The successful pour of the first Star-Gold metal bar acted like a spark thrown into dry mountain timber.
Within the vast, five-mile underground volcano bowl, the silence of three hundred thousand years was permanently shattered. What had once been a dormant, cold cave of forgotten history was now transformed into a throbbing, radiant kingdom of creation.
Tie Shan stood upon the central white-jade platform, his thick, iron-gray pelt glistening in the amber light of the magma rivers. He unbuckled his heavy traveling belt, tossing his brass measuring tongs onto a nearby bench. Then he rolled his heavy leather sleeves past corded, muscular forearms. His star-iron left arm hummed with a deep, pulsing crimson light that mirrored the rhythmic heartbeat of his Divine Titan Bear marrow.
“Da Shi!” Tie Shan bellowed, his voice echoing across the volcano bowl like a bronze temple bell. “Assign your brothers to the main forging stations! We need four at the heavy stamping gantries, four managing the cooling water chutes, and four at the billet anvils! Today, we don’t just strike metal—we teach this ancient forge how to sing!”
“Orders received, Master Smith!” Da Shi roared in return.
The twelve black glass titans moved with breathtaking, timed together purpose. Their twenty-foot frames, now gleaming with violet starlight under their Celestial Star-Obsidian upgrades, fanned out across the white-jade island and the surrounding scarlet fire-jade terraces.
