Spellbreaker Bracer

Arthur Conan leaned back in his chair and removed the intricate goggles that had accompanied him for more than a dozen hours. His pale face was etched with exhaustion, but his eyes burned with a fiery light.

Lin Jie, too, felt waves of dizziness from keeping his mind intensely focused for so long. But he forced himself to press on, his gaze fixed on the masterpiece that would soon be his.

It was an armament brimming with contradictory beauty.

Its main body was made of several layers of tough black UMA leather, perfectly fitted to every curve of Lin Jie's wrist and forearm, with all the sleekness and strength of modern ergonomics.

Set into the leather were several pieces of refined and smelted Chaos Brass, their color deep and rich. They had been inlaid in a way that seemed haphazard, yet secretly followed some mysterious pattern.

On the surface of these brass components, the curse runes left behind by Gremlin slowly shifted, as if they were living creatures.

Most striking of all were the faintly visible golden Spirit Conduction Circuits etched in fine gold along the inside of the vambrace.

They cleverly linked all the separate brass components together, converging at the palm of the vambrace.

There, a brass disc polished into a circle lay dormant.

This armament possessed the retro mechanical feel of nineteenth-century steampunk, the mystery and elegance of classical alchemy, and scientific design principles that surpassed its era.

"Come on, Mr. Interpreter. Give it a try." Arthur's voice carried the nervous anticipation of an artist waiting for a kindred spirit to judge his work. "Let's see if this little monster we created together meets the requirements of your insane blueprint."

Lin Jie nodded. He stepped forward and slowly slid his left arm into the vambrace custom-made for him.

The moment his skin touched the soft yet sturdy leather lining, a strange feeling of kinship—as if it were connected to his very blood—welled up inside him.

The golden Spirit Conduction Circuits seemed to have been activated by his body heat, glowing faintly.

The Chaos Brass ingots embedded on the outside also began to resonate faintly with his heartbeat.

The equipment was no longer a dead object. It had become an extension of his arm, an organ brimming with unknown power.

Following Arthur's instructions, he fastened several silver clasps.

The vambrace fitted his arm perfectly—not too tight or too loose, with its weight evenly distributed and no impediment to his movement.

It was the perfect embodiment of the "ergonomics" he had sought: an item seamlessly integrated with the body.

"Now, try to activate it," Arthur instructed from beside him. "Forget all those rules and regulations of science. Like when you interpret an Afterimage, channel your mental power—your own will—down your arm and into the vambrace. Command it. Awaken it!"

Lin Jie took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

He recalled how it had felt to use [Touch of Afterimage] the several times before, then focused a weak but highly concentrated mental impulse on his left arm.

He imagined his will as a stream of water, tentatively flowing into the golden channels inside the vambrace.

"Hmm—"

A low resonant hum, audible only to him, sounded in his mind.

He felt his mental power multiply several times over the instant it flowed into the Spirit Conduction Circuits!

They were like catalysts, fully awakening the dormant power within the Chaos Brass!

A powerful curse, born of Gremlin's collective will and driven to destroy and disrupt, sprang to life. Like a tamed hound, it raced along the golden circuits with unstoppable force, efficiently converging on the largest circular brass plate in his palm!

Lin Jie opened his eyes. The curse runes on the brass plate in his palm were spinning at an unprecedented speed, sending out ripples of invisible force that seemed to distort the air.

He had done it!

Through an entirely new structure, he had transformed a passive curse that could only pollute its surroundings into an ability he could actively unleash and precisely control!

"How does it feel?" Arthur asked nervously.

"It feels..." Lin Jie flexed his left hand. The sensation of power coursing through him made him want to burst out laughing. "It feels like I could make every clock in Buckingham Palace stop at once."

"Hahahaha! Excellent! Well said!" At the comparison, Arthur let out a hearty, unhinged laugh. "That's what our masterpiece deserves! It needs a name! A unique Grotesque Armament must have a name that reveals its soul!"

Lin Jie looked at the brass plate in his palm, which continuously radiated an invisible field of interference. A name came naturally to mind.

"Let's call it the [Spellbreaker Bracer]," Lin Jie said slowly. "Its purpose isn't to unleash curses, but to break every spell we don't want to exist."

Arthur gave an appreciative nod.

"[Spellbreaker Bracer]—a fine name! Much more concise than those crude ideas that amount to 'Claw of Such-and-Such' or 'Heart of So-and-So'!"

Just then, the homemade Astronomical Clock Arthur used to keep time, standing in the corner of Arthur's Workshop, suddenly made a strange clattering noise. Its pendulum, which had been swinging steadily, abruptly stopped, as if an invisible hand had clamped around its throat.

It was no coincidence.

A wisp of the Spellbreaker field had unconsciously drifted from Lin Jie's palm and disrupted the clock's normal operation!

"Good. Very good." Seeing his creation stopped dead, Arthur wasn't angry at all. Instead, he grinned with eager interest. "We need a more professional target to test its true power."

He led Lin Jie to a separate Weapon Testing Room on the other side of the workshop, with thick lead plates for walls.

In the center of the room stood a life-sized mechanical dummy made of countless gears and springs, holding an alchemical rifle.

"This is a Clockwork Soldier the Association confiscated from a heretical organization that worships the Cult of the Machine," Arthur explained. "Its internal mechanisms are far more precise than those of any weapon on the market, which also makes it extremely sensitive to any kind of interference."

"It's the perfect target for testing your [Spellbreaker Bracer]. Use your ability on it, and let's see what sparks Gremlin's chaos can produce!"

Lin Jie nodded.

He stood about ten meters from the Clockwork Soldier, took a deep breath, and channeled his mental power into the bracer once more.

This time, he didn't hold back. He poured his will into it with far greater force!

He raised his left hand and aimed his palm at the cold mechanical dummy.

"Hmm—hmm—hmm!"

The runes on the brass disc in his palm spun at full speed!

An invisible field of interference, carrying the information of chaos and destruction, shot out like a bullet!

As soon as the field touched the Clockwork Soldier, every joint in the previously motionless dummy erupted at once with a series of piercing creaks!

The alchemical rifle it had held aloft drooped limply.

The precision gears whirring at high speed inside its chest locked up and ground to a halt at the same moment!

In a mere second, this pinnacle of nineteenth-century precision engineering had become a pile of useless scrap!