Chapter 203: Heaven-Born Sword Spirit
The young man who had barely begun his journey suddenly became the sect’s sole surviving disciple.
He seemed to have aged in an instant.
Not the sullen, pretentious silence of before, but a genuine, weighty maturity.
Sometimes he spoke to himself.
“My aptitude is dull, my cultivation progresses slowly. Going with them would only be a burden, adding to Master’s and the elders’ troubles.”
“Remaining to guard the sect is perfectly natural.”
“Master and the sect leader entrusted me with this one task. I must see it through, no matter what.”
Yet he did not remain at the mountain gate for long.
From some unknown point onward, the worry in Bai Tao’s brow deepened.
News of the destruction of neighboring Sword Dao sects and monasteries grew ever more frequent.
Many small sects that practiced the Sword Dao were slaughtered overnight.
Some were erased so completely that even the trace of their existence vanished.
At last, one day, Bai Tao gathered all the sect’s important artifacts, left his mark, and departed the mountain gate with the crow.
His fears had not been unfounded.
Though he had half-expected it, a group of cultivators of unknown origin caught up with him.
After a desperate battle to the death, Bai Tao cut them down one by one.
Yet he himself suffered grievous wounds.
He pressed on without rest, carrying the crow back to his homeland of Qingu, and hid himself in the deep mountains nearby.
It was the same secluded valley where he had first met the crow.
More than a decade had passed since he left this place, and the crow immortal had already begun to show the signs of age.
Yet the valley seemed not to have changed at all.
In the years that followed, Bai Tao took on a few disciples.
Once each disciple was formally admitted, he told them of the sect’s former location.
He instructed them to visit the mountain gate on their own travels, to pay their respects and acknowledge their roots.
However, the injuries from that great battle never fully healed.
On the contrary, they grew worse.
Until one day, Bai Tao bequeathed all the sect’s traditions to his disciples and bade them depart.
He sat alone atop the mountain peak, gazing toward the distant mountain gate, with Qingu behind him.
“I wonder how Master and the others are faring.”
Facing the mountain wind, Bai Tao rose and performed his sword forms. The crow perched upon a stone.
The setting sun of dusk made it seem as though they had returned to his youth.
Suddenly.
The crow cried out, its call mournful.
Bai Tao seemed to sense something, yet laughed heartily. “That you and I have known each other and kept each other company is the fortune of a lifetime.”
“Why should there be sorrow?”
He drove the flying sword into the ground beneath the tree and walked back into the hut alone.
He passed into silence and death.
From that day, one young Sword Dao cultivator was lost to the world.
And yet.
The crow did not leave.
Bai Tao, that poor boy, truly had a bitter fate.
He once saved my life, yet I could do nothing to help him.
He left nothing behind in this world. How could the crow immortal ever repay him?
The only things in this world connected to him seemed to be the villagers of Qingu.
Fortunately, the crow still had a few years to live, and could still just barely fly, so it would watch over them a little.
The new snow had just begun to melt when the crow first spread its wings and flew down to Qingu.
It smelled the scent of death.
The old village chief of Qingu was a kind and respected man, yet he was mortally ill and did not know it.
Caw—
The crow alighted upon a tree in the village chief’s courtyard and cried out.
A woman hanging laundry glanced up briefly before continuing to beat her clothes. Children laughed and threw stones at it.
A few days later.
The hale old village chief of Qingu suddenly passed away from illness.
At the height of summer, the crow flew into Qingu for the second time.
From the cliff it spotted a band of bandits who had wandered in from elsewhere.
The crow circled above Qingu, crying out loudly.
Caw—
The night watchman, half-asleep, merely grumbled.
“Some wild bird.”
He rolled over and continued to snore soundly.
The bandits attacked Qingu.
Though the crow’s strange cries had awakened many people, and the valley had its share of martial artists who managed to drive off the bandits.
Still, several households were plundered, and Qingu was bathed in blood and fire.
Fortunately.
The damage was not severe.
Another bitter winter arrived.
The crow spread its wings a third time, braving the cold, and flew into Qingu.
At that time, the state of Chu was engulfed in war. Refugees fled everywhere, and plague spread across the land.
It alighted upon the nearest tree to the valley entrance and began to cry out loudly.
Caw—
A passing villager drove it away in annoyance. “Shoo, shoo, you’re deafening.”
A farmwife even splashed a basin of water at it and chased it off.
A few days later, the plague erupted.
The old and the young of the valley fell ill and died in great numbers.
Winter finally passed.
