Chapter 149 — The Black Hole and the Deadline
The Astral Forge Sect did not awaken weapon spirits lightly.
To them, a weapon was not simply a tool—it was a future calamity waiting to be born.
And Rowan had finally decided that Lin's time had come.
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Rowan's True Awakening Trial
The platform this time was not beneath the forge mountain.
It was inside it.
A hollow titan-core chamber where gravity bent inward naturally, and molten star-metal flowed in rivers along concentric terraces. Every breath carried such crushing density that even outer court elites would collapse in seconds.
Rowan stepped onto the central anvil stone.
"Today," he said calmly, "you will attempt to awaken a weapon spirit for the first time."
Lin's heart tightened—not in fear, but in focus.
"A true awakening does not require success," Rowan continued. "Only that you survive the attempt."
With a heavy gesture, Rowan activated the chamber.
The gravity multiplied.
Not doubled.
Not tripled.
It folded inward, recursively, like space learning how to collapse into itself.
"This environment will kill your weapon if it lacks will," Rowan said. "It will also kill you if your control falters."
Lin inhaled once.
Then stepped forward.
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The Birthplace of Black Hole
Before he initiated the awakening, Lin withdrew.
Not physically.
Internally.
His consciousness plunged into his inner world.
The Celestial Forge unfolded fully—stellar rings blazing, gravity tides circling like newborn galaxies. The unfinished Titan hammer core floated above the planetary axis of his solar system, suspended between Jupiter's storm bands and the growing vine-heart sapling's life aura.
Saint Shengyuan observed silently.
Aurora pulsed with quiet tension.
"This weapon cannot be awakened with normal compression," Lin said softly. "It needs… absolute density."
He raised the hammer core.
And instead of heating it—
He collapsed gravity itself.
A single point formed at the tip of his hammerhead.
Not weight.
Not mass.
Singularity.
All surrounding forces bent toward it.
Light warped.
Energy screamed.
Lin's bones groaned under the counterpressure.
Then he brought the hammer down.
---
Black Hole
The strike did not explode.
It erased impact.
A dome of absolute gravity expanded outward one hundred meters in every direction.
Not a shockwave.
Not fire.
Not wind.
A crushing void.
Mountains of celestial ore vanished into distortion.
Air folded into itself.
Storms were pulverized into compressed law fragments.
Every particle within the dome was violently dragged inward and crushed into a single suspended point above Lin's hammerhead.
For three heartbeats—
The world ceased to exist inside that dome.
Then Lin released it.
Reality screamed back into place.
The singularity dispersed into stabilized law-strata that flooded the hammer core like liquid stars.
Saint Shengyuan's voice was hoarse.
> "That is no longer gravity manipulation… that is proto-annihilation."
Aurora was silent.
For the first time since her birth—
She was afraid.
Lin lowered the hammer.
"Black Hole," he named it quietly.
Then he did something no Titan forger had ever dared.
He used it in forging.
Instead of compressing metal with layered strikes—
He collapsed law density itself into the weapon's inner skeleton.
The hammer core did not just become denser.
It became spatially deeper.
More room for energy.
More room for will.
More room for a weapon soul to exist.
This was not forging.
This was singularity engineering.
---
The Awakening Attempt
Lin returned to the Titan chamber.
Rowan waited without question.
The hammer core floated between them.
Rowan's eyes narrowed—he could not identify the law density, only its absence of tolerance for existence around it.
"Begin," Rowan ordered.
Lin placed the hammer core onto the anvil.
Then—
He struck.
This time, he did not call Jupiter.
He called nothingness under crushing order.
The hammer core screamed.
Not from heat.
From identity compression.
A faint pulse of will erupted from within it.
The gravity of the entire chamber lurched.
Rowan's eyes widened slightly.
A weapon spirit had stirred.
But it did not awaken fully.
The hammer resisted.
Not rebellion.
Incomplete birth.
Lin's body trembled violently.
Blood slid from the corner of his mouth.
Rowan raised his hand.
"Enough."
The chamber deactivated.
The hammer core dimmed—but the pulse had been real.
Rowan stared at the weapon in silence.
Then slowly spoke.
"It has chosen to wait."
Lin exhaled deeply.
Rowan turned to him.
"That is not failure," he said quietly. "That is a sovereign refusing premature coronation."
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Tian Declares the Date
The very next day, the Astral Forge Sect shook with law resonance.
Tian stood atop the challenge platform at the heart of the inner court.
His hammer-avatar loomed behind him—mountain-sized, Titan-law condensed into war-form.
His voice rolled across the sect like thunder.
"Lin Xuan!"
"I will no longer wait."
"One month."
"One battle."
"If you cannot carry the weight of this realm by then—"
"I will crush you with it."
The declaration sent a shockwave through every court.
Outer disciples froze.
Inner elites inhaled sharply.
Elders shifted.
Rowan's gaze never left Tian.
Lin watched from afar.
One month.
He smiled.
"That's more than enough."
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Black Hole — Forging Application
That night, inside his inner world, Lin tested Black Hole again.
Not at battlefield scale.
At micro-scale.
He collapsed gravitational singularities at the heart of forging cores.
Compressed law energy into deeper internal volumes.
Expanded spiritual capacity without increasing external dimensions.
The result:
Each strike now carried void-pressure tolerance.
Each alloy absorbed energy like a star forming under controlled collapse.
Saint Shengyuan watched the technique stabilize.
> "If fully matured, that art alone could erase entire battlefields."
Lin nodded.
"That's the goal."
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The Shadow That Followed
Far below.
Beyond Titan rifts.
Beyond scout territories.
The Abyssal Ancestor received the data stream.
Not visual.
Energetic.
Gravitational resonance.
Proto-singularity signatures.
It did not roar.
It did not rage.
It smiled.
> "So you've learned how to pretend at the threshold of destruction."
Its search tightened.
---
Closing
One weapon refused to be born.
One warrior declared war upon meaning.
And one art now existed that could unwrite terrain itself.
One month remained.
And Lin Xuan was no longer forging weapons.
He was forging disaster.
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