The next morning, Night drew Ernest and Xero quickly after Zip before he left with Cinder and stopped them. He spent a short while explaining what he wanted.

“So you want me to forge your master to break him through the level 30 bottleneck?” Cinder asked. “I ‘can’ do that but it would affect me greatly you know?” She said.

“Yeah I know, you and your master are still weak and the demon corruption particles would probably affect you.” he said.

Cinder sighed, “I’ll put it in a simpler manner, at this time I can’t help with this. Although I have the skill, I still can’t handle the ability with my current strength.” she said.

“What!?” Night said flabbergast. “You have been a Plated Devil for almost half a year already but you still aren’t strong enough? Could it be that you never forged the Sword Devil?” Night asked.

“I haven’t.” Cinder replied.

Night facepalmed when he heard that but saw that Ashley had appeared, “Cinder, forge me and master once. It doesn’t need to be a high level forging, just tempering is enough. Master is currently at around level 21 and has almost equaled me in power but I do not want to release all my power at once injuring him again.” Ashley said.

The 5 year old sized devil looked at her and sighed, “Let’s go, my forge is at Boss’ smithy.” she said.

Night was startled but grinned when he saw that he would have a chance.

Along the way though, his hopes were somewhat dashed, “Even if I forge big sis, it would take another day even if I evolve after tempering her.” Cinder said while holding the little hammer in her hand and tossing it up spinning as she walked.

Eventually they reached the open space in the west side of the village. The smithy was very large with two buildings and two furnace along with Cinder’s Divine Forge outside in the back.

Imps ran around getting everything ready, pulling ore and coal while some were shooting out Imp Fire to light the furnace.

Among the imps, there were only 5 that were beyond just simple imps.

“What are those?” Ernest asked seeing the Iron scaled demons.

“Those are Iron Scaled Demons like when Cinder was a demon still right?” Xero asked.

“They aren’t that similar, they lack the horns but they aren’t stupid. Soon I will do a good forging of those fellows to make them Iron Scaled Devils. They’re useful as blacksmith helpers since their scales are made of iron.” Cinder said with pride.

“I’ll use them for the morning.” Zip said and walked over calling them and ordering one to pump the bellows and another to help growling at the imps that began to bring iron and coal that would be forged into steel.

“Come on.” Cinder said while a black light lit up on her hammer and it grew to double her own size. She held it on her shoulders without any problem and they walked over and were amazed by the sheer compression of mana that had gathered.

“This is quite amazing, it's like a spawning pit but it doesn’t have all the Imp’s sucking up the mana from their constant spawning.” Night said and flew near the magma and passed his finger and reeled back blowing the flame on his finger off.

“Careful, the lava has already reached a high peak of nearly 4000 degrees. Unless you're one of mine, you can’t even get out of the lava. All my minions have flame resistance nearing fire nullification.” She said proudly.

She began to walk to the pillars and looked at it before touching a few points like the first time she forged.

Slowly the pillars lit up until all six were awake, “Alright lil bro, big sis. Stand on the altar, be ready to feel a world of hurt but it won’t be too many hits since I’m just tempering your bodies.” She said and swung the hammer down and stretched her arms and cracked her neck and knuckles before grinning and grabbing the hammer with one hand.

Her body shined with a dark light and her body expanded to its demon form.

“WHA!?” Ernest shouted as the tiny 5 year old suddenly transformed into a 4 meter tall iron giant.

Night whistled, “No wonder they are called Plated Devils instead of Smithing Devils. The armor is so damn thick.” Night said looking at the impressive sight.

AOOO!

Letting out a deep low growl the hammer was raised up and Ashley and Xero paled as the two lifted their arms and their bodies coated in their aura and mana but unlike what they imagined, the altar’s mana flared up and the hammer was coated in its own aura spreading to all the pillars and the mana completely destroying the Sword Devil’s aura and landing on the two.

BANG!

The hammer hit them both completely crushing their bodies.

Xero felt like crying from the pain but suddenly an amazing surge of mana flooded his body as it did with Ashley completely healing his wounds, fixing the bones and damaged organs.

His clothing completely burnt from the heat and he slowly stood after his body slowly healed. His body was covered in his own blood.

At this time, an unprecedented event happened. As Ashley stood up, she suddenly shouted as her blue body suddenly turned bright white as blue white flames began to spread and suddenly burst out as the second hammer slammed down lifting a pillar of flame that climbed up the hammer and began to burn Cinder’s armored hand.

