The Hero Returns Chapter 437

Chapter 437: Chapter 437

Crackle, crack—

Sizzle—

The deeper they went inside the forge, the hotter the heatwave beca.

Su-hyeun thought that it really had been a long ti since he felt this level of temperature. After acquiring the godhood of fire through the divine Fla, most fires ca across as not even lukewarm to him.

Even the flas found in Hell wouldn’t be this hot; after all, Hell was supposed to be the place that imprisoned and punished regular beings, not gods, but what about this place? Not even gods would find it easy to just waltz in and stay.

“It’s rather toasty in here,” he thought. Even soone who possessed the godhood of fire as Su-hyeun found this place just a bit hotter than usual.

Surprisingly, the one under most distress turned out to be Hades. “This place still remains as unpleasant as always,” he said.

Apollo, a god who possessed the highest-tier godhood related to fire, didn’t even shed a single sweat, but his uncle Hades had to rouse up a considerable amount of his own strength to withstand the high temperature. Thanks to his strength, he managed to prevent himself from being cooked alive, but even then, his pride as the god in charge of Hell was in danger of being trampled on.

“But Honorable Uncle, I’ve already recomnded you to wait outside.”

“Do not even bring that up. What do you expect to do outside all by myself?” Hades replied with so irritation when Hephaestus addressed him. It seed that not even gods could do sothing about their moods souring rapidly when they were subjected to intense heat.

“We’re here.”

They reached the end of a long corridor that led to the workshop. Beyond it was a huge open space, its ceiling easily reaching dozens of ters.

The interior of this open space was heated up at the mont; the temperature here was so high that all the walls were radiating in crimson. With things like this, it would be no different than walking straight into a furnace.

Su-hyeun asked, “Is this where you do your work?”

“Normally, yes. However, I don’t particularly care about locations. For a master craftsman, this is all I need, after all,” Hephaestus replied while picking up a hamr resting next to the entrance.

Giii-iiing—

This hamr was emitting a sowhat warm and gentle golden light—it was none other than the very hamr Hephaestus personally used.

“Does that hamr have so kind of special power?” Su-hyeun asked while inquisitively staring at the hamr that Hephaestus held up with so much pride.

But the God of Blacksmithing resolutely shook his head, “No, not really. I do not discriminate on my equipnt choices. Even if it’s not this hamr, others will do just fine.”

“Which ans your hamr is not really a special treasure or anything like that, unlike the items used by the other gods, in other words.”

When Su-hyeun said that, Hephaestus’ expression crumpled ever so slightly.

He seed to have taken offense that his hamr had been compared to the items of the other gods and underestimated on top of that. “Correction. I’m the only one that does not find this treasure tempting to behold, but that’s only because this hamr contains my experiences and mories.”

“Your experiences and mories, you say?”

“This hamr is crafted from these three items—adamantium, Soul Stone, and Reinforcent Stone—and it contains all my experience and mories of the items I have crafted up until now.”

Clang—

While saying that, he used his hamr to lightly pound on a shield that seed to have been discarded. “A hamr like this? It’s not hard to make one, sure, but my experiences and mories perating this hamr are truly irreplaceable. Priceless. So, is it still not special, in that case?”

“Not at all,” Su-hyeun grinned. “That is indeed really amazing.”

A hamr perating with Hephaestus’ experience and mories—now that was a much better function to have than other the so-called special abilities when crafting various items.

Of course, such functions were not really useful to the owner of the hamr, Hephaestus. However, if another blacksmith were to use this hamr, then that individual would get to absorb so techniques and skills belonging to the God of Blacksmithing himself.

Hephaestus was the smith responsible for crafting the Thunder Glove, so to think that a hamr would let you acquire such a blacksmith’s technique and knowledge, now that was truly a heavenly treasure, alright.

“What is the aning behind your odious smile? In any case, just follow ,” said Hephaestus, who then abruptly turned around to lead the way.

