Chapter 148 — Three Converging Paths
The Astral Forge Sect did not measure talent by speed.
It measured it by endurance under impossible pressure.
And Lin Xuan was about to learn why true Titan weapon shaping was feared even among higher-realm cultivators.
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Rowan's True Trial
The forging platform that Rowan led Lin to was not part of the outer court.
It lay beneath the main forge mountain, suspended over a sea of star-iron magma that pulsed with slow, planetary rhythm. The pressure alone crushed ordinary materials instantly. Only true Titan-grade metal could survive here.
"This is where weapon souls are born," Rowan said.
Lin's eyes narrowed slightly.
Rowan continued, voice heavy and calm.
"You are no longer shaping metal. You are shaping will."
Rowan flicked his wrist.
A massive forging array activated.
Gravity multiplied.
Heat folded inward instead of rising.
Metal screamed as invisible pressure collapsed it into resonant cores.
"If your control slips even a fraction," Rowan said, "your weapon will devour you."
Lin stepped forward without hesitation.
And began.
This time, he did not call orthodox Titan flame.
He summoned world-pressure from his inner solar system.
Jupiter's storm rotated invisibly inside the metal.
Earth compressed its mass.
Metal stabilized structure.
Fire imprinted will.
Wind carved impurities away at the law level.
Rowan felt it instantly.
This was no longer forging.
This was planetary birth.
For the first time, Rowan's gaze sharpened with something close to reverence.
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Tian's Past — The Weight of a Name
Elsewhere…
Atop a sky-pillar overlooking three Titan training ranges, Tian stood with his arms folded behind his back.
He was not cultivating.
He was remembering.
Tian had not been born favored.
His rise had been paid for in blood, failure, and relentless humiliation.
His father had once been the Astral Forge Sect's greatest external enforcer—until a single mistake crippled him permanently. The man who had once split mountains with his hammer became a broken shadow confined to sect infirmaries.
The elders had turned their backs.
The disciples had mocked.
Tian had been twelve when he first lifted a Titan forging hammer.
His bones shattered.
He screamed.
And he picked it up again.
From that day forward, Tian forged under punishment gravity. He trained beneath atmospheric crush zones. He refined his flesh against storm-forged pressure until even Titan elders quietly withdrew their eyes.
To Tian, strength was not power.
It was proof that fate could be beaten until it obeyed.
And then Lin appeared.
An outer court nobody.
A lower-realm upstart.
One who advanced too fast.
Who learned too quickly.
Who forged in ways that ignored the rules Tian bled to master.
The challenge was not simply about victory.
It was about defending the meaning of Tian's entire life.
"If I lose," Tian murmured quietly, "then all of it becomes a joke."
His eyes hardened.
"So I will not."
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Lin's Inner World — Resource Exhaustion
The Celestial Forge roared for three straight days.
Abyssal cores shattered.
Storm crystals liquefied.
Void-metal skeletons dissolved under layered law pressure.
Lin refined.
And refined.
And refined.
Hammer core after hammer core took shape—failed, restructured, reabsorbed, reforged.
By the time Lin stopped, his storage fields were nearly empty.
Saint Shengyuan studied the remaining shelves.
"You've used everything of forging-grade value."
Lin exhaled slowly.
"Then it's time to go back."
Aurora pulsed faintly.
And beneath that pulse, something echoed back.
Not from within.
From outside.
From the abyss.
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Return to the Training Ground
The Astral Forge Sect's abyssal rift had always been considered a controlled environment.
A training field.
A resource mine.
A proving ground.
Lin entered alone again.
And the Abyss… responded differently.
The creatures he encountered were no longer wandering.
They were forming search patterns.
Beasts moved in layered spirals.
Void predators observed from range instead of charging.
Abyssal scouts clung to spatial seams and law fractures, sampling residue.
The first time Lin shattered a bone-devourer, he felt it.
A faint pull.
Like his kill had been… noticed.
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The First Trace
Deep in the true Abyss, far beyond any training battlefield, a cluster of ancient scouts received data.
Not visual.
Not sensory.
Energetic ancestry.
The residue of a world that should not exist.
A cultivation system that processed abyssal energy into creation instead of decay.
The scouts recoiled.
Then transmitted everything upward.
Toward the thing that had been searching for this anomaly since the battlefield collapse.
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The Inner Tremor
Lin staggered halfway through harvesting a storm-vein crystal.
His solar system flared violently inside his dantian.
Saint Shengyuan looked up sharply.
Aurora's light dimmed for the first time.
"It found the outskirts," the Saint said quietly.
Lin's expression darkened.
"How long?"
"Not soon," Shengyuan replied. "But no longer distant."
Lin tightened his grip.
Then continued harvesting.
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Rowan Senses the Change
Back at the forge mountain, Rowan paused mid-strike.
The alloy trembled.
Not from forging pressure.
From world pressure.
Rowan turned his gaze toward the abyssal rift far below.
"Something old has turned its eyes," he muttered.
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Tian Begins True Cultivation
The same moment, Tian's training chamber detonated with law pressure.
He no longer refined his body.
He refined his intent.
His hammer avatar formed behind him—mountain-sized, Titan-law condensed into weapon form.
This was no longer preparation for sparring.
This was preparation for war.
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The Narrowing Search
In the abyssal training grounds, Lin annihilated three scout formations in succession.
But instead of fading…
Their remains were retrieved by the Abyss itself.
Every trace he erased became a beacon refined elsewhere.
Saint Shengyuan's voice was grim.
"They are no longer hunting randomly."
Lin's eyes narrowed.
"Then I just have to make sure the next signature they lock onto is when I'm ready to kill it."
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Three Forces Moving at Once
Rowan prepared Lin for true Titan weapon birth.
Tian refined his life's will into a single defining confrontation.
And the Abyss tightened its invisible net.
Three paths.
One inevitable collision.
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Closing
That night, Lin stood alone at the abyssal rift's edge.
Jupiter Storm Smash whispered through his bones.
His unfinished Titan hammer core pulsed with latent world gravity.
His inner solar system rotated faster.
And deep beneath all realms—
The Abyss finally learned how to follow his shadow.
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