Tang Hao Secretly Taught His Son, and a Deadly Hidden Weapon Was Born!

Late at night, in the western corner of Nuoding City, stood a secluded, ramshackle smithy.

The coals in the forge glowed red, casting the dim, damp workshop in a dark crimson light.

Coal smoke mingled with hot air, making it hard to breathe.

Clang!

The dull, erratic hammering sounded especially harsh in the still night.

Beside the bellows, Tang San wore only a thin shirt. Sweat and blood had soaked him through.

His left hand gripped a heavy forging hammer. With a frenzy that bordered on self-destruction, he brought it down on the red-hot iron billet again and again!

"Cough... cough, cough!"

The violent movement jarred his disordered meridians. Tang San shuddered and broke into a fit of coughing.

Blood flecked with dark-red impurities spilled from the corner of his mouth and struck the scorching iron. It hissed, then rose as a wisp of foul-smelling smoke.

The mixed medicinal properties of the ten-year Deadwood Vine were still eating away at his acupoints. Mysterious Heaven Skill struggled through his damaged meridians, and every swing of the hammer felt like countless small knives scraping his flesh.

But Tang San did not stop.

His eyes were blood-red, and an obsession and savagery he had never known surged in their depths!

The crushing humiliation he had suffered at the academy that day circled through his mind like a nightmare.

The withered, brittle scrap of grass. The teachers and students laughing without restraint. And Su Chen's calm, arrogant gaze, as though Tang San were no more than an ant beneath his feet!

My Martial Soul is ruined! My First Soul Ring is destroyed! But that doesn't mean I, Tang San, have admitted defeat!

On Douluo Continent, Soul Masters rely on Soul Rings and Martial Souls. But I've lived two lives, and I possess the Tang Sect Secret Arts! Once I forge a top-tier Hidden Weapon, I can slaughter everyone who trampled my dignity, even without a Soul Skill!

"Su Chen... Yu Xiaogang..." The fire of slaughter in Tang San's eyes seemed ready to burst forth.

A black-robed figure appeared soundlessly in the dark corner.

Tang Hao stood in the workshop's shadows. By the firelight, he watched his son drive himself to ruin before the forge, and it felt as though ten thousand arrows had pierced his heart.

He saw his son's fractured right arm hanging in a sling. He saw the crimson blood dripping onto the iron billet. His iron-hewn frame began to tremble.

This was his own flesh and blood!

His son should have been a prodigy admired by all. Instead, on the very day his Martial Soul awakened, he had been driven into this cramped, dark smithy to cough up blood and torment himself!

"Little San."

The low, hoarse voice rang through the workshop, laden with pain held tightly in check.

Tang San's heart jolted. The hammer nearly slipped from his hand.

He whipped around, alert, his left hand instinctively reaching for a Bone-Piercing Nail at his waist. He looked like a wolf cub with its fur raised.

When he recognized the tall figure stepping out of the shadows, the killing intent in his eyes faltered and gave way to stunned disbelief. "Dad... Dad? Why are you here?"

Tang Hao did not answer at once.

He walked to the forge one step at a time. Looking at Tang San's astonished face, he forced down the turmoil in his chest.

His rough, cracked hand rose slowly and came to rest on Tang San's thin shoulder.

"Does your arm... still hurt?" Tang Hao spoke softly, with a tenderness seldom seen in a man as tough as iron. But he could not hide the pain in his eyes.

Tang San froze.

During their six years in Holy Soul Village, his father had spent his days drinking and sleeping. When he was not working at the forge, he was silent. When had he ever looked at Tang San like this?

The hand on his shoulder was heavy, yet it carried the burning warmth of a bond of blood.

Tang San gritted his teeth and shook his head stubbornly. "Dad, it doesn't hurt."

Tang Hao saw the dense, unyielding hatred in his son's eyes and sighed deep in his heart.

He knew what Tang San had endured, but he could not lay everything bare.

