Chapter 124: Forging The Sword

December 26, 221, Civitas Aurelia, Gallia.

Today was the exact day that Commander Valerius and Silas departed for the final phases of their respective Alpine campaigns.

Consul Valerian had disregarded the civic survival of Rome, madly pursuing the destruction of the Syndicate with endless human waves.

Lucius knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had to return to the battlefield.

He could no longer command from the administrative safety of the Gallic praetorium.

During the brutal slaughter at the Battle of Arausio, Lucius had come to a stark realization about his own physical capabilities.

Due to the unnatural adrenaline and danger perception he possessed since his rebirth, utilizing long-range artillery from the safety of the rear trenches had felt like a waste of his combat prowess.

While the chemical firearms and repeating arbalests were lethal, they were incredibly slow to load and awkward to wield in a crushing melee.

Lucius, who had fluidly severed the heads of five Roman legionaries in a matter of seconds during the trench breach, realized he was most effective as the ultimate vanguard infantryman in close-quarters combat.

Having firmly made this tactical decision, Lucius began preparing his personal wargear.

He required impenetrable armor, a reliable short-range firearm, and a devastating melee weapon that was easy to carry.

For his armor, Lucius ordered a custom-fitted breastplate forged from a newly discovered manganese-steel alloy.

Since Lucius’s unnatural reflexes allowed him to easily deflect fatal thrusts, the drastic weight reduction perfectly suited his combat style.

Furthermore, the alloy possessed incredible blunt-force dispersion, making it purpose-built for him.

Unfortunately, the manganese refining process was far too incredibly expensive to mass-produce for the standard *Custodes* infantry, as a single cuirass cost six times as much as normal iron armor.

For his ranged weapon, Lucius visited Decimus’s workshop.

To ensure absolute lethality at close range, a master machinist had painstakingly hand-carved spiral rifling into the barrel of an experimental wheel-lock pistol, increasing the stability and range of the lead bullet.

Even though the Syndicate’s heavy industrial lathes were not yet refined enough to mass-produce rifling for thousands of small musket barrels, a master craftsman with supreme sensitivity could achieve it by hand.

The only disadvantage was the lack of uniformity, and strict uniformity was a requirement for any technology to be utilized by the wider military.

For the final piece of his arsenal, Lucius only required a primary melee weapon.

Being proficient with Roman blades, he naturally decided to carry a sword...

However, he refused to carry the standard, mass-produced *gladius* or *spatha*.

After the slaughter at Arausio, he knew a longer blade would drastically increase his lethal reach, and his danger perception would easily mitigate the inherent clumsiness of a larger weapon.

Because he was a master metallurgist in his past life, Lucius was confident in forging the blade himself.

Dressing in a simple linen tunic and a blacksmith’s apron, Lucius walked into the private emergency forge located deep within the praetorium.

This forge was explicitly installed so weapons could be repaired immediately in the event of an unexpected enemy siege.

Before striking the anvil, he faced a metallurgical dilemma.

He possessed five distinct historical options for his steel core:

Standard Roman mild steel, fibrous Celtic iron, pattern-welded Germanic steel, Japanese Tamahagane, or the legendary ancient crucible steel known in the East as Seric iron.

After only a few minutes of calculation, Lucius narrowed his choice to the true steel.

Because Lucius required a weapon of unbreakable durability, the true crucible method was the only logical choice.

Without hesitation, Lucius initiated the smelting process...

First, he prepared a heavy fireclay crucible, explicitly chosen for its ability to withstand the apocalyptic temperatures required for steel production.

*Gasp.*

*Gasp.*

Panting and drenched in sweat, Lucius sat on a stool, watching the furnace roar at a blinding fourteen hundred degrees Celsius.

Through the glowing viewport, he watched the charcoal vaporize and absorb into the bubbling, molten iron.

He left the forge, ate a brief lunch in the palace, and returned hours later...

Shattering the cooled clay and chipping away the glass slag, Lucius extracted a dense ingot of raw crucible steel.

