Hauling everything out of the forge’s cellar was a daunting, straining task, but with Smith Jaleel and the town chief helping Dahlia out, they eventually managed to drag ‘it’ up to the surface.

  The dismantled carcass of the broken Mutant-Class firefly was as frightening as she remembered it: four jagged black arms, two eerily human-like legs, and an almost womanly figure with the pointed chin and the smooth, segmented chitin around its thorax. Without lantern light, she could easily mistake it for a human corpse… only, its flesh had all but rotten away, its arms were severed and had to be carried up individually, and it was just the black husk of the monster she’d unmade with her own two hands.

  While the town chief pulled her daughter to the back of the forge, covering their noses with a distasteful frown on their faces, Dahlia and Smith Jaleel spread the full carcass out in the centre of the forge. The young man pushed the anvils away to make more room, creating what could only be described as a ritual circle surrounding the charred-black carcass; it appeared the marks and burns its chitin had sustained back when it’d overheated itself with lightning still remained, though they hardly mattered if Dahlia was just going to stick it in the fire anyways. She’d turn the whole thing glowing red if she had to.

  She didn’t immediately know what to do with the carcass, though, and neither did Smith Jaleel. The two of them stood around in a circle, staring down at its lifeless, eyeless head, and Dahlia was the first to shiver.

  It wasn’t even that cold outside, but she found her arms hugging herself, an involuntary shudder running down her spine.

  Issam whispered.

  Sucking in a slow, heavy breath, she closed her eyes briefly before stepping forward, her gaze steady as she scanned the carcass up and down.

  Time was of the essence here. She couldn’t stand around deliberating what the best possible Swarmsteel she could make was; she had a maximum of one hour before she to go down and confront Madamaron if she wanted to help the captured townsfolk.

  She racked her head. She dropped to her knees, peeled her eyelids wide open, and glared at the carcass of the firefly like she’d never hated anything as badly before. Its severed arms were almost fully intact, but its chest was carved open—she was the one who’d plunged her hands into its heart—and the claw marks on its thorax and abdomen where she’d followed the silver path made those parts nigh-unusable. Whatever the case, she would to throw the whole carcass into the fire and soften it up so she could remould it into something useful, but… what?

  … And she was reminded, looking down at her own forearms, the very first Swarmsteel she’d made from a fresh giant bug carcass.

  Eria murmured.

  Issam interrupted.

  And though she was being stared at by Smith Jaleel and the town chief and the chief’s daughter all at once, her time spent working in the forge had made her grow thicker skin, and some plates of chitin over her skin to boot; she felt she could bear the weight of their gazes as she picked up the firefly’s severed arms, sticking all four of them into the fire behind her while kicking the rest of the carcass aside.

  She didn’t let go of any of the severed arms while they heated up. She winced, she squirmed, and she wanted to tear away, but the fire to burn her—her father always told her a Swarmsteel couldn’t be refined without heat, nor a girl without trials. The pain would keep her sharp and alert.

  Amula asked, voice swerving to her left.

  Ayla and Aylee said, voices swerving to her right.

  Raya grunted.

  Issam countered.

  Clenching her jaw, twisting her lips, she yanked the glowing red arms out of the fire and slammed them onto the anvil behind her. The chitin sparked blue as it came in contact with the tough iron block, making everyone but her flinch—she was still slightly teary-eyed, after all.

  She wasn’t even consciously thinking about it as she moulded the firefly arms with her bare hands, stretching and pressing and curling them into the shapes she wanted.

  The firefly arms were still sharp. Incredibly tough. She had to grit her teeth and endure both the heat and the cuts in her palms as she worked the clay-like chitin.

  It wasn’t until a bead of sweat dropped from her brows and hissed against the chitin that the six voices in her head became many; a disjointed, broken entity.

  And the voices were irrefutably inhuman.

  they said, and they sounded like a hundred voices blending together; formless, genderless. They through her skull.

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  , and our blood is powerful enough that we have our own will,] the Swarmguard said, chortling, a chorus of imbalance.

  [T1 Core Mutation: Swarmguard Deity Lvl: 1]

  [Brief Description: Your blood has become alive, and you have grown two extra arms from your back. These arms are controllable, but they will also move to automatically defend you should you require their assistance. At level one, they have half of all of your current attribute levels. Subsequent levels in this mutation will strengthen them until their attributes are identical to your normal limbs at max level]

  Dahlia kept her eyes cool and steely as she turned the chitin around, curving and moulting the other side. She only glanced very briefly at the status screen that popped up next to her head.

  the Swarmguard whispered, and their voice came from everywhere; above, below, left and right. She kept her eyes focused on the firefly chitin in her hands.

  Silence.

  Dahlia smiled softly, flattening the firefly chitin against the anvil as she did.

  the Swarmguard growled.

  The little assassin bug on her shoulder turned to look pointedly at her.

  the Swarmguard hissed.

  Eria warned.

  Dahlia forced a smile onto her face as the firefly chitin started solidifying into four, jagged shapes.

  Her Swarmsteel were turning out just as she’d hoped.

  be the best Swarmsteel I’ve ever made?

  Carving in the finishing details, she dumped the firefly chitin into the bucket of quenching oil under the anvil, and then—she flicked a claw across her entire forearm, bleeding out a steady stream of golden ichor as she held it over the bucket.

  She was still smiling.

  She knew what she wanted to do now.

  And there was no sound.

  No indication that anything had happened in her nape.

  But it was like something just inside her head, and the next time ‘it’ spoke in her head, it was one, unified voice.

  It wasn’t her mother’s voice, nor the voice of her friends—it was something entirely different, and she just knew she’d it from now on.

  it said, as she wrapped her bloody forearm with a piece of cloth and bent over, sticking her arms through all four Swarmsteel in the bucket.

  She stood up straight and lifted her firefly bracers out of the bucket, still dripping and sleazing with oil… but the carvings on them made streaks of gold and black swirl around them in the pattern of a drill, and she thought it was easily the prettiest thing she’d ever made.

  It was also the strongest Swarmsteel she’d ever made.

  [Adaptable Firefly Bracers (Grade: C-Rank)(Str: +1/2)(Tou: +0/1)(Aura: +10/250)]

  [Special Quality: Defensive Lightning]

  [Brief Description: When this Swarmsteel is struck, defensive lightning will spark and fire into the attacker]

  “... You will be ‘Kari’,” Dahlia whispered, holding up her arms as her eyes glittered at the golden bracers—then she slammed them down on the anvil, hardening her face, steeling her nerves.

  Jagged, azure sparks of lightning exploded in a small radius where her bracers made harsh contact with the iron block, and once again, but her flinched.

  By herself, she was smiling wider than she’d ever smiled before.

  “You will be the ‘home’ I carry on my back,” she said, “until I can make one for myself.”

  And Kari was still a little assassin bug on her shoulder.

  Only now, it’d shed its oily black form and picked one with golden streaks and dots on it, mimicking her bracers.

  Kari said, sounding almost cheery as it crawled over her face, poking her cheeks.