By now the crow was ancient. Its feathers had thinned, and its wings could barely hold its weight.
Yet it mustered every last strength and flew into Qingu for the fourth time.
It alighted upon the nearest tree to the valley entrance.
Caw—
Having learned from the bitterness of the past, the villagers would surely believe the crow immortal now.
The villagers gathered before it.
Every face was twisted with resentment and hatred.
“It is that creature…”
A villager pointed at the crow with trembling hands, features contorted.
“It brought the calamity upon us!”
This time, what awaited the crow was a net.
The crow immortal was pinned to the ground by a pitchfork.
It died in the spring.
Every villager’s face glowed with the joy and celebration of finally having slain the “creature of ill omen.”
That very day, several households in the valley even held feasts to celebrate the removal of the curse.
Yet not long after, a great drought struck the state of Chu.
Qingu’s crops withered to nothing, and famine followed.
Starvation claimed countless lives.
Few in Qingu survived that famine. Those who did by chance never connected the drought or the famine to the crow.
After all, it was already dead.
The moment the pitchfork pierced its body, the crow’s soul began to wander.
It was no demon, nor had it ever cultivated. It had merely dined on morning dew alongside Bai Tao on the immortal mountain, living somewhat longer than ordinary crows.
Its soul should have dissipated then and there, yet some wondrous obsession kept its spirit lingering near Qingu.
Gradually, it forgot who it was.
It forgot the villagers’ cold stares and the pitchfork.
It even forgot why it had died.
All it remembered was that when calamity approached, it must fly to Qingu and warn the villagers.
In the haze of the afterlife, it flew toward that desolate valley.
An indescribably familiar feeling drew it to alight upon the hilt of the flying sword, “Crying Moon.”
Threads of Sword Dao energy flowed from the blade and edge, slowly intertwining with the crow’s wandering spirit.
Days? Months? Or years?
No one knew how long had passed.
One day, a beam of black-purple sword light shot into the sky and took the shape of a crow, circling above Qingu.
The villagers drove it away, cursed it, performed rites against it.
It felt no anger, nor resentment. It merely cried out stubbornly until the Sword Dao energy dispersed.
Among the valley’s elders, some remembered the crow.
Thus the tale of the crow demon’s curse began to spread once more.
The ink-black darkness scattered into the form of loose black feathers, slowly dissipating.
When Song Yan came to his senses, his divine sense had already returned to the Two Powers World.
The black crow still perched upon the hilt of Crying Moon, tilting its head to look at him, as though trying to recognize something.
“Elder Bai Tao had a bitter fate, and you, crow immortal, are no different…”
The crow was already dead. By a twist of fate, it had merged with the remnant lifebound flying sword of Elder Bai Tao, becoming something akin to a specter.
Now that Song Yan had refined the sword Crying Moon, the Sword Dao energy belonging to Elder Bai Tao would soon dissipate.
In turn, this crow immortal would soon vanish from the world.
“The villagers were ignorant. You have done all that could be asked. Go now and pass into the cycle of rebirth.”
Song Yan gently stroked the crow’s head and neck.
At that moment, a wisp of black-purple spirit light drifted from the flying sword Crying Moon, circled the Sword Dao seed, and merged into it.
A surge of qi washed through him.
Song Yan, who had been prepared for this, was no stranger to the sensation.
It seemed that just as with the Twin Lotus flying sword before, refining the elder’s remnant Sword Dao energy allowed his cultivation to advance a measure.
Recalling his experience at Spirit Flower Valley, he felt a quiet anticipation.
If his cultivation advanced as it had then, perhaps he could soon break through to the ninth level of the Qi Refining Stage.
His divine sense departed the Two Powers World.
Song Yan sat cross-legged beneath the withered tree, calmed his mind, and placed a Qi Condensing Pill in his mouth.
He began to refine the strand of Sword Dao energy.
Yet this energy was not as abundant as he had imagined. The spiritual energy replenished by the Qi Condensing Pill seemed to leave a considerable surplus.
His Dantian and meridians felt no discomfort, only a slight sensation of distension.
The sword energy that had flown from Crying Moon this time felt no different from consuming a Spirit Condensing Pill.
Moreover, the refinement concluded swiftly, leaving him slightly disappointed. His cultivation had not advanced much.
“Perhaps the crow immortal, in using the sword energy to maintain its physical form, consumed a great deal over the years.”
He quickly adjusted his mood.
This trip had been unexpected after all. To have obtained a superior-grade spiritual artifact like Crying Moon was already excellent.
Indeed.
