The slag pit lay quiet behind Li Tianyin — a cradle of cold ash and half-buried rust where the forge shades once hissed.
Above him, the Wilting Dao Sect's broken terraces shimmered with faint rune veins, flickering like dying embers beneath the moon's pale glare.
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Inside Tianyin's cracked ribs, the ember-hammer seed pulsed steady now — a tight coal of spirit slag, wolf echo, forge ghost flame, and marrow fissure bound by the first rune brand.
Each heartbeat struck it softly — not yet a hammer's blow, but a promise that the flaw would never sleep.
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The pact whispered: Feed deeper.
The forge ghost hissed through bone veins: Slag veins hide below. Iron beasts sleep where flame never dies.
The wolf's echo snapped at the marrow edge: Hunt.
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Tianyin crawled from the pit's shallow belly — tiny fingers scraping cold stone, nails split from pulling iron grit free.
He found the old slag chute behind a collapsed rack — an iron tunnel that once ferried waste ore from the forge halls above to the pit below.
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Now, it was choked with rust dust and vine roots — but to the pact, it smelled sweet with buried iron.
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He pressed a palm to the chute's cracked rim — iron veins hummed faint under moss and rot.
A hush, then a flicker: old forge wards broken by the Silent Bell's roar — no runes left to keep out Heaven's flaw.
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He squeezed into the chute's throat — ribs cracking again as stone scraped thin shoulders.
The ember flame hissed bright behind his ribs — rune brand glowing just enough to light the rust flakes drifting around him.
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On Earth, he'd crawled through scrap yard drain pipes looking for copper coils to melt.
Rats nipped his ankles — the stink of oil and rust thick in his throat.
Here, the scent was colder — slag breath, dead ore, faint echoes of spirit beasts that never made it to the forge fires above.
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The chute spat him into a buried chamber — a slag cavern half-eaten by root veins.
Puddles of rust water glowed faint orange where old spirit iron bled into the pool.
Beneath the surface, shadows flickered — iron beasts unborn, shades of ore too flawed to live above.
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The forge ghost flared: Prey.
The wolf's echo bristled in the marrow's throat — phantom fangs bared in the ember's hush.
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Tianyin's feet slipped in the rust water — cold seeped into cracked toes.
Tiny breath fogged in the cavern's hush — ember steam coiling from his ribs.
The pact pulsed: Strike. Hunt. Feed.
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Ripples broke the pool's still skin — shadows slithered, low iron growls echoing through root tangles overhead.
A shape rose — a slag beast, half-wolf, half-snake, forged of residue ore that never tasted a hammer's edge.
Its eyes glowed dull red — twin cinders trapped in a slag skull.
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It hissed — a hollow note, not quite roar, not quite whimper.
The marrow flame hissed back.
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Tiny feet braced on slick stone — ribs cracked wider as the hammer seed flared.
His palm closed over a loose shard of raw ore — torn from the pool's edge, edges jagged enough to slice skin clean.
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The slag beast lunged — fangs like rusted blades snapping for his throat.
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He met it.
A child's raw breath became ember.
Ribs cracked.
Marrow flame roared.
He drove the ore shard into the beast's snout — slag hissed where flaw flame met shade iron.
The wolf's echo snapped at the beast's echo — dragging it into the marrow fissure like meat to a forge.
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A squeal. A hiss. A snap.
The beast's skull split — spirit slag dripping into the rust pool, feeding the ember-hammer seed through cracked palms and marrow veins.
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Pain bit deep — but the flaw devoured it, forging the echo's impurity into fresh fuel.
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The ripples settled — but more shadows stirred below.
A brood of slag beasts, each clawing up from the rust pool's hidden veins.
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Tianyin stood on raw feet, cracked ribs wide enough to swallow every hiss and growl the pit's belly could throw at him.
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No sect elder shielded him.
No iron blade waited in his palm — only flaw, only flame, only bone.
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He bared tiny teeth.
A child's voice hissed through ember breath:
> "Flaw devours limit."
The wolf's echo howled.
The forge ghost flared.
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Shadows lunged.
The marrow flame struck.
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End of Chapter 17
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