Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

The question lingered in the air.

Was Godslayer ever a sword that could kill the Undying Gods?

“It did, before the mutation,” Godslayer said with a bleak voice. “It worked far too well; so much so that I realized that it went beyond just killing the Undying God. The sword was capable of filling anyone it cut with Death and Darkness, to corrupt them.”

“Corrupted demons saw no friends or foes and attacked without mercy. I feared a future where this corruption spread, beyond just the war. In the wrong hands, worlds would’ve been lost.”

Godslayer seemed to be remembering his past as he took his time to continue.

“Worse, if the wielder wasn’t strong of mind, he would be corrupted too. Worse even, if the wielder was someone evil, there was no end to the wrath he would have brought upon this world.”

“I was told that before me, a previous Sword God had asked someone else to make this sword. The Artifact Sage then had rejected this demand and even killed the Sword God who asked this of him then and there. Only his spirit survived.”

“The sage was then brought to a council of Gods where they tried to punish him for that. It was that day he gained his notoriety and the infamous title, Godkiller.”

“I now wonder, did he know what they were trying to get him to make? Did he too foresee a future of endless massacre?”

Alex listened intently, not wishing to miss out on a single word.

This was no longer Godslayer speaking. This was the Artifact God, speaking about his regrets and his wishes, about his history.

“I refused to let a sword of this nature out into the world. The moment I realized what it would do, I decided to destroy it. Alas, I was far too late. The other gods, namely the Sword God, Method God, and Saber God, had realized my intentions somehow and appeared to stop me from doing so.”

“I tried to argue with them, but they wouldn’t listen. Their faction, their group… it was one that wanted only power and did not care for the process through which they achieved it.”

“I did not wish to fight back then. I was still weak, weakened after spending days making the sword. And yet, they did not care for my words. They wanted the sword, and for that, they were willing to suffer any outcome.”

“They didn’t attack me, however. They wanted me to kill myself. That was the only way for them to lie their way out of any suspicions others might have of them.”

“I refused. I used the sword.”

Godslayer fell silent for a moment.

“I don’t remember much after the corruption. I wasn’t me. But I gained some sanity after being dealt a strong attack. When I came to, I saw the destruction I had dealt.”

“Aside from the Gods and a few others out there, I had killed many and injured more. The Reverend of the Saber Sage, the one you got the Origin splitting technique from, I believe I was the one who wounded him as well.”

Alex raised an eyebrow.

The Twin-Saber sect’s founder, one of the senior disciples of the Blue Silk Sect, Sixghost, had been wounded by Godslayer as well.

‘No, it will be more correct to say he was wounded by the Artifact God rather than Godslayer just yet,’ Alex realized. The two hadn’t yet become one at that point.

“If a mere Artifact God like me, one who had already been weak from the start, could have posed such a problem to gods that were used to fighting, I only feared what would’ve happened.”

“I could tell that all of the gods were scared of me. They had barely managed to stop me at all. I realized that I would soon become that which I had feared.”

“I started hating them for not listening to me then. I hated them because even after seeing so many of their own people die, their eyes never turned away from my sword. The greed for the Demon-killing sword I had prepared was clear for me.”

“At that moment, with my last moments of clarity, I chose to destroy the sword. The metal that made the sword was far too special for someone like me to destroy it without prior preparations. But I believed I could have destroyed the sword spirit within it.”

“Without the sword spirit, the Death and Darkness aura that was contained within the sword would not be present at all. I tried but once to destroy it, but it was far too strong.”

“I understood but a single way to destroy it. I needed to use all of my soul into one attack and deal with it directly. I couldn’t bring my Divine Sense out at that time, so I needed to bring the sword to my soul.”

“I stabbed myself through the heart, just as those gods wanted me to, and used my soul to destroy the sword spirit.”

“But, as you can tell, I did not succeed. What should have been destructive ended up being constructive instead. The soul did not kill the sword spirit, but rather merged with it.”

“The Demon-killing sword’s spirit merged with the soul of the Artifact God, bound by my hatred for the gods in that moment. Instead of being destroyed, it fed on that hatred, growing stronger.”

“It didn’t happen instantly. It took some time. The Sword God had taken away the sword, while a new sword spirit germinated with it. A sword spirit empowered purely by hatred for the gods.”

“That’s how I was born. That’s how Godslayer came to be. But nearly all the ones who had wronged me back then have disappeared. My source of hatred is all but gone.”

“So, the soul and the spirit that were bound together have begun to separate again. And after such a long time, both the soul and the spirit have grown far too weak to sustain themselves.”

“When they finally separate, both halves of me will die.”