As a father, the only thing he could do now was give his son a blade that would let him stand his ground in this cruel world.

"Forging isn't about brute force." Tang Hao turned and laid his rough hand on the heavy hammer, his gaze sharp. "When you swing with one hand, all the force comes from your arm. That drains your Internal Power and tears at your damaged meridians. You're courting death."

Tang San's gaze sharpened. He listened closely.

"Watch." Tang Hao gave a low shout. His muscles did not bulge, but his whole body suddenly settled like a mountain, his feet rooted to the ground!

"The human body has three hearts. The one in your chest pumps blood, while the muscles of your two calves are the other two cores that supply strength! Force rises from the ground, begins in the calves, and turns through the waist and hips. Like great rivers meeting the sea, it finally pours down the arm into the hammerhead!"

Tang Hao gave his wrist a slight flick. The hundred-pound hammer seemed light as a feather in his hand, yet as it fell, it carried a terrifying rhythm, almost like the pulse of heaven itself!

Clang—!

A clear, ringing impact, like a dragon's cry, echoed through the workshop!

Half the impurities in the red-hot iron flew free under that single blow, and the billet sank deep beneath the hammer. Yet not a speck of dust rose around Tang Hao's feet!

Borrow force to wield force! Make the body the axis!

This was the core method of exerting force behind the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer, the secret technique on which the Clear Sky Sect had built its standing in the world!

Tang Hao did not teach Tang San the full eighty-one strikes of the Chaotic Cloak. But he etched the method of driving force from the calves and turning an opponent's force against them into his son's mind!

"Drive from the calves... use the waist as the axis..." Tang San had lived two lives and possessed astonishing insight into martial techniques and forging. A dazzling light burst into his eyes!

Even the finest force-borrowing techniques in the Tang Sect's forging manuals went no further than this!

With this method, even if he had only his left hand, even if his Internal Power was damaged and nearly exhausted, he could forge mechanical Hidden Weapons several times faster without draining his vitality!

By the time Tang San came back to himself and tried to ask another question, no one stood beside the forge.

Only two things sat quietly on the wooden table beside the anvil: a heavy cloth bag filled with gleaming Gold Soul Coins, and a white jade medicine bottle that gave off the soothing fragrance of a top-grade Bone-Setting and Meridian-Mending remedy.

Outside the workshop, the night wind blew through the gloom.

Tang Hao's lonely, weathered figure had already disappeared into the vast darkness.

He could not stay. He needed to find somewhere to suppress his grave injuries, and Spirit Hall's watchers might follow his trail at any moment.

Tang San gripped the hammer tightly. As he looked at the coins and medicine bottle, his eyes reddened slightly. But the next moment, that flicker of warmth was swallowed by a deep, violent hatred.

"Borrow force to wield force... drive from the calves..." Tang San murmured. He circulated Mysterious Heaven Skill as instructed, stamped his left foot, and felt his calf muscle tighten!

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Rapid hammer blows rang through the workshop once more!

This time, the hammer fell several times faster. With every blow, the iron billet took shape before his eyes, sparks bursting like a downpour!

Three hours later, in the darkest moment before dawn.

With a crisp snap, Tang San fastened a Sleeve Arrow forged entirely from refined iron beneath the bracer on his left arm. It had been treated with medicinal herbs bearing traces of dark-green Mandala Snake venom.

Three short, bone-piercing steel arrows gleamed with a cold, dark-green venomous light, primed to fire from their narrow channel. In their tips, Tang San could faintly see the reflection of his twisted, vicious face.

"Su Chen... you stole my opportunity and destroyed my First Soul Ring..."

Tang San stared at the pale light growing beyond the window. His mouth spread into a smile like an evil spirit's. "So what if you have two purple Thousand-Year Soul Rings? So what if your dragon Martial Soul is powerful? Before the Tang Sect's soundless Hidden Weapon, which kills the moment it draws blood, you're nothing but a corpse waiting to rot!"

"Your life is mine to take!"