Tang Chen absorbed the bear's ring. His aura became heavy, like a mountain pressing down on the clearing. His first skill: Weight of the World (Increases the hammer's weight by 100%).
With their first spirit rings successfully absorbed, the journey back to the Clear Sky Sect was supposed to be a victory lap. However, Tang Feng knew that true strength wasn't measured against mindless beasts, but against the cunning of humans.
"Father, the road ahead is too quiet," Tang Feng noted, his fingers grazing the handle of his Violet-Gold hammer. His mutation gave him a heightened sensitivity to the static electricity in the air, and right now, the air felt "prickly."
Tang Bluebow slowed his pace, a proud smirk hidden beneath his beard. "Oh? And what does the 'Thunder God' suggest?"
"Ambush," Tang Feng whispered.
Before Tang Chen could ask who would be stupid enough to attack the Clear Sky Sect, the forest exploded. A rain of poisoned arrows hissed from the canopy.
"Hmph! Child's play!" Tang Chen roared. He stepped forward, his obsidian-black hammer appearing in a burst of heavy pressure. "First Spirit Skill: Weight of the World!"
Tang Chen swung the hammer in a massive horizontal arc. The sheer weight of the weapon compressed the air into a physical wall, swatting the arrows out of the sky like they were mere flies.
The Black-Wind Bandits
From the shadows, a dozen men emerged. These weren't common thieves; they were rogue Spirit Masters, their rings—mostly white and yellow—shining in the dim light. Their leader, a scarred man with a Level 35 Spirit Elder cultivation, laughed.
"Clear Sky Sect? Your heads will fetch a fortune from the Spirit Hall's underground bounty!" The leader manifested his soul: a Venomous Gale Vulture. "Kill the brats first!"
The Team-Up: Earth and Sky
"Chen, you take the center! I'll flush them out!" Tang Feng shouted.
"Got it!" Tang Chen didn't hesitate. He trusted his brother implicitly. He leaped into the middle of the bandit group, his hammer slamming into the ground. The earth buckled and cracked, forcing the bandits to lose their footing.
Tang Feng moved like a ghost. "Thunderbolt Flash!"
He vanished in a streak of blue light, reappearing ten feet in the air above the archers hidden in the trees. He didn't just swing; he spun his hammer, creating a centrifugal magnetic field.
"Thunderclap!"
Tang Feng struck the air itself. A sonic boom rippled through the trees, the shockwave knocking the archers from their branches. As they fell, blue lightning snaked out from his hammer, paralyzing them before they even hit the ground.
The Fusion of Styles
The bandit leader screamed in rage and dived at Tang Chen, his claws glowing with green poison. "Die, brat!"
"Not today!" Tang Feng's voice echoed from behind him.
Tang Feng didn't attack the leader. Instead, he struck Tang Chen's hammer.
In a normal situation, hitting your teammate's weapon is a mistake. But for the Twin Stars, it was a tactic. The moment Tang Feng's lightning-infused hammer struck Tang Chen's obsidian hammer, a phenomenon occurred.
The Magnetic Catapult.
The lightning didn't hurt Tang Chen; it coated his hammer, turning the "Absolute Weight" into "Absolute Velocity." The black hammer, now wreathed in violet-gold electricity, swung at a speed that defied its mass.
BOOM!
The Vulture leader didn't even have time to scream. The electrified hammer crushed his defensive barriers and sent him spiraling through the forest, leaving a trail of scorched earth behind.
The Aftermath
The remaining bandits fled in terror, leaving their leader unconscious in a crater.
Tang Chen exhaled, the heavy weight of his hammer disappearing as he dismissed his soul. He looked at his hands, which were still tingling with his brother's sparks. "Feng... that move. When you hit my hammer, it felt like... like the world itself was being thrown."
"It's called Lorentz Force, Chen," Tang Feng said, though he knew the term meant nothing to his brother. "Your mass, my acceleration. Together, nobody can block us."
Tang Bluebow walked up to them, his eyes gleaming with realization. He had seen many Spirit Masters fight together, but the synergy between these two—one representing the solid Earth and the other the volatile Sky—was something that would eventually rewrite the power balance of the Douluo Continent.
"You've learned the most important lesson today," their father said. "A single hammer can break a wall, but two hammers can break the world."