Chapter 289
The passing of time went unnoticed for one absent-minded, thirty months passed since the death of the Divine Beasts . Arthur’s whole body was having a bath in the black flames . there was no blood on his back or face, the injuries recovered a bit and weren’t hurting anymore but you still could still two hideous scars on his skin, one on his back and the other on his face .
He didn’t recover his left eye, which was hit by some of the white spikes, it’s an unfortunate loss, nevertheless, Arthur didn’t dwell too much on it as he has already too much on his plate .
Once three years passed since the beginning of this hell, Arthur finally opened his eyes only to see a sea of black flames . He was no longer deep into the ocean but was sitting on black sand and what laid before him was complete nothingness accompanied by black flames that burned everywhere around him .
For the first time in three years, he managed to move properly without feeling any agony that prevented easy movements . The pain was still present but he grew numb of it and wasn’t affected by it .
He first gazed at his surroundings before walked near Makaze and picking it up, right after doing that, he returned to sitting cross-legged with Makaze on his lap .
The blade returned to its sheath and bathed in the black flames, which weren’t harming it and instead, healing it bit by bit, however, the process was extremely slow and it was doing nothing but recovering some of the blade’s lost vitality .
“Do you know why the chains appeared in the first place? Actually, it’s pretty simple . For any living being, no matter the race, the limit of their stats is 999Million and not everyone manages to reach that . The last chance for any person to increase their stats is in the Divine Realm, once they reach Sovereignhood, their power increases the longer they cultivate and gain Mental Power, which can boost one’s technique by a lot . Average people’s stats when they reach the Sovereign Realm is 500-600m . If it’s a genius, then 700-750m and if it’s a prodigy that appears once in ten thousand years, then his or her maximum would be 800m, any more is impossible, their bodies won’t handle it .
Of course, there are cases where people managed to reach 999m, like titans for example, but reaching a number higher than that isn’t possible, you see . . . there’s a limiter at 999 that does not let anyone reach the one billion mark . You, being a parasite, do not have a limiter which is why the chains were created to act as a temporary limiter . By possessing many powerful corpses, you reached that limit pretty quickly, however, you ate more than you could chew . You drastically increased your stats before your body could get used to such a strong power, if you did not do that then the temporary limiter wouldn’t have been created .
I warned you not to break the chains because doing so will cause your body to crumble since it’ll not be able to withstand so much power, it may be able to do so for a short period of time but once it reached a certain threshold, it will break .
To counter that, ascending to Godhood then to Sovereignty would have helped you sustain your physical breakdown by supplying your flesh, bone, and muscles by large amounts of Mental Power that’ll allow them to resist the sudden rise in power, unfortunately, you didn’t heed my advice .
Anyways, now that we got that out of the way, time to begin with the real stuff . I want you to never stop repeating that verse, not even when I tell you to do something else . Seeing your overpowered skills with a sword yet your lack of mutual understanding between you and your sword which resulted in the latter being split into two halves . I need you to experience what true swordsmanship easy, know what wielding a sword really is, understand your partner, understand your blade, know its feelings just like it know yours . A sword is used to kill and not to show off, when unsheathed then it means the death for your foe . When unsheathed then it means the end of the battle, if you can’t understand such things by yourself, then I’ll have to forcefully engrave them into your mind . ”
Arthur, who was too engrossed in repeating the verse, couldn’t focus too much on what his copy was talking about . He heard the words but his mind was thinking about something else . The pain no longer bothered him, he can move freely but can’t fight or do any sudden movements that require efforts .
Like a tidal wave, flashes of clear memories assaulted Arthur’s mind, causing it to blank for a split second before it continued repeating that verse . These memories were different from the ones from the past, where he would experience the whole life of animals or people, these were brief yet so real, they contained countless emotions and suffering .
Experiencing their lives and slowly accompanying them in their adventure is like reading a book and try to understand it, however, these flashes were like pouring all the information of that book in your mind and expecting you to sort them out and figure out what’s necessary and needed and what needs to be discarded or put aside .
This task, accepting the flashes of memories and sorting them outlasted for one month without even a slight rest for the tired Arthur . After obtaining millions of memories belonging to swordsmen of all kinds and shapes, of all races and elements, Arthur’s spirit became exhausted yet it had a bit of excitement that was born from within all those piled up memories, that were as clear as jade .
Arthur came to understand the way of the sword by the hard way, battles and training memories were engraved on his mind, never to be forgotten . Though they didn’t belong to him, they still felt familiar after he experienced thousands of them, though he didn’t move a muscle in a month with both hands resting on his broken blade, he felt as if he had been swinging a blade for millenniums .
The black flames that enveloped him had long since transformed into a curved blade exactly similar to Makaze . The sea of black flames became a sea of long dark blades that were either stuck on the ground or floating in the air, there were millions of these blades all around him and the blade in his hand was the center of everything .
“That’s right, feel the will of your blade, sense its existence and resonate with it . You’re it and it is you, it’s no longer a connection but an eternal bond, one that shall never be broken, and one that shall never be forgotten . Remember all those memories, what they did, how much they treasured their life-long partner, they didn’t treat them as disposable objects, so follow their path and become what you must, one that has the heart of the sword and the will of the blade . The next time you unsheath your blade, the opponent will die, that is your oath, Arthur, the Dark Blade’s Oath!”
