Chapter 330: Chapter 330 – Thousand Hammer Crucible – (Luca)! (2)

The next hammer fell.

It wasn’t louder than the last.

It wasn’t faster.

It was simply heavier—as if the mountain itself had leaned down and pressed a finger against Luca’s existence.

The impact didn’t strike his body.

It struck through it.

A crushing, inward collapse ripped across his chest, folding breath out of his lungs in a single violent instant. His vision detonated into white static, every nerve screaming at once as the force doubled—cleanly, mercilessly—without care for bone, muscle, or will.

Luca’s knees buckled.

He barely managed to remain upright for half a heartbeat before his body betrayed him completely.

“—Kgh—!”

He turned sharply to the side and vomited.

Blood splashed against the obsidian floor, dark and steaming as it hit stone already heated by the crucible. It wasn’t a trickle. It wasn’t a stain.

It was proof.

Luca’s hands slammed down against the arena floor as he coughed violently, thick crimson stringing from his lips and splattering beneath him. His breath came in ragged, panicked pulls, lungs spasming as though they had forgotten how air was supposed to work.

Seventh strike…

The thought came fragmented, barely coherent.

That was… only the seventh…

His chest burned—not externally, but deep inside, like something fragile had cracked and been forced back into place by sheer pressure alone. Mana churned chaotically within him, dragged into circulation by the crucible’s runes, then crushed inward again before it could stabilize.

So this is it…

A hollow, disbelieving realization spread through him.

This isn’t testing strength.

It’s erasing margin.

There was no space to adapt. No time to adjust. Each hammer didn’t give him pain to overcome—it rewrote the limits he was allowed to exist within.

And it doubled.

Every.

Single.

Time.

The stands reacted before Luca could even force himself to breathe properly again.

Kyle surged forward instinctively, hands slamming against the barrier separating the challengers’ stand from the arena floor.

“Luca—!”

His voice broke before he could finish the word. His usual bravado was gone, replaced by something naked and helpless as he watched blood spill from Luca’s mouth after only seven strikes. His fingers clenched so hard against the reinforced railing that his knuckles whitened.

“This—this is insane,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “This isn’t a trial. This is—this is execution.”

Sylthara stood rigid beside him, golden eyes locked on Luca’s hunched form.

Her posture hadn’t changed—but the tension coiled through her shoulders was unmistakable. One hand had curled slowly into a fist at her side, nails biting into her palm hard enough to draw blood she didn’t seem to notice.

Only the faint tightening of her jaw betrayed what she was feeling.

Seven strikes, she thought grimly.

And he’s already bleeding internally.

Her gaze flicked briefly—calculating, assessing—tracking Luca’s breathing, the tremor in his arms, the way his shoulders shook as he fought to steady himself.

This isn’t meant to be survived, she realized.

It’s meant to break something fundamental.

Selena said nothing.

She stood perfectly still, hands lowered, eyes unwavering.

But her fingers trembled.

Just barely.

So subtly that anyone not watching her closely would have missed it—but the tremor was there, running through her clenched hand like a fracture spreading beneath ice. Her lips pressed into a thin, pale line as she watched Luca cough again, blood darkening the stone beneath him.

Her jaw tightened.

Her mother—

No.

She cut the thought off sharply.

Her gaze slid upward, briefly, toward the dwarven suppression device suspended above the arena.

The Tower Master had not moved.

She still stood with her hands folded neatly within her sleeves, posture composed, veil unmoving.

But her body language had changed.

The calm stillness she carried so naturally had tightened—subtly, but unmistakably. Her shoulders were drawn a fraction too rigid now. The angle of her head had shifted, eyes following Luca with an intensity that no longer pretended detachment.

Her fingers, hidden within her sleeves, had curled inward.

Not a gesture of fear.

Of restraint.

She did not call out.

She did not shout his name.

But her breath had stilled.

And for the first time since the crucible began, she leaned forward—just slightly—toward the arena, as though distance itself had become unbearable.

High above, the dwarven elders were no longer silent.

Elder Thrain’s brow furrowed deeply as he watched Luca struggle just to remain conscious after the seventh strike. His hands curled slowly against the armrests of his throne, heavy fingers digging into ancient stone.

“Too fast,” he muttered grimly. “The escalation is too fast.”

Huldar shook his head, disbelief etched into every line of his face. “No human body should be taking that kind of internal compression. Not even reinforced by mana.”

Hilda’s flames flickered uneasily around her shoulders—not rising, not attacking, but reacting to something fundamentally wrong. Her voice came low, strained.

“This isn’t forging,” she said. “This is refinement without mercy.”

Brokk exhaled heavily, his gaze dark. “We sealed this for a reason.”

Their eyes returned to the arena.

To the lone figure kneeling amidst blood and heat, shoulders trembling as he forced himself to breathe again.

“He never should have accepted it,” one elder muttered quietly. Not in accusation—but regret.

Thrain’s jaw tightened.

“He knew,” he said slowly. “And still stepped forward.”

That made it worse.

Below them, Luca wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing it across already dirt-streaked skin. His breath hitched again—but this time, he forced it down. Forced rhythm back into his lungs.

