Blackstone Fortress

The journey had taken nearly a full week.

At last, a vast stretch of military tents appeared ahead.

Blackstone Fortress.

The northern gate of the Orenda Kingdom.

And the grave of countless people.

The fortress had been built against the mountains, its towering walls made entirely of massive blocks of black obsidian. They were covered in the marks of blades and axes, as well as great swathes of dark red bloodstains—the scars left by centuries of wars.

They weren't even close yet, but the heavy stench of blood already hit them.

That wasn't the sort of smell you got from slaughtering a few chickens or ducks.

It was a malevolent aura born of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The group came to a halt.

An officer in regulation armor, mounted on a tall horse, rode over with a squad of cavalry.

The officer looked quite young, but his eyes were as cold as ice.

He swept his gaze over the ragged new recruits, his brows furrowing so deeply they could have crushed a fly.

"Is this it?"

The young officer turned to the bearded man escorting them. "These are the reinforcements you sent from Grey Gull Port? A bunch of beggars? Refugees? I asked for soldiers! Men who could wield a sword and cut down their enemies! Not a lot of useless trash that can barely stay on its feet!"

The bearded man hurriedly put on a fawning smile.

"Sir, you know how hard it is to find able-bodied men these days. These are the fittest ones in our area. Look at that one..."

The bearded man pointed at Su Li.

"That one's a blacksmith! A good one, too! And that one over there is a butcher! They're both strong!"

The young officer followed his finger and glanced at Su Li.

He paused, apparently not expecting to find such a "specimen" among this heap of garbage.

"A blacksmith?"

The young officer rode up to Su Li and looked down at him from atop his horse. "You know how to forge metal?"

Su Li lifted his head and met the rider's gaze.

"A little."

"Take him away." The young officer wheeled his horse around, not even bothering to say anything more.

Two fully armed soldiers strode forward and flanked Su Li.

Ignoring the bearded man, who was still smiling obsequiously beside him, the officer rode straight into the fortress.

Pete poked his head out of the crowd. He seemed about to call out, but swallowed his words.

The roads inside the fortress were uneven and full of potholes. Dark red clots of blood stained the flagstones.

Guards patrolled everywhere, while stretchers carried the wounded past. The heavy stench of blood stung their nostrils.

After turning two corners, they came upon a row of tall sheds. Several furnaces belched black smoke as they burned fiercely.

A wave of heat washed over them. More than a dozen bare-chested men swung massive hammers, pounding away at glowing-hot iron.

This was the fortress's Armory.

The officer dismounted, tossed his riding crop to an orderly, and pointed at an empty anvil.

"Get to work."

Su Li walked over to the anvil.

"We're short on blacksmiths in the army. It's valuable work." The officer walked over to the furnace, casually picked up a freshly forged, crude iron sword, and tossed it at Su Li's feet with a clang. "But we've no use for dead weight. Forge a sword that's good enough to use, and you'll live. You'll get meat with every meal from now on. Botch it, and the mass grave outside could use another body to fill a hole."

The rules were simple and brutal. Su Li rather liked that. It was much more straightforward than dealing with those noble lords and their schemes.

"The fire's not hot enough." Su Li kicked the bellows beside him.

An old blacksmith with a broad, fleshy face stood nearby. At that, he snorted.

He stepped forward, grabbed the bellows handle, and pumped it back and forth with a series of heavy breaths. Flames shot high from the furnace.

Su Li took the cloth bundle off his back and pulled out the little iron hammer he'd used for sixty years.

The hammerhead was small, and its wooden handle had been polished to a shine by sweat.

Among all the burly men wielding hammers that weighed dozens of pounds, Su Li looked every bit like a greenhorn who'd wandered onto a stage.

The old blacksmith curled his lip, waiting for a laugh.

Su Li picked out a piece of raw iron, gripped it with long-handled tongs, and placed it steadily in the heart of the furnace.

The temperature rose quickly.

The Sword Spirit Root began to circulate.

With each breath, the thin spiritual energy in the air flowed into Su Li's limbs and bones. As he gripped the little hammer, the familiar feeling of becoming one with it returned.

The iron glowed red-hot.

Su Li flicked his wrist, pulled it from the fire, and slapped it down on the anvil.

He raised the hammer.

And brought it down.

"Clang!"

The ring of the hammer was crisp and clear.

He used nothing but basic forging techniques, without a single unnecessary flourish.

With every strike, he forced more impurities out of the raw iron.

He had astonishing strength, yet his movements were light and nimble. The little hammer danced in his hands, its rhythm strangely in sync with his heartbeat.

Strike after strike. White smoke billowed up.

The old blacksmith, who'd been waiting for a laugh, slowly stopped smiling. A true expert could tell at a glance whether someone knew their craft.

In less than half an hour, the rough shape of a sword had taken form.

Su Li gripped the sword blank with his tongs and plunged the whole blade into a nearby trough.

"Hiss—"

A cloud of white steam rose.

He pulled out a fully formed longsword.

Its blade had a strange, bluish-gray sheen.

Su Li picked up a whetstone and ran it along the edge a few times.

"That'll do." Su Li turned the sword around and offered it to the officer.

The officer reached out and took it.

It was surprisingly heavy. He flicked a finger against the spine of the blade.

"Voooong!" A long, ringing hum echoed through the shed.

Nearby stood a wooden practice dummy for testing swords. It was wrapped in two layers of thick cowhide, with a core of solid hardwood inside.

The officer held the sword in one hand and brought it down in a diagonal slash against the dummy.

"Whoosh."

It cut through as smoothly as a knife through tofu.

The solid wooden dummy, wrapped in cowhide, split in two on the spot.

The upper half rolled to the ground. The cut was so smooth it could have reflected a person's image.

The officer's sword hand froze in midair.

He stared at the longsword in his hand, then at the split wood on the ground. The core of that dummy had a bar of solid iron embedded inside!