Chapter 656 The Workshop Beneath The City

By the time Liam and Tatiana finally reached the dwarf’s shop, the morning had barely begun to settle over the city.

Liam slowed down as the familiar, miserable-looking shop came into view. The same crooked sign hung above the entrance, the same scraps of metal were scattered around the exterior and the same general feeling of neglect seemed to surround the entire building. It looked almost exactly as it had the day before, which made Liam wonder whether the dwarf had even bothered cleaning up the destruction they had caused. A faint smile appeared on his face as he noticed the others already standing outside the entrance. He walked toward them with his hands casually resting at his sides, his expression far more relaxed than it had been yesterday. "So you guys were waiting for us to arrive?" he asked with a light smile, glancing from Gregor to Leonid and then toward the others as though he had caught them doing something suspicious.

Gregor immediately shook his head. "No, we weren’t waiting because we wanted to. That old bastard wouldn’t let us enter unless you were with us." His tone carried a mixture of annoyance and disbelief, and the moment he finished speaking, Liam’s smile disappeared. His eyebrows slowly drew together as he looked toward the shop. For a moment, he wondered if he had heard correctly. The dwarf had refused to let them enter without him? That was strange. Very strange. Yesterday, the man had acted as though he couldn’t care less about any of them, and now he was apparently demanding that Liam be present before allowing the others inside. Liam glanced at Tatiana, then Irina, Leonid and the witches, silently searching their expressions for some explanation, but they seemed just as confused as he was.

"Huh?" Liam finally muttered, his eyes narrowing slightly. There was something about the situation that didn’t sit right with him. The dwarf was irritating, drunk and seemingly incapable of behaving like a normal person, but Liam had already learned that there was something unusual about the old bastard. The sword alone had proven that. There was no way an ordinary blacksmith could have created something so absurdly heavy that Liam himself couldn’t lift it without releasing the strange golden power hidden inside his body. Even so, Liam wasn’t about to admit that he found the dwarf impressive. He had a reputation to maintain.

Before anyone could say anything else, the wooden door suddenly creaked.

Everyone turned toward it.

The door slowly opened by itself.

There was no hand touching it, no visible mechanism and no one standing behind it. It simply opened as though the shop itself had decided to welcome them. Through the doorway, they could see the dim interior and, farther inside, the dwarf sitting comfortably on a chair with a bottle in his hand. The moment his eyes landed on Liam, his expression changed. A crooked grin spread across his face, and there was something almost mischievous about the way he looked at him.

"Come in," the dwarf called.

Liam stared at him for several seconds.

The others remained silent.

Liam looked at the open doorway, then back at the dwarf.

Something was definitely suspicious.

He wasn’t going to walk into another room blindly after everything that had happened yesterday. The last thing he needed was to step inside and suddenly find himself buried beneath the floor because some drunken dwarf had decided to test a new trap on him. Without saying anything, Liam stepped forward and extended one foot through the doorway.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

His eyes moved carefully across the floor.

Still nothing.

He shifted his weight slightly and looked toward the ceiling.

Nothing.

Only after satisfying himself that the doorway wasn’t going to explode did he finally step completely inside. Tatiana followed immediately behind him, and the others soon entered as well. The moment the last person crossed the threshold, the door swung shut behind them with a heavy click.

Liam looked over his shoulder.

He didn’t like that sound.

"Of course," he muttered under his breath.

As he turned around, his eyes immediately landed on the dwarf.

Just as expected, the old bastard was drinking.

The dwarf had one thick arm resting on the side of the chair while the other held his bottle. His enormous beard was as messy as ever, and his clothes still looked as though they had been slept in rather than worn. Yet unlike yesterday, there was something noticeably different about him this morning. His eyes appeared much clearer, and when he looked at the group, there was a strange sharpness hidden behind them.

His eyes lit up.

"I’ve been waiting all day for you brats."

Liam’s face tightened.

He glanced toward the nearest window.

The morning light was barely visible.

He then looked back at the dwarf with an expression of genuine confusion. "All day? It’s not even seven in the morning yet," he murmured, just loud enough for Tatiana and Leonid to hear.

Tatiana covered the corner of her mouth, clearly suppressing a laugh.

Leonid simply shook his head.

The dwarf, however, heard him.

His beard twitched.

"You talk too much."

Liam immediately looked away.

He had decided that arguing with this man before breakfast was probably bad for his mental health.

The dwarf pushed himself out of the chair, causing the wooden legs to scrape against the floor. He took another drink from his bottle before walking deeper into the shop. Nobody spoke as they followed him, partly because they were curious and partly because none of them trusted the strange old man enough to wander around on their own. The dwarf eventually stopped before what appeared to be an ordinary stone wall.

Liam stared at it.

There was nothing unusual about the wall.

It looked completely solid.

There wasn’t even a visible crack.

The dwarf lifted his hand and placed his palm against it.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the wall moved.

A deep vibration passed through the floor, so subtle that Liam almost wondered if he had imagined it. A thin line suddenly appeared across the stone, running from the floor to several feet above their heads. The line widened silently until the entire section of wall began sliding inward.

Everyone froze.

Even Liam’s eyes widened.

There had been absolutely no indication that a door existed there.

Leonid’s vampire senses should have been capable of detecting the slightest irregularity. Tatiana and Irina possessed powerful werewolf senses, while the witches had their own methods of detecting magical abnormalities. Yet none of them had noticed anything.

The wall had concealed an entire entrance perfectly.

The dwarf stepped through without bothering to explain.

"Follow me."

Liam stared into the darkness beyond the opening.

