Lin Fan's thoughts stirred.
The pitch-black, enormous scythe Calamity appeared alongside the pair of silver-white Sky-Splitting Wings, Sky Splitter.
The next instant, both weapons burst into light.
Centered on Calamity, a black-purple field spread out, covering an area roughly ten meters in radius.
Sky Splitter released a silver-white field of about the same size.
The black-purple and silver-white fields overlapped, enveloping the alloy ingots piled up in front of Lin Fan.
Under the fields' influence, the piled ingots began to tremble violently.
"Would you look at that? So this is what it means for the absorption range to increase."
Lin Fan gazed at the fields around him, his eyes full of amazement.
Sizzle...
Accompanied by a series of faint cracking sounds, the incredibly hard alloys began to liquefy and disintegrate at a visible rate.
Then they turned into thin streams of silver, winding their way up into the air.
Like rivers flowing into the sea, the streams of molten metal surged into Calamity's pitch-black blade and the silver-white feathers of Sky Splitter.
As the streams poured in, both weapons began to devour them faster and faster.
The little mountain of metal worth nine billion was shrinking and disappearing at an astonishing rate.
Lin Fan watched in silence, without the slightest pang of regret.
Money?
Money that became strength was a resource.
If it couldn't be converted, it was nothing but wastepaper.
Time passed, minute by minute. Twenty minutes later...
The last stream of molten metal was completely absorbed by Sky Splitter. The floor of the Martial Arts Hall was now bare, save for some worthless gray-white powder and scraps.
Just then...
The system's notification sounded in Lin Fan's mind.
[ Ding! Calamity's growth progress has reached 100%. ]
[ Conditions met. Beginning rank advancement. ]
Boom!
An invisible shockwave erupted from Calamity without warning and spread wildly in every direction.
Dust rose from the ground, instantly swirling into a small vortex.
Then an unprecedentedly terrifying aura burst from Calamity's blade, enveloping the entire Martial Arts Hall.
Beneath its pressure, Lin Fan's breath caught. It felt as though a boulder had been pressed against his chest.
It was as if gravity around him had suddenly increased tenfold. His entire body felt heavy, and horribly uncomfortable.
Next, the surface of Calamity's blade, once pitch-black and matte, its appearance utterly ordinary, began to change.
The dark-purple patterns that had flowed across the blade lit up all at once.
In an instant, deep purple light burst from Calamity's blade.
The light wasn't dazzling, but it carried a sense of unrestrained violence.
Lin Fan narrowed his eyes at the purple light flaring from Calamity's blade.
"Is that... lightning?"
In the glow, the black of Calamity's blade seemed even darker.
The light along its edge appeared to twist. Even Lin Fan's vision shifted slightly out of alignment.
He no longer felt as if he were looking at a scythe, but at a "shadow" so oppressive that it made space itself buckle.
As Calamity's purple light grew brighter, Lin Fan could even hear the faint rumble of thunder.
Whoosh!
Just as the purple light reached its peak, the system notification sounded.
[ Ding! Weapon "Calamity" has completed its advancement. ]
As the notification ended, the terrifying aura Calamity released instantly receded, and its dazzling purple light vanished completely.
The blade's lines were cleaner, as if it had been reforged. All its sharpness was concealed within.
It hovered there in silence, every trace of light drawn inward.
"It feels... a lot more badass now."
Lin Fan had just been about to summon Calamity when the system's notification sounded again.
[ Ding! Sky Splitter's growth progress has reached 100%. ]
[ Energy accumulation complete. ]
[ Conditions met. Beginning rank advancement. ]
Clang!
A clear, rousing metallic note pierced the air.
The sound was sharp and high-pitched, carrying a cutting edge that made Lin Fan's eardrums ache.
Then Sky Splitter's silver-white wings spread wide before Lin Fan, every feather trembling in unison.
Boom.
An equally terrifying aura burst from Sky Splitter.
But it gave Lin Fan a completely different feeling.
If Calamity was absolute oppression, a massive force capable of breaking through any technique, then Sky Splitter was the ultimate in sharpness and unreality.
Buzz...
The light in the basement suddenly warped strangely.
The bright overhead lights seemed to be caught by some invisible force field, all streaming toward the wings.
The light no longer traveled in straight lines. Instead, it refracted, every beam seeming to circle Sky Splitter.
The scene before Lin Fan's eyes turned bizarre and dreamlike. The silver-white edges of the wings grew blurry, as if they no longer existed in this space.
No, more precisely, it was as if they no longer existed in the same time as him.
Lin Fan frowned at Sky Splitter, and an intensely uncomfortable sense of dislocation welled up inside him.
He could clearly see the wings on his left, but his Spiritual Force told him they were on his right.
"Would you look at that... Is this light and... time?"
Before Lin Fan could examine it more closely, an even more astonishing change took place.
The 216 feathers hovering in the air suddenly seemed to turn into flowing, liquid light.
Crack, crack, crack...
A rapid series of sounds rang out.
At the base of some feathers, the light flared. New branches forcibly grew from them!
One became two, light and shadow crossing.
A full 108 new feathers materialized out of thin air amid the light!
They were thinner and more transparent, their bodies like nearly immaterial, translucent crystals.
The total number of feathers hovering in the air had now reached a staggering 324!
All 324 feathers spun rapidly around Lin Fan, then drew together and reformed into silver-white wings, hovering before him.
"Now that's a good one."
Lin Fan gazed at the silver-white wings before him, his fondness for them plain to see.
Blue data streams refreshed slowly across his retinas.
[ Ding! Weapon "Sky Splitter" has completed its advancement. ]
As the system notification ended, the wondrous aura Sky Splitter released instantly receded, and the dreamlike gleam flowing across its feathers vanished completely.
In its place was a stillness that had returned to the simple and unadorned.
The 324 feathers fitted together seamlessly, reforming into a seemingly ordinary pair of silver-gray metal wings. They settled quietly against Lin Fan's back.
"Tsk, this reminds me of a saying..."
Lin Fan held Calamity in his left hand and stroked the right wing of Sky Splitter with his right, the corner of his mouth curling in amusement.
"The greatest sounds are inaudible, and the greatest forms are formless."
This "sleeper" quality—harmless as could be most of the time, but able to take someone's life in an instant when it struck—was absolutely perfect for him.
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