BANG! CRACK!

Another hit and the sound of cracking came as the flames filled the altar and were contained inside except what covered Cinder. All her body was not covered in flames and slowly, in a similar fashion to when Ashley was forging, her armor slowly broke down under the flame.

Not giving into the flames, Cinder smashed down a full 10 times before she finally kneeled down and slapped her chest causing a strong wind to snuff the flame.

As for the forge, because the hit had not come again, the flame slowly began to die down but it was more than obvious that the flame had caused changes.

First off the lava that had been viscose was liquid to the point of seeming like water from how fluid it was. The altar’s formation and the ones on the pillar were both glowing a Blue color while on top of each pillar was a burning ball of Blue White Flame.

On top of the altar Xero stood trembling while his body was covered in blood that rapidly evaporated under the heat but what drew everyone's attention was how the demon tattoo on his arm was glowing red slowly it grew to cover his entire body for an unknown reason before, likely the damage had caused crippling damage that was slowly healing.

As he healed more and more along with Ashley beside him, he slowly straightened up and looked at his hand, watching the tattoo’s slowly withdraw. Ever so slowly it was pulled back into the seal until the final one was gone.

BOOM!

At once Ashley was covered in black flames as her eyes glowed bright red behind it. “AHAHAHA! FINALLY!” She shouted as her body began to grow bigger and bigger.

BANG!

Xero was unaffected but those watching felt completely pressured. This wasn’t a normal pressure, this was the full throttle of the Sword Devil’s Aura.

Even Cinder who had the Plated Devil’s Aura couldn’t push it to such degree.

Zip who was inside the Smithy felt the disturbance and suddenly rushed out to see the black flames growing until they finally went out.

What appeared on the altar of the Forge stood at an impressive 250 cm tall. With broad shoulders and full body armor, a suit of armor that seemed something a Death Knight would wear was standing there. The sockets for the eyes suddenly lit up a bright blue light and the tall knight held its hand out causing a black light to appear that it grabbed causing the light to shine out of the sides. Finally it swung its arm to the side and lifted it up before swinging down and stopping at an attack pose. Appearing in the hands of the black knight, a long Claymore even longer than the knight is tall being almost 3 meters long. The range would be almost like a spear for someone else.

As the Knight finishes appear it lifts the sword and supports it on its shoulder and steps off the altar before it collapses before the body shines and reverts back to Ashley.

“What’s going on!?” Zip asked.

“That was apparently Ashley’s Demon form.” Night said.

At this time Cinder’s body broke down and returned to the core, which amazingly began to compress greatly before it started to form a crystal layer. It moved to the altar by instinct as Xero walked off. “Ah brother, be ready to do the consumption martial arts I taught you! Cinder is about to suck in a lot of mana and a lot might leak to you.” Xero said.

“You brat! Everything you do has such a damn big effect.” Zip said as he ripped off his gloves and apron before he walked to the altar as he indeed felt the mana surging and while there he began the exercise.

On his hand, the tattoos for a demon began to appear before disappearing quickly while he consumed the mana coming in to strengthen his body.

He spent almost 10 minutes before Cinder began to reform.

She looked completely like she did before but this time she was much taller. Her tan skin, short white hair and clothing were all the same but her height had increased greatly. She was now as tall as a 15 year old and her breasts had developed a lot. Her muscles were even more developed forming a tight six pack but not too showy, her arms and legs were also well developed but she contained a very good womanly charm due to her now wide hips but having strong but soft muscles.

As she formed she frowned and quickly clawed at the bandages and finally unbound it startling the men as the previously ‘budding’ pair ‘bloomed’ showing their full glory with at least a C or D cup size.

“That was close~!” She said with a more mature voice compared to the childish voice before. She was huffing which actually caused the dangling dangers to giggle around.

Ashley was getting up on shaky legs while in her hand was the claymore that had devolved into a common longsword but was made of black metal.

“Cind-er… cover… up.” Ashley said huffing as her breath released a lot of black smog.

“Ashley, what is wrong?” Xero asked getting near but suddenly Cinder appeared next to him blocking him.

“Don’t get close, those are concentrated Demon corruption particles. Devils produce those when in their demon forms. It's the reason we can’t take up our demon forms while our masters are weaker than us. She couldn’t even take several steps because although you just got rid of the tattoos you're ‘just’ strong enough to handle her power but she is still stronger than you.” Cinder said.

“What do the particles do?” Xero asked.

