Reincarnated as an SSS-Ranked Blacksmith Who Refuses to Forge Weapons-Chapter 218. Make it Count

He looked right at Greg, and his eyes were red but dry. "He would have said something useful right now..."

"Something that made you feel dumb for sitting on the floor when there was work to be done."

Dorin’s hands never stopped moving, keeping the forge’s flames going. "He believed in what you were building here..."

"More than he believed in anything since leaving the Ironbottom clan, and more than he believed in me when I came back from what was supposed to be death."

"He believed in you and what you stand for."

The voice of the old dwarf got rougher. "So, are you going to build it or let him die for nothing?!"

The words penetrated Greg’s paralysis with a sharp edge.

He stood up, but not in a dramatic way or with a flash of golden light. He stood up like someone who’d been down for a while and needed to get to work.

He clasped it to his travel cloak, the last thing Bork made that needed to be put away. The metal was warm against his chest, which was a constant reminder.

Greg said in a rough but steady voice, "Tell me what I need to know about the gods’ real weakness."

Dorin nodded, respect visible in his expression. "The Three Gods have to follow the same rules as everything else that is near the First Forge..."

"These are the basic rules of creation, and... right now, three of them matter."

He gestured with one finger. "First rule: you can’t unmake something that was made with real conviction."

"This is why your household items kept getting SSS-ranks, even though the gods were trying to stop your system."

"Your conviction was too strong... The items were real because you believed they should be, and that belief made them real in ways that divine authority couldn’t touch."

A second finger came up. "Second rule: divine authority is consensual at its deepest level."

"The gods can command, but ultimate power requires consent from those being commanded."

"This is what the Key of Infinite Possibility exploited. It broke the implicit consent reincarnators had been operating under and gave them a real choice instead of a forced directive."

Then the third came up, and it’s the last. "The last rule, and this is the most important one: the gods can only destroy what they fully understand."

"This is why Kael’thas couldn’t just unmake the Key when she saw it... She couldn’t figure out what you had made or put it into a category that her divine knowledge covered."

"Things that are beyond divine understanding are also beyond divine control."

Dorin gazed directly at Greg. "You’ve been making things that no god can put into a category for two years."

"That wasn’t an accident or chance, but that’s just who you are."

"You don’t fit into any category... you’re a weaponsmith or a peaceful blacksmith, a warrior or a pacifist, a past or present person."

"You’re all of it and none of it at the same time!"

"The Key broke their game’s consent structure and opened the door, but that’s not enough to end this."

"Something that the gods can’t understand and can’t stop will end this."

He pointed to Greg’s prosthetic arm, the First Forge, and the group of reincarnators. "It’s made from more than just power, defiance, or even grief, though grief is a part of it."

"Something made from all of it at once... every lifetime... every loss... every household item, and every war hammer!"

"Every person who’s been protected by what you built!"

"The gods understand war, and they understand peace. In fact... those bastards understand the clear line between those concepts."

Dorin’s voice became almost reverent. "They don’t get someone who has lived both and chosen neither."

"Someone who blended in instead of picking sides, and that’s you, boy!"

"That’s what they can’t put in their system. You shouldn’t exist in their system."

"So do that! Do what they can’t understand, and be who you are truly."

Greg gazed at the First Forge and the flames that had burned since before the gods learned to create. He could feel everything pressing down on him.

A wealth of experience spanning two lifetimes...

Two identities that should have remained distinct but were intertwined.

Legendary weapons that claimed thousands of lives over the course of forty years.

Two years dedicated to helping people thrive in their homes.

Elias’s face was ruined by his own hands. Kael, Denna, and Ryn all died in a dungeon because he was too late.

Hilda took a blade that was meant for him. Hammy, giving up his life in a core that was falling apart.

And now Bork was throwing his headphones into the path of divine destruction because someone had to, and he was the only one who could.

The clasp on his cloak was always there, warm against his chest.

The Key of Infinite Possibility hummed in his prosthetic hand, which was a sign of how he was feeling.

Greg walked to the First Forge and stood next to the anvil. He still didn’t know what he was going to make.

He was still working through his loss and trying to figure out how to go on when it meant accepting that Bork was gone.

