Chapter 63: Chapter 63 Weaponry in Motion

Nathan was holding onto the hilts of two 100% cursed weapons. On one hand, he should definitely have tried to break the curses on the swords one at a time, so that if he failed on the first weapon he could apply the lessons to the second one. On the other hand, the swords were part of a set, and it seemed wrong to not treat them as a set.

Nathan had wondered if the curse would be able to detect him and trigger at all, given that some of Herdin’s practice weapons hadn’t triggered when he’d grabbed them. It had made it harder to break the curses, since it was harder to pick out the inactive curse from the other enchantments.

That quickly proved to not be a problem. The swords pulsed some sort of detection magic at his hands. Nathan recognized what kind of spell it was - he’d seen and heard enough about the self-destruct mechanism on the guns to be able to piece together that it was the same sort of thing.

The enchantments to enable that magic weren’t visible on the hilts of the swords any more than they were on the guns. It was an obviously bad idea to make your security runes visible on the outside of what you were trying to secure - though some of Herdin’s cursed items had worked that way. Regardless, the appraiser and enchanter who had looked over these swords had decided it wasn’t worth the risk to break the curses.

The enchantments had checked if Nathan was the proper wielder, and determined that he was not. The flesh-dissolving spell started to bite at Nathan’s hands, but he understood death mana well at this point and it was barely a tickle. The spell ramped up in intensity as Nathan drew the sabers from their sheaths. The swords were beautiful, artistic curves of shining metal without any engravings. The single sharp edge seemed to drink the light, steaming with faint dark tendrils.

Are the enchantments inside the blade somehow?

Nathan held the swords crossed in front of him as he furrowed his brow, concentrating on the feeling of magic playing around his hands and creeping up his wrist. The hilts of the swords contained a mess of spellwork, and Nathan closed his eyes as he constructed a mental model of what was going on. He tried to keep his antimagic from breaking anything before he understood the enchantments, but he felt the enchantments closest to his hands starting to fray.

There were smoothed crystals of necromancy-charged conductive quartz embedded in the hilt and touching his palms. They linked to more enchantments farther up the blade. Those crystals were full of death mana, and Nathan tried to prevent his [Magic Absorption] from draining them dry just yet, until he understood more about what the overall structure was. The Talent wasn’t built for discrimination, but Nathan focused his willpower on reducing the suction.

There were more spells strung throughout the handles for all kinds of purposes. Some reinforced the handle to make it less likely to break. Others preventing the blade from slipping and… wicked away moisture?

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