Merin stands at the fifth layer of Furness Hell—
where five-element flames burn white and shriek like molten beasts,
where everything born of the five elements surrenders to heat.
Here, the temperature is finally worthy.
He breathes once.
And the fire bows.
His Dao—now blooming—spreads faint ripples around him, bending the laws of flame into silence. He takes out the rare materials gathered across worlds: metals that hum with ancient memory, crystals distilled from frozen void, fragments of fallen star cores still pulsing with celestial breath.
One by one, he casts them into the sea of fire.
They do not melt immediately.
They resist—vibrating with their own laws, clinging to identity, refusing dissolution.
Merin raises a hand.
"Melt."
The flames compress at his command, twisting into a spiral hotter than lightning.
The materials scream as their forms unravel, turning molten, turning fluid, turning willing.
Merin extends his other hand, and his Dao takes form behind him—
The Single Heavenly Eye of the Virtual Engine, turning slowly, each rotation dissecting the world.
He draws the molten mass upward, shaping it with will alone.
The forging begins.
He compresses threads of liquid metal, twisting them into a lattice—
a skeletal frame built with impossible precision.
Runes of computation, correction, and clarification etch themselves across the forming structure.
Every stroke exact, every angle perfect—
a forge of mathematics rather than hammer and flame.
The Heavenly Eye shines, projecting arrays of logic into the metal.
The molten mass vibrates, reshaping to match the computation.
Merin whispers:
"Synchronise."
His Dao releases the Harmony Protocol, a theoretical law unique to the flowering stage of his Virtual Engine Dao.
Contradictory laws twist together, spiral once, and fuse.
A stable dual-core ignites at the centre of the forming weapon, pulsing like twin hearts.
Merin draws a circle in the air.
The embryo of the virtual engine shifts as he inscribes the rune he comprehended from the Transformation Dao.
Each rune carved makes the metal alive, and he senses every particle responding.
The molten frame parts on their own, revealing the Heavenly Eye in its heart.
He begins inscribing runes that let the weapon see the underlying laws of the world and send everything to the inner engine for analysis.
Runic channels grow like arteries, connecting every component to the eye.
The weapon now sees.
It perceives heat, space, force, and flaw.
It begins predicting.
It begins learning.
It is no longer a tool.
It is the beginning of a thinking weapon.
Merin lifts both hands, palms downward.
The fire rises with a roar.
He guides streams of flame to lick along the forming engine, burning away impurities too small for mortal sight.
Each flame-thread carries micro-runes:
Devour, Transform, Rebuild, Simplify.
Every impurity removed strengthens the foundation.
Every correction aligns the Dao Weapon more perfectly with his path.
Seven times he refines it.
Seven times the material shrinks, condenses, evolves.
When the core stabilises, Merin draws out meteoric alloy to form the external body—
a shape elegant and minimal:
a sphere the size of a man's heart,
smooth,
mirror-black,
etched with silver circuits of light.
This is only its resting form—
The Virtual Engine Dao Weapon can shift shape when awakened.
Hammerless, he moulds the alloy with will.
Heat bends to him.
Metal flows like water.
The sphere closes around the core, sealing perfectly.
The only step impossible to fake.
He bites his thumb.
A drop of Great Saint Blood—golden-red, laden with laws he has mastered—
falls into the weapon.
The Virtual Engine shudders.
The Heavenly Eye opens inside the shell.
A soft, resonant hum trembles through the fifth layer of Furness Hell—
The birth-cry of a quasi-supreme weapon whose master has not yet reached that height.
A newborn spirit flickers weakly, sensing its maker.
Merin lifts the sphere in both hands.
"Awaken."
Light spills through the runes.
The Heavenly Eye rotates once—
and the flames around him freeze mid-motion.
Time slows across the entire fifth layer.
A ripple spreads.
Merin rises as the flames lick his feet, and he draws back his Dao.
He examines the engine, gaze settling on its heart.
It hums with vitality as if breathing.
He has heard of Supreme Weapons that, after their master's death, broke their metal shells and formed living bodies.
So every Dao Weapon carries the potential of life.
He sends the newborn engine into his dantian to nourish it with Saint Essence.
For now, it is only a prototype—barely at the level of a Great-Saint Weapon.
