Phoenix's Requiem

Yun Ruoyan clutched her bleeding finger as she continued to stare at the blade.

It was currently undergoing a strange transformation. The tip of the blade, which had come into contact with her blood, gave off a more and more powerful purple gleam, and purple smoke began wafting out from the blade. Slowly, the smoke coalesced into a humanoid figure.

Yun Ruoyan watched all this happen in a daze.

“Mistress, step back.” Qiuqiu jumped in front of Yun Ruoyan, as if to shield her.

“Qiuqiu,” Yun Ruoyan’s voice was trembling as she spoke. “What, what’s that?”

“It’s the spirit of the blade,” Qiuqiu responded. “Any spiritual weapon will eventually form a spirit, given enough time.”

Yun Ruoyan had only heard of spiritual weapons and blade spirits from her old master, but she had never seen them in person. After all, those were treasures that even peak-grade blademasters might not have, let alone someone like her.

“Mistress, you have to be careful. In general, blade spirits are all rather perverse in character. They don’t have a sense of good or evil, and are blindly loyal to their master,” Qiuqiu reminded.

“Who dares disrupt my sleep?” The humanoid figure opened its mouth, and although Yun Ruoyan couldn’t see his face clearly, his body and voice both seemed like those of an old man.

“My name is Yun Ruoyan.” Yun Ruoyan ignored Qiuqiu’s attempts to stop her and walked forward. “My greetings to you, blade spirit.”

The blade spirit’s body turned toward Yun Ruoyan. “Oh, so it’s a little girl. What nerve you have to wake me up like that!” The blade spirit suddenly shouted, shocking Yun Ruoyan.

Qiuqiu immediately jumped up, calling out, “Blade spirit, how dare you hurt my mistress! I won’t spare you.”

Yun Ruoyan immediately held back Qiuqiu, who was about to pounce at the purple smoke. “Elder spirit, I didn’t disrupt your sleep intentionally. I simply found this blade buried in a mountain lake, and have since brought it here.”

The blade spirit ignored Yun Ruoyan and focused instead on her lap, where Qiuqiu was baring its teeth at it.

“Ah, there’s even a little mystical beast trapped in here.” The blade spirit appeared to be stroking his beard. “This place isn’t bad! There’s as much spiritual qi here as there was in that lake, and it’d be a good place to rest.”

“Don’t you dare! This is my territory, and you can’t just sleep here because you want to!” Qiuqiu cried out.

“Heh heh.” The blade spirit sat cross-legged on top of the blade. “Although you’re a mystical beast, the seal that’s trapping you has decimated your power. Once I kill the two of you, wouldn’t this entire space be mine?”

The blade spirit’s figure blurred, but his eyes shone with a vicious purple light.

Yun Ruoyan’s heart was shaken. Her eyebrows arched up—truly, as Qiuqiu had said, blade spirits seemed to have no sense of right and wrong, and this one had turned vicious in a matter of moments.

Yun Ruoyan had already experienced death once, and she didn’t want to die so easily a second time.

She was right about to touch the bracelet on her wrist to leave the space when Qiuqiu’s voice suddenly chirped up from her mind. “Mistress, use a blood pact to subdue this spirit.”

This was the first time that Qiuqiu had used telepathy on her, and Yun Ruoyan took quite a while to react to it. She looked at Qiuqiu in her lap, and it looked back at her, its wide amber eyes gleaming with craftiness.

“What’s a blood pact, and how can I use it?” Yun Ruoyan thought mentally, and Qiuqiu quickly responded. “Just now, it was your blood that woke the blade spirit, so the blade itself now bears your mark. As long as you turn the blood into fire and fully envelope the blade in flames, mistress, you’ll be able to subdue the spirit.”

Qiuqiu also taught Yun Ruoyan the corresponding incantation to chant mentally. She closed her eyes and allowed the blood on her right hand to flow freely as she incanted, “With my blood, I baptise this blade. With my name, I invoke this blade. In blood and body, in name and soul, this blade I call mine!”

The blade spirit was sitting cross-legged on top of the blade, curious as to why the girl and beast had suddenly stopped speaking. Only when he saw Yun Ruoyan’s mouth moving subconsciously did he realize what was going on, and he immediately directed the blade in her direction.

Qiuqiu leapt up to block the blade, but the impact flung its body far into the mists, until he disappeared entirely. 

The blade spirit hadn’t conserved his strength for this blow, and Qiuqiu had likely suffered a serious injury.

Yun Ruoyan worried in her heart, but she continued to chant the incantation without stopping.

“A little girl dares attempt to become my master? Die!” The blade spirit morphed into a ray of light that shot at Yun Ruoyan.

At the same time, Yun Ruoyan stretched out her bleeding finger and pointed it in the direction of the spirit, yelling out loud, “With my blood, I baptise this blade. With my name, I invoke this blade. In blood and body, in name and soul, this blade I call mine!”

All of a sudden, the blood flowing down her finger morphed into fire, emitting waves of blinding light. The blood coiled up into a rope of fire, tangling up the blade spirit and preventing him from attacking her any further.

Quickly, the ray of light that the blade spirit had turned into was consumed by the rope of fire, and she could hear the spirit’s pained cries and calls for mercy.

But Yun Ruoyan continued to chant the incantation. The rope of fire glowed brighter and brighter, until finally the blade spirit’s cries diminished and its form merged entirely with the rope. 

“Alright, mistress.” Qiuqiu’s voice came from within the fog.

Yun Ruoyan was only able to calm down when she heard the mystical beast’s voice, relieved that it was safe and that the current crisis was over.

Her blood returned to her finger once more.

“Alright, mistress!” Qiuqiu ran towards Yun Ruoyan, happily prancing around her. “The Feilai Blade’s now been absorbed into your finger, and the elder blade spirit will have to call you mistress now, just like me! And if anyone dares to bully you in the future, all you have to do is stretch out your finger and point it at them, and the Feilai Blade will strike them down.”

Yun Ruoyan returned from the pocket dimension beaming with delight at her uncanny luck. She was just about to undress herself and have a hot bath when Yi Qianying suddenly burst into her yard.

“Miss Yi, my mistress is currently bathing, and she’s unable to entertain guests at the moment.” Peony tried hard to stop her, but Yi Qianying’s cultivation-enhanced strength easily overpowered her.

“Peony, don’t bar her way. Let her in.” Yun Ruoyan quickly pulled on some outer garments as she sat by her table, sipping the warm tea that Xi Lan had prepared.

And when Yi Qianying finally pushed open her doors, she began to seethe at her relaxed, contented manner.

“Sister, aren’t you worried about Young Master Pei at all?” Yi Qianying forced down the flames of anger in her heart, putting on a pitiful expression. “Young Master Pei still hasn’t woken up, but you’re just sitting here and enjoying tea?”