“They corrupt our minds.” Night said. Xero frowned and Night explained. “The reason Devils have human forms is to avoid always remaining in their demon form or else they would degrade to demons instead of being devil's.” Night said.

“Are you a demon or devil?” Xero asked.

“I’m an intelligent demon still. It's a rare but you can tell a demon from devil by their sclera. Demon have black sclera while devils have white.” Night said.

“Dark Cherub, tomorrow I can forge your master, be prepared to take 100 hits. If you can’t then you will die. Both you and your master must take it not just him.” Cinder said.

“Great!” Night said happy.

“We need to be hit so many times?!” Ernest asked.

“It is the price you must pay to have external help to break through a major breakthrough. Only Ashley and Xero would only need to take 50 hits because of her race. If you want, I can temper your body along 4 days to prepare?” Cinder asked.

“That would be helpful.” Ernest said.

With a nod she walked to the altar and grabbed out her hand causing her hammer to appear. “If it is Tempering, I can now do 3 temperings per day so step up boyo while the forge is still hot. The blue fires, they won’t last for more than a week if I don’t keep tempering Ashley so let's get going.” Cinder said.

“Wait, right now?” Ernest asked.

“Yes, oh and you should strip or you will end up like the lil boss.” Cinder said casually mentioning Xero who finally realized he was still naked. Xero instantly turned bright red and hide his lower half.

“Cinder… why!?” Ashley complained while barely holding herself up.

Before Ashley could finish Xero was already spotted his Magic bags in the distance. Unlike common clothing, magic bags have magic to protect it from certain destruction. Xero appeared next to it and opened it up in seconds and pulled out his school robe and dressed in it.

Ernest, seeing Xero quickly dress up, smiled a bit and then looked around only finding the minions, Ashley who had finally fallen on her butt while breathing out the corruption particles, Zip and Cinder. The area was partially enclosed and as it was a worker's area there weren’t as many people so with a sigh he undressed and pulled out a cheap looking grey robe that was disposable. With that on he got onto the altar.

“You, Dark Cherub, go join him. The effects of the next 4 days of tempering will be many times more effective and to demons it will help them develop Holy resistance. Since you are a demonic holy race you will benefit from this.” Cinder said.

“It’s just tempering though.” Night said.

“Night get on already, any chance to improve your body should be taken.” Ernest said.

With a sigh, Night went over but being a level 35 Dark Cherub, he had already broken through and did not find that his much harder body would be hurt by Cinder.

That said, his arrogance instantly vanished upon the first impact.

“MOTHER FUCKER!” He roared.

As the hammer landed, as if it was the hammer of a gun hitting the bullet, the altar had a moment to glow a bright white light before their bodies were engulfed in holy flame. What is more is that with the explosion the air between the hammer and altar turned into a vacuum momentarily before the atmosphere pounded down crushing the two underneath with the force of a small mountain.

No longer arrogant about his own defense while inside this magic forging formation, Night tried to defend but because the first hit had landed so perfectly, his ability to resist dropped by almost 40%. The second hit completely destroyed the possibility of resisting as his body was burned and scarred by the Holy flames. The only part still intact was the demon core in his chest but even that was riddled with cracks and leaking a lot of mana.

The two were barely able to stand up between hits and the hellish tempering ended with the tenth hit while being burned 10 times.

The two could barely move when the dust settled down and only with a few minutes to recover did Ernest finally get up shaking while Night had to wait even longer because his small wings were shattered into fragments that were only now returning to how it should be allowing him to float even though his body was nearly destroyed.

Cinder returned to normal and was breathing heavier taking deep breaths to release the particles building up in her body. Her large breasts under the bandage rose and dropped with each breath as she tried to eliminate as much as possible.

“You should rest now.” Zip said.

“Sure boss.” She said and turned into a flash of light before returning to rest in the familiar seal.

Xero walked over to Ashley and did the same to which she replied with a smile but had a sickly pale look on her face before she returned.

Only after he was healed, Night returned to his own seal while Ernest couldn’t move well and remained within the furnace letting his body heal until he felt he could move.

***

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Loud ringing like that of a massively heavy hammer hitting metal rose constantly along the next four days within the Null’s family Smithy. With it the heat and a flare of Blue White Flames rose each time the hit came.

These hits came in groups of 10 and bore the weight of a mountain and appeared only three times a day.

Xero and Ernest had both dedicated these last four days to being thoroughly tempered. One should know that their strength in many areas were growing greatly under this kind of torture of self inflicted pain but it's as they say to get something you have to pay something.

