Alex widened his eyes when he found her and let out a long sigh. "A Sword Spirit."
"Oh?! You know me? I think my previous Master has never publicized this." She narrowed her eyes. "Well, it was a few thousand years ago, so I don't really know. In any case, my point still stands. Do you want to be my master?"
"Since you are a Sword, it's normal for me to accept your invitation. Unfortunately, I have my own sword, so I can't really accept it." He shook his head with a calm expression.
"You can't expect me to accept this kind of answer, right?" She narrowed her eyes.
"First of all, let's discuss this first. I know that the Sword Spirit has enough intelligence to converse with me, right?" Alex shook his head.
"If you want to chat with me, isn't it a gentleman's way to take off his mask first?"
"Indeed." Alex took off his mask, revealing his real appearance.
"Who are you?!" She tilted her head.
"You don't know me?" Alex frowned. He thought this sword was related to the Sword God, so he took off this mask to have a conversation.
"Nope. I never met you." She became confused after this question.
'Do you know anything about this? Did the Sword God only have one sword?' Alex asked inwardly.
[Yes. From what I know, he only had one sword, the one you met in the Sword Cave.
"I should introduce myself then. I am Nyx. May I know who you are and who was your previous master?"
"My master was once called a mad blacksmith."
"Hmm. I am sorry, I don't know a single thing." Alex shook his head in disappointment. He should bring Aria here since she might understand a bit more about this blacksmith.
"Since you don't know, I will just introduce my name. I am Moonlight Blood. My master created me in this place and died right after. His skeleton was already decomposed long ago. And I believe the essence of my body was blood."
"Blood, huh?" Alex furrowed his eyebrows and could imagine that when the war took place, the blacksmith collected the blood and hardened it to make the sword before him."
"Since I have introduced myself, may I know your answer? I have realized that you are completely fine in this environment, allowing me to barely gauge your current strength. I am afraid you are a God Rank Expert, right?" She asked. "There was also a time when you burned the killing intent."
"As I said earlier, I have my own sword forged right now, so I can't be your master." Alex shook his head.
"Then can you take me out of this place? From the day I was born, I never saw the outside world. The only thing I had was a fraction of memory carried in the blood."
"I think that's also impossible. I don't know what kind of thing will happen if I take you from here." Alex shook his head.
"You have been maintaining the killing intent this whole time, right? If I take you away, I am sure it will clear up. I don't like staying in the spotlight, so I can't really bring you with me." Alex explained why he rejected her.
"I see. Then if I can separate myself from the sword, can I go with you? I am bored here, so I want to see the outside world. And I can even help you in a fight because I can control energy, especially killing intent." She thought for a moment. "If I separate myself, the flow of the killing intent will continue because the medium is the sword, not me."
Alex narrowed his eyes and checked whether it was true or not. He found that the killing intent indeed went through the sword, not the Sword Spirit, but the problem would be whether she could go out or not.
"I can separate myself since My consciousness is the crystal inside the sword's handle."
"But how am I supposed to trust you? And it's not like I have any plan to save you. After all, I can't just act because I give sympathy. There will be too many consequences in my actions that I might regret in the future." Alex shook his head.
"Mister. Before you said another word, I would like to thank you."
"For what?"
"For talking to me without lying. I am born with the bad essence of humans, so I could understand if they wanted to kill, lie, or something along the lines. Everything was connected to the killing intent, and I knew you have been telling the truth this whole time." She smiled.
"It's not like you have any visitor other than me." Alex shrugged.
"Hehe. It's true. Mister is the first one to find me here." She paused for a moment and asked. "Before that, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"What is your purpose of coming here? I was the real reason for the war. They wanted to find the truth about this killing intent circulating around here and turned into a big war. After that, the killing intent became more and more bountiful until it enveloped the entire island. It was at that time my master created me."
"Even though you were born after the war happened, you seem to know a lot."
"I was a lesser consciousness before, staying in the original sword, so of course, I have been witnessing everything ever since."
"So, consciousness can grow into a Sword Spirit?"
"Not really. Unless you know the technique to nurture consciousness, you won't be able to meet a Sword Spirit." She shook her head. "You said that you had your own sword, right? With your current knowledge, I can help you grooming the consciousness and turning them into a Sword Spirit in the future. What do you think?"
"That's a bit tempting. Unlike another Sword that offered the same thing, you had less presence, so not many knew about you, allowing me to move more freely." Alex looked down and contemplated it seriously. "But…"
"But, what?"
Alex took out his spear along with his Spear Intent.
