Chapter 332: The Sub-legendary Demon-Slaying Sword
During the second half of the celebration banquet held at Dragon’s Tooth Fortress, Donald left early and did not continue attending. He delegated most of the social obligations to Prince Duri, as this prince was far more skilled at such things and enjoyed building closer relationships with the high-ranking Sirens.
In the villa room arranged by the Siren leader, Amps, transformed into the appearance of a handsome human male, watched respectfully as his master Donald fiddled with his weapon, the Flame Great Sword.
Powerful non-humans like dragons, high-level demons, and other legendary beasts mostly possessed innate spells that allowed them to change forms. Such spells could only be used by them themselves, and most dragons and demons preferred to take on human forms to walk among the world’s inhabitants.
“This weapon is crafted from Abyssal Demon Iron, with the core, blood, and horns of a legendary Flame Demon added. Its foundation is quite good—it’s sufficient to forge it into a sub-legendary weapon. It just lacks a trace of divinity! Why wasn’t it upgraded to a true sub-legendary weapon?”
Donald, who possessed divine vision, analyzed this legendary weapon with great accuracy.
Abyssal Blacksmith said helplessly, “To be honest, master, I’ve tried endowing this great sword with divinity, but I can’t integrate it with the sword itself. If forced, the sword might be destroyed. I can only temporarily grant it the power of laws during battles to make it reach the attack power of a sub-legendary weapon. After the battle, it returns to its legendary state.”
“Oh?”
Curious, Donald opened the Book of Truth and examined it briefly before arriving at a conclusion.
“I see. It seems you’re indeed not good at forging, alchemy, or enchanting. Otherwise, you wouldn’t make such a basic mistake!”
Under Amps’ puzzled gaze, Donald stretched out his hand, glowing with divine light, and tapped the nine-foot-long sword blade before him. With a hiss, the flaming sword emitted a wave of energy, and then a demon figure entirely composed of flames appeared outside the sword—it was clearly a Flame Demon that had begun to elementalize.
Seeing the suddenly appearing Flame Demon, Amps let out a surprised cry as the demon glared at him with hatred and roared silently, unable to move due to the sword’s restraint. “This—isn’t Chiller? I already killed it and destroyed its core to forge this weapon. How is this possible—”
Donald snorted and emitted a beam of divine light, forcing the ungrateful Flame Demon figure back into the sword.
“It’s obviously dead, but since its core, which contains most of its soul, is compatible with the weapon, this wouldn’t be a big problem in other dimensions. On the contrary, with the soul integrated into the weapon, its spirituality would increase greatly, and it might even gain additional effects and abilities. I guess that’s what you’re thinking too!”
Seeing Abyssal Demon Forger nod in agreement, Donald said sharply, “But you’ve forgotten—where you once lived was the lower realm where all negative matter and energy in the universe converged, deep within the evil and chaotic abyss. This flame demon itself is a great demon that has received some favor from the abyss. It holds deep resentment toward you for killing it. These negative emotions allow it to communicate with the abyssal will even after death, becoming a relatively independent entity. That’s why it rejects your divinity so strongly and even refuses to acknowledge you as its master!”
“The soul of this flame demon is still relatively intact. I guess the abyssal will simply sees it as a unique life form with a great sword as its body. Don’t you realize that even undead creatures can be recognized by the abyssal will? What more so a weapon with an independent soul? Compared to undead creatures, it’s just different in terms of its physical composition!”
“That’s why the gods never grant complete souls to their divine artifacts when creating them, and they even prevent such souls from arising in the first place. Divine artifacts are part of the true gods’ laws and authorities, manifestations of their domains and extensions of their will. If their physical forms are destroyed for some reason, their souls can be reborn within the divine artifacts or other entities that possess their divinity! In such cases, the artifacts function as extensions of their creators—how could they allow them to develop other consciousnesses and souls?”
Demons are masters at manipulating souls, let alone half-godly powers like Abyssal Demon Forger. So when Amps heard half of Donald’s explanation, he suddenly understood everything and realized he had been in the wrong, quickly grasping his previous mistakes.
Donald’s knowledge, drawn from the many divine beings recorded in the Book of Truth, about the origins of divine artifacts left this half-godly demon, who had previously been ignorant of the true gods’ realms, in awe.
“As expected of my master, Amps. Even at the mortal level, you have such deep understanding of the gods. Could it be that you’re the rebirth of some powerful true god?”
