The Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith - Chapter 72

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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-Grade Blacksmith’s Return Episode 72
“Victor! What on earth are you doing all of a sudden?!”
Hamilton cried out in shock, rushing to stop Victor.
But Victor raised the Axe he’d been gripping against the ground, extending it toward Hamilton as a warning to keep his distance.
“I apologize for acting without warning. But I can’t back down now, you see.”
“No, why?! What’s the problem? Hasn’t Mystery been helping us by subjugating Gates all this time?”
“That’s precisely the problem.”
Mystery had been given orders by the president to subjugate seven Gates.
But those seven were certainly no ordinary Gates.
They were Gates deemed impossible to destroy even if every Awakener the United States currently possessed were deployed simultaneously.
Yet Mystery had now subjugated all seven of those Gates alone.
And with remarkable ease, at that.
“And you’re curious too, aren’t you? Whether this Mystery fellow is only strong against weak monsters, or whether he’s also formidable in one-on-one combat.”
Hamilton, the director of the United States Management Bureau, fell silent.
Victor’s words were precisely the question Hamilton had been harboring all this time but couldn’t quite voice.
‘Mystery is undeniably overwhelmingly strong in monster combat. But in direct confrontation with people, he doesn’t seem nearly as formidable.’
Mystery’s fighting method relied on two Throwing Hammers.
But precisely because of this, when those Throwing Hammers were flying about striking monsters, Mystery was left defenseless.
What if, in that moment,
an Awakener who had explosively amplified their physical abilities through Energy came at him?
While Hamilton stood frozen, merely swallowing hard,
Marcus, who had been contemplating with his chin resting on his hand, let out a soft chuckle.
“Interesting. I must admit, I’m curious myself.”
“Marcus!”
Hamilton spun around in surprise to look at him.
Marcus spread his arms with exaggerated gesture and shrugged.
“I’m simply voicing my curiosity. Of course, the choice is Mystery’s to make.”
Marcus fixed Mystery with a provocative stare.
His eyes seemed to say, without speaking the words aloud: ‘If you’re afraid, you can refuse even now.’
Upon meeting that gaze, Mystery shook his head side to side.
“Now that the Gate subjugation is nearly complete, you’ve grown comfortable. It seems you’re eager to waste Energy on pointless matters.”
“Why? Lacking confidence?”
Victor provoked him further, muscles tensing in his arms.
Faced with Victor’s continued provocation, Mystery, who had been silent a moment longer, met his gaze directly.
“I don’t waste Energy on meaningless things. So if you wish to experience the gap between us, put forth a wager befitting that gap.”
“A wager? Do you want money or something?”
“I have plenty of that. I’ll take the wager in Items.”
At Mystery’s unwavering words, Victor’s eyebrows twitched.
Victor silently rummaged through his Inventory and produced an Item to display.
“An Intermediate Fire Rune Pendant. Something of this caliber should—”
“You’re trying to make a deal with that garbage? Your standards are pathetic.”
Mystery cut him off.
When the pendant—which Victor had considered to be among his finer possessions—was dismissed outright, a vein bulged prominently across his forehead.
“Ha. A Special-grade pendant is garbage now? That’s absurd. Why don’t you just admit you’re afraid?”
“How absurd. If you’re going to make a wager, at least meet a minimum standard.”
Mystery turned away and moved to resume hunting monsters.
Boom—!!
The earth trembled violently.
Victor, who had driven his Axe into the ground with force, had thicker veins bulging across his forehead as he growled.
“Fine. If you win, from now on, whatever Items I obtain, I’ll give you any one you desire. Are you satisfied with this condition?”
“V-Victor!”
Hamilton gasped in alarm.
If he accepted that condition and Mystery, seized by greed, demanded ‘Give me your main weapon, that Axe of yours,’ what would happen then?
But Victor’s rage had already crossed the line of no return.
And the condition Victor had presented suited Shin Tae-ho perfectly.
“Now we’re talking sense. Very well.”
The Throwing Hammers that had been striking monsters returned to Mystery’s hands.
With both Throwing Hammers gripped, Mystery turned his gaze to Marcus and Hamilton.
“ITRO Secretary-General. Director of the United States Management Bureau. I’m designating you two as witnesses to this duel. Any objections?”
