Xue Wei was puzzled, though. He had previously heard about peerless treasures with a soul, but this was the first time he had ever encountered one.
"So why are you so casual with me?" he finally asked after a bit of time. Xue Wei could sense that every villager within the village feared it more than anything else, but here he was having a casual conversation with it. He could not feel any hostility from the sword at all.
"It is simple," the sword went on, sighing. "I have been stuck in this h.e.l.l-hole for thousands of years. I wish to go out. I wish to slice the heads off people. I need to eat souls to survive, but the souls I get here are weak and so unsatisfying."
"This village has been hidden from the surrounding world," the sword continued. "I am sure you came across a formation when you tried to enter this place, and that formation is meant to keep humans out."
"Sometimes, a few humans break through it anyway, but it is mainly beasts that make it through. The formation was never meant to block beasts, as these humans need something to eat."
"Anyway, when a human comes in, they will be taken to me as a sacrifice, and I will swallow their soul to nourish myself. These villagers, in fact, feel very fortunate whenever someone wanders into this dimension because it means they have to give up less of their souls to satisfy me."
"Some obviously feel like they are the devil's goons, forcing unknown young men and women to sacrifice their lives, but the majority take great pleasure in this."
"Unfortunately, I know that I will never be able to escape from this place if I do not strike a deal with someone. From all the people who have appeared in the last couple of thousand years, you are without a doubt – albeit not the strongest – the one with the most potential."
"At the same time, you carry a faint scent of death. It is clear that you have killed before, and that you will kill again. In your hands, I will live again and be able to experience life that is worth living. I was not always a sword, after all!"
The sword suddenly stopped speaking and coughed slightly as thought to clear its throat, which it did not have.
"Forget the last bit I said," it said solemnly, "I am a sword, and as a sword, my job is to take lives. These paper talismans and this disguised realm has sealed me for a very long time, and I fear that I will never see freedom again at this rate."
Xue Wei listened to the sword and mulled over the words. He could not trust this sword completely when it came to it; it lived on soul energy, after all. No one could tell whether or not it would turn on him and claim his life the moment he released it.
"I can kill you already," the sword said, guessing Xue Wei's thoughts, "but I can take an oath under the Nine Heavenly Tribulations that I will serve you well."
Xue Wei was startled. Taking an oath under the Nine Heavenly Tribulations was a very old saying. If one were not to uphold their word, even if they were the strongest being on the planet, they would be blasted into bits and pieces by the strong tribulation lightning that would descend from a heaven above the heavens.
Hearing this, Xue Wei's eyes narrowed, and his heart started beating rapidly. He had no weapon, and had relied on the Inner Might martial arts technique up until now. Although this ability was incredibly profound at his current level, and even held certain advantages, creating and maintaining a weapon made purely of Qi was still a drain on his Qi reserves.
Every clash with an enemy would drain a lot more Qi than it would if he used a traditional weapon.
"Okay, swear to the Nine Heavenly Tribulations," Xue Wei said with a snicker on his face. "Then I will start removing the paper talismans, and we will together figure out a way to deal with this village. I fear they will not just allow me to walk out of the door with you in my hands."
"They won't," the sword agreed. "In fact, they will all try to kill you, and destroy me, should they have the chance."
"I am seen as an evil weapon because I require the souls of others to grow stronger." The sword sighed. "But I am also able to cultivate. I had a cultivation base so profound that you could not believe it, but then I fell from the heavens, and my cultivation base dropped as a result."
"My strength has dwindled over the time, and now I am a mere Sky Warrior in strength."
"Fortunately, the strongest person in this village is also a Sky Warrior. Although I can a.s.sist you in taking him on, I cannot defeat all of them at once."
"I know your friend out there is no simpleton either. He should be able to also deal with a few of the villagers, but not all of them." The sword sighed.
"So we need to come up with some other plan if we wish to escape this place." The sword started mulling over what to do for a bit of time, staying quiet.
"Don’t remove the paper talismans sealing me yet," he ordered Xue Wei, "Temporarily, escape is impossible, so we might as well put up an act."
"They will know that something is wrong the moment I come out of this chamber alive," Xue Wei retorted with a snort, but the sword just trembled. "That is not necessarily true," it said hesitatingly.
"I can indeed kill someone and consume their soul, but that requires a huge effort from my side," the sword explained. "In fact, the easiest is to shave away a bit of the soul and consume that. Every time I get hungry, I will shave away a bit of a soul. When I get hungry again, I will take another slice from someone else."
