The Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith - Chapter 55

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 55: The Master Blacksmith’s Return
“Yong-ryong-i. Move.”
“Roar!”
The moment Shin Tae-ho’s feet touched the ground, Yong-ryong-i stopped drawing in the poison and took flight after him at his call.
Shin Tae-ho positioned himself against a pile of dead trees, cutting off any approach from behind.
He’d claimed high ground and a defensible position before the monsters could swarm in from all sides.
‘There are more of them. More than in the World Tree.’
The battle at the World Tree had numbered well over a thousand.
But the enemies before him now seemed several times more numerous.
No—thinking in terms of multiples had become meaningless. The difference was incomprehensible.
‘I was careless. I should have gathered more potions beforehand with Epiel at Sinterhone Hall.’
Shin Tae-ho ground his teeth while glancing at his Inventory.
Was it because he hadn’t fought when crossing into the World Tree?
He’d usually prepared potions in advance, but that time he’d neglected to stock them.
Of course, regret now did nothing to help.
“Yong-ryong-i. Drink this.”
Shin Tae-ho pulled out two each of Intermediate Agility Potion, Intermediate Strength Potion, and Intermediate Vitality Potion from his Inventory.
He drank one of each himself first, then fed the others to Yong-ryong-i.
“Get to high ground and scout their attack patterns. Remember this, Yong-ryong-i—don’t overextend.”
“Roar-roar!”
Yong-ryong-i answered with reassurance and soared skyward.
As he rose, he began drawing in the surrounding poison again—it clearly agreed with him.
Shin Tae-ho watched intently.
‘So the Poison Root can absorb poison. Then the absorbed toxin must store like a core?’
New information sparked his interest.
But that investigation could wait.
Watching the enemies surge forward like a tide, Shin Tae-ho drew a long breath and prepared for battle.
[Enemy count exceeds 500.]
[You may activate War Smith’s trait: Blessing of the Battlefield.]
[Blessing of the Battlefield activates.]
As the Blessing spread, Shin Tae-ho’s and Yong-ryong-i’s health and Qi Circuit surged.
The enemies charging at him flinched visibly as their defense and Qi resistance plummeted.
Eyes sharpened by potion, Shin Tae-ho scanned the horde and frowned.
‘They’ve changed so much.’
Skin drained to a dull gray. Bodies swollen nearly twice their former size.
Veins webbed across their eyes like spider’s silk, jawlines jutting forward with protruding teeth.
The monsters here bore little resemblance to those he’d fought before.
And the change went deeper than appearance.
“Kegarak!”
Thud-thud-thud-thud!!
At the hobgoblin’s command, goblins loosed massive arrows.
Those arrows bore a skill Shin Tae-ho had extracted through Reverse Engineering—Qi Explosion.
Boom-crack-crash!
The detonation bloomed in midair and slammed into Shin Tae-ho.
From behind the smoke, an ogre charged forward, swinging a block-house-sized club with all its might.
Bang!!
The earth it struck erupted skyward in soil and stone.
The ogre, certain Shin Tae-ho was dead, snorted and turned its gaze toward Yong-ryong-i.
In that moment, a throwing hammer shot from the dust cloud and struck the ogre’s helm.
“Graaaugh!”
As the hammer collided with the helm, sparks showered and the ogre staggered.
The monsters recoiled in alarm, peering through the haze as two more throwing hammers shot forth in rapid succession.
Crash!
Bang!
“Keggeruck!”
“Kuwaagh!”
Monsters struck by the hammers etched with ice and wind runes froze solid and were swept away on howling gales.
Shin Tae-ho burst from the dust, driving the pick of a combat hammer through the ogre’s brow.
The helm caved inward, the skull shattering, and only then did the ogre collapse and die.
“I thought so. You’re not in your right minds anymore.”
As Shin Tae-ho’s gaze fell upon the enemy, the monster’s name crystallized in his mind.
Names that had until now been labeled Forest Goblin, Ogre, and the like.
But now those creatures bore an adjective before their names: “Modified and Berserk.”
