Reincarnated as an SSS-Ranked Blacksmith Who Refuses to Forge Weapons-Chapter 212. The Loophole

Sylas Blackthorn took action.

The assassin didn’t charge like the others. He used his Shadow Step power to disappear and then reappear right behind Greg.

The twin daggers were already moving and were aimed at Greg’s spine with deadly accuracy.

"Clever strategy," Sylas said in a cold voice. "But you’re defenseless while you keep those barriers up."

The daggers fell.

And Felix’s cat came out of nowhere and appeared right under Sylas’s feet.

The assassin was in the middle of the attack when he tripped over the cat. His daggers missed Greg by inches as he fell forward, losing his balance completely.

Marina’s frying pan hit him with an uppercut that would have made professional fighters green with envy. Sylas was thrown back thirty feet, crashing into a group of his own friends and taking them all down in a tangle of arms and legs.

Felix raised his fist in victory. "I told you the cats were useful! Tactical kitty for the win!"

"I never doubted the cats," Greg said, out of breath.

But the win didn’t last long. Helena Ravencroft, a necromancer, raised her staff, and the ground split open.

Skeleton warriors climbed, and a hundred of them made an undead army that charged the sanctuary right away.

The wave hit Greg’s barriers like a tsunami hits seawalls. The barriers stayed up, but they started to crack.

Greg felt the pressure as he poured more energy into keeping the defenses up, and his prosthetic arm burned.

"Greg," Lylia called out, her voice full of urgency. "We can’t hold on forever!"

He knew she was right. His prosthetic arm was flaring, surpassing its normal capacity of forty percent.

Half.

Sixty.

Pain coursed through him, as if hot metal were flowing through his veins. Seventy percent. Eighty.

"Stop, Greg!" Marina yelled. "You’ll get tired!"

But he couldn’t stop himself. There were now eighty people who had come back to life in his sanctuary.

They had chosen not to fight and believed his promise of safety. He couldn’t let them down.

Ninety percent full. The prosthetic arm was literally smoking, and the golden circuits were flashing so quickly that they looked like they were glowing. Greg’s vision was blurring from the pain.

And then Marcus Ironheart, the berserker, broke through.

The warrior in black armor who was seven feet tall just walked through a barrier with brute force.

The divine building broke apart like glass when he hit it. He grabbed Greg by the throat and lifted him off the ground with one hand.

"Finally," Marcus growled. "Real combat...! Our battle will be legendary!!!"

"Now... fight me! Like a worthy blacksmith you are!!!"

The Brotherhood was coming to help, but they were too far away and busy with their own fights. Greg tried hard, but the berserker’s grip was as strong as iron. The edges of his vision were getting darker.

This was it. He had failed.

The sanctuary would fall down. Everyone would die.

A golden hammer hit Marcus’s head and made a sound like a church bell.

The berserker’s grip let go right away. He let go of Greg and staggered back, looking confused.

Greg fell to his knees, gasping for breath, and looked up to see who had saved him. "Hah...! Hah...! Hah...!"

An old dwarf stood there, smoking a pipe in peace. He was about four and a half feet tall and had a beautiful beard with gold beads braided into it.

Even though he was old, his eyes were sharp, and he held a hammer that gave off power like Greg’s prosthetic arm.

The dwarf said, "Sorry I’m late, boy," and took another puff. "First I had to see the gods throw a fit."

"What the... fuck...?" Bork’s voice broke. "Grandpa?! I thought... you died three years ago!"

Dorin Ironbottom, the dwarf, smiled at his grandson. "Hell nah... I was reborn! I kept it a secret for you and the others because I’ve been watching things happen."

He looked at Greg with a kind of respect. "I heard you were the blacksmith who wouldn’t make weapons."

"I just wanted to see if it was true."

"Glad it is."

Then Dorin turned to face the gods head-on, and his face got hard. The three gods got up from their thrones, and the God of War’s voice was angry.

"Dorin, you were supposed to stay hidden! That was the deal!"

"Yeah, well," Dorin said, not at all worried. "Plans change!"

"Especially when you say you’ll hurt my grandson."

He hit the floor of the arena with his hammer, and the whole thing shook. There were cracks that spread from the point of impact, but they weren’t damage.

They were distinct. Patterns, signs, and marks from an ancient forging that predated even the gods.

Dorin said, "Here’s the thing about divine games," and his voice was so strong that it made the air vibrate. "You need the agreement of all players."

"And I never fucking agreed to this madness."

He snapped his fingers.

At the same time, the System interface for every reincarnator turned on, and the gods’ faces twisted in shock at the message that appeared.

[GAME RULES: NEGOTIABLE]

[DIVINE AUTHORITY: CHALLENGED]

[LOOPHOLE: DISCOVERED]

[ALTERNATIVE PATH: AVAILABLE]

The voice of the Goddess of Fate was very quiet. "That’s not... possible."

Dorin smiled and showed his teeth. "Nope! Just unlikely... And I’ve always been lucky."

He looked at Greg, who was still on his knees, trying to figure out what was going on. "So, Warhammer Saint, do you want to learn how to beat gods at their own game?"

The floor of the arena broke open along the old symbols that Dorin had made. Something was coming up from below.

As a huge forge rose up from depths that seemed impossible, heat waves made the air look strange.

It wasn’t godlike. It wasn’t human. It was something older, something basic that existed before the gods even knew how to make things.