"In fact, this means that there is now no one, not even a child, with a complete soul in this village."
"I usually consume a bit of someone's soul once every two days, and they are rotating to let me consume their souls. They have no one else to send to slaughter, so they sacrifice themselves to keep me pacified."
"Although I am chained here, and even though my strength has dropped to the Sky Warrior levels, I can annihilate the entire village if I pull out all stops, because my foundations are inherently on a higher level, and we would meet mutual destruction."
"That’s why they do not mind undergoing immense pain to sacrifice some of their soul every second day."
"So it is simple. You just have to look listless, have your face grimace with pain when you leave the room, and they will think that I have shaved off a part of your soul. Then in two days, they will most likely send your friend in to have me shave some of his soul off. It will continue like this until I have consumed your entire soul and you die."
Xue Wei considered what the sword soul said and nodded his head. "I can accept it, but what do you want in return? There is no such thing as a free lunch in the world. You want to leave here, but you must want something else to pledge yourself to me. It is no simple thing."
"Sharp boy," the sword said. As to whether or not it was praise, Xue Wei could not understand from its tone of voice.
"I require sacrifices once we’re out of here, be it a human or a beast. I want you to kill the vilest creatures around, the more wicked their deeds, the better it is for me. I am an evil spirit, and I benefit from other evil spirits. Although I can benefit from honorable souls and straightforward souls as well, I will not gain as much as I do from vile sc.u.m. Evil breeds more evil, and that helps my cultivation."
Xue Wei mused for some time. He had already accepted that he needed to kill people to stay alive as he was chased, but it seemed that this sword wanted him to go out of his way to slaughter injustice in the world.
"I am no righteous person," Xue Wei said with hesitation, "so I will not go out of my way to find people who have committed evil deeds due to some vigilante sentiment. However, if we happen to cross paths with a tyrant or an evildoer, I don't mind obliging. In a way, it might help me get some karmic luck in return."
The sinister laughter erupted once more in the small dark room, and soon symbols that Xue Wei had never seen before started floating in the air.
"Give me a drop of your blood!" the sword said with a rush, its voice filled with equal amounts excitement and exhaustion.
Xue Wei hesitated for the briefest of moments, but then he gritted his teeth and slashed his finger.
“Hey kid, what’s your name?” the sword suddenly asked. “Xue Wei,” he answered straightforwardly.
"I swear to the Nine Heavenly Tribulations that I will never turn against my master Xue Wei. May the heavenly tribulations strike me down should I go against my words!" the sword said weakly. The sound of rumbling thunder could be heard from above, briefly shaking the world.
Outside the room, the villagers heard the sound of the rumbling thunder. They saw how the clear sky suddenly turned dark.
No one knew what could be the reason for this sudden change in the weather, but they knew it was an ominous sign.
Inside the room, Xue Wei's cut on his finger produced a single drop of blood. A suction force seemed to draw it out, making it float towards the sword.
The moment the sword came into contact with the blood, a thundering boom resounded and the entire temple started shaking from the subsequent shockwaves.
Xue Wei felt dizzy. Although it was just a single drop of blood, the connection with the sword was as strong as it could be - and the obstruction of the talismans started to affect him as well.
Every talisman present was bearing down on the sword, making it impossible for it to move an inch, and it was almost as if this feeling was transferred to Xue Wei himself.
"You didn't warn me about the talismans," Xue Wei heaved a heavy sigh while adjusting himself. The talismans were bearing down upon him, making it incredibly hard to breathe, but he couldn’t just tear them off lest their plan backfire.
Right now, Xue Wei was not strong enough. He was not strong enough to safely take the sword out of the village through a wall of vengeful villagers, so he had to act covertly to succeed.
"I used too much of my energy," the sword said after a bit of time. "I will need you to wait in the village for at least a month before I am at the peak of what little strength I have left, and only then can we plan our escape. At least you will come in every fourth day to ‘have a bit of your soul shaven off’, so we can plan later," the sword said with a weak voice.
"By the way, I have a name. A name that once resounded throughout the eleven continents. My name is Tianyi. As for my last name, I have not used it in eons, and I fear that I will never use it again."
Having said this, Xue Wei felt how the sword grew weaker in his consciousness until finally it entered into deep slumber. Their minds were somewhat connected, though it did not share their feelings or thoughts. However, it was still possible for them to sense the rough location of the other and their current status. They had signed a contract.
