Rumble!

Inside the sea of willpower, three hammers were battling it out. The heaven and earth seemed to have turned upside down while the seas and rivers seemed to have overturned from the intensity of this battle.

The sea in this context was the sea of willpower. The sky was the sky above the sea, with the apertures acting as the stars in the sky. Some of these stars were congregating together. This was the very first time Su Yu was able to witness an advancement into the Mountainsea Realm so closely.

Aperture fusion!

At the Mountainsea Realm, one needed to fuse at least seventy-two apertures. The moment one fused the first eight apertures, one would become a Mountainsea. What about the characters?

Since one could become a Mountainsea through fusing apertures, what was the role of characters in this matter? Why would one fail to fuse the apertures without first advancing one's characters?

That was the question Su Yu asked himself as he observed the process. But he was too busy to pay too much attention to that thought.

He had to focus on controlling the giant hammer before the first eight apertures became one. Otherwise, the advancement might fail and the sea of willpower itself might end up destroyed.

Suppress! And suppress!

The two hammers continued trying to suppress the giant hammer, attacking each other with vibrations. Su Yu's hammer was the weakest, forcing him to constantly try to dissolve the vibrations dealt toward him.

He was battling something with the power of a Mountainsea. Even with his willpower and character technique, he was still not as strong as a proper Mountainsea. Zhao Li had to multitask and focus on his advancement while handling the giant hammer. He was starting to feel exhausted. There were a few times where the giant hammer nearly broke through the encirclement and destroy the sea of willpower.

If it was a regular ninth-stage Cloudbreach in this position, the sea of willpower would have been destroyed long ago. Zhao Li was near his limits.

Seeing that Su Yu was still trying his best to fight the giant hammer, Zhao Li said, "You should leave. I'll suppress this hammer and allow you to retreat safely. You have learned all you need to know from me. This hammer is already an earth weapon even if we stop the forging here. It still has a small chance of becoming a heaven weapon in the future."

"After suppressing this hammer, I'll seal it. You can probably start using it at the Cloudbreach or the Mountainsea Realm. It has a high compatibility with you since you have taken part in the forging and know the Soul Expanding Art."

Zhao Li's voice reverbrated inside the sea of willpower.

He was near his limits. The giant hammer kept attacking his sea of willpower, interupting the fusion of his apertures. In fact, cracks were starting to appear on his sea of willpower. Since he was going to fail, he might as well leave his last words behind seal the hammer...

"I'm not interested in some garbage earth weapon."

"..."

Zhao Li's blanked out slightly upon hearing that. His next reaction was to curse. Screw that kid! How was this a garbage weapon?

Su Yu said, "Teacher, it's still too early for that. It's a mere early earth weapon. Are you going to lose to something like this? Just fight it out. We will keep fighting. It does not have an unending supply of power. And it is not under anyone's control. It is only a matter of time before it becomes obedient. My characters used to be rebellious as well. They all became obedient after a beating."

Those words seemed to have provoked the hammer as its resistance intensified.

Boom!

The entire sea of willpower shook repeatedly. Zhao Li's hammer hesitated slightly before it rejoined the battle. In that case, they shall fight it out!

Three hammers of large, medium, and small sizes continued their battle. Su Yu's hammer was the small hammer while Zhao Li's hammer was the medium hammer. The large hammer was at the Mountainsea Realm, the medium hammer was at the Cloudbreach Realm, and the small hammer was at the Skysoar Realm.

They fought endlessly. In a way, Su Yu was finally experiencing how it felt to fight a Mountainsea. Each attack by the hammer would cause his entire body to tremble for a very long time. If it wasn't for Zhao Li's presence, his vibrate character, and the fusion of his character technique with his hammer, he would have been defeated in ten moves.

Nevertheless, it was still a very astonishing feat for someone with his cultivation to put up a fight against a Mountainsea, even if it was only a willpower battle with a weapon. This signified that against a Mountainsea cultural researcher, he would be able to last at least a dozen moves.

With his physical strength, if the Mountainsea was someone with weaker physical cultivation, he would be able to last even longer. This was his very first time using all the strength of his character technique. The 180 apertures constantly supplied him with willpower, allowing him to keep fighting.

As the fight continued, he eventually started complaining, "Teacher, why is it that even the hammer you forged has such a high level of endurance? This is very different than the weapons forged by others."

