The third dawn rose over Sacred Flame Peak with a blood-gold brilliance.
The volcanic caldera was alive with roaring thermal currents that whipped against the outer perimeter wards, sending showers of glowing embers cascading down the obsidian slopes. Over fifty thousand cultivators had crowded into the rising tiers of the Grand Exhibition Plaza long before the morning mist had cleared, their collective spiritual auras humming like a coiled spring.
The preliminaries were over. The four hundred registered smiths had been mercilessly pruned away, leaving only thirty-two elite Core Smiths from across the Demon Immortal Continent.
Now, the real competition was about to begin.
High above on the central appraisal platform, the testing stage had been noticeably altered overnight. The wide perimeter barrier had been replaced by four towering pillars of Thousand-Year Frost Jade, each inscribed with intricate Spirit-Magnifying Resonance Arrays. These arrays were designed to suppress the volatile environmental heat of the volcano while amplifying the delicate energetic feedback of the mace, allowing the top thirty-two crafters to probe directly into the weapon's innermost domain architecture without suffering severe soul backlash.
In the center of this frosty sanctuary, resting upon its dark basalt plinth, lay *Volcanic Annihilation*.
The obsidian mace seemed even more menacing under the focused light of the arrays, its flanged edges absorbing the morning radiance like a bottomless void.
High upon the White Basalt Terrace, Grand Domain Smith Elder Duan rose from his seat. His silver hair fluttered in the mountain gale, his deep voice carrying the unyielding weight of an ancient mountain as it resonated across every tier of the stadium.
*DONG——!*
The bronze bell chimed once, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd.
"The Second Round of The Annihilation Analysis Gathering commences," Elder Duan proclaimed, his sharp gaze sweeping over the thirty-two young crafters gathered at the foot of the stage. "In this round, the superficial layers of mineral composition and grain alignment shall no longer earn you marks. You are tasked with unraveling the foundational engine of this masterwork—the origin, trigger, and sustained mechanism of its Volcanic Eruption Domain."
Elder Duan paused, his voice dropping into a solemn cadence.
"Each qualifying smith shall be granted thirty breaths to deploy their most profound sensory arts. Let the top scorer of the First Round step forward."
From the western guest benches, a solitary figure in crimson-gold robes stepped out.
*Huo Zhen.*
The young prodigy of the Solar Flame Caverns walked with a steady, haughty stride, his chin raised, the tripartite golden spindle at his waist glinting with nine embedded solar crystals. The roaring cheers of the Scarlet Sun disciples shook the surrounding guest pavilions, waving red banners that blazed with spiritual fire.
Beside Grand Elder Yan Lie, Chi Yao leaned forward slightly, her crimson eyes gleaming with supreme pride. "Show these mountain-turtles how the true masters of fire dissect a domain," she murmured with a faint, sharp smile.
Huo Zhen crossed the frost-jade threshold and stood three paces before *Volcanic Annihilation*.
He did not waste a single second.
*WENG——!*
With a crisp flick of his sleeves, Huo Zhen tossed nine miniature brass mirrors into the air around the basalt plinth. The mirrors locked into an octagonal formation above the mace, linking together through threads of blinding golden light—the *Solar Meridian Array*, an auxiliary sensory formation handed down from the founding ancestors of Scarlet Sun Palace.
Simultaneously, the three golden needles of his *Triple-Solar Spirit Resonance Probe* floated between his palms, glowing with intense, incandescent white heat.
"Ignite!" Huo Zhen commanded softly.
Nine beams of concentrated solar light refracted through the brass mirrors, focusing directly onto the flanged crown of the obsidian mace. Through these optical conduits, Huo Zhen drove his three resonance needles straight toward the core.
Unlike the previous day, where he merely traced the outer thermal currents, Huo Zhen channeled the full might of his Late Core Formation cultivation base. His dantian surged, his Nine Solar True Fire roaring through the needles, forcing his divine sense deep past the obsidian crust and straight into the swirling volcanic heart of the weapon.
*BOOM——!*
A muted, subterranean thud echoed from within the mace. A wave of scorching heat rippled against the frost-jade pillars, hissing into white steam as Huo Zhen's eyes widened to their absolute limit.
For twenty agonizing breaths, the young genius stood frozen, his veins bulging against his neck, his teeth clenched so hard that blood began to seep from his gums. Spiritual sparks crackled around his hair, his consciousness navigating a terrifying labyrinth of compressed magma and destructive energy that seemed capable of reducing a small city to ash.
Then, Huo Zhen violently pulled his needles back.
