Chapter 38

The sword spirit is also a type of artifact spirit. Their methods of enhancing their abilities are the same as other artifact spirits. Besides being nurtured by the cultivator's spiritual energy, they can only rely on devouring other artifact spirits and divine souls. However, because they cannot move, it's impossible for them to encounter and devour others.

Usually, they fight on behalf of the cultivator and take the opportunity to devour the opponent's artifact spirit during battles. The chances to devour completely are rare; mostly, they absorb a part of it. Cultivators want to seize treasures, not destroy them. If you devour everything, that would be unacceptable.

However, to enhance their own strength, cultivators often find various treasures, demon crystals, and divine souls, and refine them to inject into the sword spirit or artifact spirit. This is the most important way for artifact spirits to increase their strength.

They are different from celestial spirits like demon beasts and spirit herbs, which can completely absorb the essence of heaven and earth. Even if they forcefully absorb it into their bodies, it will slowly dissipate. Many unowned artifact spirits cannot improve their strength. Whether by deception or force, they will find a powerful master for themselves.

Only when the master is powerful will they encounter more strong opponents and treasures, and then they will think of enhancing the artifact spirit's strength. The artifact spirit is like a parasite, relying on the cultivator, gradually consuming all the things they can get. Now, hearing that there are unowned artifact spirits, cultivators don't know, but this is the best opportunity for them to enhance their strength.

"Don't tell anyone about this. If those greedy cultivators find out, we won't get anything. That guy will be taken away, and not even a hair will be left for us," Seven Sobs looked at the surrounding sword spirits and coldly reminded them.

The sword spirits understood. Even if they wanted their master to become stronger to bring them more opportunities to devour, they wouldn't want him to acquire more artifact spirits. More artifact spirits can't be devoured, and that feeling is very unpleasant.

At this moment, Bai Wu reacted and said with a cold laugh, "Seven Sobs, you're not the type to share. Why didn't you devour such a good artifact spirit yourself? It's really surprising that you want to share it with us."

Seven Sobs smiled and said, "What are you talking about? I am a sword spirit, the most righteous and upright group among artifact spirits. When something good happens, the first thing I think of is everyone. How can you doubt my kindness?"

The sword spirits looked at him speechlessly. Saying that sword spirits are the most righteous among artifact spirits, even they didn't believe it. The character of sword cultivators is just to deceive cultivators. Whether they kill good or bad people has nothing to do with the sword spirit.

The existence of sword spirits has no distinction of good or evil. Their reason for existence is slaughter, not righteousness.

"What are you looking at? If you don't want to go, don't go," Seven Sobs scolded coldly, being suspected by everyone.

Bai Wu said calmly, "Just tell the truth, and we can cooperate. Can you deceive us with something like this?"

Seven Sobs combed his hair with his fingers and said casually, "It's nothing. The artifact spirit is protected by something, and it will block us when we try to devour her."

"You said she's unowned, right?" The sword spirits all looked at him skeptically. Attacking an owned artifact spirit would bring trouble to their master. If the person dies, the trust built over the years will be lost, and finding a new, low-level cultivator to improve their abilities would take a long time.

"I said she is protected from being discovered by artifact spirits and cultivators, not that she is owned. If such a delicious artifact spirit wasn't protected, it would have been devoured long ago," Seven Sobs sincerely felt that the sword spirits' intelligence needed to be improved. They didn't even think about this. If any unowned sword spirit went out, they probably wouldn't even leave the Cloud Sword Sect before being devoured.

Even if sword spirits hesitate to devour each other, cultivators have more than just swords as magical treasures. If any artifact spirit appears, it would also be a devourer.

At this moment, seven identical little girl sword spirits held hands and asked in unison, "Why didn't we feel it, and only you discovered the artifact spirit here? Isn't it supposed to be protected?"

Seven Sobs looked at the seven identical sword spirits and then said to Bai Wu, "Whose sword spirits are these? How did they become like this?"

"Qian's sword spirits from the Tenth Snow Peak. They have reached the stage of seven swords merging, so all seven sword spirits look the same," Bai Wu explained. His master, Lian Jing, knew the situation of all the disciples in the Cloud Sword Sect, so he was the leader of all the sword spirits in the Cloud Sword Sect. Of course, this didn't include some stubborn ones like Seven Sobs, who had just come out for a day.

These are just a group of little sword spirits, no wonder I haven't heard of them, Seven Sobs finally felt relieved. If a sword spirit in the Cloud Sword Sect didn't know him, it would hurt his feelings. So he said proudly, "Because I devoured the divine soul of a demon beast that had transformed, I have a perception ability that ordinary sword spirits don't have. Although this artifact spirit is protected, it's only effective against artifact spirits, not against naturally occurring celestial beings."