‘What kind of modification was done, and how? And who in the world performed such a thing?’
Shin Tae-ho tightened his grip on the Combat Hammer.
Thousands of enemies—he and Yong-ryong-i would have to face them alone.
Any Challenger from another class would have despaired at the prospect of confronting thousands without allies.
But Shin Tae-ho had fought in such conditions too many times to fear them now.
[Activating unique ability: Storm.]
Vast quantities of Qi surged through Shin Tae-ho’s circuit and into the hammer.
As he channeled the Storm and hurled the Throwing Hammer, it spiraled outward in a helical rotation, carving a maelstrom through the air.
All the monsters save the Ogres were caught helpless in the vortex, lifted and flung skyward.
“Yong-ryong!”
“Ryooo-ng!”
Yong-ryong-i, who had been drawing in the poison that saturated the air around him and waiting for the signal, drew a deep, powerful breath.
The Qi he had consumed from the World Tree’s branch on the 68th Floor.
Combined with the toxic energy he had been freely ingesting, now melted into flame, it rode the vortex upward.
Whoooosh-crack!!
A titanic whirlwind of fire swelled with heat and intensity, drawing the surrounding monsters into its embrace.
“Screee-eech!”
“Kwaaa-agh!”
Goblins and Hobgoblins scattered as cinders in the wind.
No matter how much stronger their bodies had been modified, no matter how the frenzy purged them of fear—
Before a vortex of fire that consumed even the dead wood around it and swallowed their own companions, terror was inescapable.
Shin Tae-ho spun, having cast even a Throwing Hammer etched with fire runes to feed the vortex’s power.
Now only the massive Ogres that the vortex had failed to catch remained for him to face.
Shin Tae-ho, his Combat Hammer saturated with Qi, charged at an Ogre the size of a house.
“Kuuugh-ghaa!!”
The Ogre swung the iron club gripped in its hand.
A cudgel thick as an ancient tree, proportioned to the creature’s massive frame, arced through the air toward Shin Tae-ho.
Imposing though the blow was, it lacked the speed to catch him.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Shin Tae-ho struck rapidly with the hammer’s pick, targeting the gaps between helmet and armor.
His already swift movements were made faster still by the Intermediate Agility Potion coursing through him.
Half the Ogre’s neck was torn away in an instant; it collapsed, spraying blood.
Yet before the first fell, Shin Tae-ho was already upon the next, raining blows.
“Ke, ke-guh-ruk! Ka-ra-lack!”
One of the Hobgoblins serving as a lieutenant watched the battle’s turn and felt terror grip him.
A massive vortex consuming his kin, scattering them to ash.
Within that vortex, two hammers dancing on the wind as if alive, grinding his companions to pulp—and
Shin Tae-ho, astride an Ogre that had not yet been lifted skyward, methodically crushing its skull.
“Ke, ke-guh-ruk!”
The Hobgoblin’s will to fight crumbled; instinct urged him to flee the battlefield.
Then, sudden as lightning, a voice blazed through the creature’s mind.
[Destroy the barrier protecting the World Tree, even at the cost of your life.]
[That is your purpose. That is your meaning.]
[Should you disobey and survive, you and your line shall pay the price for generations.]
The Hobgoblin’s eyes snapped wide open.
The fear that had seized him moments ago numbed and drained away, until only one emotion remained.
The savage violence that had been carved deep into his kin during their modification.
“Ke-ga-ruk!”
The Hobgoblin that had been fleeing raised his weapon.
Now only one instinct drove him: he must fight, even unto death.
As the Hobgoblin prepared to hurl his spear at Shin Tae-ho,
A shadow suddenly fell across his vision.
“Ke-guh-ruk?!”
“Ryooo~.”
Yong-ryong-i offered a cheerful greeting to the startled Hobgoblin, then streaked past with blistering speed.
The Hobgoblin spun to follow, then froze in shock.
On his arm were light scratches where Yong-ryong-i’s claws had raked across.
The wound was rotting away with shocking speed, as if years had already passed in mere seconds.