So that’s the rule, he thought dimly, vision swimming as the heat pressed down on him from all sides.

You don’t endure the pain…

He planted one foot against the stone.

Then the other.

His arms shook violently as he pushed himself upright, muscles screaming in protest as the crucible’s runes tightened their invisible grip around his body.

You endure the change.

He lifted his head.

Blood dripped from his chin, pattering softly against the obsidian floor.

The hammers above him shifted.

Chains groaned.

The next strike began to rise.

And the Thousand Hammer Crucible waited—utterly indifferent to whether he stood or fell.

The eighth hammer fell.

This time, Luca felt it before it struck.

The air thickened, pressure coiling around him like an invisible vice. Heat surged upward from beneath the arena floor as magma channels flared open, veins of molten fire glowing brighter, wider—feeding the crucible with fresh fuel.

The hammer descended.

The impact didn’t explode outward.

It collapsed inward.

“—Hngh…!”

Luca’s teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. His shoulders jerked violently as the force drove straight through his spine, compressing muscle and bone as though he were being folded into himself. His boots skidded across the obsidian floor, leaving shallow grooves as he fought to remain upright.

Fire answered pain.

Magma erupted in controlled arcs around him, not splashing wildly but curving—drawn by rune patterns etched into the arena. The heat slammed into his skin, searing without burning, cooking deeper layers while leaving the surface intact.

It was deliberate.

Cruel.

Designed.

Don’t scream, he told himself, breath shuddering.

Don’t give it that.

His hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms as the heat clawed up his legs, through his abdomen, wrapping around his ribs like liquid iron. His vision blurred again, spots dancing violently as the hammer withdrew.

The ninth strike came faster.

Then the tenth.

The rhythm established itself—merciless, inevitable.

Each hammer doubled the force of the last.

Each surge of magma burned hotter, lingered longer.

Luca’s body became a battlefield of competing sensations—pressure crushing inward, heat expanding outward, mana dragged through channels not meant to bear such strain. His muscles locked and released in spasms as his body tried desperately to adapt to something that refused to slow down.

“—Ghh…!”

A sound tore from his throat, low and broken, before he could stop it. He bit down hard, teeth grinding as he forced the rest of the scream back into his chest.

Blood ran freely now—not just from his mouth, but from his nose, thin trails streaking down his face and evaporating almost instantly in the heat.

The eleventh.

The twelfth.

By the thirteenth strike, his knees slammed into the floor.

Stone cracked beneath him.

He caught himself with one hand, fingers digging into obsidian, the other arm trembling violently as magma surged higher, licking at his sides like living flame. His chest heaved, breath coming in short, ragged gasps as another hammer rose overhead.

Endure.

Just endure.

The fourteenth strike hit.

Luca coughed violently.

Blood splattered across the floor in a dark, steaming arc.

The crowd reacted sharply this time—gasps breaking through restraint, murmurs turning ugly, uncomfortable. Kyle slammed his fist against the barrier, shouting something Luca couldn’t hear. Selena’s eyes widened, her composure fracturing for the first time as she leaned forward, fingers gripping the railing until her knuckles paled.

The Tower Master’s shoulders stiffened.

Her head dipped slightly, veil trembling as if brushed by a breath she hadn’t meant to release.

Below them all, Luca forced himself upright again.

Every movement was slower now. Heavier.

The hammers did not care.

The fifteenth strike shattered what little rhythm his breathing had regained. His spine arched involuntarily, a strangled sound ripping from his throat as magma burst upward around him, encasing his legs in searing heat that felt like his bones were being forged anew from the inside out.

The sixteenth.

The seventeenth.

By the twentieth strike, Luca was no longer trying to stand.

He was trying not to scream.

His jaw locked. His neck strained. His entire body shook violently with each impact, muscles tearing and reforging in the same breath as the crucible’s runes forced them back together. His vision tunneled, the edges darkening, the center pulsing with blinding white.

Every third strike…

The thought came hazy, distant.

As if on cue—

The twenty first hit.

Luca retched again, blood spilling freely from his mouth, thicker now, darker. His arms gave out completely, his body slamming chest-first into the heated stone with a sickening thud.

“—Kuh—!”

He dragged in air that burned his lungs, fingers clawing weakly at the ground as magma surged close enough to scorch his sleeves, the heat gnawing relentlessly at his skin.

The twenty second.

Something inside him shifted.

Not growth.

Not strength.

Stress.

The twenty-third strike followed almost immediately.

A sharp, unfamiliar pain bloomed deep in his chest—wrong, sudden, terrifying. His back arched violently as his body convulsed, a hoarse, broken sound tearing loose before he could suppress it.

The twenty fourth strike descended.

Louder.

Heavier.

And then—

The twenty fifth.

The hammer fell like judgment.

A deafening “CRACKkkkkk…!” echoed through the arena.

Not stone.

Not metal.

Something else.

The sound cut through the roar of magma and collapsing pressure like a blade.

Luca’s body jerked violently—and then the scream finally tore free.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh—!!!”

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