The Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith - Chapter 57

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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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Transcendent Blacksmith’s Return — Episode 57
“Fire—!”
At Kider’s command, the elf warriors released their bowstrings in unison.
More than a thousand elf archers loosed arrows simultaneously, and the sky seemed to become a wall of them.
Strengthened by potions of every conceivable kind and armed with advanced weapons, the elves swept away the monster horde in a single devastating volley.
“Reload with armor-piercing arrows!”
“We’re running low on arrows, sir!”
The adjutant’s voice cracked with urgency as he turned to Kider.
Kider’s face darkened, and he turned his gaze toward Eldein.
“Damn it! I told you to prepare more beforehand, didn’t I?!”
“We didn’t have the resources. Should we kill living trees just to make arrows?”
Eldein glowered at him, his tone dripping with exasperation.
Kider had no answer. He grimaced and looked away.
Their supplies dwindled toward exhaustion, yet the monster army ascending the World Tree’s roots seemed bottomless.
“Damn it all. How have these cursed things kept coming for ten years straight?”
At some point, the monsters had grown more sophisticated in their tactics and far more savage in appearance.
Their breeding rate had apparently surged as well—no matter how many fell, their numbers never diminished.
The one mercy was that the elves themselves had evolved in the long war: their combat methods had advanced, and the proportion of warriors among their kind had grown considerably.
And since the monsters’ forms had turned grotesque, the elves could no longer control the great centipedes and barghests and other beasts they once commanded.
Crack-boom!
“Qi Bombs! Take cover!”
A hobgoblin hurled a spear charged with Qi Explosion, and the elves reacted instantly.
Summoned wind spirits materialized before the elves and unleashed a sudden gale.
The spear, already rising skyward, veered off course at the sudden wind and fell instead toward the monsters.
Yet even as the elf warriors frowned at the overwhelming enemy numbers,
they suddenly felt a surge of strength coursing through them, their Qi pathways expanding in an instant.
“What—?”
“Could it be—has he come?”
Those elves who had experienced this phenomenon before felt their hearts leap.
A bright, rhythmic crashing sound echoed from below, confirming their hopes.
Crack! Clang! Boom!
“Screeeee!”
A corridor carved itself through the seething mass of goblins climbing the roots.
Three Throwing Hammers traced arcs through the air, striking the goblins with relentless precision,
while Shin Tae-ho himself beat down the larger hobgoblins and ogres with his Combat Hammer.
“The hero has arrived!”
“It’s true! It’s exactly as I saw it in the royal hall!”
A young elf warrior who had never seen Shin Tae-ho before gasped in wonder, overwhelmed.
Each time the hammer struck a monster, frost spread across its form,
followed by a burst of flame that rode the wind generated in its wake, growing fiercer.
And there was Shin Tae-ho himself, Combat Hammer in hand, methodically dismantling ogres and hobgoblins.
It was far more overwhelming, far more reassuring than anything they’d imagined from history lessons alone.
Eldein’s morale surged at Shin Tae-ho’s arrival, and he seized the moment.
“The hero draws the enemy’s attention! Use this chance to regroup and resupply!”
“Those of you skilled with spears, follow me! We’ll support the hero!”
“What? Wait, Kider!”
Before Eldein could stop him, an exhilarated Kider was already racing down the roots with his warriors in tow.
At Kider’s reckless individual action, the cords of fury stood out on Eldein’s forehead.
Crack-crunch!
Shin Tae-ho unleashed the Destructive Strike, his armor-piercing blow shattering the ogre’s defense and crushing its breastplate.
As he wrenched the creature’s severed spine and hurled its broken body into the throng of goblins,
Kider, leading the elf warriors, saluted Shin Tae-ho.
“Hero! You’ve come!”
“It’s been a while, Kider. Fortunately, you haven’t aged much.”
Shin Tae-ho was relieved to see that Kider looked little different from when they’d last met.
