Robert realized their power wasn’t enough, so he began forging even stronger weapons.
Another decade passed. With the weapons he forged, humanity successfully repelled wave after wave of beast tides. They even ford Hunter squads to charge into the mountains and clear them out.
After five years of this purge, the dangerous monsters were eliminated one by one, leaving only unevolved animals. The crisis that had hung over everyone’s heads was finally over.
By this point, Robert had grown to be ten ters tall. His hair had turned fiery red, and the sweat that dripped from him was molten lava. His very breath could stir up a scorching wind, and his body temperature was so high that grass and trees would spontaneously combust in his presence. He was no longer fit to live in the city.
There was a volcano in the mountains, so he settled there. To his surprise, he was completely unaffected by the magma’s intense heat; he could even bathe in it. To him, even the air tasted sweet.
It was like coming ho.
With nothing else to do, he returned to his smithing. In the days that followed, friends would occasionally visit, telling him about the city’s developnt and sharing the latest gossip. But as ti passed, the visitors grew scarce. It wasn’t until he went down the mountain to ask around that he realized fifty years had gone by since he’d moved there.
A hundred years had passed since the apocalypse. The original survivors were nearly all gone. The safe zone’s population had recovered to hundreds of thousands, and Transcendents who possessed Extraordinary Power began to vie for control, both openly and in secret, establishing so-called nations.
Robert had no interest in this. After refusing invitations from several of them, he returned to the volcano to continue his smithing.
He was Forging equipnt of a higher Status.
In truth, humanity had no enemies left in this isolated World. He didn’t know why he kept Forging. Perhaps it had beco a habit, as natural as eating or drinking. Or perhaps it was because...
He was filled with bitter resentnt.
Even after a century, the death of his beloved remained vivid in his mind. Tens of thousands of blows from his hamr couldn’t nd the wound in his heart; instead, they only made the mory sharper, the grief more profound.
Every ti he looked up at the sky, a powerful urge would well up inside him.
’I have to break free from this Prison!’
Through endless years of Forging, Robert’s power grew to a level even he found unimaginable. Having mastered the pinnacle of Forging Skills, he finally conceived a bold and insane idea.
Using his imnse Power, he gathered a piece of the Divine Fog and, using it as a base, began to forge.
With one strike of the hamr, the formless fog turned into tangible lightning.
Robert gazed at the manifested lightning, deep in thought. Fragnted mories flooded his mind. It seed that by coming into contact with the Mysterious Power, he had acquired knowledge.
He gathered more of the Divine Fog to forge, and soon the enormous cave was filled with all sorts of peculiar items: clocks, pocket watches, music boxes, pianos, teorites, manifested lightning, hearts, plants, fans, electric lamps, scissors...
Though they looked like a jumble of random junk, they were actually the physical manifestations of conceptual Powers, each possessing a wondrous Ability.
After a long period of study, Robert finally understood the nature of the Divine Fog—
—it was the collected residual Power of the Gods.
"Gods..."
Robert, who hadn’t spoken in many years, uttered the word. After that, his Forging grew even more frenzied.
Rage burned in his eyes.
By analyzing the Divine Fog, he knew everything!
·
In the volcanic cave, ti seed to accelerate. Ten years, twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years...
When Robert finally looked up from his work, wanting to step outside for a breath of fresh air, he found the world outside had changed completely. The forr safe zone was now a prosperous kingdom; everything was unrecognizable.
Ti accelerated once more.
War broke out in the prosperous kingdom, and its flas engulfed the land. The kingdom fell, only for a new civilization to quickly rise in its place, repeating the cycle of destruction and rebirth.
Gradually, Robert ca to understand a power he could infuse into his Forging: Creation and Destruction.
Afterward, a wave of exhaustion washed over him, and he fell into a deep sleep. When he next opened his eyes, he found the outside kingdom had beco a deathly silent ruin shrouded in Darkness, with countless Undead roaming the desolate land.
Robert captured a few of the Undead and forged their mories. He learned from them that many, many years ago, a madman preaching that the World was a Prison had perford a terrifying ritual, destroying the entire kingdom and killing everyone.
Now, not a single living person remained in this World.
