The slag pit lay silent — its forge shades devoured, its ashes drifting like cold snow around Li Tianyin's bare feet.
Above, the cracked terraces of the Wilting Dao Sect shimmered faintly — runes in buried stone veins flickering awake for the first time in a century, stirred by a flaw too stubborn to die.
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Within his ribs, the ember-hammer seed pulsed — thicker now, a fused core of raw spirit ore, shade slag, wolf echo, and forge ghost flame.
Each heartbeat struck it against marrow fissures, a ring of hidden hammer blows only Tianyin's cracked bones could hear.
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The forge ghost hissed through his bones: Temper it deeper.
The wolf's echo snapped at the marrow edges: Bite it tighter.
The pact whispered: Fuse or shatter.
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On Earth, he once soldered rusted copper coils in the scrap yard's shed, trying to craft his own induction coil from broken wires.
The copper hissed, burned his palms raw — the wound never healed right, always ached when the wind turned cold.
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Here, the wound was deeper — bone fissures that never sealed.
The heat was ember flame snarling through marrow veins, too hungry to sleep.
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Tiny fingers scraped the last flecks of spirit slag from the pit's floor — each fleck hissed on his skin, melting into ember sparks that drifted through wrist veins to the hammer seed's core.
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The pact demanded a brand — a seal that bound forge ghost and wolf echo into the seed's flaw-forged shell.
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But no elder pressed a branding iron to his palm.
No sect sigil waited in warm coals.
Only marrow flame. Only cracked bone.
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He sank to his knees in the ash drift — breath rattling, ribs aching with each hiss.
Tiny palm pressed flat to the slag pit's vein — where cold ore flickered its final iron glimmer.
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The forge ghost chanted through marrow flame: Iron vein, ember tooth, flaw marrow.
The wolf echo howled low — its breath biting the marrow hammer seed, carving ghost fangs through the fused iron core.
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Pain flared — bone veins hissed ember orange.
His ribs cracked wider, splitting fresh pathways for the pact's roar.
Runes bloomed inside the fissure — crude, feral scratches that locked the shade's echo to the forge ghost's ember coil.
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A single ember rune flickered behind his ribs — the first true spirit brand born from marrow alone.
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It stung worse than raw iron against blistered palms — but the flaw devoured that agony, knitting the forge ghost tighter to the hammer seed.
The wolf echo sank its phantom fangs into the seed's edge — binding spirit slag to marrow flame so that no impurity could slip free.
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Tiny teeth ground together behind cracked lips — the child's voice a hiss, no longer just breath but ember chant:
> "Flaw devours echo…
Echo bites forge…
Forge feeds flaw…"
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Iron veins in the pit's walls hummed faintly — remembering the sect's forging hymns long silenced.
Ash drifted around him like soot stirred by a bellows strike.
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When the last slag fleck melted into the seed's core, Tianyin's chest stopped trembling.
The ember brand glowed steady behind cracked ribs — not a loose ember anymore, but a forge coal sealed by rune and flaw.
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Above, the Silent Dao Bell hummed faintly, deep under the ruin's root — its note slipping through stone veins like a blessing never meant for Heaven's laws.
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In the hush, Tianyin opened his eyes.
Silver rings glinted faint in black irises — ember runes dancing at the rim like coal sparks behind soot glass.
He pressed tiny fingers to his ribs — the flaw pulsed warm, pain echoing through every bone.
But this pain would not kill him.
It would forge him.
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End of Chapter 16
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