"You are actually a Spear User? No, this kind of level… I believe you are using both?"
"Yes."
"This must be your substitute weapon, right?"
"As I said earlier, my weapons are still being forged." He nodded.
"If this is the case, why don't you let me reside in your Sword? And the two others in your spear? I can turn them into a Spirit like me. Since it has two consciousness, the strength will be stronger. Of course, I am already far stronger than those two combined."
"Hmm? Do you know anything about forging?"
"A little since my mind has been opened long ago. Although I can't create a weapon or something, my eyes can figure out the quality of weapons. Well, you can say that bringing me with you will do more good than bad. After all, I can stay quiet inside your sword and talk to you without summoning myself like this." She smiled.
"There is one thing I am concerned about." Alex was still hesitating. It was true that there might be a big advantage to get her help to nurture the consciousness because, unlike the previous Alex, the one that had consciousness wasn't his intent but his weapons. He learned that it didn't bring that much of a disadvantage.
'What do you think?!' Alex asked.
[It's your choice. But yeah, I understand the part where the Sword Spirit is not as dangerous as the Intent's consciousness. Of course, you need to make a pact with her first because this one doesn't think of you as her parent, so there is a chance she will try to control you in your most vulnerable moment.]
Alex nodded. On one hand, he would have a helper and increased his strength even further. On the other hand, it was a kind of double-edged sword for him. Lin Xingzhi advised to make a pact first to diminish this effect, but he didn't know whether a Sword Spirit could be bound by a contract.
"How about making a contract?" Alex asked with a smile.
"As expected, it's not that easy to make you believe me. Well, I certainly understand the concept of the contract from a portion of my previous master's memory. However, there is one thing that can bind more. It is called Universe Oath. Do you happen to know it?"
"Oh?!" Alex narrowed his eyes as he never expected to hear those two words from her. "Yes."
"With this contract binding us, I think there shouldn't be a need to suspect each other, right?" She smiled. "Before that, I would like you to give me a name, so I can bind myself in a contract."
"But isn't your name…"
"It's the name of the Sword, not me. We are a different entity. I was born because of his obsession with his daughter that created my persona. He nurtured me like his deceased daughter that just came back to life, even though we were clearly different. But I guess, a portion of her soul was actually residing in me, allowing me to evolve from normal consciousness to a Sword Spirit."
"In that case, are you the first Sword Spirit in this world?" Alex asked.
"I have no idea. I was born around thirty thousand years ago, so there might be a few more in the past."
[I don't think there was one, Alex. I remember that the Sword Spirit only became a general term when the Sword God introduced the Dawn Breaker.]
'I see. There might be some that like her, but I guess, since I found her before anyone else, she is the first.' Alex shrugged before opening his mouth. "Your name is Eve because you are the oldest one."
"Then, I shall take the name of Eve." She nodded and continued. "With the name bestowed by my new master, I, Eve, shall make an oath with the grand universe as the judge. I, Eve, shall accompany my master until the very end. If he wants me to disappear, then I will vanish from this universe. If I did things that make him sad, let your judgment fall upon me."
To his surprise, the Universe took this oath completely as if Eve was a real being. The energy enveloped her body as how it should be.
"I, Alexander Sirius, accept her vow and promise to not misuse her power. I shall treat her as my comrade, friend, and family. With the universe as my witness, I promise that I won't mistreat her."
"Ah?! You don't need to." Eve was a bit surprised when she heard Alex also making an oath. At the same time, she was a bit touched. It was the same feeling like when she was first born. The joy in her heart was immeasurable.
She then waved her hand, opening the sword's butt before a small red crystal flew out of the handle and landed on her hand.
As Alex had checked earlier, the killing intent didn't follow the crystal, so the killing intent surrounding the island was caused by the sword alone.
Suddenly, energy started filling her body as a certain weird feeling crept inside her. She let the energy flow and smiled. "I see. This is Master's power. Now I know why you can burn everything. And the other one is more mysterious than I can imagine."
She felt Alex's Pure Fire and Space Element in amazement. Still, she was a Sword Spirit, so the one thing that she impressed the most was Alex's Sword Qi. After several months of converting the Qi, he managed to replace every single Sword Qi into Pure Sword Qi.
And this kind of power enveloped her, making her existence even stronger. "Your Spear is also enveloping me. I feel weird because I can sense how natural it is for me to wield the spear intent. So, this is my Master's power."
"Well, nice to meet you."
"No, no. It's my pleasure to meet someone unique like Master." She smiled.