Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 162 - Drenched in Poison

The threads that made up the blade’s soul weren’t just dark, they were oily. They were twisted and corrupt, and writhed noticeably as they watched. Paradoxically, the golden threads left over from its contact with the throne made up the majority of the uncorrupted parts of its soul.

Even the runes carved into its surface twisted and throbbed like they were trying to break free of it and become something, or someone else. It was taken aback by the horrific sight, and any thoughts it might have had toward devouring the Penitent’s soul vanished.

What is to be done? It thought, panic nipping at the edge of its thoughts. No ideas came to it immediately, but after some reflection, it tried to burn away the taint with Helfire. Those sickly yellow flames did a good job of damaging the Warbringer’s arm, but they did nothing to remove the blight it had been afflicted with.

-564 Life Force.

That I afflicted myself with, The blade spat as it watched its wielder’s flame-damaged arm slowly regenerate.

It was intolerable. The weapon had tried so hard to avoid being corrupted by hell, but once blinded, its greed had made it blunder right into an insidious trap.

Even if I reach creation, will I ever be free of this? It wondered.

If the blade couldn’t remove the poison, it could at least replenish its Life Force from the purest sources available. It went on a rampage through the Last City, then, that was less a fight than it was a slaughter. The Ebon Blade had spent months here in relative peace. It had tried to damage it before when it was trapped in the phantasm, but none of its victims knew that.

Now they would. It went building by building and block by block. Leaving behind only damaged buildings and maimed guards. No one was a match for it, and it didn’t even try to give the best warriors a chance for the sake of sport. It only left them alive because it had no wish to claim any more filthy demon souls. Instead, it made do on a steady drip of corrupted human lives.

+892 Life Force.

Rich or poor, they died like dogs. Almost none of them even tried to put up a fight. They relied on the armored demon guards to protect them, and went to their deaths like cattle.

That’s fitting at least, the blade thought as it consumed the souls without even bothering to taste them.

+774 Life Force.

As it went, it cut a path toward the castle that lorded over the city, but just before it reached it, and did battle with the men manning its defenses, the sword changed course and continued on to the north gate. The reason it spared them was simply that they weren’t worth the effort. Why fight so many demons just to take the head of the king? It reflected. There are plenty of souls left out here, and they would taste just as empty.

+1456 Life Force.

The truth was, it didn’t need to keep killing. It had refilled its reserves and taken over a hundred more souls besides. The only reason to keep going would be to fill its soul reserves completely, and that was always dangerous, because once it became overfilled, it had little choice in what it consumed to make space.

When the blade reached the city’s north gate, it reflected on the moment its illusion wouldn’t allow it to escape from the Last City. Part of it hoped that the same thing would happen now. After all, if it did that meant this wasn’t real, and if this wasn’t real, there was a chance that its essence hadn’t become hopelessly corrupted by the consumption of demon souls.

Sadly, that was not to be. Instead, the blade sliced effortlessly through the bar of the closed gate and kicked it open. Then, it walked outside without the defenders so much as attempting to pelt it with arrows.

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They’re probably happy to watch me go, it thought to itself as it found itself suddenly free, and the boots of its wielder’s steel feet crunched on the rocky soil outside the city. It was every bit as desolate as the blade expected it to be, but it was real, and it was progress, and that was all that mattered.

Before it lay Mount Knoeal, the volcano that stood at the very center of hell. It was the home of the prime evil, and so far as everyone said, the only permanent gateway to escape from the pit. The blade looked at it not with fear, but with gratitude. It knew that the second circle stood between it and its final goal, but that was it. It was almost there.

So, it started walking, leaving the city behind, one step at a time as it journeyed past fumaroles, and precarious rock formations. The mountain it was climbing was erupting continuously, and while the ground alternated between trembling and shaking, it was never still, and some part of the scree-covered slope was always threatening to avalanche.

Why didn’t these earthquakes penetrate the city, the blade wondered as it moved on, unperturbed by the violent motion. Of course, the blade already knew the answer, though. The circles were loosely coupled at best. They were concepts as much as places, and in the same way, an entire ocean couldn’t hide within the pool of a palace; the city it had just been inside didn’t really rest on these mountain slopes. They were simply adjacent, and the more it considered it, the stranger that hell seemed to it.

-109 Life Force.

That lesson was hammered home as the city retreated slowly, but the volcano’s peak got no closer. The movements became more violent, of course, and the rivers of lava became more frequent, but always, the scree-filled slopes stretched out before it. If the weapon had a mortal wielder, they would have dispaired at that, but the Warbringer walked on tirelessly for mile after mile.

-98 Life Force.

As the land became more rugged, it became more populated. Most of those demons took the form of smaller creatures like poisonous imps and fiery ifreets. Those occasionally sought to trouble the blade, but they never had a chance to regret it. Most often, they were sliced in two in a lightning-quick slash whenever they came too close, but if the Ebon Blade happened to be walking near lava, it would bat them into that fiery flow instead, so that their twisted souls would dissipate into hell rather than be drawn into its soul gem.

-112 Life Force.

It occasionally saw souls of the damned, too. Most often, these were poor bastards drowning in the lava as they burned alive forever. Sometimes, though, they managed to get free from those flows, only to harden and become living statues when they cooled. They begged for death when the blade passed by, but it was not in the mood to grant them mercy.

It took weapon longer to notice that the larger demons were there. They simply chose not to engage with it. It watched as an igneous shelled hermit crab disguised as a boulder, hurriedly skittered out of the Warbringer’s way as it approached, and giant lizards and stranger things with tentacles retreated beneath the lava rather than fight the blade.

And for once, it didn’t press the point and let them retreat, thankful that it wouldn’t be covered in any more of their tainted ichor. That prevented its taint from growing, but it had no idea how long it would take to fade.

Will it be years? Decades? It wondered. Part of the weapon wanted to just tuck itself away from an age and let all of that fade away. It wouldn’t do that, of course. It had come too far, but it could see the appeal.

It walked for days like that, with only the thunderous cacophony of the mountain for company. Normally, the weapon would have been annoyed at how boring the trip was, but this time it was merely grateful that no one saw it in this deplorable state. It didn’t even care if it encountered the Prince of the circle or not. It merely wanted out of this disgusting place. Unfortunately, that never seemed to get any closer.

Even after all that walking, though, the mountain still rose above it, and the only indication that it had gotten closer, besides the increased rumbling, was that the clouds weren’t very far away now. That’s promising at least, the sword thought, looking back behind it. The Last City was lost in the smoke now, and visible only occasionally; the rest of the island was even harder to see.

Perhaps there’s only one way in, the blade told itself at last, looking around for some landmark that might point the way, but finding nothing obvious. Perhaps it's on the other side, it thought absently. It had been going straight up this volcano for days without much result, but from where it stood, two-thirds of the place was hidden from its gaze.

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was better than nothing. So, instead of continuing to go up, the blade turned and started walking to the left around the circumference of the flaming peak, only a hundred feet below the peak. Circumnavigating it in that way would require it to leap over a few rivers of lava, but it should take half a day at most.