Beyond that, he had also acquired the carcass of a spirit beast equivalent to a cultivator at the peak of the Qi Refining Stage.
Song Yan pondered that the body-tempering technique he had inherited from Elder Nie Zhao’s memories might be worth trying again, this time with the tiger demon’s blood.
Though the tempering effect might not match that of the qilin blood, it could still enhance his physical strength somewhat.
He had not yet thought of a use for the demon core. He would ask Xiao He first whether it held any great value for her.
If not, he would simply sell it at a market.
As he was mulling this over, a dark shadow at the edge of his vision rose and fell with his breathing.
“?”
Song Yan turned his head.
He found a black crow perched silently upon his shoulder at some unknown point, gazing at him with quiet stillness.
His shoulder did not even feel the slightest weight.
“Hm?”
“How did this come to be?”
Song Yan was puzzled. The Sword Dao energy belonging to Elder Bai Tao within Crying Moon had already been refined. The crow specter should have been a river without a source.
In theory, it should have dissipated by now.
Then, as though realizing something, a faint look of delighted surprise appeared on his face.
“Could it be…”
“A masterless sword spirit?”
A sword spirit was a sentient existence born within a sword, arising from the resonance of a Sword Dao cultivator’s lifebound flying sword, the sword body, and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
There were many origins and pathways by which a sword spirit might be born. Some flying swords that already possessed powerful spiritual energy naturally gestured one over the passage of time.
Or a swordsmith, during the forging, might use secret arts to guide a soul or spiritual entity into the sword, forcibly giving rise to a sword spirit.
The crow before him obviously belonged to neither of these.
Yet Song Yan could piece together seven or eight parts of the truth from the scattered descriptions in the Spirit Transformation Chapter.
Perhaps because Elder Bai Tao had died young, many obsessions within his Sword Dao intent remained unresolved.
What weighed on him most was his sect, of which all news had been lost, and the crow that had accompanied him for half a lifetime.
The crow, too, had been killed with its obsessions unspent.
Having known Bai Tao in life, its wandering spirit had naturally merged with the Sword Dao intent left within Crying Moon.
Yet Elder Bai Tao was long dead.
Thus, this crow had become a heaven-born, earth-grown, masterless spirit!
Song Yan’s heart surged with elation.
A sword spirit was not something one could obtain casually.
An ordinary Sword Dao cultivator needed at least to reach the Foundation Establishment realm and possess a sufficiently deep understanding and comprehension of Sword Dao before having the chance to condense the embryonic form of a sword spirit.
For a Sword Dao cultivator, the benefits of a sword spirit were innumerable.
The most fundamental benefit was its communion with the cultivator’s will, and since it was itself condensed from Sword Dao energy, it could command the lifebound flying sword without expending the cultivator’s mind or energy.
Moreover, as the cultivator’s cultivation advanced, the spirit would gradually grow, becoming a true entity of sentience and autonomous will, a spirit of the Sword Dao.
Beyond this, there were many secret arts that could only be performed with a sword spirit as the core.
“I never expected such an unexpected joy.”
Heart racing with excitement, Song Yan rose to his feet, eager to return quickly to his residence.
This crow was not yet truly his sword spirit. It had merely followed him instinctively because he had refined the flying sword Crying Moon.
He still needed to refine it together with his own lifebound flying sword, condensing it into his own embryonic sword spirit.
However, the method of refining a masterless spirit was something he had never attempted. He did not know how long the process might take, and performing it here in the mountains would be rather reckless.
If his protective formation failed and a few cultivators happened to pass by, he would truly be handing over his life.
Better to return to the City Lord’s manor and perform the refinement there. That would be far safer.
Song Yan stepped forward to leave the valley, but then, remembering something, he turned back to look at the nameless tombstone he had erected.
Slowly raising his hand, he extended a distant thread of Sword Dao energy.
Upon the nameless tombstone, he inscribed a few characters.
Bai Tao. Crying Moon.
He examined his work, nodded, and turned to leave.
Elder Bai Tao and this crow had met and kept each other company for more than a decade, separated only by death in the end.
Yet he had never given it a name, calling it only “silly bird, silly bird.”
He seemed a man of rough sentiment.
But the memories before had all been seen through the crow’s eyes. What Elder Bai Tao truly felt, no one could ever know.
How could a flying sword cry to the moon?
Thinking it over, this was perhaps the name Elder Bai Tao had given the crow.
He may have felt it too sentimental for a grown man to say aloud, and so he could never bring himself to speak it.
Now, the crow of old had also died here…
So he left the name Crying Moon behind as well.