Xue Wei exited the room of darkness. His face was haggard and his complexion pale. His eyes were drooping, and he seemed to be in severe pain.
He had remembered what Tianyi had told him and acted exactly as they had planned.
Hei Gou’s face turned ugly, but it quickly straightened out as Xue Wei sent him a voice-compressed message.
Hei Gou's expression froze in place, becoming a strange mixture of amusement and crying.
Xue Wei had not said much other than, "I am stealing their treasure," but this already showed what he had been doing inside the room.
It was clear that they had been brought here because of something that would not benefit them, but now it seemed that Xue Wei had turned it around.
This made Hei Gou unaware of whether or not he should laugh or cry, making his handsome face turn into a hideous expression. Fortunately, all the villagers and the priestess were busy observing Xue Wei and his appearance that was lacking all energy.
"I see that it liked your soul," Qing Li gloated, but he dared not speak too loud. He had been scared silly earlier when the thunder rumbled, and the temple shook, but now he reached the conclusion that the reason for this to happen was because ‘it’ was very pleased with Xue Wei’s soul.
The priestess frowned. Her eyes gleamed with intelligence, and she was quiet as she looked at Xue Wei from top to bottom.
"You there, speak up. What happened inside the room?" the priestess asked with a stern voice that was filled with uncertainty and a bit of fear.
"I don't know," Xue Wei answered with a frown on his face before grimacing. "I stepped into a world of darkness. I could not see anything at all, and within this world, something seemed to cut through me and remove a part of me, though I do not know what part of me this was."
"It was excruciating pain and I almost blacked out," he continued as his body started trembling at the memory. The priestess nodded her head, satisfied with the answer.
"The two of you will follow me," she said, the stoic air returning to her. It was as if nothing had happened that day that could shock her.
Xue Wei and Hei Gou obliged without resistance and followed the woman towards the depths of the temple.
Qing Li wanted to tag along, but Long Tian stopped him. In the end, only the three of them set out, while the rest all retreated to the village itself.
After walking slowly into the deeper parts of the temple, the priestess came to a halt. She turned around and looked at Xue Wei before she snorted.
"You did not lose any of your soul, and the natural phenomenon that appeared made me think that perhaps it is time for it to once again appear in the world," she said.
Her face was still expressionless, her voice devoid of emotions and her bearing stoic. Hearing her words, Xue Wei was stunned and looked at her with wide open eyes.
"I don't know what you mean," he mumbled with a low voice. "Who said anything about losing my soul?" he asked. In response, the woman just snickered.
"Don't try to trick me," she said with slight amusement. "I have been the priestess of this temple since I was five years old. The ritual to become the new priestess is horrible, and it connects you to the sword. I heard what you two spoke about within the room, and I have to admit that I hope for it to happen too."
"I am a young woman, but I have been locked up in this village since birth. My soul is slowly being shaved down little by little, and my life will be forfeit. Right now, I am already a little too old to do my duty, but I am supposed to find a husband and produce a child as soon as possible."
"When my child turns five years old, this child is supposed to take over the job as a priestess, and the mother's life will be forfeited."
"Will she be used to feed the sword with her soul until she dies?" Xue Wei asked, and a sad smile appeared on the priestess' face. "Something like that," she replied, without going into details.
Xue Wei paid it no heed. He did not think that it mattered too much and instead wondered how to deal with the villagers.
"Would it not be ideal for the entire village if I take away the sword?" Xue Wei asked after a bit of silence. "As things are now, all of them will die young as they will give up their souls to the sword one after another."
"This is also the reason why no one here has managed to reach a high cultivation rank; they are simply not able to live long enough to succeed."
"It is true that they are giving up their lives," the priestess said with a solemn face, "but they have no choice. This village exists for the sake of holding the sword captive. We can never let it go," she said, sighing deeply, and did not hide the fact that she disagreed with that.
"I will take you to two rooms. No one will be watching you, and you can roam around as you please. Since you have entered the village, there is no exit for you – other than when you become a corpse and scatter your ashes from a mountaintop."
"The nearest thousand kilometers from the village is a no-man's land," the priestess continued to explain with her gentle but very emotionless voice.
