Chapter 1698: Naraka Blade (2)

<Holy shit it actually worked.>

As this was the first time they ever had a lord crazy enough to try and shove eight different conceptual swords into one physical vessel, Logos and Pathos made sure to pay extra attention to the process to make sure they could recreate the phenomenon if it ever arised.

Despite the interference produced by Zhen Liu’s activities, they were still able to record every last step.

Including the successful implementation of runes that Logos and Pathos had come up with on the fly.

=This should be the part where I assume you that we’re actually more competent than we act...but I was also under the impression that it was going to explode into a bloody mess.=

<Right?!>

As curators of the kaijin, they were more than familiar with the concept of [Transformation], but only under a particular purview.

That purview being the kaijin being able to change their physical forms, but still being able to maintain their identity, and their own transformations that allowed them to lie to reality about their entire identity.

Now one would be safe to assume that this would make them experts when it comes to the idea of an aether treasure sword with eight different forms, but that wasn’t the case.

When the kaijin transformed, it wasn’t so much a change in composition, but a change in structure.

When the curators transformed, it was same thing.

They didn’t add or subtract anything to their overall forms, they just rearranged some things in order to to change their appearance.

In other words, they could treat their bodies like clay that they were free to reshape and remold at will, but unable to add or subtract without radically changing themselves.

What Zhen Liu had done was a touch more absurd.

The sword in question was able to radically change everything about itself from ability to composition to shape at a speed that was impossible to track.

Logos and Pathos wanted to compare this transformation ability to be like you bricks, but it wasn’t as freeform as that.

It would be more accurate to say that Lythero’s new sword was like a toy model that would change into an entirely different model every time it was tossed into the air.

In other words, it was in complete defiance of the natural laws of physics and matter.

An application of [Chaos] that Logos and Pathos had never seen up until now.

<=Damn...looks like we definitely found a lord worth swearing our loyalty to...this time around...=>

...Ominous wording aside...

The final steps in making any sword are known as quenching and tempering.

Quenching a sword involves rapidly cooling a burning blade from a superheated state, while tempering is taking that recently cooled sword and slightly reheating it in order to stabilize the internal structure and make the sword suitable for battle.

Under normal circumstances the quenching step would be done with water or oil.

However, the sword that Zhen Liu and Axer had made for Lythero was anything but normal, given that it was infused with the essence of several dozen dead warriors and heated with a primordial flame that was older than time itself.

Hence why there was a barrel of supernaturally cooled dead man’s blood awaiting this final quenching step.

However, the blood wasn’t ready quite yet.

It needed one last component: the blood of the future wielder.

Lythero walked over to the barrel, knife in one hand and did his best to mentally prepare himself for this moment.

He should’ve been mentally prepared for this moment, since he had weeks and months to do so, but now that the moment had arrived...he couldn’t help but be a little nervous.

This was a crossroads for the young man, and he could sense it.

The moment he added his blood to this barrel, he would be committing himself fully to this sword until the very end.

There would be no more chances of trying to find a new sword to take the place of this one, there would be no more chance of seeing if he could learn any methods of cultivating.

If this new sword of his somehow broke then he would break too and that would be the end of his life.

But as he thought about what this moment actually meant, beyond the negatives, he realized he was actually okay with it.

He had been trained since he was young to be a swordsman, so he might as well live and die as one too.

"So...I just cut my hand and add my blood?" Lythero asked Zhen Liu for confirmation.

"Well, we could also have you grab the blade with your bare hand and have you plunge it in the blood yourself, but I don’t think that step is necessary," Zhen Liu answered with a hint of serious levity. "Adding your blood works about the same."

"Good... good to know."

With that cheery thought now locked away behind a mental block, Lythero proceeded to use the offered blade to cut his hand open and add a few drops of his blood to the barrel.

The effect was immediate, as the entire barrel seemed to pulse with power while Lythero could feel something inside of himself change.

With the barrel now ready, Axer and Lythero exchanged looks of confirmation.

"You take care of the quenching while take care of the tempering?"

"Aye."

Axer picked up the blade with a pair of specially made tongs, surprised by the weight of the thin-blade, while Zhen Liu went over to the furnace and adjusted the fire by swapping the [Sacred Flame] with the slightly weaker [Primordial Sun Flame].

He had initially thought to use the [Ghost Flame] since it seemed very on-brand with the methodology up to this point, but something in his gut told him that this would result in a better sword.

As he was doing this, Axer took several laborious steps towards the barrel of blood, taking extra care not to drop and ruin hours of hard work and intense rune carving.

Once he was in plunging distance, Axer proceeded to quench the blade as quick as he could.

A surge of rainbow-tinted steam and a myriad of smells filled the room as the blade was quenched, a sign that the ritual had more or less succeeded.

Axer had seen similar effects when he worked under his master, but the effects tended to be aligned with the materials and methodology used.

I.e., a fire treasure made the room hotter and flow red while an ice one made the room noticeably colder.

However, the materials this time around was kind of a mishmash of stuff, that should’ve resulted in a weak reaction or a life-ending explosion with no in-between.

The fact that the quenching resulted in this effect was...unusual, to say the least.

Axer had no idea what to expect from the tempering step, but it was probably going to be something absurd.

"Is...is it done quenching yet?" Lythero asked after the initial cloud of steam began to dissipate. "Also, am I smelling incense?"

"Maybe and maybe," Axer answered as he pulled the blade out of the blood, noticing that the barrel looked oddly drained by the act.

The cooled blade now had an oddly black finish to it, but the runes etched into its flat side were now a dark red.

Despite being incomplete, Axer could feel that this blade was something special...and dangerous.

He could only imagine what would happen once they finished tempering the thing.

"The fire is ready."

"And so is the sword," Axer replied as he walked over with the fully quenched blade.

As Axer brought it closer and closer to the furnace, he noticed that the blade started to glow starting from the bloodred runes.

Cracks of multicolored energy began to decorate the blade, a sign that if this tempering wasn’t applied, the blade would shatter into pieces in a rather explosive manner.

"Okay, so three...two...go!"

FWOOSH!

"WHOA!"

As soon as the blade was placed into the furnace, a wave of aether and [Chaos] blasted Zhen Liu and Axer several steps backwards.

The latter moreso than the former, so Zhen Liu had to reach out and grab Axer before he got sent flying back too far.

As soon as Lythero noticed this moment play out, though, a small feeling of panic bubbled up in his belly. Especially when started to feel the aether in the room was getting very distorted.

And the origin of this distortion was none other than the sword in the process of being tempered.

"Zhen Liu, what the fuck is going on?!"

"Short answer: it’s a trial," Zhen Liu answered. "Long answer: Lythero, this is your final step of claiming ownership of this sword."

"Wait, what?"

After saying this, Zhen Liu produced from his person a sword handle that appeared to be carved from bone and plated with a golden alloy that was further encrusted with several masterfully carved gems.

In other words, a perfect compliment to the blade in the furnace.

"One last test."