By feeling this immense pain and feeling their bones turn to powder and reform, feel their organs be crushed and reformed, feel their muscles be pounded and burned. This was an extreme price that bore extreme results.

Previously Cinder had said that she could do Tempering 3 times a day. When reported to Nil, he thought long and hard and decided to ask Cinder about the strength of the Guards and Knights and if they could survive this tempering. This was where the third tempering was used.

That said, what was said was quite something.

“Those men are too squishy, if I did one at a time, they would definitely die from explosion since they can’t even take 1% of the mana the forge’s formation would force into their bodies to heal. For them to have a chance at remotely surviving, I would need to forge 10 of those squishy guards or knights together to distribute the mana more safely but 20 men at once is a safe number.” She said.

It startled Nil and made him smile wryly and ask, “They’re all that weak?”

The reply came quite blunt, “Their weaklings not even surpassing level 10. This is also a good chance to find those with strong wills and those that can take command to encourage the men through the trails. After all, the forge feeds more mana to those with will to survive and discards those with no will to live. Their bodies would be much better used as demons forged by me instead.” She coldly said.

Nil and Zip could only smile wryly when she said that making it quite clear that not just anyone can be put on the anvil, guards would soon become resentful so in the end, they called guards and Knights and showed them the tempering all at once with Nil and Ernest doing and then explained how it worked. Only those willing to risk their lives would do this.

All the young swore knights of the family did not hesitate. They knew this was a high risk high reward kind of situation. For them, to gain strength to aid the Rank 2 Great Knight in front of them is their honor and if their bodies need to be broken to do so they would walk through hell’s flames and back.

The guards on the other hand were much less reluctant. They were common men without much notion of even surpassing level 10 let along level 20 so unlike the Knights who would all sooner or later get a Familiar to aid their development. To willingly break themselves like this would be dumb.

Of course, that was just the common weak willed person. Among the current 150 guards and 100 knights, all the knights stood up to the challenge while of the guards, Nil smiled as a small group stepped forward. The group consisted of a young woman with burning passion in her eyes. A young man who was following behind and a slightly older male.

Three people only stepped up and Nil smiled at them and said, “Good, you three are quite strong willed. From now on I will have you three as captain level guards. This is a trail for now to see how you three manage being in command but this comes with responsibility to also aid and train each unit.” Nil said shocking all the guards by the sudden announcement.

Suddenly, many of the guards looked sad, this had not only been a chance to get stronger but even more, it was a test for promotions that 99% of them had failed miserably and were out done by one of the few women in the ranks.

Like that, the three guards stood among the knights and were tempered by Cinder. Of course only some people each day would be able to do it because two of the three times were taken up by Ernest and Xero.

Finally on the 5th day it was time for Ernest’s breakthrough. Unlike before when he still had a bit of childish charm, now his face had begun to obtain a masculine adult charm from all the beating and tempering he had under Cinder’s hammer.

Beside him Night had also begun to turn a bit strange. His light blue skin had greatly dulled in the last few days slowly turning towards a human’s peach color, his black robe and large black wings have also slowly turned a slight greyish color. This was the direct effect of Ashley’s Sword Devil flames burning and tempering his body. The effect of him being tempered in such a savage manner with Holy Fire magic caused his body to greatly absorb a huge amount of Holy, Fire and demon mana.

It was to the point that Holy and demon mana were only at a 4:6 proportion inside his body while Light and Fire were evenly matched. This had slowly showed signs of him further evolving under the brutal beating.

As for Xero and Ashley, under the four days of Tempering Xero experienced hell on earth but the result it brought were incredible. Were Ashley could not sustain even a minute in her Demon Form before, she now stood and could spar with him for 5 minutes in her Demon Form and could brutally beat Xero down to the ground but with his stubbornness he would get up and the two would return to an intense sword fight that even scared the knights and guards.

The Knights in particular began to admire the young 12 year old for his combat experience and strength.

“You boys ready, this isn’t going to be like before. The output before was only at 10% for tempering, to breakthrough I will have to use 100% of my strength as well as put the forge on full power and even more, you will have to take 100 hits to perfectly breakthrough. Even if my tempering worked wonders on you boys your defense is still only at level 30 at this time.” She said.

“High Risk brings high reward.” Ernest said.

