His palm darted into the furnace like lightning, and amidst the crisp crackling of exploding sparks, he firmly clamped the glowing red sword billet.
Dark golden veins snaked across the surface of the iron block, resembling the sealed patterns of magma.
At the moment the forging table trembled, the twenty-pound star pattern iron hammer was already swung halfway into the air, Lis's hammer head crashing down with a whooshing sound.
"Clang!"
The aftershock from the anvil's tremor knocked dust off the walls, and the flying sparks left burnt marks on the stone wall.
The second hammer strike followed in quick succession, at an angle as sharp as a diving falcon, causing the sparks at the instant of contact to momentarily form a starry rain in the air.
Lis's face reflected the dual radiance of the furnace and the iron billet, sweat rolling down his collarbone into his leather apron, vaporizing into mist before hitting the floor due to the heat wave.