"Wow, your master is so powerful!" The seven sword spirits looked at him in amazement, their eyes filled with envy. Devouring the divine soul of a transformed demon beast is extremely nourishing. They could only eat some good demon beasts, and seeing a transformed demon beast was rare, let alone devouring its divine soul.

Their praise didn't make Seven Sobs happy; instead, he rolled his eyes in annoyance. He hated it when he was very powerful, but the praise always went to the sword master. It was even more annoying when it was a dead person who was still being praised. It was really frustrating.

Bai Wu had known him for a long time and knew his bad temper. He had never seen a sword spirit as rebellious as him. As soon as the sword master's strength didn't meet his standards, he would start planning to kill the master, and he should be eliminated.

He wasn't interested in what Seven Sobs planned to do in the future, only in the artifact spirit he mentioned. So he asked, "What do you want us to do, and how will we divide the benefits?"

"Attack her with the sword spirits. The protection can't last forever. Once it can't hold, we can devour her. To prevent everyone from working for nothing, leave one-tenth for these little sword spirits, and the rest will be divided according to our abilities," he pointed at the sword spirits that hadn't taken human form. As for those that had already taken human form, they shouldn't expect a fair share. Everyone should fight for it based on their strength, or who knows how to divide it.

"Agreed." Bai Wu immediately agreed but had some doubts, "Don't just take a bite and then have nothing left. That would be a waste of time."

Seven Sobs smiled wickedly, "We can't cultivate and absorb the essence of heaven and earth. What time would you waste? Don't worry, just a whiff will let you know how delicious and rich it is."

Although Seven Sobs guaranteed that the other party was a flesh-and-blood artifact spirit, the sword spirits still had some doubts. Had he been out for so long that he had become delusional, mistaking an ordinary cultivator for an artifact spirit? They decided to go and see for themselves. Bai Wu called everyone and followed Seven Sobs to check it out.

"That sword spirit was really delicious, but it belongs to my senior sister. Just a finger is fine; eating more would be embarrassing." Lu Xiaodeng fought with Seven Sobs and wasn't injured. Instead, she bit off a finger first and then ran into the mountains to look for plants she hadn't seen before.

She found a plant she hadn't tasted among a bunch of weeds, not even knowing its name. It seemed to be a useless wild herb. She picked a red leaf and put it in her mouth to chew.

"Ugh! It's so sour!" She immediately spat out the chewed leaf, her brows furrowed from the sourness, and she kept spitting. "With this color, it should be spicy, not so sour!"

She rinsed her mouth with a water bag, but her teeth were still tingling. She licked her teeth and put the strange plant in the tripod, deciding to try refining it. Maybe she could refine a sour pill.

Just as Lu Xiaodeng was about to look for more of the plant, many black shadows suddenly appeared in the sky, blocking the sunlight.

"Big birds?" She looked up at the sky in surprise. There had never been so many birds gathered on the Tian Dan Peak. Could there be something they like to eat here?

As she looked up, she was stunned. A group of sword spirits, of various shapes and colors, were flying in the sky, all hovering above her head, their eyes fixed on her. Among them, she immediately saw Seven Sobs.

"How shameless, you even found help. I don't want others to know. What if you attract cultivators with all this commotion?" Lu Xiaodeng looked at them speechlessly, wondering why they were making such a fuss.

Bai Wu looked at Lu Xiaodeng. He had seen her a few days ago in the Tian Dan Hall with Lian Jing, and maybe once before, but he wasn't sure. Many other sword spirits had also seen her. Now, seeing Seven Sobs say she was an artifact spirit, everyone found it hard to believe.

"Isn't this the little idiot from Tian Dan Peak? She's an artifact spirit!"

"How is that possible? I always see her wandering around. If she were an artifact spirit, why didn't Nianqing and the others say anything?"

The Nianqing twin swords on Lu Xiaodeng's body hadn't taken human form but could express their thoughts. Although they were summoned today, they were too afraid of Seven Sobs and didn't dare to come. It was a good thing they didn't, or they would have been scolded to death by these powerful sword spirits.

"If she is really an artifact spirit, even we can't recognize her. How could Nianqing and the others recognize her? Moreover, if Lu Xiaodeng discovered them first and wasn't devoured, it would be a matter of great luck," Bai Wu, who was always in the center of power, spoke very logically.

However, the sword spirits were very annoyed. Such an artifact spirit had been under their noses all this time, and no one had discovered it. Moreover, why did she have a flesh-and-blood body? This was simply unforgivable. Would eating her allow them to have a body too?

Seven Sobs extended his hand and said with a smile, "Do you want to hand over your divine soul? We might leave you a whole corpse."

"No, I'd rather take your other fingers," Lu Xiaodeng said with a smile, savoring the taste.

"Attack!" Seven Sobs's eyes turned cold, and he pointed at her. Under his pressure, the low-level sword spirits swarmed towards Lu Xiaodeng.