*Clang!*
The nine brass mirrors shattered simultaneously under the immense pressure, raining brass fragments across the white jade floor. Huo Zhen stumbled backward three steps, coughing up a small mouthful of golden-tinted blood, but his face was not twisted in agony—it was radiant with wild, fanatical ecstasy!
He did not even wipe the blood from his chin. He grabbed his jade slip, carving runic formulas into the stone with such feverish intensity that the jade nearly cracked in his hands.
Walking to the terrace steps, Huo Zhen thrust the glowing slip toward the Judgment Council.
"Core Smith Huo Zhen submits his Second Round treatise on the *Volcanic Annihilation*!" he shouted, his voice ringing with absolute, unyielding triumph.
Grand Domain Smith Elder Duan caught the slip, his silver brows furrowing as he placed it onto the evaluation array.
*HUMMMMMMM——!*
A colossal, blazing crimson projection exploded into the sky, dwarfing all previous diagrams. Tens of thousands of cultivators stared in awe as three interlocking, rotating rings of fire-energy materialized in the clouds above Sacred Flame Peak.
"Behold the true sovereign truth of this weapon!" Huo Zhen declared, pointing to the sky with a blood-stained finger. "The Volcanic Eruption Domain is not a single chaotic burst of fire! It is forged from **Three Overlapping Destructive Cycles**!"
The entire stadium went dead silent.
"Explain the three cycles!" an elder appraiser from the Star River Alliance demanded, his hands trembling as he stared at the complex energetic flow models.
Huo Zhen puffed out his chest, his voice soaring across the caldera.
"The First Cycle is the **Compression and Ignition Cycle**! When spiritual Qi enters the handle, the internal fire veins draw ambient thermal energy from the atmosphere, violently compressing it into a super-dense thermal seed at the base of the flanged head!"
He swept his hand toward the second ring of light.
"The Second Cycle is the **Kinetic Recycling Cycle**! When the weapon strikes a target, the impact force does not dissipate—it is captured by the directional density gradient, funneled into the thermal seed, and converted into additional destructive fuel!"
Huo Zhen's eyes burned with boundless arrogance as he pointed to the final, innermost ring.
"And the Third Cycle is the **Volcanic Eruption Discharge Cycle**! Once the thermal seed reaches critical mass, the internal grain opens three sequential exhaust valves, releasing the stored heat in three cascading waves of domain destruction! It is a self-feeding, three-stage engine of total annihilation!"
*BOOM——!*
The entire grand plaza erupted into a tempest of deafening uproar!
Spectators leaped onto the balustrades, elders from foreign merchant leagues gasped in astonishment, and the disciples of the Scarlet Sun Palace erupted into hysterical, earth-shaking cheers!
"Three Overlapping Cycles! That is the secret of the domain!"
"Incredible! A three-stage thermal engine forged without a single surface rune!"
"Scarlet Sun Palace has completely unraveled the weapon!"
Up on the Judgment Council, Grand Elder Yan Lie rose to his feet, throwing his head back and letting out a laugh so booming that it dispersed the sulfur clouds above the peak.
"Hahahahaha! Did you hear that, Xuan Yuan?!" Yan Lie roared with mocking ecstasy, glaring across the terrace at the Black Tortoise elders. "Three overlapping cycles! The deepest secret of this domain weapon has been laid bare by our Scarlet Sun prodigy! What else can your heavy-iron beaters say now?!"
Beside him, Chi Yao smiled like an empress looking down upon commoners, her flame ribbons dancing with victorious light.
Elder Duan and the judging grandmasters meticulously verified the energy flow equations. After a long, suffocating silence, Elder Duan exhaled a heavy breath, raising his hand to silence the arena.
"The Three Overlapping Cycles... are verified," Elder Duan announced, his voice tight with suppressed tension. "Core Smith Huo Zhen has uncovered the multi-stage discharge mechanism of the domain!"
The colossal scoreboard projected across the sky updated immediately:
*Scarlet Sun Palace: 2 Major Discoveries (Self-Circulating Loop, Three Overlapping Destructive Cycles)*
*Black Tortoise Mountain: 1 Major Discovery (Directional Density Gradient)*
Scarlet Sun Palace had taken a crushing **2–1** lead!
***
The atmosphere on the host benches of Black Tortoise Mountain plummeted into icy, suffocating despair.
Tens of thousands of Black Tortoise disciples sat in stunned, gloomy silence. Gu Chen, who had equalized the score the day before, clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails dug into his palms, his Heavy-Earth Acoustic Calipers trembling at his side. He had tried to probe the core during his turn, but the violent thermal barrier had completely deflected his acoustic sound waves.
"Two to one..." Senior Brother Ma Teng muttered, staring at the scoreboard with pale lips. "If we lose this on our own sacred peak, our sect's reputation across the continent will be shattered..."
