Chapter 85: 82 Obsession

82 Obsession

The attack was not only sudden, but it came without a shadow and went without a trace!

It had no shape, not even a glimmer of light; there was only an extremely subtle ripple, as if space had caved in slightly, then rapidly returned to its original state.

Tang Zhao was stunned for an instant, and immediately after, his head felt a sharp pain!

That was not a headache, not a physical pain, but a torment coming from deeper within.

Spirit... no, even deeper, approaching the Soul!

The pain coming from the depths of the Soul was not sharp, but a grinding, dull agony, as if a millstone were crushing flesh and blood, or as if broken bones that could not be removed were rolling within his joints.

Although Tang Zhao could endure, he could not help but clutch his head and groan in pain.

Xing Ji froze for a moment, staring fixedly at the white fish with the human head, saying word by word: "Sword Seed—are you creating a Sword Slave?!"

The human-headed fish laughed eerily, the "ha-ha, ha-ha" sound ringing out rhythmically, devoid of any mirth, and not even sounding like a noise made by a human.

Xing Ji steadied himself and shouted loudly: "Xue Yeyu—come out!"

Xue Jiejie poked her head out from the small hut and said: "What is it? Have you expelled the Wangliang?"

Xing Ji said calmly: "No, look at Tang Zhao."

Xue Yeyu was startled; she saw Tang Zhao sitting on the ground clutching his head, and feeling a panic in her heart, she rushed over to check on him.

Xing Ji kept his eyes locked on the human-headed fish while waiting for news from Xue Yeyu.

At this moment, he still held a sliver of hope in his heart.

A moment later, he heard an exclamation; Xue Yeyu raised her head, both sorrowful and angry, and cried: "He... he has been invaded by a Sword Seed! What is wrong with you people at the Inspection Bureau! My uncle was like this, and now this child is too!"

Xing Ji's heart sank; he closed his eyes slightly, then opened them, his gaze grim, and said: "Is there any saving him?"

Xue Yeyu said angrily: "Once a Sword Seed enters the body, isn't that a Sword Slave? When have you ever seen a Sword Slave saved? Once a Sword Seed enters the Soul, it can never be removed; it can only be taken out when the Soul is destroyed! I said, what is the use of you people at the Inspection Bureau? You cannot protect veteran heroes, and you cannot protect young commoners..." By the end, her voice was choked with sobs, and two lines of clear tears slid down.

Xing Ji had his back to her and could not see her tears, but he said: "Don't cry, take the child back. Still the same words: if you hear any sound, do not come out."

Xue Yeyu glared hatefully in that direction, pinched the back of Tang Zhao's neck to make him fall unconscious and interrupt his pain, and carried Tang Zhao back to the hut in a hurry.

Xing Ji pointed his sword upward and said: "You are a person from Wangliang Mountain, young with a head of white hair; you must also be a lucky Sword Slave. Why do you still want to create the same tragedy?"

The white human-headed fish had been laughing strangely, but suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, its expression turned ferocious and it shrieked: "Sword Slave! Lucky? Lucky? I am not lucky! There is no luck!"

Xing Ji was startled, seemingly realizing he had said the wrong thing, and said softly: "Yes, how could a Sword Slave be lucky? There is only long-term hard labor and eternal descent into hell. Since that is the case, why do you still want to create misfortune? Even after you are dead, you still do such things!"

He said sternly: "You are already dead, aren't you! I forced you to fall into the Wangliang at that time, and your Soul was mostly devoured by the Sword Image, leaving only a sliver of obsession. As a result, you used that obsession to create this monster, actually dragging out a portion of the Wangliang to make a clone and escaping here. I thought you had some unfulfilled wish, but... your obsession is actually to harm Tang Zhao? Just this? Is it worth you worrying about it even after death, just to create the Sword Slave you loathe so much?!"

Xing Ji truly found it inconceivable. They had investigated this Sword Guest; he had killed many human traffickers after entering Heiyang County, and combined with the signs that he came from Wangliang Mountain and deeply hated wealthy families, they judged that he must have been a Sword Slave.

