The Embers of King's Teyvat Journey

"That won't do either! To fall in love with someone who has committed a crime is a disgrace!" Zhiryu's voice did not soften in the slightest.

"No problem, I, Ordovician, wholeheartedly agree with Sister Silyuya's opinion!" Upon hearing this, Ordovician shrank back and immediately admitted defeat.

Unfortunately, the Forge Knight Armor was a seamless piece, leaving no gaps, so to outsiders, it appeared as if nothing had happened when the Ordovician tucked his head in.

"No? You talk about others all day long, but what about yourselves?" Ember asked, seeing Ordovician and Silyuya arguing about the honor and shame of knighthood.

The Forge Knights are arguably the strongest knights in the borderlands. But few know the price they pay for being the "strongest."

Ember looked up at the Forge Knights, whose bodies were tall, a full size larger than the Hilichurl Thugs.

But the Hilichurl is made of flesh and blood, while the Forge Knight is made of steel.

He looked down at the ground and saw the sand churning up, and the Forge Knight's crimson leg armor sinking deep into the ground, demonstrating the weight of his armor.

The Forge Knights' steel bodies are not a metaphor, but a fact. Their physical resilience far surpasses that of steel.

Using the description of a Forge Knight as having a body of steel doesn't seem quite right to Ember.

The bodies beneath the armor of the Forge Knights are not bodies in the ordinary biological sense. Their bodies are forged directly from extremely pure power.

The "Furnace" in the title "Furnace Knights" refers both to the fact that their power contains remnants of the original life furnace and to their training method of forging their bodies like a furnace.

During the long forging process, the Forge Knight's body had long since become free of any impurities. Skin, flesh, bones... all of these were considered useless and were melted away.

The purpose of forging these bodies was simply to achieve greater power, so the Forge Knights abandoned their physical forms and pursued power itself.

The Forge Knights are pure power, power without any impurities. No matter what prayers they use or what weapons they wield, they cannot escape the word "power."

The Forge Knight standing on the earth is the embodiment of power.

Ember had known this for a long time. This was mainly because Ember discovered that Forge Knights would never bleed, no matter how much force was used against them; only golden-red fragments, like crystals, would fly out from the gaps in their armor.

Strictly speaking, the term "they" should be used to describe the Forge Knights, not "they".

Compared to ordinary life forms, the Forge Knights are more like an ultimate force, except that this force prefers to maintain a human appearance.

As a force, the Forge Knights are only concerned with two things: how to strengthen themselves and how to use their power.

In terms of behavior, the Crucible Knights only do three things: train, fight, and daydream.

However, the only one that brought some comfort to Ember was Silyua. The Forge Knights have no gender, but her voice has a distinctly female quality, perhaps indicating that she has finally come to her senses.

But that's not enough; the border areas don't need such strong power to survive now.

Therefore, Ember hopes that Forge Knight can shift his focus to other things and stop spending all his time fighting and lifting weights.

The Crucible Knights consist of fourteen people who only know how to do two things; it would be too funny to say that out loud.

"Ourselves? Anyway, I'm doing pretty well. Teaching kids is much more interesting than fighting." Ordovician chuckled a few times, seemingly quite satisfied with his current life.

"Really?" Silyuya glanced at Ordovician. If it was really as he said, then why did this guy follow him immediately after seeing him fully armed?

"Now, I prioritize carrying out the King's will!" Silyua answered Ember's question directly without waiting for Ordovician's response.

"I think you just can't find a job that suits you!" Ordovician muttered to Silyua.

During the War of Shattered Will, the First King was banished from the Borderlands, and the Knights of the Forge were scattered as a result.

Ordovician and Devonian attempted to rob a tomb, but were locked inside and trapped in the cemetery.

Silyuya ran to the underground and died, spending all day staring blankly at her only set of clothes besides her armor.

Juragi was arguably the most opinionated of the Forge Knights. He wanted to join the Blood Dynasty, a noble idea, but reality proved harsh—he got lost.

All of this is utterly absurd. The strongest knightly order in the border region is nowhere to be seen in its main locations; they're all hiding in some obscure corner.

Ember felt indignant for them; this was the consequence of having only muscles and no brains. Therefore, Ember hoped that the Crucible Knights could change.

“Okay, I understand.” Ember nodded to Ordovician and Silyuya, then turned his gaze to the other Forge Knights.

"If your big brother and big sister are like this, you guys must be pretty good too!"

Ember's tone held a hint of anticipation. Ordovician had become a teacher, Silyua was racing down the path to becoming a "muscle Barbie," and Coal Dali had some new ideas. The others must be quite good too, right?

"Move bricks!"

“Mining!”

"Demolition!"

……

The voices of the Forge Knights sounded like those of an old buffalo, with a somber tone in everything they said.

But no matter how different their voices are, it doesn't change the fact that the Forge Knights are now doing manual labor.

In Ember's view, this was tantamount to no change. Since the daily routine of the Forge Knights consisted of fighting and honing their bodies, these physical tasks were probably just a warm-up exercise before the real training.

Ember clutched his chest, nearly having a heart attack. He finally understood why Ordovician and Shiru had become the chief Forge Knights.

It turns out that Ge Fulei's judgment of people was truly accurate; two out of the three relatively outstanding talents were selected.