Nurous pieces of equipnt were practically left discarded, unclaid, in the deeper part of the workshop. Even at a casual glance, several of the equipnt seed to be high-quality goods crafted from rare and valuable material like adamantium.

Su-hyeun casually picked up a sword discarded on the floor and gripped it tightly to see for himself. The sensation of sturdiness and sharpness of its blade was transmitted to his fingertips; a blade of this caliber, even if it wasn’t comparable to Balmung, would still be worthy of being referred to as a mass-produced copy of Balmung.

If Kim Dae-ho had produced this naless sword, then people would have called it a masterpiece.

“You seem oddly interested in a failure.” However, Hephaestus casually called such a sword a failure, not even bothering to attach a proper na to it. Instead, he strode over to a display cradle standing over there and then yanked off the black cloth draped over it. “This is the item you should be taking a look at instead.”

Flap—

Once the thick black cloth was pulled off, a set of crimson armor revealed itself underneath. Its material was slightly see-through, although the transparency was on the murkier side. Obviously, this armor was not made of tal.

“Isn’t this...?”

For so reason, Su-hyeun picked up a familiar aura from it. Hoping to figure out why, he cautiously reached out to the armor. He glanced at Hephaestus, and the latter simply nodded and said nothing else, indicating his permission.

After confirming that nod, Su-hyeun’s hand reached out all the way to the crimson armor, and the mont he touched its surface...

Splaaash—

The armor transford into a bizarre shape and then traveled up his arm like so kind of viscous liquid and wrapped around his torso.

The “liquid” then seeped under his clothing and armor underneath. Although it was barely visible to the naked eyes, he could still feel it on his skin that this “thing” had hardened like real armor under his clothes now.

A pair of ssages ca to him just then as well.

[You have acquired “Kali’s Armor.”]

[All rewards have been paid out.]

The delayed reward payout arrived. However, Su-hyeun had already anticipated sothing like this would happen the mont he detected Kali’s aura. The reason why the reward had to be delayed was probably to give Hephaestus sufficient ti to craft the armor.

“Having said that, to think that he’d complete sothing like this in one day,” he marveled inwardly.

The ti flow differed from one dinsion to another. Even if that was the case, though, it should still be terribly difficult to use Kali’s blood to craft a set of armor of this caliber in such a short ti.

“As I thought, the owner of that armor was you,” Hephaestus’ hardened expression softened as a content grin appeared on his face. “Kali’s blood responds to the one responsible for shedding it in the first place. Of course, there aren’t all that many entities capable of making Kali bleed, and more importantly, there is only one god who recently killed her, too.”

“But why are you—?”

“Father requested . He said that I must craft a set of armor using Kali’s blood.”

“When you say father, you an Zeus?”

“How do you know that?” Hephaestus asked puzzled while glancing at Apollo and Hades.

The other gods rely shook their heads to indicate that they hadn’t told Su-hyeun about it. Hephaestus shifted his gaze back to Su-hyeun, allowing the latter to explain himself.

“The tales of Olympus are quite well-known in the world I originally co from. Of course, those stories are not accepted as actual history. They lean a lot closer to works of fiction.”

“Tales of Olympus, you say?”

“Yes. Soone once told that even tales about are talked about in other worlds as legends as well.”

“Is that so?”

“It sounds like soone went around talking about us again.”

“It was probably that fool, Hers. He really likes to run his mouth wherever he goes.”

Hephaestus, Hades, and Apollo all nodded in understanding.

Su-hyeun didn’t know what kind of god Hers was, but one thing was for sure—he must have been a big fan of going around spreading all sorts of stories and rumors.

“In any case, Zeus was the one who asked Hephaestus to craft the 200th floor’s trial reward,” he thought.

That was a rather valuable piece of information related to the Tower of Trials.

Su-hyeun got his hands on his reward from the 200th floor a little early by coincidentally choosing to seek out Hephaestus himself. Learning about Zeus as the requester of the reward item was indeed an unexpected windfall.

