Chapter 146 — Jupiter Storm Smash
The Abyss did not grow quieter with familiarity.
It only became more honest.
After his first kills, Lin did not return immediately to the rift. He moved deeper instead—carefully, steadily—testing the edge of what the sect's rift formations truly controlled. The farther he went, the thinner the Titan Realm's suppression became. The air thickened with malice. The ground pulsed faintly with submerged corruption.
Here, the abyssal creatures were no longer simply feral.
They were hunters.
Lin encountered them in packs now.
Three shadow-skulkers stalked him from opposing ridges, their bodies flattened into reality like stains on glass. A hulking bone-maw crawled beneath the earth, tracking vibrations through the stone. Above them all, a swarm of shriek-bats circled—wings of fractured membrane cutting the air into screaming blades of distorted sound.
Lin halted.
Slowly, deliberately, he took a breath.
This was no longer a skirmish.
This was a battlefield.
---
The Birth of a Storm
The bats struck first.
They dove in spirals, their bodies vibrating at discordant frequencies meant to disrupt meridians and scramble law flow. The air screamed as layered sound-waves slammed toward Lin from above.
He didn't retreat.
He stepped forward.
The hammer-spear angled downward as he lowered his center of gravity. His stance broadened, rooted in Earth Dao. Wind gathered subtly around the weapon's shaft, spiraling in invisible layers. Fire surged through his muscles—not as heat, but force.
Lin watched the storm of bats descend.
Then he struck.
The spear-tip pierced straight down into the stone at his feet.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then—
He rotated.
Not his arms.
His whole axis.
The hammer-spear twisted in his grip as Lin spun from the hips, pouring Wind and Metal Dao together into a violent, tightening vortex. The world around him curved. Dust, air, sound, and shadow were dragged inward.
A cyclone erupted upward—red-tinted by Fire Dao perception, roaring like a planetary tempest.
The bats were caught instantly.
Their formations shattered as their bodies were torn into the spiraling core, crushed and flung apart by centrifugal force and compressed pressure. Sound-waves deflected. Law interference collapsed into chaotic feedback.
Lin didn't stop the rotation.
He shifted his grip.
Stepped forward.
And brought the hammerhead down.
The impact was not vertical.
It was directed.
The hammer struck through the heart of the cyclone, converting rotational force into a forward-propagating shock front. The red storm didn't disperse.
It launched.
A wall of compressed wind, fire, and kinetic law tore across the battlefield in a straight, annihilating line. The bone-maw was ripped from the earth mid-emergence and erased in a single heartbeat, reduced to scattering shards of abyss-bone that gouged trenches into the stone behind it.
The shadow-skulkers tried to flee.
The storm overtook them like a planetary tide.
Silence fell.
Lin stood at the center of a scarred battlefield, faint red wind still coiling lazily around his weapon before dispersing into nothing.
He exhaled.
"…Jupiter Storm Smash," he murmured.
Saint Shengyuan spoke with quiet approval.
> "You did not simply imitate a phenomenon. You understood it."
Aurora's voice was softer.
> "It's terrifyingly efficient."
Lin looked at the devastation again.
The name fit.
---
Deeper into the Training Ground
The next stretch of time blurred into a relentless rhythm of combat.
Stronger beasts emerged:
Abyssal brutes whose blood ate through Titan alloy
Winged predators that folded space to attack from impossible angles
Void-stalkers that existed half a step removed from reality
And Lin met all of them head-on.
Each battle refined his weapon control.
Each kill gave him materials far beyond the outer court's minimum quota.
More importantly—
Each fight sharpened Jupiter Storm Smash.
He learned to:
Shorten the vortex for confined spaces
Extend the cyclone for crowd control
Layer secondary shockwaves into the hammer impact
Rotate counterflow winds to redirect enemy techniques mid-flight
By the time he turned back toward the rift, Jupiter Storm Smash was no longer just a single attack.
It was a foundation technique.
---
Return with a Calculated Hand
Lin emerged from the rift hours later—armor scuffed, aura steady, storage heavy.
The supervisors registered his return automatically.
When they opened his contribution inventory, even their trained expressions faltered.
Abyssal carapaces of forging-grade hardness.
Void-aligned bone cores.
Storm-aspected crystal veins.
Dense metallic organ nodules prized for high-density alloy crafting.
The valuation climbed quickly.
"…Outer court quota exceeded," the evaluator said slowly. "…By more than twelve times."
Lin inclined his head politely and transferred only what was required.
No more.
No less.
The rest—
Vanished into the concealed storage space of the Celestial Forge.
No one saw that.
And no one questioned him.
Excessive contribution earned respect, yes—but also attention. Lin had learned long ago that attention was a liability.
He walked from the rift chamber as murmurs followed him.
---
Rowan's Silent Appraisal
Rowan was already waiting in the Shaping Hall.
He did not ask where Lin had gone.
He did not ask how deep he had traveled.
He simply inspected the materials that had been officially logged under Lin's name.
For a long moment, the master-forger said nothing.
Then he turned.
"Your stance is lower than before," Rowan said.
Lin blinked once.
"You are compensating for higher inertial feedback," Rowan continued. "Good. You finally understand that Titan mass punishes sloppy movement."
Still no praise.
But…
Rowan's gaze lingered on Lin's hands—a fraction longer than before.
"Rest," he said at last. "You shape tomorrow."
Lin bowed.
That was the largest acknowledgment Rowan had ever given him.
---
What the Sect Never Saw
Deep within his inner world, Lin unloaded the true harvest.
Mountains of abyssal ore rose. Storm crystals floated in clustered constellations. Bones and cores were laid in careful arrays. The Saint examined them with quiet awe. Aurora adjusted world-balancing laws automatically to compensate for the influx.
"This much material could equip an army in your former realm," Shengyuan said.
Lin nodded.
"It's training scrap here."
Then he summoned the hammer-spear again.
The storm of Jupiter whispered faintly along the weapon's spine.
All of this—
The ore.
The bones.
The storm crystals.
They weren't for the sect.
They weren't for contribution points.
They were for him.
For reforging.
For experimentation.
For evolution.
For one person only.
Tian.
---
The Abyss Stirs Again
Far below the Titan Realm.
Far beyond mortal perception.
A tremor passed through the true Abyss.
Not rage.
Not awakening.
Recognition.
The Abyssal Ancestor felt the ripple this time—
Clearer.
Sharper.
It still could not see Lin.
But it could now feel the pattern of his consumption.
The way abyssal matter vanished and did not return.
The way corruption was being digested instead of propagated.
And slowly, inevitably—
The search narrowed.
---
Closing
Back in the Astral Forge Sect, Lin sat alone beneath the weight of Titan gravity, hammer-spear laid across his knees, eyes closed in steady cultivation.
Jupiter Storm Smash rotated endlessly in his mind.
Each rotation tighter.
Each compression purer.
Each forward impact heavier.
The challenge with Tian loomed.
The Abyss crept closer.
And Lin—quietly, relentlessly—
Prepared to become something neither realm was ready for.
---