Smaug

Smaug is a legendary human warrior who rises as a self-aware Spectre, becomes the Celestial-tier King of the Forgotten Ones, and befriends Zhang Yang after the player helps uncover the fate of Smaug's family. The living in-world character is distinct from both the Friendship Jade and the temporary shadow that the item can summon. (Chapters 256–260, 288–289, 748, and 793)

Biography

Thunderstorm Castle and the Chaos Realm

Zhang Yang first meets Smaug as a low-level, friendly Spectre on the Crimson Blood Mountains. Smaug remembers dying three years earlier while serving in an expedition army, but his love for his pregnant wife Liya and desire to know whether she and their child survived keep him from passing on. Zhang Yang accepts his request and discovers that Liya was abused, ostracized, and ultimately killed after Smaug's death. When Zhang Yang returns with the diaries that prove what happened, Smaug's grief turns into vengeance: he absorbs the battlefield's accumulated miasma, asks Zhang Yang to recover his Blood Shadow Blade, and forces his way into Balin to confront Aiden, the town chief responsible for Liya's suffering. (Chapters 256–258)

With Zhang Yang protecting him long enough to reclaim the blade, Smaug rapidly regains the legendary strength he possessed in life. He kills Aiden, destroys Balin, raises Liya from her grave as a Spectre, and chooses an existence independent of both humans and the established Spectre powers. A crown solidifies above him as he becomes the Celestial-tier King of the Forgotten Ones. Grateful for Zhang Yang's help, he declares the player his friend and creates the Friendship Jade as a gift before flying away with Liya. Much later, Zhang Yang considers recruiting the actual Smaug against Angus, but the high-level monsters of Kanjar prevent him from reaching the Forgotten King's home in the Dark Ghastly Canyon. (Chapters 259–260, 748, 750, and 793)

Appearance and personality

Smaug first appears as a brittle-looking human skeleton with empty eye sockets lit by flickering flames and a deep, husky male voice. His transformation into the Forgotten King gives him a dark crown and a regal presence; he later opens skeletal wings to carry Liya away. He is driven first by devotion to his wife and unborn child, then by overwhelming grief and indiscriminate vengeance once he learns their fate. His destruction of the whole town shows the terrifying extent of that rage, while his tenderness toward Liya, gratitude to Zhang Yang, and refusal to submit to either living or Spectre society establish equally strong loyalty and independence. (Chapters 256 and 258–260)

Abilities and gameplay

Smaug begins as a Level 65 Normal-tier Spectre with only 6,500 HP, leaving him helpless against Balin's elite guards. Reclaiming the Blood Shadow Blade changes that encounter: his attacks climb from roughly 200,000–300,000 damage to more than 400,000 as he repeatedly strikes Aiden, while his level becomes unreadable and his tier rises through the equipment-style ranks. After his crowning, the interface identifies the actual Smaug as a Celestial-tier Spectre with concealed level, HP, and defense. The precise source of this growth is not formally explained, but it follows his absorption of battlefield vengeance and reconnection with the weapon that carried his living legend. (Chapters 256 and 258–260)

With the Blood Shadow Blade, Smaug can cut down groups in a single sweep and gather destructive power into a black sphere that annihilates Balin. He also channels green energy into Liya's corpse to awaken her as a Spectre, creates the Friendship Jade from gathered light, and manifests skeletal wings for flight. The corpus gives no cooldowns or resource costs for these actions, so their repeatability and exact limits remain unknown. (Chapters 259–260)

The shadow produced by the Friendship Jade is not Smaug's physical presence. It materializes in his skeletal form as a Holy-tier summon, deals about 200,000 damage per strike, overwhelms Violet-Platinum bosses such as Snow White, and can be directed to hold a position or draw enemies. Its power is sharply bounded by the item: a summon lasts twenty minutes, disappears when the jade is unequipped, and draws from only three charges with a twenty-four-hour cooldown. The projection also lacks a proper area attack, forcing it to kill massed enemies one at a time and making its enormous single-target damage inefficient against an army. (Chapters 260, 272, 288–289, 295–296, 315, and 352)

Relationships

• Zhang Yang: Zhang Yang investigates Liya's death, recovers Smaug's sword, protects him during his weakest stage, and accepts his friendship despite becoming hostile to neutral NPCs in Didier Flatlands. Smaug repays him with the Friendship Jade, and Zhang Yang later tries unsuccessfully to reach the real Forgotten King for military aid. (Chapters 256–260, 748, and 750)
• Liya: Smaug's wife and the central reason his consciousness survives death. Learning of her abuse and death drives his transformation, after which he raises her as a Spectre and leaves with her for a place beyond both human and Spectre authority. (Chapters 256–260)
• Aiden: The chief of Balin who assaulted Liya and encouraged the lies surrounding her. Smaug directs his recovered strength against Aiden, kills him, and extends the punishment to the entire town. (Chapters 257–259)
• Snow White: A Violet-Platinum boss defeated not by the actual Smaug traveling to the battlefield, but by the Holy-tier shadow summoned from his jade. The tier gap makes the projection's single-target attacks overwhelming. (Chapters 288–289)

Items

• Blood Shadow Blade: Smaug's famed sword from his human life. Recovering it allows him to draw out his former power, rapidly increase in level and tier, kill Aiden, and destroy Balin; its formal item statistics are not shown. (Chapters 258–259)
• Friendship Jade: A crystal jade created and gifted by Smaug after Zhang Yang accepts his friendship. It carries Smaug's aura, disguises the wearer as a Spectre, and can summon a limited Holy-tier shadow of him, but it is neither Smaug himself nor a container that relocates the actual Forgotten King. (Chapters 260, 288–289, 295, and 748)