Deep beneath Sacred Flame Peak, the Grand Ancestral Forge was locked behind heavy stone doors. Illuminated only by the glowing red light of subterranean vents, the chamber was completely cut off from the outside world.
In the center of the hall, resting on a dark basalt pedestal, lay the *Volcanic Annihilation*.
For four straight days, the room had known no sleep. Seven veteran Master Smiths of Black Tortoise Mountain's Heavenly Forge Division stood circled around the heavy weapon. Their robes were stained with soot, their hair messy, and their eyes bloodshot from days of non-stop testing. Yet none of them wanted to leave.
Grand Domain Smith Elder Duan, a gaunt, silver-bearded master who had forged artifacts for over three centuries, lowered his spiritual quartz resonance rod. He turned to the other elders, his voice hoarse from days of intense debate.
"Let us go over the findings again from the start," Elder Duan said, his hands hovering over the dark mace. "First... the material."
A Master Smith beside him picked up a jade slip. "The stone is compressed to an impossible degree. Our measurements show that over three thousand kilograms of raw volcanic ore went into this mace. Yet its body is barely a fraction of that size."
"That alone is not the mystery," Elder Duan said, shaking his head with a grim smile. "Any skilled smith can crush metal with heavy fire and gravity arrays. But crushing stone that hard should always ruin it."
The surrounding Master Smiths nodded in agreement. In basic smithing, over-compressing volcanic rock caused four fatal flaws: tiny internal cracks, spiritual blockage, trapped heat that warped the weapon, and sudden shattering under its own weight.
"Yet look at it," Elder Duan whispered, tapping the pedestal with his spiritual quartz resonance rod.
*Ding—*
A clear, deep chime rang through the hall.
"There are no cracks," another Master Smith murmured, peering through a glowing magnifying lens. "There is no trapped heat, and no weak spots. The compressed volcanic stone flows like smooth, dark glass. It doesn't fight its own density; it thrives in it. The balance is completely flawless."
The elders looked at each other in disbelief. To achieve such perfect balance required heat control and skill far beyond what the sect had ever recorded.
"And then there is the second layer," Elder Duan continued, pointing to the ridges along the hexagonal head of the mace. "The hammer rhythm."
Elder Duan raised a brass tuning mallet and struck the blunt edge of the mace.
*CLANG——*
The sound that filled the room was not a dull thud. It was a rhythmic, rolling vibration that rose and fell in clean, steady waves—seventy-two distinct strikes echoing in the span of a single breath.
Several elders stiffened.
"This rhythm..." a burly smith gasped. "This is our Ironblood heavy-forging method!"
"It certainly is!" Elder Huo boomed from the back.
Elder Huo stood with his chest puffed out, grinning from ear to ear. For days, he had listened to the sect's top masters praise this mysterious Grandmaster Ashen Anvil, and with every test, his own faction's signature technique became more obvious.
"Whoever forged this weapon understood our Black Tortoise heavy-forging to the absolute bone!" Elder Huo laughed loudly, his voice filled with pride. "The heavy layering, the rhythmic absorption of shock, the flow of force—every single hammer strike follows the Ironblood way!"
(Meanwhile, in his cave on Peak 74, Fang Lin choked on a mouthful of tea and started coughing violently.)
"It follows our root, Huo," Elder Duan admitted, shaking his head in awe. "But look at the execution. In our hands, the Ironblood method is a blunt sledgehammer—rough and heavy. In the hands of Senior Ashen Anvil, it has been refined into pure art. He didn't just practice our technique; he elevated it to the pinnacle."
Elder Huo chuckled, stroking his beard proudly. His faction's ancient hammer rhythm was being worshipped by the highest authorities of the sect.
"And now... the third layer," Elder Duan said softly. The room instantly fell dead silent. "The domain."
The seven Master Smiths leaned in close. This was the true riddle that had baffled them for four days and nights.
"When the weapon was demonstrated at the auction by Grandmaster Viserion, the Volcanic Eruption Domain covered the sky," a Master Smith said, pointing a spiritual needle at the mace. "Naturally, we thought Senior Ashen Anvil had carved a high-tier Domain Array into the core, anchoring it with runes."
"We searched for those runes," Elder Duan said, his hands shaking slightly. "We checked the head, the shaft, the base, and the center. We used seven different appraisal arrays."
He paused, looking around at the circle of Master Smiths.
"There are no runes. There is no carved array. There are no hidden talisman marks."
A heavy silence filled the forge.
"The Volcanic Eruption Domain was not carved onto the weapon," Elder Duan declared, his voice trembling with deep reverence. "It was forged directly into the grain of the metal. The domain has become part of the stone itself."
The Master Smiths stared at the silent, dark weapon in sheer astonishment.
"The domain isn't attached to the weapon," one master whispered.
"The weapon itself has become the vessel for the domain," Elder Duan finished quietly.
In ordinary crafting, a smith made an iron pot and poured water inside. If the pot cracked, the water leaked out; if the array failed, the weapon became useless metal.
But Senior Ashen Anvil had not poured water into a pot. He had forged the pot out of frozen water itself. The mace was the domain, and the domain was the mace.
The seven Master Smiths stood frozen in the red-lit chamber, staring at the dark mace in complete silence. They had spent days studying the masterpiece, only to realize that the phantom grandmaster walked in a realm of skill they could scarcely dream of reaching.
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