It had been a week since Loki, Riveria, and Gareth visited the Crimson Church.
Loki didn't purchase the weapon.
Despite Hephaestus herself confirming its craftsmanship was exceptional—fit even for the deeper floors of the Dungeon—the deal fell through. The blade had no enchantments, a flaw by the standards of adventurers. But that wasn't the real issue.
The real problem was Loki's offer: an instalment plan.
Which Luther had declined without hesitation.
He didn't haggle. He didn't argue. He had better things to do—like finishing the Dreadnought's internals and preparing the Compact Hyperflux Reactor Core for ignition.
And so, the day finally came.
The top floor of the Crimson Church had long since shed its sacred past. Ritual cables and reinforced plating now wrapped its once-pristine arches. Servo-towers rose like mechanical spires. Candles flickered beside monitors. The chapel had become a sanctum of steel and code.
At its centre rested the Hyperflux Reactor Core, nested in an altar of blackened bronze and steel. Its compact design was deceptive; it pulsed with the potential to power a Titan. Its shell bore liturgies of containment. Wax seals and sacred oils covered the activation key.
Around it stood the faithful.
Luther stood silent behind the console. Bare-armed, robed in grease and ink, the Canticles of Binding wound around his limbs in sharp black lines. A lens array covered one eye, feeding him telemetry. He did not speak. Not yet.
Liliruca stepped forward first.
Barefoot, with a chain sword across her back and her vest half-fastened with ritual clasps, she moved in slow arcs around the Core. Her hip-censer trailed smoke in spirals, and her scowl did not falter. She traced sacred diagrams with each step: the Sigil of Stabilization, the Spiral of Capacitive Balance, and the Hammer and Spark.
She didn't know what she was doing or if this even made sense, but it didn't matter. She was a celebrant of the Machine.
Behind her, four servitors emitted a harmonic pulse, intoning the Litany of Breath.
Behind her was Tsubaki with complete black circles, as she hadn't been able to get a good sleep for the last week. Even so, she said nothing as she entered the sanctum, her forge-stained cloak dragging behind her. In her gloved hands, she carried a bronze skull, its eyes filled with molten wax, thick incense curling upward. She knelt, placing the relic before the Core.
Hephaestus stood behind them all, red hair cast in a glow, one divine eye locked onto the machine. She had not come to bless. She wanted to see a power besides magic and divinity.
Acolytes formed a wide circle around the chamber—some smiths, others scavengers or engineers—all bearing rods of etched steel or glyph-bound plates. The silence between them was heavy. It was not waiting. It was reverence.
Luther finally spoke.
"Begin the Ignition Rite."
The chamber dimmed. Servo-arms descended from the vaulted ceiling, bearing a master key—an alloy spire carved with runes older than the city. With a thunderous click, it locked into place atop the Core.
Liliruca halted her circling. She lifted her arms and began to chant in the Old Tongue.
"Blessed is the Machine, whose fire burns cold and whose heart knows no fear. May your breath awaken the silent spark."
The servitors echoed her in perfect harmony.
Tsubaki rang a bell suspended from her belt—a single, resonant note.
Luther stepped forward and placed his palm against the terminal. The interface lit beneath his hand, scanning his print, analyzing his voice.
> "Luthar Ferranus Cogbane. Tech-Priest designate. Authorization: confirmed."
Without any dramatic effect, the Core awoke.
Lines of white heat traced across its shell. The altar shook with a low, steady pulse like the first heartbeat of a newborn god. The glass overhead trembled. Heat shimmered upward in waves, and every candle in the room flickered—and then blazed anew, burning blue and gold in perfect synchronicity.
The Compact Hyperflux Reactor had activated, ready to power the church and his lab.
On display, Luthar was watching the readings.
Streams of data crawled across the console. The Hyperflux Core pulsed in silent rhythm, its internal turbines whispering in a tongue no forge-born machine should know.
He studied with a trained, unblinking eye. Output levels: steady. No phase drift. Plasma cell consumption was below projected margins, and efficiency was well above baseline.
A flick of his fingers shifted the display—radiation levels, ambient harmonics, and thermal dispersion. All clean. All quiet. No errant emissions. No anomalies.
He had known there would be no problem, but faith demanded verification.
Luthar narrowed his eye behind the lens array.
"Machine-Spirit stabilized. No idiot god is trying to mess up. Core integrity at the maximum threshold," he murmured.
There was no sound from the reactor now—only the flicker of sanctified flame and the heartbeat thrum of power.
"Let's go out," he said. "We have completed the first step."
The ignition was complete, the sanctum lights dimmed to a calm, and the servo-towers folded back into their recesses. The reactor, once an altar of divine tension, now pulsed with quiet, steady assurance.
Luthar exhaled.
He turned and led the group through a reinforced side door. Descended to the lower floor and opened a separate room — less sacred; a few scavenged crates served as makeshift tables. Cups, wires, blueprints, and the lingering scent of metal oil cluttered the area. It wasn't comfortable, but nobody complained.
Still, extra cushioning had been added, as nobody likes to sit on a steel bench.
Tsubaki collapsed onto the bench The dark rings beneath her eyes were more pronounced now, and her gloved hands shook as she removed her goggles.
"Five days," she muttered. "No sleep. I was starting to see glowing cats, and I know we don't have cats." She leaned back, closing her eyes but not yet drifting off. Her body demanded rest, but her mind was active due to some extra medicine provided by Luther.
Liliruca settled down next, sitting cross-legged on one end of the bench. She tossed her censer to the side, its embers fading to black, and crossed her arms.
"That was ridiculous," she grumbled, flicking stray ash from her vest. " I swear half of this is just you making things up so I look like an idiot."
Luthar said nothing. She didn't expect him to.
Yet despite her complaints, she hadn't walked out. That meant something.
Hephaestus took her seat last, resting beside Tsubaki. The glow from the chamber still reflected faintly in her divine eye. She didn't speak immediately. She simply stared at the wall across from her—at the wiring, the piping, the exposed cabling.
"…this was really something different," she said at last. Her voice was soft. Not reverent, but aware. "A power that is completely unrelated to magic is something I never thought I would see in my life."
Luthar sat opposite her, fingers laced together, gaze low.
"Well, if you continue, you might see more than this," he replied. "probably things that you are going to hate."
Hephaestus didn't reply, as she also understood the meaning. While she didn't see any problem in the energy core, the use of a human skull in a ceremony is proof the knowledge he has is quite dark. She is still hesitating if she should go deeper and check about the origins of those humanoid creations and the floating skulls.
After a time, Tsubaki shifted and muttered, "Someone bring me something to drink or I'll rip open the box and see if that does the trick."
Liliruca smirked faintly despite herself.
Luthar stood and moved to a corner locker, retrieving a thermos. "Recycled blend," he announced dryly, pouring it into dented steel cups. "Tastes like regret, But it works."
He handed the first to Tsubaki, who downed it in one motion. The second went to Liliruca, who sniffed it and grimaced but drank anyway. The third he passed to Hephaestus, who only nodded once before sipping.
For a moment, they were not a goddess, a smith, a rogue, and a tech priest. They were simply exhausted minds.
Then, softly, Luthar said, "Now I can work on the next project."
Hephaestus raised a brow. "The Dreadnought?"
Luthar nodded. "Now I have enough power, I could start building the remaining parts."
The bench creaked as Tsubaki slumped sideways onto Liliruca's shoulder, murmuring, "Wake me when you start working; I still want to see."