Wangliang Mountain is the paradise of Sword Slave masters and the prison of Sword Slaves, gathering most of the Sword Slaves in the world. The vast majority are sold into it by various major powers, and Sword Slaves are consumed extremely quickly, with most dying after suffering all kinds of torture. But there are also a few lucky ones who happen to be particularly compatible with the Sword Seed in their bodies and eventually endure until they come out on top, naturally becoming Sword Guests.

Xing Ji saying he was a lucky Sword Slave, while cruel, was the truth.

At first, the Inspection Bureau thought the white-haired person's goal was the Demon Cave, but later they learned it was not; he was targeting Ping Jiangqiu, and even finding Tang Zhao was just incidental. One thousand taels of silver is nothing to a Sword Guest; if he were sincerely looking for Tang Zhao, it certainly wouldn't be that price.

Originally, the two sides did not necessarily have to fight to the death, but once the great battle started, they gradually became blinded by bloodlust and could only fight until one died. Moreover, the white-haired person had released the Wangliang, which was a crime against heaven, and it was even more impossible for Xing Ji to hold back.

At that time, the white-haired person was already like a candle in the wind after being fought in rounds, helpless against Xing Ji, and in the end, refusing to submit to the law, he voluntarily fell into the Wangliang. Xing Ji thought he preferred death to humiliation, never expecting he would leave behind a wisp of obsession.

For a person to leave behind an obsession, it must be the most important thing in their heart. Combined with his experience, it should have been something like revenge; even if he hated the families that sold him and indiscriminately burned and killed the families of the wealthy, it wouldn't be strange. But Xing Ji could not understand why the last thing this person wanted to do was to catch Tang Zhao and turn him into a Sword Slave.

Was this really what he wanted to do most before he died?

The white human-headed fish bumped around in the air; surrounded by walls, it seemed to have lost the ability to distinguish direction. Besides viciously crashing about, it just shrieked, its voice blurred and unclear, seemingly calling out:

"Why? Why?"

Seeing his consciousness fading more and more, Xing Ji sighed: "According to the law, privately creating a Sword Slave is a capital crime, and releasing the Wangliang is an unforgivable sin—Great Execution. You were already insane, which could be debated, but your intent to do evil is certain and beyond doubt; the crime is unpardonable."

"My sword has always been a sword of punishment, but I have always only executed righteous justice. At most, it is Great Execution. But you, you are worth—"

"Sword Art—Slow Slicing."

The sword rose, the sword fell!

Two streaks of Sword Light transformed into a net, firmly binding this ugly human-faced monster fish from above and below, wrapping it airtight.

In the Void, countless small blades danced, cutting the fish body exposed through the mesh of the net from all directions.

The body of the human-headed fish was cut into pieces and flicked away, revealing hole after hole, from which a bit of smoke flowed out, resembling blood.

That was the cruelest punishment in the world, the Slicing.

However, although the human-headed fish was shrieking, it seemed to be just venting its emotions and did not feel the pain.

The technique of the blades was excellent; in a short while, a layer of debris had already been scraped off. These fragments fell to the ground, turning into a puddle of water that seeped into the soil.

Gradually, the debris was scraped away more and more; the white fish no longer looked like a fish, but the human face was still a human face.

That human face started with a twisted and distorted expression, seven parts like a human and three parts like a fish, extremely strange. As the white fish was peeled away, it gradually returned to a normal human shape, and it looked more and more like the white-haired person's appearance while alive.

After slicing for a while longer, the fish body became thin, and a skeleton was faintly visible. Some starlike rays of light flew out from the gaps in the wounds and landed on the white-haired person's face; his facial expressions became vivid, and he even began to twitch, seemingly already able to feel the pain.

"So you still had consciousness sealed in the Sword Image, good, this further confirms your intentional crime. It is only right that you wake up and submit to the law. Do you feel it? You are the one who should be punished; your Sword Image is just a tool. Properly suffer the punishment for your crimes! My Sword Art is Slow Slicing; the secret of Slow Slicing is that until the very last cut is finished, you will absolutely not die. Only when I tell you to die will you die; otherwise, you will suffer forever!"