Zhao Li was feeling very helpless as well. Why was this kid complaining in such an intense situation? How was he supposed to know why? He had thought that the hammer wouldn't last so long since it was fighting without a master.

"The heavenly reward has supplied it with some energy..." Zhao Li lose his calm and started cursing again, "Damn the heavenly reward!"

Not only had the reward skipped the weaponsmith, it had even provided excess energy to allow the weapon to fight longer. Because of that, the two of them had been suppressed by the hammer since the start of the fight.

𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Nobody would believe that this was possible. But they had no choice but to believe it. Previously, Zhao Li believed that the hardest part of this forging would be the incomplete stripes he was going to add after adding all the complete stripes. Thus, this entire crisis was completely unexpected for him.

Su Yu's Sunmoon characters had helped him a lot, so the entire process had felt much easier than before. It became so easy that Zhao Li even increased his odds to fifty percent. But the damn heavenly reward had ruined everything!

Right at that moment, the large hammer slammed down onto the sea off willpower, causing a loud boom. But at the exact same moment, a crack rang out. The large hammer hurriedly retreated, revealing the little furball who had hurriedly vanished right after biting a chunk of it.

Only then did Su Yu recall that the little furball was here as well. He was overjoyed and shouted, "Little Furball, kill it! No, wait, just suppressing it is enough! I'll feed you something yummy after this!"

"Yaya yiyi ya!"

The little furball's body started flickering in excitement at the mention of food. He moved about like a shadow and bit a chunk off the hammer every now and then, greatly reducing the pressure on Su Yu and Zhao Li.

Even Zhao Li was surprised to hear that. Was that little fellow so impressive? That little thing was actually able to fight inside his sea of willpower! Every bite of that little thing was able to cause the large hammer to shudder in pain.

In truth, Old Zhao would also suffer an intense pain from each bite, but he had been keeping silent about that. The hammer was basically his main character. It was merely being rebellious right now. He had to subdue it before he could use it. Thus, this was essentially a fight against himself. He merely found no need to make that clear.

Why? Because it was too embarassing. He had never heard of someone getting beaten to death by their own main character before. If this happened to him, it would turn him into the biggest joke in the history books. Perhaps Liu Wenyan and the others had experienced something similar, but they had an excuse since their characters were outsiders, not their own characters.

Meanwhile, his main character had been formed by himself. Thus, he couldn't accept this happening. The battle felt much easier after the little furball joined. They only needed to last long enough and the large hammer would run out of energy. But they had to make sure that it wasn't able to destroy Old Zhao's sea of willpower before then.

Unfortunately, his sea of willpower was already on the verge of breaking apart. Suddenly, Su Yu's eyes flickered as he recalled what he read from Liu Wenyan's notes. He looked up at the shining apertures in the sky.

Abruptly, he yelled, "Teacher, follow my lead! If you end up dying, I'll give you a grand funeral! But if you survive this, you will definitely grow even stronger than your initial expectation!"

"Shit! What are you doing?"

"Lure it to the sky!"

Right after saying that, Su Yu's hammer soared into the sky. Old Zhao's hammer did the same. The two hammers worked together to force the large hammer up into the sky with them.

There were around eighty stars in the sky. Initially, Zhao Li only had seventy-two apertures. He had subsequently opened more, but Su Yu couldn't help shaking his head at this pitiful speed. Apart from the area occupied by the stars, the rest of the sky was blanketed in darkness.

Su Yu started making his calculations. He then aimed at an empty space and madly hammered it.

Old Zhao cursed, "That's my sea of willpower!"

"Open more apertures!"

Zhao Li finally understood. He asked in despair, "Forcefully?"

"Yes. Give it a try. Maybe it'll work. This was how my Teacher Liu Wenyan opened some of his apertures in the past. He survived even as a mere Mental Tempering Stage cultivator. He's doing pretty good. Teacher, we can take advantage of this large hammer's power to smash the apertures open. This might help you open more apertures and increase your strength. You won't get the chance to do this any other time."

Zhao Li gave it a thought and decided to throw caution to the wind. What was there to hesitate? Would he die if even Liu Wenyan survived? Su Yu might be right. With more apertures, he would grow stronger, his sea of willpower would become more stable, and his willpower would be more abundant.

The three hammers resumed their battle in the sky. Su Yu constantly lured the large hammer to strike the empty space in the sky, attempting to help Zhao Li open more apertures this way.