“Crack-crack-crack!”
A sound of explosion erupted behind him, but Yong-ryong-i didn’t turn his head.
Instead, following Shin Tae-ho’s instructions, he continued to fly through the air while surveying the battlefield.
Shin Tae-ho had retrieved all the Accumulation Tokens from his dealings with the Management Bureau.
With that enormous quantity, Shin Tae-ho spared no energy in deploying the Typhoon.
Unlike what he’d used before, the Typhoon grew ever larger, ceaselessly devouring thousands upon thousands of enemies.
As the hammer’s position shifted slightly, even the monsters attempting to flee found no escape from death.
The sight of charred monster corpses raining down like ash.
Moving gracefully through their midst while surveying the surroundings, Yong-ryong-i suddenly flinched at the sensation of being watched.
“Dragon?!”
Yong-ryong-i turned his head toward where the gaze came from.
Standing alone at the edge of the surging monsters was a single figure.
Too distant for the form to be seen clearly, yet that presence was unmistakably staring directly at Yong-ryong-i.
“Yooooong…!”
As Yong-ryong-i’s scales bristled in revulsion at that unwelcome gaze.
The figure, which had been standing motionless, suddenly lurched toward Yong-ryong-i like an insect, its limbs convulsing in grotesque, erratic movements.
Startled, Yong-ryong-i scrambled higher into the air.
But the figure merely scratched at empty space, as if blocked by an invisible barrier.
Yong-ryong-i, filled with dread, raised his scales and opened his eyes wide.
The figure, which had been clawing endlessly at the void, finally ceased its movements as if resigned.
For a long moment, that figure’s gaze flickered between Yong-ryong-i and the invisible wall before its neck snapped ninety degrees to the side with a sharp twist.
Crack.
Too distant for sound to carry, yet Yong-ryong-i could have sworn he heard it.
Immediately after the figure’s neck twisted.
The eyes of all the monsters still alive in the vicinity rolled back in unison, and they began collapsing simultaneously.
As the monsters fell as if their strings had been cut, Shin Tae-ho, who had been firing bolts from his Crossbow, froze in shock.
“What?”
Shin Tae-ho scanned the surroundings and spotted Yong-ryong-i standing rigidly like stone, staring at one point.
Following that direction, Shin Tae-ho’s gaze found what Yong-ryong-i was looking at, and he flinched.
‘What in the world is that? My Energy Sensing picks up nothing from it?’
Confronted with an enemy of a form he’d never seen before, Shin Tae-ho felt both unease and danger simultaneously.
“Yong-ryong-i. Come down!”
At Shin Tae-ho’s call, Yong-ryong-i snapped to attention and rushed down.
Shin Tae-ho stroked Yong-ryong-i as the dragon wrapped around his neck, burying his face.
The figure, following Yong-ryong-i’s descent, still held its neck at a ninety-degree angle as it stared at Shin Tae-ho.
But Shin Tae-ho, with Yong-ryong-i coiled about his neck, showed no fear whatsoever, meeting that gaze head-on with eyes wide open and unflinching.
In the silent contest of wills, the mysterious figure was the first to yield.
It withdrew its long legs and slipped away, melting like liquid into the desolate surroundings until it vanished.
Still unable to know when it might reappear, Shin Tae-ho remained tense and vigilant.
Then a message window abruptly materialized before him.
[You have cleared the 69th Floor Trial.]
[Clear grade is unmeasurable.]
[By clearing the 69th Floor Trial, you have earned the qualifications to challenge the Tower’s highest floor.]
[The Forfeit Right cannot be used on the highest floor.]
[Should you fail to climb the highest floor, unlike the previous floors, the Tower will collapse immediately with no Gate spawning.]
[You have a grace period of 10 days before entering the highest floor.]
Continued in the next episode ▶
The Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith
Author
Bong Eun-haejae
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227067
This e-book is protected under copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and copying are prohibited. Violations may result in criminal and civil liability.
Pentagram awaits your precious manuscript.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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