"Suffering? Heh... heh..." The white-haired person suddenly opened his mouth and said, "What kind of suffering is this? Have you ever been a Sword Slave? If you had, and had endured the torment of ten years like one day, you would know this is nothing at all? Slow Slicing? It's not even one ten-thousandth of the pain I've suffered! What is Slow Slicing? There is also the Fragment. Real pain is putting your body, will, and Soul into a millstone, constantly churning, grinding, crushing into dregs, grinding into powder, grinding into ash... and it never ends!"

His expression was ferocious, but his voice was actually quite steady, as if the punishment of Slow Slicing could really be endured.

Xing Ji looked at him coldly and said: "I know the pain of a Sword Slave, and you know it even better, so why do you still want to create a Sword Slave? Why use Tang Zhao? I wouldn't be surprised if you turned those young masters and misses from noble families into Sword Slaves, but why must you chase after Tang Zhao?"

Yes, why?

The pain of Slow Slicing and the premonition of death made the white-haired person fall into a trance.

Why, create a Sword Slave?

Because he just happened to obtain a Sword Seed and could create a Sword Slave?

Sword Slaves are really convenient; it wasn't until he became a Sword Guest that he realized Sword Slaves are very useful tools! It would have been fine if he didn't know, but he had already become accustomed to the existence of Sword Slaves and couldn't help but want to create one to make things convenient for himself.

But at the beginning, he really did want to use those noble disciples to create one, to let these people who had caused him to fall into slavery in those years taste such bitterness. Although he found Pei Shoujing somewhat pleasing to the eye, if the others didn't meet the criteria, using her would also work.

They were all noble disciples, eating the blood and sweat of the poor, and their fathers were all full of sin; why couldn't they be used to make Sword Slaves?

And Tang Zhao, he had actually wanted to save him at the beginning.

Yes, save him.

That was a child just like him, from a well-off family to wandering the streets overnight, targeted by human traffickers because of his talent, escaping temporarily only to be caught again, beaten, resold, and finally becoming a Sword Slave, falling into the deepest hell.

A cycle of time passed, and when the white-haired man heard from the traffickers that there was such a child, could he not save him? Just like he had casually saved that gray-haired girl. At first, he just wanted the children not to suffer the same hardships he had.

Until he saw Tang Zhao again.

It turned out that after that child did not fall back into the hands of traffickers, he had been saved, gained the attention of the authorities, was full of spirit and high in fighting will, and obtained a Dharma Artifact suitable for himself without any effort, just waiting to ascend to the heavens and naturally become a Sword Guest.

"Why does he deserve to be saved?"

"Why did no one come to save me back then?"

He had not thought carefully about these two sentences while he was alive; he just found Tang Zhao particularly unpleasant to look at, and as he watched, the eyesore turned into disgust, and finally into hatred, to the point of hating him to the very bottom of his heart.

Before he died, casting aside other distracting thoughts, he blurted them out without concealment.

"Back then I begged for help, to the heavens, to the earth, to the Emperor, to you all, and not one of you came to save me. Was it because you were powerless?"

"I want you to remain powerless."

"You couldn't save me back then, and you still can't save him today."

"Sword Slaves are beyond saving!"

He let out a long howl toward the sky, the sound extremely loud, as if wailing, and the fish body, now only a skeleton, swayed precariously.

"So that's how it is," Xing Ji said. "If I had met you back then, I would have saved you, even at the cost of my life. Even if I had known early on that you would turn into a piece of scum, I would not have regretted it."

"But today, you are committing a crime because of jealousy. It is that simple."

"You are a... standard piece of scum."

As the voice fell, Xing Ji returned his sword to its sheath.

The fish Bone immediately fell apart in the air, and the human head landed on the ground.

Then, the head also gradually faded, and the last remnants of the white-haired man gradually diluted.

At the very end, an illusion appeared in his consciousness.

It was a child fleeing in a wretched state in the wilderness.

Running non-stop, running non-stop, just to escape the disaster behind.

It was a little girl with a head of gray hair.

"Mingjing, run quickly..."

Whispering the last few words, he was completely extinguished.

5

82 Obsession