Beneath the rust pool's rippling skin, the slag chamber pulsed like a buried heart — veins of old spirit ore beating faint against root-choked stone.
Where sect disciples once dumped failed ores and cracked cores, the slag beasts nursed echoes of flame too weak to rise, too stubborn to die.
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Li Tianyin stood barefoot on slick slag stone — tiny chest heaving as ember steam drifted from the cracks in his ribs.
The ember-hammer seed pulsed steady now — thicker with each devoured shade, its rune brand flickering with half-forged hunger.
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The forge ghost hissed: Iron brood grows. Strike deeper.
The wolf's echo bristled in marrow: Hunt. Bind. Forge fang.
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Below his feet, the pool's skin split — six shadows slithered free, slag shapes flickering like half-molten wolves stitched to serpent tails.
They circled the child — red cinder eyes flaring at the ember hiss rolling through his cracked chest.
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On Earth, he'd once cornered a feral dog behind a trash yard furnace.
Rust pipe in hand, fear in throat — he learned that to strike first meant to live, to feed the furnace with flesh and scrap alike.
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Here, there was no rust pipe.
Only flaw. Only flame. Only bone.
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The first slag beast lunged — jaws clamped wide, fangs dripping black slag.
Tianyin's feet slipped — marrow flame flared.
He slammed a palm to the rust pool's edge — shattered loose ore ripping fresh gashes in his skin.
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Blood met ember.
Pain hissed through marrow.
The forge ghost pressed heat into cracked ribs, striking the hammer seed's rune brand awake.
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His other hand snapped out — tiny fingers dug into the beast's snout, dragging its slag fangs closer.
The wolf's echo howled — marrow flame bit into the beast's echo, binding it to the forge ghost's ember coil.
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The beast's skull hissed, slag veins splitting under flawed flesh.
A screech. A crack. A hiss.
Its echo folded into the hammer seed's core — more shade marrow for the flaw to devour.
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But the brood circled tighter.
Five more slag shapes hissed, tails rattling like broken tongs striking forge stone.
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The pact demanded more. Fang. Fang. Fang.
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Tianyin's cracked ribs spread wider — the rune brand flickered white-hot, ember runes crawling across marrow fissures like living coals.
The forge ghost pressed the bound beast's echo deeper — fusing it with the seed's core slag.
A shape flickered within the ember: a tiny shard of iron marrow, half-beast fang, half-forge spike.
A forging fang.
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Another beast lunged — tail whipping like an iron lash.
It struck Tianyin's shoulder — skin split, ribs rattled, flaw hissed.
The wolf's echo snapped at the blow — dragging the second beast's fang echo straight into cracked bone.
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Two beasts down — their slag dripped back into the rust pool, feeding the pact's hunger with every hiss.
The forging fang inside the hammer seed shivered — half-formed, hungry for more echo slag to temper its tip.
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Tianyin swayed — feet slipping on slag crust, breath raw with iron dust.
Tiny palms bled ember sparks.
His mouth cracked open — a hiss slipping out like a forge's sigh:
> "Flaw devours limit. Flaw strikes deeper."
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The last four beasts lunged together — shadows gnashing rusted fangs in the dark pool's belly.
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Ribs cracked.
Marrow flame roared.
Wolf's echo howled — forging fang snapped awake inside the hammer seed.
Tiny hands moved — bone met slag, ember hissed through cracked flesh.
One beast's snout split.
Another's tail sheared by raw bone edge.
The last two slammed Tianyin to the slag stone — claws tearing skin from thin arms.
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Pain blurred to heat — ember runes crawling across shoulder veins, binding beast marrow into flawed marrow.
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The forging fang glowed bright within the hammer seed — its tip no longer just slag and shade echo, but the first true shard of spirit iron forged by flaw alone.
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The last two beasts writhed — echoes dragged through marrow like molten ore pulled through a furnace throat.
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Silence struck the slag pool's hollow.
Only ember steam hissed where the child lay — ribs cracked wide, rune brand humming, forging fang sealed tight within the hammer seed's flaw-forged core.
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Above, the ruin's cracked terraces trembled faintly — the Silent Dao Bell humming one soft note through stone veins long buried in ash.
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Tianyin's tiny breath rattled.
Fingers clenched around broken slag.
Pain flared. The pact devoured it.
Inside his flawed marrow, the forging fang pulsed — a promise that the next hunt would feed steel to the bone.
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He had no sword yet.
But the first blade's echo slept in his flaw — ember teeth hidden in iron veins.
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End of Chapter 18
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