I Regressed With a 10,000x God-Tier Multiplier-Chapter 23: The Aether-Forge

Lucifer walked down the dark, spiraling stairs beneath the Citadel of Obsidian.

He left the morning sun far behind. The air grew cold and stale. He descended past the dungeons, past the ancient wine cellars, and into the raw bedrock of the mountain. Dust fell from the ceiling with every heavy step of his armored boots.

He held a glowing sphere of concentrated starlight in his left hand, a simple illumination trick he borrowed from Sarah’s mana signature.

The silver light pushed back the suffocating darkness of the deep foundations.

Lucifer reached the bottom of the staircase.

A massive cave-in blocked the tunnel. Hundreds of tons of jagged granite and crushed support beams completely sealed the path forward.

Lucifer did not call for a mining crew. He stepped up to the wall of solid rock. His void-swirling eyes locked onto the center of the collapse. He raised his right hand.

"Gravity Crush," Lucifer commanded.

A sphere of absolute, black distortion materialized in the center of the rubble. The gravitational pull spiked to a hundred times the normal limit.

The massive granite boulders shrieked as they were pulled inward. The rocks ground against each other, pulverizing into fine dust, before condensing into a single sphere the size of a cannonball.

Lucifer closed his fist. The gravity well vanished. The dense sphere dropped to the floor with a heavy thud, leaving the tunnel completely clear.

He stepped over the sphere and walked into the cavern beyond.

The starlight in his hand illuminated a massive, subterranean chamber. It was easily the size of a city block. The ceiling vaulted high above, lost in the shadows. But this was no natural cave.

The chamber was a graveyard of ancient machinery.

Massive gears, each the size of a house, sat frozen in thick layers of rust. Conveyor belts made of overlapping iron plates stretched across the floor, covered in centuries of dust.

Towering glass vats, cracked and empty, lined the far walls. Thick bundles of copper wiring hung from the ceiling like dead vines.

[System: Hidden Location Discovered.]

[Location: Dormant Aether-Forge.]

[Origin: Precursor Civilization.]

[Status: Catastrophic Structural Failure. Unusable.]

Lucifer walked down the rusted metal catwalk toward the center of the facility. He stopped at a large, circular control console overlooking the assembly floor. The console was dead, its crystal monitors shattered.

In his past life, the Aether-Forges were legends. They were automated factories built by an ancient empire to churn out mechanical armies.

The human kingdoms spent decades trying to reverse-engineer a single broken gear. Lucifer had one sitting directly beneath his house.

He opened his Dimensional Vault.

Lucifer reached into the swirling black space and pulled out a small, glowing piece of parchment. It was a Basic Restoration Scroll.

It was a common item, usually used by blacksmiths to repair a chipped sword or a dented breastplate.

Lucifer slapped the scroll onto the dead control console.

"Activate," Lucifer said.

The scroll burst into a weak, blue light. The magic spread over the shattered crystal monitor, slowly knitting a small crack together.

Then, Lucifer’s soul resonated with the spell.

[Divine Talent: Apex Multiplier Activated!]

[Applying 10,000x multiplier to Restoration Magic...]

The weak blue light turned into a blinding, roaring sun.

A shockwave of pure, golden restoration magic exploded from the control console. It hit Lucifer, washing over his armor without harming him, and slammed into the walls of the massive cavern.

The factory reacted instantly.

The thick layers of rust flaked off the massive gears, turning to dust before vanishing entirely. The dull iron shifted, purifying into gleaming black Aether-Steel.

The cracked glass vats reassembled perfectly, sealing tight. The severed copper wires whipped through the air like living serpents, reconnecting to power conduits.

The deafening sound of grinding metal filled the chamber. The massive gears began to turn.

A deep, rhythmic thrum vibrated through the bedrock. Blue flames ignited inside the towering blast furnaces.

The assembly lines jerked forward, moving with flawless, mechanical precision. The broken crystal monitors on the console in front of Lucifer lit up, displaying streams of ancient runic data.

[System: Restoration Complete.]

[Location: Pristine Aether-Forge.]

[Status: Operational. Awaiting Raw Materials.]

Lucifer looked down at the sprawling, fully functional factory.

He tapped the glowing crystal monitor. A holographic blueprint projected into the air. It displayed a dozen different mechanical units. Most were locked behind higher authority tiers, but the baseline unit was available.

[Unit Selected: Aether-Steel Dragoon]

[Type: Heavy Magitech Cavalry]

[Material Cost per Unit: 100 lbs Iron Ore, 5 Mana Crystals, 1 Monster Core.]

Lucifer did not hesitate. He had just wiped out a Deep Gnome city. He had stripped their armories, their mines, and their supply lines. His Dimensional Vault was currently holding the wealth of an entire subterranean civilization.

Lucifer walked to the edge of the catwalk. Below him sat a massive, funnel-shaped intake hopper feeding directly into the blast furnaces.

He opened his Dimensional Vault to its maximum capacity.

"Dump everything," Lucifer ordered.

A waterfall of raw materials poured out of the spatial rift. Thousands of tons of jagged iron ore crashed into the hopper. Mountains of glowing blue mana crystals followed, alongside thousands of bloody monster cores harvested from the Deep Gnome mounts.