Robert gathered all the Undead. Whenever he felt bored, he would talk to them, continuing to forge alone in the solitary World.
An unknown number of years passed just like that.
Then one day, as he was forging, Robert sensed sothing. The majestic face of the fire Giant he had beco filled with shock and disbelief.
’Soone has co in from the outside!’
Ecstatic, he rushed outside. There, he saw a man in a traveler’s hat struggling through the dense Divine Fog, looking weary from a long journey.
"Holy shit?!"
The man seed terrified upon seeing him and imdiately turned to run. Fortunately, Robert quickly assured him he ant no harm. The man finally stayed, and Robert told him his story.
"So that’s how it is..."
After a long silence, the man, who called himself Hers, sighed. "Your guess was correct. It was the Gods who destroyed the old World. The Power that escaped during the Divine War entangled and coalesced, forming isolated Restricted Areas. This Restricted Area’s designation is [014].
I’ve taken a look around. The flow of ti in this Restricted Area is different from the outside world. It’s only been a little over two hundred years since the old World was destroyed, but you’ve been living here for fifteen hundred years..."
"..."
Robert was silent for a long ti, then asked, "What is the outside world like now?"
"People have established a new era. Everything is orderly..."
Hers explained briefly, then said solemnly, "I am a Restricted Area traveler. My mission is to explore the Restricted Areas and find hope for humanity’s future. I now sincerely invite you to join us and help ensure humanity’s survival. I will find a way to get you out of this Restricted Area."
"Will you slay the Gods?" Robert simply asked.
"We will!"
Hers gave an affirmative answer. "Not the few Gods who exist now, but the greedy ones who caused the destruction of the old era. They have fallen into a deep slumber, but sooner or later, they will return.
Besides them, there is humanity’s greatest threat—the Abyss.
The so-called Abyssal Kings are beings comparable to Gods. And it’s said that at the bottom of the Abyss, there is sothing even more terrifying..."
"Then I’ll join you."
Robert nodded without hesitation. "But I’m not going anywhere. The flow of ti here is faster than outside, so I’ll stay here and help you forge Godslaying Weapons."
The dream shifted, its speed accelerating once more.
Hers was gone for a long ti. When he reappeared, he handed Robert a long, narrow box. When opened, a sharp light that seed capable of annihilating everything burst forth.
"What is this?" Robert asked, his heart pounding.
"The ’Authority of the Blade,’ representing struggle and resistance, slaughter and conquest. And it’s already made. It took a long ti to find it."
Hers said, "In that Restricted Area, a bygone civilization called it the ’Immortal Slaying Sword.’ It was the ultimate Weapon, forged with the collective wisdom of an entire civilization. They wanted to use it to break out of the Restricted Area, but instead, they triggered a rampage of Divine Power, and their entire civilization was wiped out."
Robert stroked the Sword Box and nodded solemnly. "I will use this Authority as the foundation to forge a true Godslaying Blade. But I’ll need other materials."
"I’ll help you find them."
·
The dream beca chaotic and unstable, as if it couldn’t withstand so terrifying, imnse power and was about to collapse.
In the blurry images, only the sound of smithing remained constant—firm and steady, filled with an iron-like will.
At the very end, with a monuntal ringing strike, like a Sun exploding, the entire dream was flooded with brilliant light.
Zhou Chen’s eyes snapped open.
The familiar ceiling of a hospital room ca into view. SLURPING and CRUNCHING sounds reached his ears.
He turned his head to see Hers slurping noodles from a bowl, and the King of Music eating a slice of lon while scrolling on his phone with his other hand.
"My new song broke ten million views. It’ll probably hit thirty million this week."
"Nice, nice..." Hers replied perfunctorily, then noticed the bewildered-looking Zhou Chen.
Their eyes t. The two Crowned Kings froze, and the air fell silent for several seconds.
"You’re awake. The sex change operation was a success. You’re a beautiful young lady now," Hers said with a grin.
Zhou Chen froze for two seconds, then subconsciously felt his crotch. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Did you forget? We said we were going to explain everything to you."
Hers said, "You’ve been asleep for three days. You should have finished digesting the remnants of Robert’s mories by now. So, let explain..."
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