Blacksmith: The Tempering Begins With One’s Flesh - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Iron Hammer

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Seven days later, in Whitewing’s neighboring city, Whitestar…

Lin Feng rested for an entire week before his injuries slowly began to heal.

The negative effects of his partial strengthening from before were now clear for all to see. Lin Feng knew that if he continued like this, he would likely wind up grievously injured every time he tried to fight.

Right now, Lin Feng was walking down the streets of Whitestar with Captain Acht.

Captain Acht had sustained significant injuries of his own during the battle of Whitewing, but as the vice captain of the defense corp, he did not have much downtime to begin with. As a result, his recuperation time ended up becoming something of a rare holiday for him.

“Master Lin Feng, Captain Holland and I have talked it over with the lord of Whitestar. Look at that over there!”

Acht pointed at a house nearby with a tall chimney, grinning from ear to ear.

Lin Feng had been working the forge for most of his life, so he smiled and raised a brow as soon as he saw the design of the house.

“Thank Captain Holland and the lord for me…”

Acht waved Lin Feng off.

“Master Lin Feng, you’re truly a master smith. Since an expert like you had personally asked us, how could we possibly leave you hanging out here in Whitestar, high and dry?

“Look, the workers built this smithy so that it has the same layout as your old place in Whitewing. There might be some slight differences in the details, but we replicated most of the decor.

“Captain Holland said that you’ve lived in Whitewing most of your life, so you must be devastated to have to move like this. This new smithy is the only thing we can do to help you.”

Lin Feng sighed at the thought of Whitewing, now overrun by beasts. As he walked toward the brand new smithy, he asked,

“What’s the situation in Whitewing like now? When I was resting in the infirmary, I think I overheard some soldiers say you guys might be thinking of a counterattack. Is that true?”

Even someone as bright and brash as Acht had to frown slightly at that question.

“The situation isn’t looking good…

“To tell you the truth, some of the citizens had not escaped through the sewers and into Whitestar that day when we evacuated Whitewing.

“After the beasts took over Whitewing, almost all of the people left behind found themselves in a lot of trouble. Captain Holland has been reorganizing our ranks lately, but with only the defense corp members we borrowed from Whitestar…

“I’m afraid the chances of this counterattack failing are high.”

Lin Feng knew that. Over the years, almost all the battles between man and beast ended up this way.

Wherever the demonic beasts ran wild, almost no human family could withstand their assault. The enormous Whitewing City had been overrun in an instant, and it would only be even more difficult, if not outright impossible, to reclaim the city from the beasts.

“Don’t worry about me, Acht. I’ll just go into the smithy now and look around. You were saying you wanted to go see the defense corp soldiers, right? Go on.”

Once they reached the door of the new smithy, built with brand-new bricks of white stone, Lin Feng waved Acht off.

As soon as he walked into his new smithy, the first thing he noticed once he opened the door was the smell of asphalt and cement.

It seemed that the defense corp and the workers of Whitestar had really put a lot of thought into this.

Lin Feng reached out his hand to touch the unlit forge and then nodded.

However, when he picked up the forging hammer placed by the forge out of habit, his expression turned to one of confusion. 

The hammer the defense corp had given him…

It seemed a tad too light.

Lin Feng spun the hammer around on his hand and shook his head.

“I’d been using my previous hammer for more than fifty years. Even if it was made of merely mortal iron, after so many years of forging with it, my hands had slowly developed a connection with it.

“If I use a new hammer to forge weapons now, I don’t think I’ll be able to use the full extent of my skill.

“Since the defense corp and regional guard are planning to take back Whitewing, I can’t be the one holding them back now…”

With that in mind, Lin Feng looked up at the sky.

It was high noon.

Lin Feng knew the layout of Whitestar well enough. That afternoon, he heated up his forge and then used molten iron to reinforce his bones.

By night time, Lin Feng took his new hammer and slipped out of Whitestar while no one else was around.

He was going to get his trusty hammer of more than fifty years back from Whitewing. If he wanted to keep his forging memories at their utmost peak, he had to have that hammer.

Whitewing was only about twenty-odd kilometers away from Whitestar.

Right now, Lin Feng was like a legendary weapon in its best condition, its blade gleaming. His feet flew across the plains, and two hours later, he was back at the sewer he had used to evacuate a week ago.

Lin Feng followed the sewer into the heart of Whitewing and had barely left the foul-smelling sewers when he smelled the odor of charred flesh instead.

What he saw was the hellscape that the once-peaceful Whitewing had become.

Under the dim moonlight, Lin Feng could even see the scattered beasts hiding in the shadows, chewing on the severed limbs of human soldiers.

The blood all over the ground had dried out. Lin Feng looked at the streets, so familiar yet so strange to his eyes, and his hands unknowingly clenched into tight fists.

At the end of the narrow alley was Lin Feng’s old smithy. He crept past the demonic beast stragglers in the city and snuck into his old home.

To his relief, the smithy looked relatively untouched. The demonic beasts seemed uninterested in his shabby old house.

The hammer that Lin Feng had been looking for was lying on top of the forge.

Lin Feng picked it up, and his heart was filled with a sense of peace and fulfillment. It was as though the hammer had well and truly become his companion at heart.

“Let’s go, old partner!”

Lin Feng murmured to himself before sneaking out of the room, hammer in hand.

He knew Whitewing like the back of his hand, so he could easily find hiding spots in the alleyways as the beasts wandered everywhere. Although his path was littered with beasts, he managed to get past them unscathed.

When he saw the entrance to the sewers right in front of him, Lin Feng finally heaved a sigh of relief.

The moment he was about to step into the sewers, though, a soft, barely audible voice reached his ears from the side.

Someone was crying!

A child!

Lin Feng’s heart stopped in his chest, and he looked in the direction of the voice.

What he saw made his blood run cold.

There was a boy, barely over ten years old, hiding and sobbing amidst a pile of broken wooden boxes.

The boy was all skin and bones, his face pale and devoid of blood.

Right in front of him, three beasts were patrolling the streets.