“None whatsoever. I’m honored to serve as witness.”
Marcus raised the corner of his mouth and answered.
No matter who won, he had nothing to lose.
If anything, it was the perfect opportunity to gather combat data on Mystery and Victor—there was no reason to refuse.
Hearing Marcus’s answer, Mystery turned to look at Hamilton.
“I… I…”
“Hamilton.”
Victor called out to Hamilton, who stood hesitating, unsure what to do.
Victor turned back, his muscles taut with tension as he gripped the axe firmly.
“This determines whether I climb the tower or not. Stop second-guessing yourself and be my witness.”
Hamilton’s eyes widened slightly.
This was the first time he’d seen Victor look so serious after carrying himself like a ruffian all this while.
Unable to resist the pressure, Hamilton squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.
“Understood. As Director of the Management Bureau of the United States, I will serve as witness to the duel between Mystery and Victor.”
“Good.”
Mystery lifted the hammer, having received their pledges.
Victor tensed his muscles, swelling with power as he drew up his energy.
In the mounting tension that felt ready to snap at any moment, Marcus and Hamilton both
swallowed hard, along with the few remaining monsters fleeing from the hammer, watching the two battle unfold.
The energy that had been subtly coiling around Victor’s body condensed instantly.
“Grraahhh!!”
Victor roared like a beast and charged forward, axe in hand.
Mystery calmly countered the straightforward assault, hurling the Throwing Hammer from his grip.
Thwack!
As the axe swung horizontally, the hammer bounced off to the side.
Though the impact sent a tingle through his wrist, Victor pushed through, drawing even more energy and not breaking his stride.
‘One more. If I can just block one more attack, Mystery will be wide open.’
Just as Victor had hoped, Mystery threw a second hammer.
Fully focused, Victor’s eyes flew wide as he angled the second hammer off with the side of his axe.
Bang!!
“Gaaahhh!!”
Barely overcoming the hammer’s weight, Victor exploded forward with renewed force.
As the distance to Mystery shrank in an instant, adrenaline felt like it was flooding his brain.
‘I’ve got this! Victory is mine!’
Victor charged the axe with energy and unleashed a Skill.
The Wilderness Slash—the exclusive Skill of the Special Class Barbarian—unfolded, transforming the energy in the axe into a towering blade.
“Mysteryyy!!”
Victor swung the axe downward.
By any measure, victory was his.
But before the energy blade could even reach Mystery,
a powerful impact struck the back of Victor’s head, sending him reeling and throwing off his attack trajectory.
Crash-bang-bang!
“Huh?!”
Victor tumbled across the ground seven times before shooting upright in shock.
He couldn’t understand what had just happened.
But seeing the hammer already back in Mystery’s hand, Victor’s instincts instantly grasped what had occurred.
‘The hammer came back in less than a second?!’
The first and second hammers were thrown in less than a second combined.
Given that he’d thrown with enough force to push him back, the momentum alone meant it should take at least five seconds for it to fly out and return—that was the natural law of physics.
Yet it returned this quickly?!
As Victor stood there, bewildered and speechless,
Mystery’s voice came from within the Helmet, his face invisible.
“You plotted your strategy based on seeing my hammer fly back like a boomerang, didn’t you? You figured it would take time.”
Mystery swung the hammer in his right hand over his shoulder.
“But charging at me relying on just that one thing—that was your mistake.”
Whoosh!
The hammer Mystery threw rocketed forward like a cannonball.
Victor snapped back to awareness, dodging the hammer and charging forward again.
But unlike before, with his Energy Sensing spread thick around him, Victor suddenly felt a chill and urgently rolled across the ground.
Screech!
The Throwing Hammer he’d just thrown whizzed past Victor’s head by the narrowest margin and returned to Mystery.
In that instant, what had been mere conjecture became certainty.
‘Mystery can… call back the hammer he just threw instantly…!’
Mystery had two Throwing Hammers.
But if he could make them return every second after throwing them?
It was effectively no different from hurling dozens, hundreds of hammers in unrelenting succession.
‘Damn it! This is absurd…!’
Bang—Bang—Bang!!