He had secretly worried whether so much time had passed that Eldein and Kider might have withered with age.
Kider, now attuned enough to read Shin Tae-ho’s heart from his expression, smiled.
“Thankfully, I’m still spry! And you, hero, seem entirely unchanged.”
“Yes. Fortune smiles on us both. We’ll catch up later. And Epiel?”
“She’s gathering natural power, preparing for one overwhelming strike.”
“How powerful is it?”
“Powerful enough that the goblins won’t survive.”
Shin Tae-ho crushed a hobgoblin’s skull with a Throwing Hammer as it tried to ambush Kider from behind, then asked.
Kider, who had just speared a goblin lunging toward Shin Tae-ho, answered in kind.
Seeing the situation unfold better than expected, Shin Tae-ho felt reassured.
“Then I’ll focus on dealing with the hobgoblins and ogres. You can hold your own?”
“Of course!”
Upon hearing Kider’s reply, Shin Tae-ho raised his left hand.
As if connected by invisible threads, the Throwing Hammers that had been attacking monsters all around snapped back to his grip.
Just as he’d told Kider, Shin Tae-ho began targeting the hobgoblins and ogres selectively.
The Throwing Hammers, no longer scattered across all enemies, concentrated their assault on fewer targets.
As Shin Tae-ho wielded the Combat Hammer alongside the thrown ones, the stalwart hobgoblins and ogres began falling one by one.
“Heavens. To face those powerful creatures alone and hold them like that…!”
“You doubted whether the hero Shin Tae-ho’s achievements were exaggerated, didn’t you? How is it now? Having seen the hero with your own eyes, does the skepticism you carried from history lessons fade away?”
“No, no! I never doubted the hero!”
The young elf warrior quickly denied it at Kider’s teasing.
Kider chuckled deeply.
Kider and Eldein both knew that the young elves couldn’t quite believe Shin Tae-ho’s history.
To appear suddenly whenever elves fell into danger, save them, and vanish just as mysteriously?
If you hadn’t witnessed it yourself, doubt was only natural.
Whoooosh—
Then rain began to fall from the sky.
Kider, who recognized it as Epiel’s signal, shouted to Shin Tae-ho.
“We’re ready! Hide your body in the gaps between the roots so you won’t get caught in the attack!”
Shin Tae-ho hid himself as instructed.
Yong-ryong-i, who had been flying around attacking monsters, swooped down instantly and wrapped around Shin Tae-ho’s neck.
In that moment, the rain falling from the sky began to increase in density.
Pitter-patter-patter-patter—!
Splat! Splatter! Splat-splat-splat!
The cascading rain tore through the goblins’ bodies.
With density increased and speed heightened, each water droplet had hardened like a bullet.
As Kider had said, the goblins couldn’t withstand the assault and fell.
Even the hobgoblins and ogres, clad in thick, sturdy armor, were left battered and broken, clinging to life but torn asunder.
After pouring down its torrent of water and shrinking back, the advanced water spirit recognized Shin Tae-ho and Yong-ryong-i.
[You. Are you the friend of the Summoner who crossed the Barrier?]
“Yeah. It’s been a while.”
“Ryong!”
Shin Tae-ho and Yong-ryong-i greeted each other.
Epiel, whose consciousness was connected through a contract with the water spirit, gasped and revealed herself.
“Shin Tae-ho? Is it really you?”
“Yeah. It’s been a while, Epiel.”
“When did you arrive? More importantly, how—”
As Epiel approached Shin Tae-ho in surprise.
The advanced water spirit, weakened and flickering, moved swiftly to block Epiel’s path.
In that instant, the water spirit—recovering its strength—exploded and scattered into droplets.
“Wh—?!”
Epiel’s eyes went wide, unable to comprehend what was happening.
Behind the shattered water spirit, something unidentifiable withdrew the arm that had burst it apart, while extending the opposite arm forward.
The attack registered in the emergency, but Epiel’s body couldn’t keep pace with her thoughts.