Up on the White Basalt Terrace, the situation was even more dire.
Sect Master Xuan Yuan raised his hand, discreetly casting an isolated, sound-dampening barrier of heavy earth Qi around himself, Grand Domain Smith Elder Duan, and Elder Huo.
Within the secluded bubble, the dignified, calm facade of the elders cracked instantly.
"Elder Duan, is Huo Zhen's thesis truly complete?" Sect Master Xuan Yuan asked in a low, urgent voice, his brow deeply furrowed. "Has he truly unraveled the entire foundation of the mace?"
"He has unraveled the fire," Elder Duan replied grimly, his silver beard trembling slightly. "The three-stage discharge model is undeniably accurate. If none of our disciples can provide a deeper revelation before the Second Round concludes, the Star River Alliance and the foreign sects will officially declare Scarlet Sun Palace the supreme winners of this event."
Elder Huo slammed his massive fist onto the stone armrest of his chair, the basalt cracking beneath his grip. His face was flushed crimson with fury and shame.
"Damn those red-robed bastards!" Elder Huo growled through clenched teeth. "This weapon was forged using our ancestral heavy-forging philosophy! The seventy-two-strike Ironblood rhythm is embedded in its very bones! For those fire-poking whelps from Scarlet Sun to claim mastery over it on our own territory is a humiliation we cannot bear!"
Sect Master Xuan Yuan looked at both grandmasters, his molten eyes carrying a chilling, resolute gravity.
"We cannot lose this," Xuan Yuan said, his voice dropping to a harsh, absolute whisper. "This gathering was convened to demonstrate our sect's sovereign dominance and stabilize our regional hegemony after the auction. If Scarlet Sun Palace walks away with the grand prize and the continental glory, every sect in the thirty-four counties will believe Black Tortoise Mountain's crafting Dao is inferior to the Nine Solar lineage."
Xuan Yuan leaned forward, his gaze burning into Elder Huo and Elder Duan.
"This is no longer just a technical competition. It is a matter of **sect pride**—a battle for the very dignity of our ten-thousand-year heritage. If we have any remaining cards, we must play them now."
Elder Huo breathed heavily, staring out through the translucent barrier at the thirty-two crafters below, his heart aching with bitter helplessness.
***
Down in the waiting pavilion, sitting casually on a wooden bench with his hands tucked into his sleeves, was "Mu Tie"—Fang Lin.
He watched the glowing crimson diagrams of the "Three Overlapping Cycles" floating in the sky, a subtle, dry smirk playing across his lips.
Inside his soul sea, the Dark Flame Spirit was rolling on the floor, laughing so hard that dark embers were shooting from its nostrils.
*Hahahahaha! Oh, this is pure gold!* the spirit wheezed, wiping away imaginary tears. *'Three Overlapping Cycles!' Look at that little rooster Huo Zhen puffing out his chest like he discovered the secrets of the cosmos! If only he knew!*
*He is sharp, to be fair,* Fang Lin mused quietly in his mind. *To identify the three-stage compression and discharge sequence with only Late Core Formation senses is an impressive feat of deduction.*
*Impressive?!* the spirit scoffed, sitting up with a wicked grin. *Kid, he mapped the fire, but he completely ignored the gravitational anchor! What happens to those three beautiful cycles the moment the weapon strikes a real Domain Realm defense?*
Fang Lin let out a faint, silent chuckle.
*The weapon detonates,* Fang Lin replied calmly.
Huo Zhen's thesis was undeniably brilliant, but it was fatally, dangerously incomplete.
A three-stage thermal engine generating that much localized explosive pressure was an unstable bomb. The only reason the *Volcanic Annihilation* did not blow its wielder to pieces was because the seventy-two-strike Ironblood compression matrix created an internal *Gravitational Equilibrium Anchor*—a dense, microscopic magnetic field that locked the three cycles into a permanent, stable harmonic.
Without that heavy-earth anchor, the fire would devour itself.
Huo Zhen had found the roaring flame, but he was completely blind to the sovereign earth that held the universe together.
Looking up at the White Basalt Terrace, Fang Lin saw the grim, pale faces of Sect Master Xuan Yuan, Elder Duan, and his master, Elder Huo. He could feel the suffocating tension, the desperate anxiety, and the immense weight of sect pride pressing down upon the old blacksmith's shoulders.
Fang Lin picked up his teacup, taking a slow, contemplative sip of the warm brew.
The preliminaries were over, the foreign geniuses had played their strongest hands, and his sect was backed firmly against the wall.
*It seems,* Fang Lin thought with a quiet, glinting gaze, *I won't be able to stay in the middle of the pack for much longer.*
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