Chapter 107

Inside the furnace, flames stoked by fierce bellows writhed as if alive. Heated beyond red and yellow into a white-hot blaze, the fire was so intense it felt suffocating just to share the same space. In the dim forge, where the only outside light was a single beam of sunlight through a small window, the room flashed intermittently as if struck by lightning. In its center, the man sitting before the furnace cast a massive, mountain-like back and a huge shadow.

They say a person’s hands represent their life.

Enduring the searing heat of the forge closer than anyone else, the man’s hands were a ruin of accumulated scars.

Scorched by molten metal, pelted by flying slag, sliced open by freshly honed edges—he had suffered it all so thoroughly that he no longer even felt the pain.

His fingertips and palms resembled hard, packed earth more than human skin, and his thick, blunt fingernails were worn down to less than half the length of a normal person’s.

Even then, a stark black line scored his thumb, and the nails on his right index and middle fingers had ceased growing entirely.

Yet, these were the tools he had forged over a lifetime. By now, the man’s entire body was no different from a master craftsman’s implements. The skin gleaming with sweat, the throat that screamed in agony with every breath, the lungs that still retained their capacity, the excessively developed musculature of his arms—every inch of him had been tempered for this singular purpose.

His eyes, clouded with age, stared blankly into the roaring flames. It was bright enough to induce physical pain in an ordinary person, but he didn’t so much as blink.

Gazing into the furnace with the quiet reverence of an ancient man worshiping fire, he eventually withdrew the object he had placed within. The lump of iron, already possessing the distinct silhouette of a sword, glowed a blinding, vicious red.

He smoothly guided the unfinished blade toward the water trough resting beside him. The moment he carefully kissed the edge of the metal to the surface, a ferocious hiss erupted, accompanied by billowing, cloud-like steam. It was an excruciatingly delicate process; the slightest miscalculation would instantly splinter the steel. To prevent such fatal defects, tempering with oil instead of water was usually preferable. However, utilizing Heat-Mountain Oil inevitably hardened the iron too softly, forever ruining its potential to become a truly great sword.

And this man was not the type to make such amateur mistakes.

Once the tempering was complete, he would have to correct the warped blade and painstakingly grind down every single uneven section of the sword’s body. The art of forging a blade was an agonizing cycle of patience, patience, and yet more patience.

Furthermore, the divine iron he was currently working with was a material he had never encountered before, guaranteeing a grueling process of trial and error. His only solace was the sheer instinct drummed into him over decades of striking steel; his body simply knew what must be done.

Typically, it was a craftsman’s towering pride that allowed them to endure this maddening repetition. However, the vast majority of legendary blades were born by ravenously devouring the desperate, raw emotions of their maker.

If that was true, what kind of form would this sword take once completed?

He had poured a bottomless well of resentment into his hammer strikes fifteen days ago, yet spent the last seven days polishing the blade with profound gratitude.

As he scraped away the charred, pitch-black outer layer with a rasp, a pure, snow-white blade revealed itself. The blinding steel gleaming through the narrow gaps felt subtly, disturbingly ominous.

An image flashed through the man’s mind—this very sword, capturing the sunlight and casting a soft, rounded reflection.

The sword’s name was decided.

***

It was a full three days later, early in the morning, when the blacksmith Hwang Chu finally emerged from his forge.

Roughly scrubbing a face overgrown with a half-white, unkempt beard and sideburns, he didn’t even spare a glance to appreciate the sunlight he hadn’t seen in days, his steps hurrying desperately toward his home.

The private residence of Hwang Chu—a man hailed as the greatest living artisan of his era—was an absolute ruin, barely standing upright. Ignoring the squalor, he threw open the battered door to the main room.

An urgent, desperate question spilled from his lips before he even crossed the threshold.

“Is Hong-ah alright?”

In the center of the cramped, dilapidated room lay a thin mattress. Upon it, Hwang Chu’s son, Hwang Hong, was deeply asleep, as still as the dead.

Sitting perfectly upright beside the bedding in a formal, kneeling posture, a man replied in a low, even voice.

“He would be sleeping much deeper if you hadn’t barged in so recklessly.”

“Ah… I understand.”

Despite his massive frame and fearsome, rugged face, Hwang Chu entered the room with infinite caution and quietly closed the door. Sitting opposite the man with Hong between them, the peaceful face of his slumbering son filled his vision.

How long has it been since I saw my boy resting without pain? 

A sudden surge of overwhelming emotion choked him, tears prickling the corners of his eyes. Raising a violently trembling hand, Hwang Chu reached out toward his son’s cheek.

Suddenly, a thin, sharp breeze brushed past him, snapping his attention away. Turning his head, he saw the undeniable source: the man seated across from him, merely extending his fingertips past the edge of his pristine white sleeve.

“Unless you wish to see the child’s face erupt in iron poisoning, wash your hands first.”

“Th-that won’t do. I understand.”

Standing up awkwardly, his hands reeking of raw iron suspended awkwardly in the air, Hwang Chu scrambled to comply. The man simply gestured with his eyes toward a spot nearby.

Startled, Hwang Chu turned to find a water basin sitting there, though he had no idea when it had been brought in. Plunging his hands into the water, he began to wash them frantically, stumbling over his words as they spilled out.

