Northern held a cold blue blade in his hand. The steel alone stretched nearly five feet from pommel to tip, forged from the Kirithon's carcass and the aetherium. Northern hadn't needed to beat the crystal into submission this time. He had expected resistance, had prepared himself to hammer the mineral's will into compliance, but the moment he held it, the thing had simply... surrendered. Its defiance collapsed without a fight, which made the aetherium's work almost trivially easy.
'Huh. First time for everything.'
The crossguard swept outward in elegant, wing-like curves forged from another part of the Kirithon's bone, polished to a silver-chrome finish that caught light like frozen mercury. Where the guard met the blade, an intricate knotwork pattern contained the Azure Spirit Core, which glowed faintly behind a geometric housing. The light pulsed in a slow rhythm, like something breathing.