"The beasts below the Heavenly Warrior rank can enter, but only a very few humans are capable of trespassing. The beasts, we hunt and use to sustain ourselves, use their hides for our clothes and so on."
"These formations are for the purpose of confusing trespassers and making them turn around and return the way they came from. Only certain people have been able to walk through the confusing formations and arrive at the village. And when they arrive here, other formations with illusions will cause the village to seem completely deserted and destroyed."
"Then another formation of a world of fog should send even more back to their starting point. To get through all these formations is difficult, but the two of you managed to do so."
"This makes me think that there is something extraordinary about the two of you," she continued to explain. "My single goal in life is to produce a daughter who can become the next priestess in this temple and then forfeit my life. I have to oversee every single ritual of sacrificing of the souls to the sword spirit, and when I break their soul apart, I need to pay with a small bit of my own soul."
"Although I use only a tiny fraction of my soul, if they were a hundred units, then I would use one for each ritual, but it stacks up much faster for me as I have to oversee every single ceremony. Right now, only half of my soul remains, and I have already consumed a Soul Mending Magnolia to restore my soul somewhat."
The priestess sighed while shaking her head, and looked into the distance. "When I was younger, I once questioned this mentality, but I was nearly beaten to death by my mother. It is one of the few memories I have of her." The priestess sighed again and shook her head.
"I always loved hearing stories about the outside world. About a world where humans were brave and fought against beasts. A world where they were united against evil."
"I dislike the sword. It is vile and disgusting, but after all the years I have spent in this temple, I also seem to know the most about the sword spirit."
"The spirit is very knowledgeable. It has lived a long life filled with exciting adventures and life-and-death situations."
"I do not want to go through such things," the priestess continued, "but I want to see the cities where humans live together in great numbers, where there is no one who sees me as a priestess."
"Although I am respected in this village, they all hate me. I am after all the one who is shaving away their souls every two days, and at the same time I am also the one who is closest to the damnable sword that has doomed our village to our pitiful lives."
"They only tolerate me because they know my life is short and that I will die in at most ten years."
"I want to live a life as a normal person. I don't want to be a genius or a heaven-sent talent. I just wish to be a very normal person."
She hesitated for a bit, and only then did Xue Wei and Hei Gou realize that she was just as old as Xue Wei himself.
"What I am trying to say is, I will not cause problems for you when you are trying to take away that sword. It is a vile spirit that lives on other's lives, and I cannot agree with that. But at the same time, it is also my only acquaintance since it is the only one I have been able to speak to. So I do wish for it to cause havoc in the world, especially after hearing that what it wants is actually the souls of other wicked creatures."
"Since I will allow you to take the sword with you, I also want to leave this village together with you two. Take me with you when you leave and bring me to the capital of whatever kingdom we exist in."
"I have plenty of gold and silver coins stored away. You do not have to worry about me being okay when you leave me. I just have never left the village, so I fear I will get lost on my own."
Xue Wei contemplated for some time before he turned to Hei Gou. This was a serious decision, and he could not make it without his good friend's opinion.
"I am fine with bringing her to the capital," Hei Gou said with a compressed voice when asked for his opinion. "We have to hide here in the Vermilion Forest Kingdom for quite some time, so going to the capital could be considered a fun tempering trip."
"Also, I can feel that you want the sword, so why not do something about getting it? This village of experts is not very pleasing to the eyes, so why don't we take the sword and start slaughtering our way out of the village? I am capable of dealing with quite a few Sky Warriors at once since my physical strength has reached the first layer of the Heavenly Warrior rank."
"You can deal with quite a large group of Earth Warriors on your own," Hei Gou continued, "and with the aid of this sword, we should be able to do even better."
Xue Wei frowned when he heard this. "It is true that we can deal with groups of people, but this is a whole village with around a thousand people, if not more."
While the two were discussing, the priestess was patiently standing aside. She guessed they were communicating somehow, but she was unaware of how to talk with others in such an unconventional way.
"Okay." After deliberating amongst themselves, Xue Wei turned to the priestess. "We will help you escape in return for you allowing us to take the sword with us."
For the first time since they saw the stoic priestess, a smile bloomed on her lips; a smile that was filled with hope and relief.
"You have my eternal gratitude," she said those heartfelt words while her hands were cupped over her chest and she bowed to the two friends.