In desperation, Epiel threw both arms up to block.
A Throwing Hammer from Shin Tae-ho, streaking like lightning, struck the attacker’s hand and unleashed a violent shockwave.
Boom—!
“Nngh!”
Epiel, knocked airborne, barely landed on the roots and regained her footing.
But the sudden assailant showed no intention of letting her go, clinging to her relentlessly.
“Protect Epiel!”
At Kider’s shout, the nearest elf warriors rushed at the attacker.
The wooden spears, hardened by potions to be sturdier than stone, were overlaid with the elves’ Qi.
A transformation that compared to their former strength like heaven and earth.
Yet the creature wielded abnormally long arms like an insect’s limbs, whipping them at the elf warriors as if they were whips.
Crack!
The elves’ bodies severed without the slightest resistance, falling away uselessly.
Shin Tae-ho’s eyes snapped wide as he cried out.
“Fall back, all of you! Don’t engage them!”
Shouting the command, Shin Tae-ho charged up the dying roots of the World Tree, his Combat Hammer slung across his shoulder.
The creature, sensing his approach, pressed its hands and feet against the ground before springing backward like a coiled spring.
“Yooooong…!”
Yong-ryong-i, coiled around Shin Tae-ho’s neck, bristled her scales upright.
Shin Tae-ho, too, recognized the enemy before him—the same creature he’d glimpsed on Layer 69.
He fixed his gaze upon it.
Limbs stretched long and spindly like a spider’s, a body the color of ash-brown, muscles bulging grotesquely as though grafted from an ogre.
Its movements mimicked an insect’s jerking, its neck twisting constantly at ninety-degree angles in a way that was deeply unsettling.
Grotesque, certainly—yet something else troubled him far more.
‘There’s only one of it. And yet… why does my Energy Sensing detect far more than that?’
Not with his eyes, but with his own Qi, probing the space around him—Energy Sensing.
What his Energy Sensing detected was not one enemy, but dozens.
Or perhaps hundreds, or more.
Then a message window materialized before Shin Tae-ho’s eyes.
[Layer 70 Trial: An entity that has long commanded goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres to assault the Barrier has revealed itself.]
[A being formed not by race but by the will of a vast existence seeks now to carry out its commands directly, following the destruction of the Barrier.]
[Objective 1: Defeat the Apostle of the vast existence.]
[Objective 2: Preserve the World Tree.]
[Time Limit: None.]
“An Apostle?”
Shin Tae-ho recoiled at the mention of something he’d never even heard spoken before.
Moreover, if the message was to be believed, every monster attack spanning centuries—all of it had been this Apostle’s doing.
‘Then all these centuries, the monsters never chose to assault the World Tree of their own will?’
Caught in the sudden shock, Shin Tae-ho found himself immobilized.
The Apostle, staring fixedly at him, extended one of its chopstick-thin fingers and pointed at Yong-ryong-i.
[Non-standard entity detected. Variable not in existing orders. Searching existing command records. Collection order confirmed.]
An unsettling voice issued forth, crackling with that nauseating sound of breaking joints.
Immediately after, the Apostle’s body—which had been twisting and contorting its neck—split into two.
“What?”
The division continued even as Shin Tae-ho’s shock registered.
Two became four, four became eight, eight became sixteen, multiplying endlessly.
Realizing victory would be impossible if the creature kept dividing infinitely, Shin Tae-ho gritted his teeth and tensed his legs to charge forward—
—when the Apostle, now swollen to 1,024 forms, suddenly froze.
The elves watching from above, and Shin Tae-ho alike, held their breath at the grotesque sight.
The 1,024 divided forms of the Apostle crouched in unison.
[Multi-Command Simultaneous Execution initiated.]
Like springs suddenly released, the Apostles scattered in all directions.
To be continued ▶
Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith
Author
Bong In-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 by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited, and violators may face criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes precious manuscripts from writers.

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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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