“The armor is not fully completed yet since I was pressed for ti. However, it should still be quite useful in its current state,” said Hephaestus.

“Wait, it’s not completed yet, even though it’s like this already?”

“Correct. It has been enjoyable to use Kali’s blood to craft a set of armor, but on one hand, it is rather unfortunate. If I had another 50 years or so, I could have completed it,” Hephaestus pursed his lips in disappointnt.

At least when it ca to things like this, the God of Blacksmithing definitely resembled Kim Dae-ho’s personality. They both displayed unparalleled fervor and dedication for crafting equipnt as proud blacksmiths.

“Fifty years...No, that’s too long,” Su-hyeun thought. Honestly speaking, he would have loved to get his hands on the “completed” item as his trial reward. However, the ti fra of 50 years was simply unfeasible to him. He couldn’t afford to wait that long.

But then again...

“That’s actually great.”

Su-hyeun was actually happy about this turn of events. Fifty years of additional crafting ti, plus Hephaestus’ greed as a blacksmith—thanks to those two things, it beca easier for Su-hyeun to bring up a certain topic that he had been wondering about how to get the ball rolling.

“Would you like to have a wager with ?”

“A wager?”

“Yes. At stake will be this crimson armor and that hamr,” Su-hyeun pointed at the hamr in Hephaestus’ hand.

“Hmm...”

“Mm?”

The first ones to react to what he said were Apollo and Hades. Expressions of intrigue appeared on their faces as they alternated their gazes between Su-hyeun and Hephaestus.

A short bout of silence visited the workshop.

“I’m certain that I saw Hephaestus’ Hamr as an item that can be bought with enough points. aning, it’s seen as a regular purchasable product,” Su-hyeun thought. To confirm this, he tested the waters regarding the hamr with Hephaestus earlier.

Once in a while, you would find blacksmiths who held much affection toward their favored equipnt. In cases like that, they would treasure their tools as much as their lives.

Fortunately enough, Hephaestus didn’t belong to that camp. He was more obsessed with crafting new items regardless of the equipnt or thods employed, just like Kim Dae-ho.

“However, how will we even compete?” Hephaestus asked.

“It really doesn’t matter as long as it’s not a wager on finding out who makes the better item or sothing like that.”

“But that doesn’t an a blacksmith like can fight against soone like you who is strong enough to kill Kali.”

Su-hyeun and Hephaestus specialized in different professions: one was a warrior, while the other was a blacksmith.

Since their specialties were so different, finding a fair-enough event to compete in proved to be cumberso, and so, as they silently pondered on the kind of event to compete in.

“Apollo—!” A thunderous roar suddenly exploded from outside the workshop. “Are you in there—?”

Buzz—

Vrrr, drrrrrr—

That voice caused the entire workshop to rumble and shake. Various equipnt on their cradles ca loose and clattered to the floor ssily, and even the hotly boiling air inside the forge visibly wavered as well.

However, the voice wasn’t simply loud.

“I can sense a dense combative desire,” Su-hyeun silently observed.

Indeed, the voice of the unknown man contained a heavy amount of fighting aura. The emotion perating the voice strongly indicated that he wanted to fight soone.

Whoever he was, he was strong. Just his voice alone was enough to impart that knowledge.

“Ares, that stinking punk,” Hephaestus muttered in irritation as he witnessed his workshop being shaken around.

That loud yelling caused the interior of the workshop, which Hephaestus had arranged to suit his particular taste, to beco a ssy pandemonium in an instant.

But his scowl didn’t last for long; a smirk suddenly replaced his frown as if he had co up with an interesting idea just now, “We were discussing the potential event for our wager, weren’t we?”

“Sorry?” Su-hyeun suddenly sensed a slightly foreboding premonition.

Hephaestus began walking toward the exit of the workshop while saying the following words, “I’ve made up my mind. Co with ..”