The First Forge.

Where creation itself began.

This was something where gods had come to learn the art of making things.

And it’s also where the concept of creating things first emerged.

Greg’s prosthetic arm immediately responded to it. The First Hammer knew where it came from because it was stolen and changed.

The pain went away, and instead I felt a connection that felt like coming home.

"Time for a masterclass, boys," Dorin said, and the smoke from his pipe made strange shapes in the air.

The God of War screamed when he finally figured out what was going on. "STOP HIM!!!"

"He’s getting to the source! He can’t be allowed to—"

It’s too late.

The flames that lit the First Forge burned every color and none at the same time. The heat was intense, but it didn’t hurt. I

It was creative fire, the kind that made new things possible.

And all of a sudden, every reincarnator in the arena could feel it. A choice is being made. Not the gods’ choice to kill or die. A real option.

Stay in the game of the gods and fight to remain alive.

Or make their own way and completely ignore divine authority.

Greg felt the First Forge calling to him. His prosthetic arm pulled him toward it like a magnet.

The power inside knew where it came from and, even more importantly, it knew what it could become.

Dorin was already at the forge, easily working the bellows. "The gods didn’t make crafting, boy."

"They learned it here, just like everyone else. And they have to follow the rules, too."

Greg asked, "What rules?" as he stumbled toward the forge, even though he was exhausted.

Dorin remarked, "The First Forge disregards divine authority," while he effortlessly produced ingots and placed them on the anvil.

"It cares about belief, about making things, about the why behind the what."

He gestured at the arena around them, at the fighting reincarnators, and at the sanctuary Greg had built. "You’ve been making things out of conviction this whole time."

"You make things for the home because you believe in helping people live."

"You make defenses because you believe in protecting without killing. You’ve been using the forge’s true power without even knowing it."

The gods were coming down from their thrones now, and their divine power was showing as they got ready to step in. The God of War pulled out a sword that was made of pure violence.

The God of the Forge called forth flames that were hot enough to melt reality. The Goddess of Fate’s threads started to wrap around the arena, trying to keep everyone in one place.

"They can’t touch the First Forge directly," Dorin said calmly as he worked. "Too risky for them, but they can stop us from using it."

Greg asked, "What are you making?"

Dorin had a fierce smile. "Not me, boy... We!"

"This is your forge now too. You have the right to be here because you have First Hammer power in that arm."

He pulled Greg to the anvil and gave him the hammer in his fake hand. As soon as Greg touched the old tool, he learned a lot.

Understanding is paramount—it’s not about methods or abilities. It’s about grasping the true essence of what creation signifies.

Dorin said, "The gods want warriors."

"Champions who kill on command... but the First Forge was made for something else."

"It was made for people who make things instead of break them, and it was also made for conviction that builds instead of breaks."

When he looked into Greg’s eyes, he saw pride. "Show them what a real blacksmith can do."

"Not the Warhammer Saint who made weapons."

"Not the Champion of Peace who makes tools."

"The synthesis. The integration. Everything you are, all at once."

Greg looked at the forge and the impossible flames that stood for pure creative potential. He looked at the sanctuary he had built and the eighty people he had saved.

He looked at the Brotherhood fighting to defend his convictions. He saw the gods coming down with angry eyes.

And he started to make things.

Not a weapon. Not a tool. It wasn’t even the synthesis he had created during the first trial.

It was a whole new thing.

His hands moved with confidence, and the prosthetic arm showed him how to do things that were beyond the understanding of mortals or gods.

He was drawing energy from the First Forge, the place where everything began, and shaping it with the strength he had gained over two lifetimes.

The gods got to the forge and stopped because they couldn’t get any closer.

The God of War growled. "The death game goes on!"

"The rules are set in stone! What you’re making doesn’t matter!" 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Rules are just agreements," Dorin said, now working with Greg.

Two blacksmiths, one older and one younger, were hammering in perfect rhythm, even though they were separated by age. "And you can change the terms of an agreement."

The thing that was taking shape on the anvil was becoming something that couldn’t be done. It looked like both a key and a door.

An answer and a question. A choice made real, shaped by the strong belief that there were always more choices than the ones shown.

For the first time, the Goddess of Fate’s voice was unsure. "What is that...?"

"Freedom," Greg said without any other words.

He took the finished item off the anvil, and it glowed with a light that made the gods themselves jump back.

[ITEM CREATED: KEY OF INFINITE POSSIBILITY]

[RANK: BEYOND CLASSIFICATION]

[PROPERTIES: UNLOCKS PATHS NOT YET IMAGINED]

The whole arena shook. The system interface that every reincarnator could see started to act up, showing choices that shouldn’t be there.

The rules of the death game were falling apart, and something the gods had never thought of was taking their place.

A third option.

Dorin laughed, and the sound echoed through the shocked silence. "That’s it!"

"The fucking loophole! The escape clause! The thing the gods forgot when they made their little game."

He looked at the two hundred and forty-seven souls who were stuck in divine manipulation and the reincarnators who were there. "You don’t have to follow their rules, any of you!"

"You never did! You just needed someone to show you that there was a different way."

Greg raised the Key of Infinite Possibility, and it made every reincarnator’s system vibrate at the same time.

The gods’ death game crumbled like glass.

For the first time since their arrival in this world, the reincarnators truly had the power to choose their own paths.

The arena was about to change for the better.