Holding the metal in his hands, he marveled at the incredibly dense, crystalline patterns visibly swirling on the surface.

He was delighted with the result and quickly transitioned to the main part: forging the sword.

Before starting the physical process, he let out a deep breath, adjusting his mental state.

He knew the next steps were unforgiving; even a microscopic mistake would ruin the steel, significantly reducing his chances of finishing the weapon before dawn.

He placed the ingot into the roaring forge until it glowed a vicious yellow... roughly thirteen hundred degrees Celsius.

Pulling the steel onto the anvil, Lucius began to hammer the billet, elongating it before folding the hot steel back onto itself.

This ancient forge-welding technique was necessary to evenly distribute the dense carbon carbides and refine any microscopic impurities.

*Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.*

Lucius knew the exact spot to strike, extracting the maximum force from every single swing.

With every devastating blow, black flakes of oxidized scale exploded from the steel.

*Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.*

The *Custodes* guards stationed outside the forge were taken aback by the sheer stamina.

It had already been forty uninterrupted minutes since Lucius began hammering, yet the rhythm had not slowed for a single second!

*Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.*

Sweat dripped continuously from his body. His tunic was soaked.

*Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.*

An hour later, Lucius finally halted his hammer, having folded the billet exactly twenty times.

While traditional forging usually required only twelve to sixteen folds, the extended length of his planned sword necessitated the extra structural refinement.

On the final, defining sequence of strikes, Lucius shaped the steel into his desired geometry.

It possessed the broad spine of a Western knight’s longsword, but featured a continuous forward curve designed to generate the devastating slashing torque of an eastern saber.

*Drip. Sizzle.*

Thick drops of sweat fell from his brow directly onto the blade, vaporizing into steam.

With the shaping complete, Lucius moved to the heat treatment.

He applied a mixture of clay and ash to the spine of the blade, leaving only a razor-thin layer near the cutting edge.

This differential hardening technique ensured the edge would become brittle and terrifyingly sharp, while the spine remained soft and flexible to absorb massive impacts.

He heated the blade evenly until it reached a dull cherry red... roughly eight hundred degrees.

He plunged the glowing steel directly into a trough of whale oil. The oil boiled, locking the crystalline structure of the steel into place.

Lucius took a necessary rest, drinking a cup of salted water to restore his energy.

Now, he entered the final stretch of the forging...

*Grrrrrrr.*

Lucius pressed the blackened steel against a sandstone grinding wheel to establish the primary bevel.

After refining the heavy geometry, he transitioned to increasingly finer grit whetstones.

He honed the cutting edge, striving for a razor-like finish.

After multiple hours of hand-polishing, the desired sharpness was finally achieved...

To verify his work, Lucius pulled a single strand of hair from his head and dropped it across the upturned edge.

To his absolute satisfaction, the blade did not disappoint.

He finished polishing the flat of the blade with fine stones until it achieved a flawless mirror finish, clearly reflecting his sweat-drenched face.

Moving to the hilt, he carved a tang from wood, wrapped it in skin for traction, and pinned a brass guard and pommel to balance the elongated blade.

As a final, almost obsessive touch, he carved a matching wooden scabbard.

Lucius laughed aloud with satisfaction. He had finally completed his personal weapon...

The blade that would accompany him to many fights, and the weapon that would forge a united empire from the ashes of Rome!

The blade measured exactly three point four feet in length, weighted at roughly two kilograms.

It was significantly heavier than a standard traditional sword.

It was already a quarter to midnight, but Lucius was restless and stepped out into the courtyard to test the steel.

Lucius slashed the blade against a training post, and then against a wrought-iron Roman helmet.

The blade cleaved through the wood and bit deeply through the iron helmet without the slightest hint of resistance.

Inspecting the edge under the torchlight, Lucius found only minor, superficial scratches that could easily be polished away.

This meant that if Lucius was caught off guard, he could literally slice a lead bullet cleanly in half without shattering his blade!

Lucius decided it required a title.

Thinking of the whispers of the Roman Senate, who exclusively referred to him as ’The Ashen Demon,’ Lucius immediately found the perfect name...