The Sword-man just lay there, stiff as a board.
To be precise, the “man” part was long gone.
At this moment, only a solitary ancient green sword remained, lying on the ground utterly devoid of dignity.
The sharp, overbearing green sword light from before had completely dispersed, and the patterns on the blade had gone dark.
From the inside out, the entire sword radiated an aura of “I am already a piece of scrap metal.”
Ren Yi floated in mid-air, slightly dazed. A few tentacles drew unconscious circles in the air as his mind raced, figuring out what to do next.
As for Evans, who had been aggressive just a moment ago, he had long since vanished, leaving only a black ball huddled in a distant crevice.
Ren Yi stared at the lifeless, dead sword on the ground, feeling a sudden throb of pain in his non-existent teeth.
Did... did he actually scare the Sword-man to death?
To be fair, this guy was indeed asking for a beating.
First, he started telling a story, then flipped the switch to slash people after acting like some grandmaster. After slashing them, he had to show off his Phase Two, and after Phase Two, he actually wanted to switch targets and keep slashing...
This sequence of actions made his offenses practically too numerous to count.
The problem was, although he was begging for a beating, now was really not the time to kill him off completely.
They were still on his turf, after all!
Moreover, the City of the Sky Lake was their ultimate goal. If they wanted to stand against the City of the Sky Lake, they would need the help of the People of the Abyss.
At the very least, they needed Pops to transport them to the City of the Sky Lake.
If they turned their ally's top combatant into a piece of scrap metal right at the start of their cooperation, how were they going to explain themselves when they got back?
Was he supposed to throw up his hands to Pops and say, “Sorry, your beloved companion sword was misbehaving, so I accidentally broke it”?
If things really came to that, they would have to start figuring out how the two of them were going to fight their way out of the Deep Abyss.
“Sigh.”
Ren Yi let out a sigh, floated over to the longsword in resignation, and poked its cold blade spine.
No response.
He thought about it, wrapped a tentacle around the hilt, lifted the sword, and tapped it twice against the ground with a "clack, clack."
The sword remained completely motionless.
It looked like he had to resort to some unconventional measures.
Ren Yi stopped, slowly leaning closer to the blade.
Then, he began to mobilize his Seed, threatening in an extremely soft, chilling voice right along the edge of the blade:
“If you want to keep seeing those ‘wonderful’ sights, by all means, keep lying there.”
Swoosh!
The moment the words left his mouth, the sword suddenly bounced off the ground, leaping several inches into the air, and clattered around several times when it landed.
It looked like a fish stranded on land for too long, only capable of a dying flop to prove it wasn't dead yet.
Ren Yi instantly backed away to create some distance, on high alert.
No, that wasn't right. The sword had indeed been completely devoid of life just a moment ago.
But right now, it seemed to be absorbing something, or perhaps this space was supplying it with something, slowly bringing it back to “life.”
“Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough... Hiss!”
A violent, lung-wrenching cough suddenly echoed from inside the blade, followed by a long, almost greedy intake of breath.
It sounded just like a drowning victim who had just been dragged ashore, desperately pumping air into their lungs.
Ren Yi watched from the side with an extremely bizarre expression.
Come to think of it... how on earth did a sword manage to make so many onomatopoeic sounds?
Did it have lungs? Did it have a throat? It didn't even have a face!
Boom!
A burst of violent black energy suddenly exploded ahead.
Alarm bells rang in Evans's head from afar, and he rushed over the instant the sword bounced.
His massive S-099 True Form instantly swelled up, blocking the space between Ren Yi and the sword like a black flesh shield.
Yet, in the very next moment, a voice came from the sword.
“Bro, my bad, really my bad! I surrender!”
It was simple, direct, entirely devoid of momentum, and even carried a hint of a sob.
The vast, empty space instantly fell into a bizarre silence.
Evans, who was standing in front, completely froze.
His body, which had been fully primed to fight to the death, twisted stiffly for a good while before slowly stabilizing in confusion.
Ren Yi remained silent for three seconds. He looked at the shivering sword on the ground, finding the sight almost too painful to watch, completely at a loss for words.
Aren't swords supposed to have a lot of backbone?
What happened to “rather break than bend,” “the sword is the man,” and “if the sword is destroyed, the man perishes”? Were all those stories just lies?
Where was the grandmaster who had filled the sky with sword energy and coldly said, “Take my strike”?
Where was the divine sword that claimed to have slashed its way from the First Era to the Third Era, leaving no suspicious thing uncut?
Only after confirming that the Sword-man had indeed been utterly terrified out of his wits and had no intention of pulling a surprise counterattack did the black liquid on Evans's body slowly recede.
His inner rage seemed to have been abruptly cut short by a nearly absurd sense of powerlessness.
The youth's face was cold, radiating an extremely sinister and hostile pressure as he approached the sword step by step.
“Oh, back from the dead?”
He walked up to the sword, looking down at it with unconcealed schadenfreude in his tone.
“Weren't you acting tough just now? ‘No body, just a sword’?”
“Shut up.”
The Sword-man's retort was weak and feeble, carrying a hint of relief at having survived a disaster.
“What do you mean back from the dead? I literally died and came back to life.”
“You little punk have no idea what I just went through. That was...”
He stopped halfway, his voice suddenly choking up as if someone had grabbed him by the throat.
This sudden hesitation actually caught Evans off guard.
He looked suspiciously at the sword on the ground, then subtly glanced out of the corner of his eye at the unfathomably mysterious white mist beside him.
Ultimately, he wisely suppressed the urge to court death.
Forgiving the Sword-man was absolutely out of the question.
But since the boss had beaten this guy into submission using terrifying means, Evans was going to employ some survival wisdom and do what he did best.
Namely, riding on someone else's coattails... Bah, taking advantage of the situation to squeeze every last drop of benefit out of the guy.
“I don't care what you went through.”
Evans sneered, pointing to the few transparent cracks on his body that were still crackling with smoke, his voice chilling.
“All I know is that if you don't give me a satisfactory explanation today,”
“then your dictionary of deaths will soon feature the most interesting one... dying of fright.”
Yet, the Sword-man's focus was clearly a bit off.
“I didn't die of fright! It was a stress response! Do you even know what a stress response is?!”
“It's a physical... no, an instinctive self-defense mechanism!”
“You're a sword, and you have a self-defense mechanism?”
Ren Yi floated nearby, watching their elementary-school-level bickering with indifference.
Only when the Sword-man's voice finally devolved from screaming to muttering, and from muttering to occasional mumbled words, did Ren Yi speak up unhurriedly.
“Enough.”
“Weren't you just clamoring about slashing me too according to your rules?”
“Why aren't you doing it now?”
Rate on N.U.
