the problem wasn't just the weapon, it was me. I knew the ability, I knew how it had worked in the story, but knowing and executing were two completely different things.
I had two days to figure this out.
I exhaled, shifting my focus. The sword was a problem, but there was another, bigger issue that had been gnawing at the back of my mind since the moment I stepped into this world.
The demons.
They weren't acting the way they should be.
I had written them to be cruel, territorial, and filled with an ingrained hatred for humanity. To them, humans weren't just enemies; they were intruders, pests, remnants of an old war that should've been wiped out. And yet, no one had reacted to me with even half the hostility I had expected.
Back in the Pit, they hadn't cared.
Even here, in the heart of the Demon Realm, no one was looking at me with the kind of disgust or malice I should have seen. I wasn't being hunted, wasn't being shunned. I was just... another person walking through the streets.
'What changed?'
Was it the world itself? Had something rewritten the fabric of this place? Or was it me?
My gaze flicked to my wrist, to the tattoo burned into my skin. The Primordial Echo. The first mark I had woken up with.
I had no idea what it did.
It wasn't like the beast's Echo—there was no clear ability, no instinct guiding me to understand its nature. But if it was Primordial, then it was something beyond normal Echoes. Something that shouldn't exist within the normal framework of this world. Was it possible that it was affecting the demons' perception of me? Could it be why they weren't reacting the way they should?
I let that thought roll around for a moment before shutting it down.
'No. That's reaching.'
If the Primordial Echo was warping how demons saw me, then I should've noticed something more extreme. Instead, their behavior wasn't one of reverence or fear—it was just indifference. And that was somehow worse. It meant something had shifted in the world's foundation, and I didn't know why.
Which led me back to Emil.
He had left me with this mark. He had given me the ability to reach out to him whenever I wanted. But was that really for my sake, or was it for his own amusement? Had he known I'd start seeing these cracks? Had he wanted me to?
'Or was he the one pulling the strings to make these changes happen in the first place?'
The thought made my stomach twist. I didn't like being someone else's pawn. But Emil had already proven he could manipulate things behind the scenes.
The question was: how much of this was him, and how much of this was just the world reshaping itself around my presence?
I closed my eyes for a second before shaking my head. No point in spiraling over something I didn't have answers to yet.
I still had two days before Blackthorn. Two days to figure out how to wield this Echo properly. Two days to make sure I wasn't walking into that entrance exam as dead weight.
I lifted the sword again, adjusting my grip. The muscles in my arms ached from the repeated failures, but I couldn't afford to stop. The resonance still wasn't perfect, but maybe if I focused on getting my body used to the motion first, the Echo would follow.
Aiden clicked his tongue.
"You're really just gonna brute force your way through this, huh?"
I shot him a flat look.
"You got a better idea?"
He tilted his head, considering. Then, with a lazy grin, he pushed off the wall and stepped forward.
"Yeah. I do."
I tensed instinctively as he closed the distance, but he wasn't moving like he was about to attack. Instead, he reached out and adjusted my stance, shifting my grip on the sword.
"You're holding it wrong," he said casually. "You're too stiff. Loosen up, or the recoil from the Echo's strike is gonna wreck your arms."
I frowned but followed his instruction, loosening my grip just slightly.
He took a step back, nodding.
"Try again."
I inhaled slowly, then swung.
The blade moved cleaner this time, and for a split second, the Echo followed through properly. Not perfect, but better.
Aiden smirked.
"See? You might actually figure this out before you get yourself killed."
I exhaled, shaking out my arms. The strain was still there, but I could feel the tiniest bit of improvement.
Two days.
I was going to make this work.
One way or another.