Donald ignored the delusions of his demi-god demon servant. After explaining the situation, he immediately used the Book of Truth to extract the flame demon soul from the Flame Great Sword, leaving only some basic, unconscious residual spiritual entities that could add a touch of spirituality to the weapon without forming self-awareness or resistance toward its master.
Then he said to Amps, “Now grant it a hint of divinity—it will become your most loyal weapon in the future!”
The Abyssal Demon Forger was overjoyed at these words and quickly drew out a thread of divinity from his own body and sent it toward the Flame Great Sword. As the light of divinity approached, the naive spirituality within the sword spontaneously wrapped around its blade. At that moment, Donald released pure divine power through the Book of Truth, quickly transforming the Flame Great Sword into a sub-legendary artifact.
Although it hadn’t noticed the existence of the Book of Truth, sensing this far more powerful and pure divine force, Amps once again admired his human master, Donald! Having witnessed the power fluctuations of the Spider Queen and her subordinates—those demi-gods and true gods—it knew this was at least the strength of a powerful lower god, and even purer and stronger than ordinary lower gods.
What it didn’t know was that this was because the Book of Truth, as a high-tier legendary artifact, had only recovered to the level of an elementary artifact equivalent to that of a lower god. Yet, in essence, it was still a top-tier legendary artifact, which explained such performance.
“Forging this sub-legendary artifact for you is a reward for the successful resolution of this incident! If you can find the corpse of a demi-god-level flame demon or other suitable materials, I can upgrade it to a lower legendary artifact. With your abilities, though restricted by the rules of the main world, if you have a lower legendary artifact that allows you to unleash 50% of its power, you’d likely be among the strongest among those demi-gods in the main world!”
The Abyssal Demon Forger caressed his new weapon affectionately, feeling no more sense of dissonance with the great sword in his hands—it seemed to communicate with his soul without any obstacles. He knew this was because the sub-legendary artifact was forged using his own divinity.
Hearing Donald’s words, Amps thanked him again in delight, “Thank you, master, for granting me this sword! Please also bestow a name upon it!”
Donald thought for a moment and said, “You’ve already escaped the abyss, betrayed the Spider Queen, and have many demon enemies. You’ll surely face them in the future—how about calling it the Demon Slaying Sword?”
“Demon Slaying Sword! What a great name!”
After sending the overjoyed demigod demons away to the room to get familiar with their new weapons, Donald set up a disturbance-free defense spell in the bedroom and deployed a few low-level summoned creatures as sentinels. Then he headed straight into the House of Time to sort through his massive haul from this mission.
Meanwhile, in Gadré’s largest port, Peace Harbor, as Prince Andrew and his group had just arrived and hadn’t yet set off for the Sirens, they already received news of the first successful battle where human reinforcements from the Sirens had repelled an invasion from the Abyss. News about the Celt reinforcements and powerful figures like Donald also spread quickly.
Hearing this news, Andrew, who was staying in a guest house arranged by the port officials, angrily smashed the expensive wooden table beside him with a slap. “Damn these rural nobles for choosing to support Duri! Since you’ve pushed me to this point, don’t blame me for losing my sense of brotherhood!” With that, Andrew called for his servant. “Go and invite Mr. Wayne here. Also, have someone clean up this place!” The servant bowed and left hastily. Before long, he brought in a middle-aged man in white robes before bowing respectfully and retreating.
If Donald were here, he would surely recognize this man as Pastor Wayne, the leader of the Justice Hand squad that had once gone to the North County to hunt down the sorcerer Gorman. At this moment, Wayne wasn’t dressed as a priest; in his white robes, he looked like a scholar from a noble family.
Glancing around the room, which had been rearranged with the same furnishings, he didn’t notice anything unusual, but he could easily tell that the prince from Celt was extremely angry, likely having just had a fit of rage. In fact, it wasn’t hard to guess that Andrew, who had just received the news, knew that the Glorious Three Gods Church, with its deeply rooted intelligence network across the continent, had already received accurate news from the west a full day earlier than him.
The temple’s message delivery system was no less efficient than Gadré’s interconnected mage tower networks. In fact, by relying on the power of the true gods, these clergy members could transmit messages even faster and more accurately than through magic arrays!
When Wayne received the intelligence from the Sirens, he knew that this prince, who had avoided his proposals all the way from the capital of Celt to Peace Harbor, would likely have to compromise with their church this time.
If they hadn’t intervened, Andrew’s mission would have been a complete failure—since it ended before it even started. It can be said that Andrew didn’t even get a chance to participate. No matter who judges it, he lost this battle outright and lost his right to inherit the throne!