The deafening roar of falling metal and crystal echoed through the factory.

The Aether-Forge devoured the materials.

The furnaces roared, turning the raw iron into liquid Aether-Steel. The mana crystals were crushed and refined into glowing blue liquid energy.

Lucifer watched the assembly line.

Giant robotic arms slammed down onto the conveyor belt. They stamped out heavy, runic chest plates. Sparks flew in a blinding shower as automated welders fused massive mechanical limbs together.

The blueprint came to life. The Forge was not building men. It was building monsters.

The first completed unit rolled off the end of the assembly line.

It stepped heavily onto the stone floor. It was a mechanical centaur.

The lower half of the unit was a massive, armored equine body built from black Aether-Steel. But it did not have hooves.

Where the legs met the ground, four high-powered magitech thrusters glowed with intense blue fire. The unit hovered three inches off the floor, rendering it immune to rough terrain and tripwires.

The upper half was a hulking humanoid torso, encased in impenetrable, slanted heavy armor. A single, horizontal blue visor glowed on its faceless helm.

The Dragoon carried a massive, ten-foot-long magitech lance in its right hand. The tip of the lance crackled with destructive blue lightning. A heavy, rapid-fire aether-cannon was mounted directly onto its left shoulder.

[Unit Complete: Aether-Steel Dragoon (Level 30)]

[Traits: Fearless, Immune to Mind Control, Immune to Fatigue, Hover Mobility.]

The Dragoon turned its faceless helmet toward Lucifer. It slammed the butt of its massive lance against the stone floor in a mechanical salute.

"Perfect," Lucifer whispered.

Behind the first unit, the assembly line accelerated.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Aether-Steel Dragoons marched off the line in a relentless, terrifying rhythm. Ten. Fifty. A hundred.

Lucifer stood on the catwalk, his Warlord aura radiating through the factory. He watched as the massive cavern filled with the mechanical heavy cavalry.

They formed up in perfect, rigid blocks. They did not speak. They did not breathe. Their hovering thrusters emitted a low, synchronized hum that shook the dust from the ceiling.

[System: Production Target Reached.]

[Units Forged: 5,000 Aether-Steel Dragoons.]

Lucifer turned away from the control console. He walked down the metal stairs, stepping directly onto the factory floor.

The sea of black metal parted for him. Five thousand towering, mechanical centaurs shifted backward, making a wide path for their Warlord.

Lucifer walked through the center of his new army. He felt the intense heat rolling off their thrusters. He saw the lethal, crackling lightning on the tips of their lances.

Human cavalry required food, rest, and morale. Horses panicked. Men broke ranks when they saw monsters.

The Dragoons would never break. They would charge a god if he gave the order.

Lucifer reached the massive ramp leading up to the surface. He stopped and turned around. He looked at the endless ranks of glowing blue visors staring back at him.

He raised his right hand.

"Engines to maximum," Lucifer commanded.

Five thousand magitech thrusters flared simultaneously. The cavern lit up with blinding blue fire. The deep, vibrating hum turned into a deafening, unified roar of raw power.

"Follow me," Lucifer ordered.

He turned and walked up the ramp.

The Dragoons marched behind him. They did not walk; they glided. The massive metal beasts hovered up the steep stone incline with terrifying speed.

Lucifer emerged into the morning sunlight of the Citadel’s main courtyard.

The Cryo-Vanguard snipers on the walls turned around, their eyes widening beneath their ice-crystal helmets. Elara and Sarah stepped out of the central keep, stopping dead in their tracks.

The ground trembled.

The Aether-Steel Dragoons poured out of the subterranean tunnel. They flooded the vast Obsidian courtyard. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Five thousand massive, black-armored centaurs lined up rank by rank, their lances held high. The heat from their thrusters distorted the cold morning air.

Elara walked up to Lucifer. She looked up at the towering machines. A rare look of absolute shock crossed her flawless face.

"Lucifer," Elara said, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engines. "What are these?"

"They are the anvil," Lucifer replied simply. His void-swirling eyes scanned his new armored division. "The Cryo-Vanguards will freeze our enemies. The Star-Kissed Elves will blind them. But these... these will crush them."

Sarah stepped up to his other side. She leaned on her Scepter of Cosmic Alignment. She stared at the mechanical army, her starlight eyes reflecting the blue glow of their visors.

"I have never seen metal move like this," Sarah murmured. "They have no souls. My Oracle sight cannot read their fate."

"Because they don’t have a fate," Lucifer said. He crossed his arms over his chest. "They only have orders."

He looked toward the massive iron gates of the Citadel. Beyond the walls lay the wilderness, and past that, the corrupt human kingdoms and their bloated noble armies.

"We have the infantry. We have the artillery. Now we have the heavy cavalry," Lucifer stated. He turned to Elara. "We need high-grade currency to maintain this force. Raw mana crystals won’t be enough to buy political leverage in the capital. We need refined capital coin."

"Where do we get it?" Elara asked.

Lucifer smiled.

"We are going to sell the trash," Lucifer said. "Prepare a small escort. We ride for Silver-Port."