But his prosthetic arm remained motionless. The First Forge radiated brightness. Deep down, where his conviction resided, he understood what he needed to do.

He put the Key of Infinite Possibility on the anvil.

He lifted the hammer, the tool that had shaped his life for two lifetimes.

The first strike landed.

And the System, which had been quiet since the gods stopped talking, finally spoke again after weeks of silence.

The old system, which used to send him snarky messages and inform him when Greg accomplished something noteworthy, was no longer at play.

This was something from the past.

The sound echoed the essence of the First Forge itself, resonating through bones and souls rather than through ears.

[CRAFTING: INITIATED]

[MATERIAL: EVERYTHING YOU ARE]

[INTENT: ALL OF IT]

[CLASSIFICATION: CANNOT BE DETERMINED]

The second strike sounded like a bell ringing in the arena.

The gods stopped moving right away.

Kael’thas stopped moving completely, and her divine craftsman’s instincts were screaming at her. Her voice was so quiet that it was hard to hear, and it shocked her that a god shouldn’t be able to feel it.

"What is he making?!"

Moira’s threads, which had been spreading across the whole arena and keeping in touch with every reincarnator, suddenly pulled back.

All of them at once, pulling away from Greg like water from fire. The porcelain mask of the Goddess of Fate couldn’t hide the look on her face, which wasn’t curiosity or cold certainty.

"I... don’t know," she said, and those three words meant more than any message from God. "I can’t read it..."

"The threads won’t touch what he’s making."

Valthor raised his huge sword, and divine power began to flow along the blade. "Then we stop him now before it’s too late!"

The third strike landed.

The arena was bathed in a golden light, but it was not the divine gold associated with godly power or even the primal gold of the First Forge. Instead, it resembled the color of Greg Greyson’s prosthetic arm.

This hue had been with him since birth, crafted from a broken First Hammer and gifted by a dwarf’s grandfather. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

It was personal and distinctly unique, in a way that divine power could never replicate; these elements were impossibly and stubbornly human.

Marina held on to her Frying Pan of Eternal Flame from across the arena. Not because she was scared.

She was smiling, and her face was fierce, proud, and sure. Lylia’s hand found Marina’s, and their fingers intertwined.

They didn’t say anything. It wasn’t necessary for them to.

They both knew what was going on and what Greg was doing at the forge.

"He’s back as his usual self again, huh?" Marina asked.

"Yeah..." Lylia nodded.

The fourth strike rang out, and an unexpected event occurred.

There was a sound in the arena that shouldn’t have been there. Music that is faint and far away but clear.

Greg had inserted a peaceful melody into the Headphones of Harmonic Peace in Ferndale two years ago. The song that was supposed to drown out the hammering turned into something that brought peace to the chaos.

The headphones were gone. The explosion that killed Bork had destroyed them, but the music played anyway, and only Greg could hear it. It was a continuation of the sound of the First Forge itself.

Just as he wanted, sound brought peace.

Greg made it.

His hammer moved up and down in a steady rhythm, and each hit added to what was forming on the anvil. Under the hammer’s power, the Key of Infinite Possibility began to transform into something entirely different.

The prosthetic arm lit up at full power, with circuits running across his shoulders and chest. The stolen First Hammer power knew this was the moment it had been waiting for.

Every loss weighed heavily. Everyone who had been saved mattered.

Each choice made over the course of two lives lingered in his mind. Every weapon forged for war left a scar.

Every item in the house crafted for the sake of peace held significance.

He despised every moment of violence and opted for every moment of kindness instead.

Everything was going into what he was making.

The gods could only observe from a distance; they were unable to intervene or approach. The First Forge’s rules were unyielding, and Greg was crafting something beyond their comprehension.

He was creating something that defied categorization.

It was a creation that simultaneously functioned as a weapon and a tool, symbolizing both violence and peace, the past and the future, grief and hope.

He was making what he had always been.

The process of integration itself took on a shape and a purpose.

And somewhere in the music only he could hear, Bork’s voice seemed to whisper approval.

’Make it count, Boss.’

Greg’s hammer fell again, and the arena shook with the impact of something impossible being born.