Chapter 27: Soul Forging
Philip blinked—and found himself standing in a vast, smoke-filled chamber. Shadows clung to the ceiling like cobwebs. In the center, a forge the size of a mountain blazed with ancient fire.
A giant stood before it.
Naked from the waist up, his skin was etched with glowing runes and deep scars. His eyes, molten gold, settled on Philip and... he laughed.
The sound was like rolling thunder. Then, with one swift motion, the giant reached out and plucked Philip off the floor like a ragdoll.
But something was wrong.
Philip watched in horror as his body slumped to the ground, unmoving. The giant wasn't holding flesh—he was holding his soul.
Then the voices came.
"Trial begins."
Before he could react, the giant hurled him through the air—his soul crashing onto a massive, ancient anvil. The world trembled.
And then... the hammer fell.
It was like being shattered across dimensions. Each strike reverberated through the very fabric of who he was. The first blow left his soul cracked, still a glowing white. The second twisted him with pain. By the tenth, faint golden hues began to bleed into the light of his soul.
Time lost meaning.
Pain became a language.
Hours passed—or was it centuries? He no longer knew.
His soul warped, screamed, resisted.
He saw flashes of memory—his mother's face, Frank's laughter, the first time he touched the gem. They flared and faded like sparks.
Then… stillness.
His soul collapsed onto the anvil, flickering like a dying star.
"You may end the trial now," a voice whispered in the dark, a cruel, kind offer.
But Philip clenched what little remained of himself. No.
He could still feel it—the gem on his forehead, the jewel that had changed his fate. Even in this formless state, it pulsed.
Subtle waves of power bled from it, feeding his broken soul.
The forging resumed.
The giant dipped his hammer into the memory of light—drawing out the golden liquid that once rebuilt Philip's body. He poured it into the soul, mixing it like molten alloy. Then he struck again. And again. And again.
Pain had no edge now. It was the sky.
Philip could no longer scream. There was no mouth, no voice, no air.
There was only the sound of the hammer, and the jewel—shining brighter now—infusing his soul with divine resilience.
The golden hue deepened. White turned amber, amber turned gold. Cracks vanished, replaced with radiant lines that glowed with purpose.
Finally—he felt it.
Not just pain. Potential.
He was no longer being broken.
He was being reborn.
And as the final strike echoed through the forge, Philip's soul pulsed—solid, golden, whole.
The giant nodded in silence, stepping back.
"Second trial complete," came the whisper of a thousand unseen watchers.
Philip hovered above the anvil, forged by fire, hammered by will, enriched by the jewel, and anointed in golden light.
He could feel an energy flowing from the gem but he had no control over it so he put it at the back of his mind and planned to deal with it later.