The Obsidian Forge was not a location one entered; it was a state of being one endured. It was the primordial heartbeat of creation and destruction. Every strike of a divine hammer was a pulse that shook the soul; every flying spark was a scream of elemental birth. The very air was a shimmering haze of liquid iron, and the ground upon which Lin Chen stood was the molten, ever-beating heart of a dead star.
He stood before the Anvil of Eternal Forge, a slab of impossibly dense black neutron matter that predated the very concept of immortality.
Looming over him was the Forge God, Tie Han, a titan whose body was a shifting mountain of molten metal and furnace cores. In his grip was a hammer large enough to crater worlds.
"FORGE YOUR WEAPON HERE,FIRST FLAME, WITH YOUR BLOOD AND SOUL AS THE ORE," Tie Han's voice was the grating of continental plates. "OR I WILL POUND YOUR ESSENCE INTO THE NAILS FOR HEAVEN'S GATES."
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The hammer fell. The impact was not a sound, but a fundamental rearrangement of matter. A river of liquid star-metal, containing the birth and death of galaxies, poured across the anvil.
Lin Chen did not flinch. He dove into the molten flow, letting the fire that could unmake gods become his crucible.
First Strike: The Flesh
He opened a vein,and his True Immortal Blood—a mixture of liquid gold and primordial ash—spilled into the brew. It was the blood of a heir who had walked through nine realms. The metal did not just absorb it; it screamed, gaining a consciousness of its own.
Second Strike: The Soul
He summoned the Soul Lantern from his core.The nine distinct flames—memories of defiance, purpose, sacrifice, and rebirth—did not touch the metal; they melted into it, becoming the very laws that would govern the blade. The scream softened, transforming into a low, anticipatory hum, a song waiting for its first note.
Third Strike: The Will
Amidst the chaos of creation,Lin Chen spoke, his voice cutting through the roar of the forge. "I AM THE BLADE THAT WILL CUT THE CANCER FROM HEAVEN."
His Ascendant Flame roared in agreement, pouring its entirety into the form taking shape. The metal cooled, not by temperature, but by will. It settled into a blade of perfect, deadly elegance: an obsidian core that drank the light, an edge of solidified starlight, and runes of eternal ash swirling along its length.
The Ashen Starblade was born.
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As if the blade's birth were a blasphemy that demanded an immediate response, the golden Curse Mark on Lin Chen's chest flared like a malevolent sun. A portal of unbearable, sterile light tore open beside the anvil.
From it stepped the First Executioner, Tian Dao. He was not a being of flesh, but of condensed divine law, his form a shifting sculpture of golden edicts, his eyes spinning wheels of judgment. In his hands was the Heavenly Execution Axe, a weapon designed not to kill, but to sever—to cut a soul from its fate, its memories, and its right to exist.
"BY THE UNBREAKABLE EDICT OF THE CELESTIAL CITADEL," Tian Dao's voice was the final verdict of a thousand dead worlds, "THE FIRST FLAME IS CONDEMNED. ITS EXISTENCE IS HEREBY SEVERED."
The Axe fell. It did not move through space; it erased the space between them, its edge arriving at Lin Chen's neck with the inevitability of a concluded syllogism.
Lin Chen met it with the Ashen Starblade.
CLANG.
The sound was the universe fracturing.
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First Exchange:
Tian Dao'sHeavenly Severance sought to unravel Lin Chen's very being. Lin Chen answered with Ashen Severance, a slash that did not cut matter, but burned the divine law itself. A crack appeared on the pristine surface of the Heavenly Axe.
Second Exchange:
Enraged,Tian Dao multiplied. A thousand copies of the Executioner and his Axe filled the forge, each strike a guaranteed death sentence for any immortal. Lin Chen did not try to discern the real one. He became a vortex of destruction, the Ashen Starblade moving in a Starfall Cascade—a thousand counter-strikes that fell like dying suns, shattering every illusion and copy into fading light.
Third Exchange:
The true Tian Dao,bleeding motes of golden law, summoned his ultimate technique. The Axe transformed into a Guillotine of Annihilation, a construct of absolute finality that descended to erase Lin Chen from all timelines.
Lin Chen did not dodge. He looked up at the instrument of his supposed doom and thrust the Ashen Starblade upward in a perfect, defiant line.
Ember That Defies Heaven.
The blade, born of mortal struggle and immortal will, met the manifestation of absolute divine authority—and pierced straight through it. The guillotine shattered like glass. The blade's momentum did not stop, plunging deep into Tian Dao's chest.
The Executioner did not cry out in pain, but in shock, as the Ashen Starblade's unique property took effect: it did not just kill; it consumed. Tian Dao's body of pure law melted, his authority, his divine spark, all devoured by the hungry obsidian blade, until nothing remained but a slowly settling cloud of golden ash.
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Having fed on an Immortal King, the Ashen Starblade underwent its final evolution. New runes, sharper and more aggressive, etched themselves along its edge—Runes of Heavenly Defiance. A consciousness, sharp and cold, stirred within the metal.
For the first time, it spoke, its voice the sound of a sharpening grindstone on the edge of reality:
"I AM HEAVENSLAYER. WIELD ME, HEIR, AND TOGETHER WE WILL BURN THE FALSE GODS FROM THEIR THRONES."
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The Forge God, Tie Han, looked upon the blade that had slain a divine executioner. The great hammer in his hand cracked and fell to pieces. He knelt, the molten ground cooling in a circle around him.
"The Forge recognizes its Master. Take its heart. Forge not just a weapon, but an army worthy of your war."
From the core of the anvil, a Obsidian Heart—a fist-sized crystal of pure, black creation-energy—floated to Lin Chen. He absorbed it, and his True Immortal Body underwent another transformation, his skin taking on the dark, unbreakable sheen of forged star-iron. The Obsidian Star Body could now outright ignore divine laws cast by any below the level of an Immortal Emperor.
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A portal swirled open, and Xing Yao, the Starfall Sovereign, stepped through, her gaze sweeping from the kneeling Forge God to the newly named Heavenslayer.
"The Court of Fallen Stars mobilizes. The next Court, the Jade Lotus, holds the keys to life and reincarnation. Its goddess has been twisted to serve the False Heaven. You must shatter the illusion that binds her… or cut her down if she cannot be freed."
Lin Chen willed Heavenslayer to his side. The blade dissolved into his arm, leaving behind a tattoo of an obsidian sword wreathed in ash and starlight. He gave a single, decisive nod. The path was clear.
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But the conflict was far from over. The cloud of golden ash that was all that remained of Tian Dao began to swirl, not reforming, but writing a scorching message in the air itself:
"THE CELESTIAL CITADEL HAS SEEN.
THE NINE FALSE GODS STIR FROM THEIR ETERNAL THRONES.
YOUR NEXT STEP,LITTLE FLAME, LEADS YOU NOT TO BATTLE, BUT INTO THE JAWS OF REINCARNATION ITSELF."
As the words faded, the entire Obsidian Forge shuddered, and a new portal bloomed—this one a soft, verdant green, smelling of lotus and decay. From the Jade Lotus Court, a woman's voice, both gentle and impossibly ancient, whispered an invitation that was also a threat:
"Come, First Flame. Let me offer you the gift of a new beginning… or the peace of a final end."
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