Then he glanced at Tatiana.

She looked back at him.

Neither said anything.

Liam entered first.

A narrow staircase stretched downward beyond the hidden doorway. It descended farther than any normal basement should have been capable of going, and after only a few steps, the sounds of the city above began disappearing. The further they went, the colder the air became. The walls were made from dark stone that seemed unnaturally smooth, and faint lines of silver occasionally appeared beneath the surface like veins running through the rock.

Liam placed one hand against the wall as he walked.

It was warm.

That made absolutely no sense.

He pulled his hand away.

The dwarf continued descending without slowing down, his footsteps echoing through the enormous passage. The others followed closely behind, and for several minutes nobody knew where they were going. The staircase seemed endless, twisting deeper beneath the city until Liam began wondering whether they were even still inside the city at all.

Then they heard it.

Clang!

Everyone stopped.

Another sound followed.

Clang!

Then another.

Clang!

The unmistakable sound of metal striking metal echoed through the underground passage.

Liam’s eyes immediately brightened.

He exchanged a glance with Leonid.

The vampire’s expression had changed too.

Even Tatiana looked excited.

They continued down the staircase, and slowly, a warm orange glow began appearing in the distance. The light flickered against the walls, growing brighter with every step. Along with it came the sounds of hammers striking metal, the hiss of steam and the low rumble of machinery operating somewhere ahead.

Every bit of doubt that had remained inside the group began disappearing.

This was a forge.

A real forge.

The dwarf had not been lying.

Liam suddenly picked up his pace.

"Wait," Tatiana called, but Liam was already moving ahead.

He reached the bottom of the stairs first.

Then he stopped.

His entire body went still.

His mouth slowly opened.

The sight before him was so enormous that for several seconds his brain refused to process it.

The underground workshop stretched farther than he could see. It wasn’t merely a room with a furnace and an anvil. It was an entire complex carved into the earth, with massive platforms suspended over deep pits of glowing magma. Enormous chains hung from the ceiling, supporting strange metallic structures that rotated slowly in the air. Rivers of molten metal flowed through channels carved into the stone floor, passing beneath reinforced bridges and disappearing into enormous machines.

Hundreds of weapons were scattered across the workshop.

Some were swords.

Some were spears.

Others were weapons Liam couldn’t even identify.

There were bows whose strings seemed to be made of condensed light, axes covered in glowing runes and enormous blades that appeared to absorb the orange light around them rather than reflect it. Even the simplest-looking dagger sitting on one of the tables gave Liam an uncomfortable feeling when he looked at it.

There was power here.

Real power.

Not the kind he had encountered from ordinary beasts or even the weapons they had used on Earth.

This place felt ancient.

It felt like something that had existed long before the city itself.

The walls were covered in enormous inscriptions, many of them written in languages Liam couldn’t immediately recognize. Some glowed faintly while others appeared completely dormant, but there was a strange order to everything. Nothing was randomly placed. Every furnace, machine and tool seemed to have its own purpose.

And then Liam noticed the workers.

He blinked.

His eyes widened.

There were figures moving around the workshop.

At first glance they looked like humans, but the longer Liam stared, the more obvious the differences became. Their bodies were made entirely of metal. Their limbs moved with precise mechanical movements, their joints producing faint clicking sounds as they worked. Some carried heavy pieces of glowing metal that would have required several ordinary people to lift, while others stood beside enormous anvils and brought their metallic hammers down with perfect timing.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

One of them lifted a half-forged blade from the furnace and immediately placed it beneath a mechanical hammer. Another adjusted several glowing crystals around the forge, causing the flames to suddenly turn blue.

Liam’s eyebrows rose.

"What the hell..."

Tatiana finally reached his side and stared at the same scene.

Her eyes widened.

"They’re..."

Liam looked at her.

Tatiana slowly pointed toward one of the metallic workers.

"They’re robots."

Liam nodded slowly.

"Yeah."

The word sounded ridiculous in a world filled with vampires, werewolves, witches and magical creatures, but somehow robots were what finally broke his brain.

Behind them, the others began arriving, and every single person experienced the same stunned silence. Gregor’s mouth was hanging open as he stared at the enormous forge. Mary looked toward the glowing weapons with genuine fascination, while Agatha’s eyes moved rapidly across the inscriptions on the walls. Leonid remained unusually quiet, clearly trying to understand what kind of place they had just entered.

The weapons were the most impressive part.

Everywhere Liam looked, something radiated an energy that made his instincts react. Some blades gave off a faint pressure. Others hummed softly. One enormous spear resting against a pillar seemed to distort the air around its tip.

Liam’s excitement completely replaced the skepticism he had carried into the shop.

He turned toward the dwarf.

The old bastard was walking down the stairs behind them, completely unconcerned by the reactions of his guests.

Liam’s face suddenly lit up.

"So," he called excitedly, taking several steps toward him, "do we get to walk around and choose one we like?"

The dwarf stopped.

He stared at Liam.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then his beard twitched.

His eyes narrowed.

"This bastard."

Liam’s smile remained.

The dwarf took another drink from his bottle before pointing at him.

"Weren’t you looking at me with pure hatred a few minutes ago? Now suddenly you’re calm and excited because you saw some shiny weapons."

Liam’s smile grew wider.

The dwarf snorted in disgust.

"Greedy bastard."

Liam looked around at the godlike workshop filled with weapons that seemed capable of changing the fate of worlds.

He ignored the insult completely.

For the first time since arriving in this strange realm, he couldn’t wait to see what kind of weapon was waiting for him.