Cinder just smiled as she entered her Demon form. Having lost the Lesser status her size went from 4 meters to almost 6 but she could control just how much of her true form came out. Like for tempering or forging imps, she simply needed 50% of the power of her demon form and so her size never surpassed 4 meters but to forcefully break someone through a bottleneck, her size took its largest size and her pressure was even heavier.

The forge and altar rumbled under Ernest and Night and suddenly began to expand in size going from 6 meter wide to 10 meters while a visible barrier had formed while the pillars grew in size while, strangely, strange claw like arms began to appear facing in towards the altar.

It caused everyone who saw it to feel a sense of dread from it and they soon found out why.

As Cinder lifted her massive hammer, those ‘arms’ suddenly shot out countless lights that impacted the two on the altar.

“Wha…”

Without time to react the hammer fell and unlike the previous impacts, their entire bodies were nearly turned into a meat paste but what most caused everyone to feel dread was that where the lights from the hands gathered, a white soul and a black and white soul were found. They were wrapped in the red lights in the form of Ernest and Night.

“Is she going to forge their souls!?” Xero suddenly shouted.

“Of course.” Ashley replied appearing in front of the frantic group. “To support the power of a level 31 strength, a strong soul is needed as well as a strong body. By separating both, just like how I make my Sword minions, she forges the soul and body separately to obtain the most optimal result.” Ashley said and grinned showing her two little sharp fangs.

What was amazing though was the amount of mana flooding the entire forge.

“It seems Cinder has shattered Night’s demon core it should be appearing by now.” Ashley said and as if responding to her voice Night’s body turned into mana and was withdrawn into countless shards that were leaking a massive amount of mana.

It reformed slightly into a 19 cm large demon core but it didn’t have a chance to reform as it was shattered again and again and again.

As for Ernest, this body was strangely gathered into a ball and would rapidly reform after each hit surrounded by the Sword Devil flames constantly being reborn.

The constant ringing as the two souls and the two bodies were constantly broken and reformed until all four were just balls of compressed soul energy and mana.

Only after the 90th hit the lights pushed the souls back into their respective bodies which caused chaotic waves while Cinder slammed down to remerge the soul and body back together with the last 10 hits completing the process.

She turned back to human form by her body was covered in demon tattoo’s and as her body fell down she coughed up a huge amount of black blood while her hammer broke down and returned to her body.

Zip tried to get close but Ashley stopped him, “Don’t it is the same thing that happened to me when I first tried my demon form but more serious.” She said.

As for Ernest and Night.

The body of the boy slowly stretched its hand from the ball of life matter and flame forming into a human form and soon solidified into his body while everything soon formed and he opened his eyes showing a shining eye. His hair and everything was perfectly in place as it had once been but his power had finally surpassed the threshold of level 30.

As for Night, the core was finally allowed to reform and to instantly grew to 20 cm and was compressed to the limit before slowly one layer after another formed until totalling 4 crystalline layers.

From there the mana began exit. It swirled like a vortex forming and compressing greatly into four limbs and the head and chest. Then it formed three more vortex on the back and a tail.

Slowly the skin formed showing delicate pale skin and strong sculpted muscles. Black hair grew long down to the waist while a black halo appeared above the head while two shining white horns grew on the head. Although everything about the appearance seemed delicate, the male genitals were present and were soon covered by a white robe covering one side.

Soon a slick black tail completely formed while grey feathered wings were spread behind his back. Night finally opened his eyes showing white sclera and yellow iris with a black slit pupil like a cats, which is a trait of demons and devils.

Everyone was mesmerized by the beautiful angelic devil that stood there in his bare feet.

“This is quite a surprise. I evolved.” He said. The voice was strangely deep like a muscular males giving a strange contrast to the 15 year old size he now had.

He gripped his hand and suddenly a black light extended from his hand forming into a black shaft and solidified into a staff before black mana gathered at the tip and formed a black metal spearhead.

He spun it and gripped it stopping it and nodded. “This is good.” He said and his feet slowly rose from the ground as he floated over to Cinder who was agonizing on the ground and pointed his spear and slightly inserted the spear into her back. What amazed them was that all the tattoo’s turned bright red and were slowly sucked into the spear covering the spear in cryptic tribal like tattoos.

“This holy attribute is quite mystical.” he laughed, “Boy, if your little devil ever overexerts herself, bring it to me and I can help her cleanse her body.” Night said to Xero as he was satisfied with his current power and returned to Ernests familiar seal.

After that, Cinder went to sleep returning to Zip while the forge shrank back down but the Holy flames were extinguished, completely used for the breakthrough.