Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex waited for Godslayer to say his piece. He seemed to have spent the past few years thinking about this, so as the being that was once the Artifact God, he could only have good ideas.

“You seem to have forgotten what I said earlier,” Godslayer started. “But I am dying as well.”

Alex’s brows furrowed. “Did the fog affect you? I thought you were safe from it.”

“I am safe,” Godslayer said. “But that is only this outer shell that is safe. This crystal around me is impenetrable. Nothing in this world can destroy it, which is why I have managed to live for so long despite fighting gods after gods for many years, and failing more times than I’ve succeeded.”

Alex nodded as he listened. He looked at the glass-like crystal shell that covered the black wisp, only now wondering what it really was.

He had always just assumed that to be a form taken by artifact spirits, but over the many years, he had come to learn that was not true. This was something very specific to Godslayer and Godslayer alone.

“What is that shell?” Alex asked, curious.

“Truthfully, I do not know,” Godslayer said. “All I know is that it is a part of me, or I am a part of it.”

Alex tried to analyze the crystal, but he got nothing important out of it at all. It truly was just a regular crystal inside of his Spiritual Sea.

“It is indestructible, and yet you are dying,” Alex said.

“I let myself become vulnerable in order to take Midnight inside,” Godslayer said. “It has affected me worse than I could have imagined.”

“So much so that you’re dying?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” Godslayer said. “But it’s a similar death to what Midnight has gone through. My intelligence is what will die, even though I will still remain as a spirit.”

“Is Intelligence not related to how strong you are as a spirit? You are high in the Immortal realm. You are so strong, and yet Midnight’s presence is killing you?”

“It’s… it’s not just Midnight,” Godslayer explained. “There is something far worse happening to me, something I can’t explain. All I know is the reason for it all.”

Alex was concerned. “What reason?”

“I have lost my will to exist.”

“Huh?” Alex blurted. “Are you saying you want to kill yourself?”

“No, of course not,” Godslayer said. “I’m not talking about suicide. It’s entirely different.”

“How is that different?” Alex asked. “You said you no longer have the will to continue living.”

Godslayer paused for a moment. “I can see how you have come to that conclusion. But that is not what I mean. It’s not that I want to die, but there is no longer anything important to keep me alive. I have lost my drive.”

Alex took a moment to think. “You don’t want to kill gods anymore. Is that it?”

Godslayer answered with silence. Alex took that as confirmation.

“How does not wanting to kill gods lead you to die?” Alex asked.

“I have said so before and I will say it again,” Godslayer said. “My existence is a mystery. I am not a natural thing. I am somehow both a soul and a sword spirit. I am a mix of two things that cannot become one under the natural course of things. Like water and oil, they are forever separate.”

“And yet, by mixing in a special ingredient, you can mix oil and water too. Just like that, something grave happened to me during my death. I, the person who died, and I, the sword that killed myself, were brought together as one by a single thing.”

“My divine hatred for the gods. In other words, pure Killing Intent.”

Godslayer fell silent, as if considering something. Then he continued.

“Since then, that hatred has carried me through the ages, helping me to keep going at every time. The hatred made me insane, and the insanity made me hate them even more. It was a vicious cycle that I could not escape, and so long as I was stuck within it, I was Immortal.”

“However, you’ve changed that. You stripped me bare of everything I had and helped me build everything back up. You saved me from myself, and so now the thing that had been keeping my two halves together is gone. And soon, I will no longer be alive.”

There were parts of what Godslayer said that Alex could not understand. He lacked context, but for the most part, he followed his words.

“Are you certain you will die if you separate the Sword Spirit from the Soul?” Alex asked.

“It’s almost a guarantee. To expect anything else would be a gamble,” Godslayer said.

“I see. So your only choices are to either bring back the hatred and go down the same route as your past, or to accept where you’re headed and die as a sane being.”

He remembered clearly the type of individual the early Godslayer was. The one who always jumped at the mere mention of gods, and bragged about how many he had killed.

That sort of Godslayer was terrible to live with. But, Alex had come to care about Godslayer enough that if that was the only way for him to survive, then so be it.

“I do not wish to go back to the way I was before,” Godslayer said. “But I don’t want to die either.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Do you have an alternative?”

“I might,” Godslayer said. “I live because of my connection to the soul, and the soul lives because of its connection to me. When my two halves separate, neither half will survive. However, there is something I believe can be done.”

“In order for me to live, I need to form a new connection to keep myself tethered to life,” Godslayer said.

“Can you?” Alex asked.

“Previously, perhaps not,” Godslayer said. “But now, with the remnant of Midnight by my side, I might have a way.”

“Midnight?” Alex asked.

“Yes. Since you are okay with replacing Midnight’s essence, I can merge with Midnight, and become one with what remains of it.”

“That is to say, I will be replacing Midnight as your Sword Spirit.”