Consequently, he completely missed the subtle, highly complicated expression that crossed the man’s face when Hwang Chu proceeded to dry his freshly cleaned hands by vigorously wiping them on his soot-stained trousers.

“I finished it exactly as you instructed… but is that sword truly alright? I know it’s not my place to say this as its maker, but if handled incorrectly, that blade will become a demonic sword. My resentment hasn’t vanished, after all.”

“That is not something you need to worry about.”

“I suppose… If it’s you, you will surely be able to guide that sword down the right path.”

His final sentence was closer to a mumbled soliloquy.

He had only known the man sitting before him for a mere week—nowhere near enough time to claim he truly understood him. Yet, somehow, Hwang Chu was absolutely certain. If it were this man, he could undoubtedly refine and pacify the bottomless resentment and fury forged into that blade.

No… perhaps this being was a genuine celestial immortal who had merely borrowed a human form. How else could he have effortlessly healed a son who had been hovering on the absolute brink of death?

The primary reason Hwang Chu failed to read the man’s expression was the utterly otherworldly aura surrounding him. He possessed snow-white hair like an elder, yet there was nothing shabby or frail about it. His face bore absolutely zero traces of aging, his posture was impossibly elegant, his voice was perpetually calm, and a faint, soothing scent of medicinal herbs constantly emanated from him.

With a vocabulary limited by an education consisting entirely of metallurgy, Hwang Chu simply lacked the words to accurately describe him.

In fact, upon laying eyes on him for the very first time, Hwang Chu had been so completely overwhelmed that he had instantly prostrated himself flat on the floor in deep reverence.

Swallowing dryly, Hwang Chu began to list the details of the only condition the man had demanded.

“I have no idea how you knew I was forging a sword from a meteorite, but I succeeded. It is harder than Kunlun Steel, more flexible than Dark Gold Iron, outshines Snow Flower Cold Iron, and is darker than Black Steel Cold Iron. It is the undisputed masterpiece of my life; I will never forge anything like it again. I incorporated a cloud motif into the handguard, and left the blade itself completely un-inlaid. Bringing it here might draw the eyes of the Anhui Province lackeys, so I left it safely concealed in the forge.”

“I see. You have worked hard.”

“I merely finished off a lump of iron I’ve been hammering for a long time. It isn’t worthy of being called hard work. If anything, I am the one who should be grateful. Thanks to you, that sword won’t be born carrying nothing but pure hatred.”

Hwang Chu shook his head at the flat, monotonous response. The man remained silent, making no immediate move to go and retrieve the sword. After a brief, heavy pause, it was Hwang Chu who spoke up again.

“S-so… will Hong-ah truly recover? Th-this boy is my only remaining child. My wife, my daughter… the plague took them all. He’s the only one I have left.”

This was Wenzhou City in Zhejiang Province.

While relatively distant from Lishui City—the famous hub where master swordsmiths congregated—it was a coastal metropolis boasting an overwhelmingly large population of diverse artisans.

Hwang Chu, having achieved the undisputed pinnacle as a blacksmith, had relocated his forge here for his wife, who loved the sea.

The fact that Lishui City bordered Anhui Province—the absolute domain of the Namgung Clan—and had recently begun to feel the sinister reach of their influence had also played a major role in his decision to move.

For several years afterward, they had lived in peace. Because he was a simple blacksmith utterly disinterested in the shifting political tides, he hadn’t even noticed that Zhejiang Province was being systematically devoured by the Namgung Clan.

Then, one day, a plague originating from a trade ship exploded across Wenzhou City. Over the course of a single summer, countless people succumbed to the epidemic, and Hwang Chu’s family was no exception. He had lost his wife and daughter in a tragically futile battle against the disease. While he was drowning in despair, agents of the Namgung Clan had suddenly appeared, violently shoving a man who had already lost his will to live into an even deeper abyss.

“Those Namgung bastards… those animals… how dare they do this to my precious child. They dared to threaten me, saying that if the sword wasn’t finished by the next time they visited, they would sever his fragile, hanging thread of a life…”

Not a single bone in the boy’s body had been left intact; not a single internal organ had been spared from the trauma. Hwang Chu had been forced to stand there and watch, completely powerless, as his son was beaten to the absolute brink of death right in front of his eyes. 

Beat me instead! Kill me! he had screamed like a madman, but the only response he received was cold, mocking laughter.

Even the most celebrated physician in the city had shaken his head upon seeing the boy’s condition. He had bluntly stated it was a miracle the boy hadn’t died on the spot, and that he had only survived this long because he had inherited his father’s innate, monstrous constitution. This entire nightmare had unfolded simply because of a single word of refusal from Hwang Chu.

The guilt and agony were unbearable.

So, he had truly intended to forge the sword for them.

Turning his back on a son who couldn’t even open his eyes properly and suffered from intermittent seizures, he had locked himself in his forge. Drawing out the most precious divine iron he possessed, he raised his hammer. With every single strike, he hammered his boiling, unadulterated resentment into the steel.

That was a mere seven days ago.

Speaking with a voice that trembled pathetically, Hwang Chu bowed his head so violently that his forehead slammed into the floor with a loud thud.

Then, placing absolute conviction into every single syllable, he spoke.