Chapter 1454 - 937: Trial of Steel (Part 2)

Chapter 1454: Chapter 937: Trial of Steel (Part 2)

His steps were steady, carrying a subtle discernible solemnity, as he walked toward the heavy wooden door of the blacksmith workshop that had quietly opened at some unknown time.

As he stepped over the threshold, the scene before him shattered like a broken mirror, collapsed, and vanished, only to instantly reorganize and solidify.

The warm and bright workshop was completely replaced by an endless, suffocating desolation and silence.

He stood on a vast and lifeless battlefield.

The sky was a suffocating leaden gray, the ground charred and cracked, like the bones of a giant beast.

Everywhere he looked, there were broken walls, fragmented war chariots, twisted and snapped long spears, mottled and rusted swords, and... countless corpses fallen to the ground, already decayed into pale white bones.

The thick smell of blood and metal had long been dried by time, leaving only the pungent, decayed scent of dust and the eternal breath of death.

The silence hung like a heavy curtain over everything, yet it felt as if countless souls were silently screaming and wailing, as if deafening war drums echoed in the void, and despairing cries drifted intermittently in the fierce wind.

A tattered but defiantly standing flag flapped wildly in the mournful wind.

On the flag, the pattern—an unyielding burning torch, smoky and filled with holes yet still discernable—was the emblem of the Night Watchers!

At that moment!

"Hha—!"

An inhuman roar filled with frenzy and cold resolve tore through the heavy silence.

A threatening figure, blurry yet full of menace, suddenly charged out from behind a pile of towering debris.

He wore an old standard, deeply dented, and cracked light armor. His helmet concealed his face, leaving only a pair of eyes burning with cold, emotionless flames.

This chilling visage made Vane furrow his brow.

The warrior’s attire instinctively reminded him of something, yet it was like trying to recall through a thick fog.

All that remained was a surge of intense loathing and cold hatred from deep within.

The enemy gripped a wide longsword, similarly scarred yet still lethally sharp, with both hands, charging toward Vane like an arrow loosed from a bowstring with reckless abandon.

The wind from the charge violently whipped up the gray-black dust on the ground, its momentum astonishing and shocking.

Vane’s pupils suddenly contracted.

No thought, no memory, only the combat instinct etched into his bones through lava flows, deeply buried veins, and thousands of strikes with the forging hammer, ignited like a dormant volcano.

Almost reflexively, he sank his waist and steadied himself, gripping his forged longsword tightly, raising it diagonally in the most basic yet solid blocking stance.

"Clang—!!!"

The piercing and deafening clash of metal suddenly exploded!

The Night Watcher warrior’s mighty vertical strike slammed fiercely into the center of Vane’s sword.

The immense force surged through the blade like a tide, making Vane’s arms numb, his tiger mouth cracked, warm blood seeping out.

The charred earth underfoot was forced several inches deeper by the tremendous force.

Missing his strike, the warrior swiftly used the recoil to spin, the battle sword cutting through the air, forming a dark and deadly arch, sweeping in a treacherous waist-high slash.

Speed as fast as lightning, angle extremely cunning.

Vane had no time to think, his body acting faster than his mind.

He quickly retreated, while shifting the longsword from a diagonal block to a downward press, barely catching the sweeping fierce blade with the spine of his sword.

"Clang—!"

Sparks shot out like sudden rain.

The heavy impact compelled Vane to retreat again, his vital energy surging intensely.

The opponent’s swordsmanship was simple, efficient, lethal, with no embellishments, each move carrying the battlefield-forged ruthless precision.

Vane could only grit his teeth, relying on a resilient will from his bones and the robust physique honed during forging to endure stubbornly.

He felt like a hot iron bloom cast into an icy torrent, enduring the harsh refinements of repeated intense clashes.

The Night Watcher warrior seemed like an tireless killing machine, his attacks endless like a storm.

Chop, hack, thrust, sweep... the cold sword light wove an impenetrable web of death around Vane.

Vane struggled left and right, his thin linen clothes slit long by the sharp sword qi, adding a few shallow bleeding marks to his skin.

He was completely passive in defense, every block accompanied by piercing pain in his arms and the dull hum of metal clashing.

Yet in the storm-like attack, his originally vacant and confused eyes were wiped bright by the fierce sword light, gathering a sharper, hawk-like glow.

He was observing calmly.

Observing the opponent’s stable and rhythmic steps, the instant explosive force, the seamless flow of sword maneuvers, observing how the scarred battle sword transformed decay into lethal miracles in the opponent’s hands.

The furious lava flows, the deep resilience of minerals, and the heavy strikes of the forging hammer seemed to awaken completely in his bloodline, perfectly merging into a new, more "solid," nearly instinctive combat intuition.