Ember looked at the steel statues standing before him. Gradually, their bodies began to merge with a human figure.

Yu Jin rubbed his eyes, and the figure became clearer. He had short, shiny brown hair and wore a long red scarf—this figure was the young master.

There was a prince among the fools, which was good, because there were many hard jobs for him to do.

Now, Yu Jin has thirteen young masters, all of them super-enhanced versions.

As for whether it's good or not, only God knows.

Chapter 504 The Forge Instructor

2024-02-23

"Yu... Yu Jin, what did they just call you?"

"If I heard correctly, it should be called... is it called Wang?"

Just as Ember was considering how to introduce the Forge Knight to the young master so that he could learn a lesson, Washizu, who had been silent all along, patted him on the shoulder.

Yu Jin turned his head and saw Washijin looking shocked.

It's no wonder Washizu was shocked; in his mind, Ember was a mysterious and powerful adventurer.

While this is already worthy of admiration, it still falls short of the status of a "king" by a "slight amount".

Moreover, Washizu couldn't see any resemblance to a king in Ember—is there a king who digs the ground more enthusiastically than them?

"Oh, that? You don't need to worry about that. You just need to focus on improving your abilities, and then you can teach the Shogunate a lesson!"

Ember waved his hand and chuckled at Washijin. His claim to be king was truly unconvincing.

Although he is called a king by others, he has neither a kingdom nor manpower. He can only barely smuggle a few people across the border by cooperating with the Golden Tree and the border areas.

"Okay... alright." Seeing that Yu Jin was unwilling to elaborate on his identity, Washizu wisely stopped pressing the matter.

He looked up at the thirteen dark figures standing before him, and the faint aura emanating from them made him swallow hard.

The knights in heavy armor before him were all the strongest that Washizu had ever seen, apart from Ember.

Normally, even one would be a big deal, but now thirteen have appeared all at once. How could Washizu not be surprised?

It's important to know that Washizu is no longer the ordinary martial artist he once was. During the outbreak of the evil spirits, Washizu repeatedly tested medicines on himself in order to find a way to suppress them.

The method used by the people of Hiki Village to suppress evil spirits by grinding the bark of the golden tree into powder was devised by Washizu and Homoto.

With Homoto as one of the few doctors in the village in charge of the theory and Washizu as the test subject, together they found the optimal dosage needed to suppress the evil spirit.

Therefore, Washizu underwent the most significant changes in Hishimura. His strength increased the most, and his inhumanity also increased the most.

He never took off his samurai armor, which makes it hard to say that he wasn't trying to conceal his physical abnormalities.

“Cultivation?” Upon hearing Ember’s words, Zhiluya lowered his gaze and noticed the two small figures behind Ember.

For the Forge Knights, let alone Washizu and Dan Oniroku, even Ember, who was wearing armor a size larger than the others, could only barely reach their chests.

Therefore, in their eyes, ordinary-sized humans are really almost like little people.

“You possess the power of the furnace.” Shiryuya glanced at Washizu and Dan Oniroku and discovered the power within them that was almost identical to his own.

That is the power of the furnace of life, the power that causes life to differentiate.

“It seems this was all the King’s doing.” Odupis turned to look at the golden tree behind him and nodded.

He then calmed himself down and carefully sensed his surroundings, then said as if suddenly realizing something:

"I see. There's something very stubborn in this place that's trying to force its way into life. To avoid being eroded, you have to let your own life force spread out like thorns and hold back the things outside."

“Correct, as expected of the chief of the Forge Knights.” Ember immediately applauded when he saw that Ordovician and Silyua had figured out the changes in Washijin so quickly.

Ignoring the continuous applause, Ordovician turned his gaze to the entire Hikigami Village, then asked Ember:

"So, did the king send us here to deal with the thing in the air? Or to get rid of the person who caused it?"

As Ordovician spoke, he kept brandishing his crimson greatsword, seemingly unable to wait any longer.

"Pretty much, but before that, you need to teach them how to use the power that appears within them."

“I think no one knows this better than you.”

Yu Jin pushed Washizu and Dan Oniroku, who were standing behind him, forward and said to them:

"Don't just stand there like idiots! This is the instructor I called over for you. Say hello to him!"

Seeing that they had no way to avoid it, Washizu and Dankiroku had no choice but to grit their teeth and look up to meet the eyes of the Forge Knights.

The thirteen Forge Knights were divided into two very distinct categories. Behind Ordovician were sword and shield knights, just like him, wielding a greatsword in one hand and a horned shield in the other.

Behind Shiryuya was a knight wearing a tree helmet and wielding a tree spear.

Regardless of the type of Forge Knight, their armor is covered with crimson stripes. These stripes sometimes resemble the roots of a tree, and sometimes they resemble spewing flames.

The furnace, formed by interwoven stripes, is particularly clearly visible on the chest of the armor.

The stripes converge at the center of the breastplate, a point that resembles the heart of a furnace, forging the body beneath the armor.

The heavy armor worn by the Forge Knights seemed to be cast from a single piece, with no gaps even between their shoulders and chests.

Standing here, they are like insurmountable peaks.

But the peak does not mean that no one dares to climb it. Behind the armor of the Forge Knights, the faded and worn cloaks silently testify to the countless battles that the Forge Knights have experienced.

"Hello, Instructor..."