The Throwing Hammers were hurled at Mystery, returned to him, and hurled again in endless pursuit of Victor.
Watching Victor, now too harried even to think of closing distance and reduced to pure evasion, Marcus closed his eyes.
‘It’s over.’
The onslaught was so one-sided that Marcus had no doubt of Mystery’s victory.
Yet Marcus’s mood was not so simple.
‘Mystery. The more I see, the less I understand him.’
On the surface, one might attribute Mystery’s fighting prowess solely to that astonishing hammer-retrieval speed.
But Marcus, not directly engaged in the battle, could perceive far more than that.
‘He’s not using other Skills at all, and he’s not even detonating fire or ice from the hammers. He’s merely toying with him.’
Marcus glanced sideways at Hamilton’s face.
Hamilton’s features had gone grave—he was clearly entertaining the same thought.
‘If I ever faced Mystery as an enemy… could I defeat him?’
The hammers rained down without pause as if to pulverize the very earth, and the United States Ranker Victor rolled and tumbled without respite.
Watching Mystery retrieve and hurl the hammers in mechanical silence, both Marcus and Hamilton swallowed hard.
Crack!!
“Ugh!”
Victor, desperate to evade, finally took a hammer strike full across his back.
Gritting his teeth, Victor quickly righted himself and swung his Axe like a baseball bat.
Clang!!
The hammer struck by the Axe careened off course and flew wide.
‘If I can land just one blow—just one!!’
Victor’s consciousness blazed open.
Abandoning all caution, he poured every ounce of energy into his body, and a dense, vibrant aura flowed from him like a living thing.
Seeing this, Mystery abruptly ceased his attack, retrieved his hammers, and stored them in his Inventory.
At this unexpected turn, not only Victor but Marcus and Hamilton as well stood bewildered.
“What…? Why are you stopping?”
“If I continue, you’ll either die or lose a limb. Besides.”
Mystery regarded Victor a moment longer before concluding quietly.
“You’re coming at me that desperately. I should let you land one strike so you can see the difference for yourself and accept defeat more easily.”
“Your arrogance reaches the heavens! Very well—come at me then!!”
The undulating aura transferred to the Axe.
As energy formed along its blade, the size swelled large enough to cleave through an elephant’s neck in a single stroke.
With that, Victor charged forward wielding the Wilderness Slash—the skill he had failed to land before—with devastating force.
Even the distant observers Marcus and Hamilton felt their napes prickle and their skin erupt in goosebumps at the killing intent and resolve on display.
Yet Mystery stood unmoved, exactly as he had declared—no defensive stance, simply waiting.
Whoooosh!!
The Wilderness Slash, with all of Victor’s weight behind it, swept across the terrain.
Goblins huddled in the distance behind rocks watching dumbly were bisected by the flying slash along with the rocks themselves, and breathed their last.
“Kugh! Crude brute strength!”
Marcus, reinforcing his body with energy, grimaced at the vast devastation.
Though he too had shielded himself with energy, Hamilton—who had managed only the 48th floor in the previous Tower—could not withstand the wind pressure and was sent flying backward.
Marcus focused energy into his eyes, staring intently through the cloud of dust.
‘Victor’s power is this great…! Easily three times stronger than what I knew. At this level, surely even Mystery must take some dam—’
As Marcus thought this, wind swept in from nowhere and cleared the dust away.
And at what was revealed, Marcus could not finish his thought—only gape in blank astonishment.
The Axe, stopped short and unable to pierce the armor.
Mystery, having caught the Axe handle, watched Victor standing rigid, then flicked the Axe away as though brushing off dust.
Crash-clang!
Victor, his strength utterly spent, collapsed limply to the ground.
Mystery passed by Victor’s side and spoke in a tone devoid of emotion.
“Collect your spoils later. Until then, don’t forget your promise, and climb the Tower gathering Items worthy of my satisfaction. United States Ranker, Victor Bennett.”
Victor, depleted of all energy and unable to respond, could only lie on the ground and stare up at Mystery’s receding form.
Mystery passed Victor without a glance and proceeded calmly toward the remaining monsters, as though nothing had transpired.
Continued in the next episode ▶
The 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
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※ Pentagram welcomes your precious manuscripts.

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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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