Closing his eyes, he perceives its abilities.
Far away, two Saint King cultivators arrive, drawn by the ripple.
They spot Merin standing still, eyes closed.
One says, "It isn't the birth of a treasure. Someone refined a Dao Weapon. Let's leave."
The other—a boar-faced Tusk clansman with curved tusks—sneers, eyes shining with greed.
"Leave? Why should we go empty-handed? A fat sheep stands right there."
The first grows thoughtful, the tips of his tusks burning with fire.
"A human, Great Saint realm. Easy prey. I'll attack. You seal the surroundings."
The other nods.
Neither believes a human of Merin's level can threaten them.
Merin sensed them long before they arrived.
With his strength, he cares little.
And when hostility rises in their hearts, he recognises a perfect chance to test the Dao Weapon.
He waits.
One Tusk clansman steps forward.
The other blocks the surrounding space, locking all escape paths.
The attacker punches, sending a shockwave of energy howling toward Merin.
The Dao Weapon activates—
Analysing the attack in a fraction of a second.
Merin throws a counterpunch.
His energy collides with the weakest point of the shockwave, shattering it into flame and ash.
The Tusk clansman sneers, unimpressed.
"Oh? A genius?"
A sinister crimson spear studded with thorns appears in his hand.
"I love killing geniuses."
He thrusts forward.
The Virtual Engine instantly feeds Merin the weakest point in the spear strike.
Merin deflects it with effortless precision.
The Tusk warrior snarls and continues the assault.
Strike after strike falls.
With the Dao Weapon guiding him, Merin deflects each blow, maintaining just enough force to suppress but not overwhelm—pushing the engine to analyse more, adapt more, learn more.
Hours pass.
The second Tusk clansman frowns, holding the spatial blockade steady.
Something feels wrong—deeply wrong—yet he cannot grasp what.
Frustration twists his boar-like features, and he finally decides to join the attack.
Merin feels him closing in.
The moment the first Tusk clansman's punch is deflected again with effortless precision, the second steps in, his Dao Weapon—a wide moon-blade—cleaving down with brutal force.
Merin tilts his wrist.
The blade misses its intended path, redirected with a smooth parry that feels almost casual.
Both attackers freeze for half a heartbeat, instinct whispering that something is off.
Merin says nothing.
He simply continues.
The battle resumes.
The first thrusts with his thorned spear.
The second swings his moon-blade in sweeping arcs.
Golden flames and spatial ripples explode around them as their strikes weave together in a deadly pattern designed to overwhelm any Great Saint.
Merin deflects every blow.
Not by brute force, but by precision—touching the exact weakness revealed by the Virtual Engine with every movement.
His feet barely shift, his expression calm, his heartbeat unchanging.
Minutes pass. Then tens of minutes.
Still, he deflects.
Still, they fail to notice.
Merin sighs internally.
How long will they take to understand?
He begins to feel bored.
His Dao Weapon has already analysed their patterns, their Dao resonance, their intent.
There is nothing new to learn.
Another barrage comes.
Another effortless deflection follows.
Finally—after nearly an hour of futile attacks—the second Tusk clansman stiffens.
His eyes widen as the truth crashes down on him.
"This— this is wrong! Dorak, escape!"
He turns to flee.
The first, Dorak, confused but loyal, spins and flees as well.
Merin exhales softly.
"It is too late."
He raises two fingers.
"Chess Field—open."
The world folds.
The Tusk clansmen freeze mid-stride, immobilised.
Black-and-white tiles spread beneath their feet, stretching into infinity.
They stand on a cosmic chessboard, unable to move, unable to breathe freely, their Dao sealed the moment the field formed.
Merin does not need words.
He has already analysed their Dao paths.
He simply reaches out, taps the air—
—and both beings unravel into motes of light.
Their Dao Weapons drop from the collapsing fragments of their existence.
Merin retrieves them with a gesture.
The flames of Furness Hell rise at his command, melting the two weapons into raw essence.
He refines the essence and feeds it into the Virtual Engine, strengthening its channels, feeding its heart, and sharpening the Heavenly Eye.
Only once the integration completes does he move.
He steps toward the tunnel leading to the sixth floor of Furness Hell.
His Dao Weapon hums softly in his dantian—
alive, evolving, waiting for the next test.