Till the End of Time: Asura Blood Saga

The interior of the Weapon Pavilion was unimaginable huge and was shaped like a pagoda. It had many floors, all stacked with all kinds of weapons.

At the lowest floor, countless barrels with all sorts of different weapons were standing close to the walls. The fact that they were all simply tossed into barrels obviously suggested that those were not really of a high level. Finding a high-quality weapon at this floor was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Even then, Yasha was completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of weapons.

How was anyone supposed to find a suitable weapon here? Going through everything would probably take a week, considering that the higher floors also contained countless weapons.

"Well, at least I know that I wanna use a sword, which is a beginning. But what sort of sword is the most suitable for me? Soft and flexible, or hard and heavy, or a good combination of them both?“ Yasha muttered and decided to start looking around first, hoping to find a suitable right at the start. He would just try out his luck.

Some time later, Yasha already arrived at the third floor of the pavilion. He walked in the direction of the stairs which led to the fourth floor, but before he could make another step, he felt a suffocating pressure enveloping the space around him, executed by someone of much higher cultivation stage.

This time, even Yasha felt shocked. Those energy waves surrounding him were the strongest he ever felt, he never felt such strong spiritual energy before. He immediately turned around and was shocked once again. The origin of this pressure was a young woman, maybe slightly older than himself. She wore a long green dress and had her hair tied up.

She sized Yasha up, immediately trying to see through his robe. For a second, Yasha had the feeling that she was surprised, but it vanished instantly, making him wonder if he hallucinated or not.

She then simply said, “Don’t you know the rules? For the fourth floor and upwards you must have a special permission. If you want to try it nonetheless, feel free to be kicked out by the restrictions.”

The young woman did not wait for Yasha to answer and swiftly proceeded to walk up the stairs. Even though she appeared otherworldly and uninterested on the outside, she was inwardly surprised. Who is he? He looks so weird, nearly demonic, but he appears to be human at the same time. Also, he wouldn’t be able to enter the Weapon Pavilion if he wasn’t human. But the strangest thing was that I could not see through his cultivation. Is he on the same level as me? No, if he was at the same level, I would know him for sure…

Pressuring Yasha with her cultivation base was not done because she wanted to flaunt her prowess, it was a way to test Yasha’s cultivation level and strength, as she had never seen him before, or at least she never noticed him before.

But she could not see through Yasha. Whenever her spiritual energy touched him, it was like it came into contact with a black hole, instantly devoured, making it impossible for her to gauge his strength.

While walking up, she felt the urge to turn around and take another look at this strange boy, but in the end, she simply brushed it off. If she had never seen him before, it would mean that he could not be that strong and so she simply moved on.

Yasha on the other hand did not know whether to laugh or to cry. If you want to give me advice, why do you see the need to execute your cultivation base before me? Who even was that?

Witnessing that pressure made Yasha realize that he barely knew anything about the Hunlua Clan and its higher-level cultivators. As someone who lived in the slums, it was no wonder though. Those with power and influence all lived in the inner clan and would never set food into the slums.

Not bothering with the identity of the woman anymore, Yasha thought about what she said and realized that he really forgot this rule that for beginners like him, only the first three floors were open.

The higher floors contained weapons of much higher quality and were unfit to be wielded by rookies like him. Not to mention that Energy Gathering cultivators not even had the strength and abilities to wield those weapons.

Yasha did not linger and immediately went back to search for a suitable weapon. Now that he had an overview of all the floors he could go through everything in more detail and ignore those places that he already knew were uninteresting for him.

Again some time passed. Yasha currently held a small sword in his hand. The sword was named Autumn Wind and was about one meter long and two fingers wide. The blade shone in a copper light and the handle was wrapped in white linen. Yasha tried a few basic moves, like stabbing, slashing and so on. Not long after trying the sword, he returned the sword to its scabbard and went back to search for another weapon.

I guess, I should search for a heavier and bigger sword. After trying Autumn Wind, Yasha realized what kind of sword he liked: big and heavy.

After his awakening, his body got a lot stronger and he could feel his strength nearly overflowing. The confrontation with the guard at the clan entrance was perfect example for this. He needed something that fit this raw power and small flexible sword certainly did not suit this task.

Yasha the continued his search and reached the first floor again, slightly disappointed. On his way down, he tried several, different swords, but he did not resonate with even one.

What Yasha searched was not only a weapon. He wanted to find a partner. One who would climb mountains of spears and would cross seas of fire with him. For him, swords were not only tools, there were a friend. One who would not betray him no matter what situation they were in and would support him in every situation. Because of that, the selection process proved to be more difficult than expected.

There has to be a sword that fits… I refuse to believe that there is nothing even remotely suitable for me! In that moment, he noticed a huge sword, laying on the ground in front of him. There were no other weapons near it, creating a stark contrast to the rest of the first floor that was filled to the brim with weapons.

Yasha immediately felt interested and picked it up from the ground, unsheathing it a fluent way. He then noticed the next odd thing about this sword: It actually had no name.

Normally, all weapons had their names engraved on their handles, blades or a piece of paper near the weapon that recorded their names. Even the low-quality weapons had a name.

Every blacksmith would give their work a name, thus it was extremely uncommon to find weapons or armors without a name. In most cases it symbolized that the creator was not happy with the result and deemed it as trash. He would not waste his time on finding a name.

But Yasha could not care less whether the sword had a name or not, as the moment his eyes landed on the black, lusterless sword, he felt a huge attraction towards the sword.

The blade was about two and a half meters long and three fingers wide. It was covered in countless, pale, weathered runes were engraved, which looked like tiny scars. Those runes were a clear indication that the blade was once blessed by a rune master, marking it as a high quality sword. But most of them could not be recognized anymore, making the sword appear as a broken product.

Not knowing why, Yasha started caressing the blade with his rand hand. The moment his fingers touched the sword, the Asura Blood reacted, breaking out of control once again.

But this time, no negative emotions appeared and Yasha instead had the feeling that he met a long-lost friend. He was filled with pure bliss and ecstasy having the sword in his hands.

Not needing further thoughts, Yasha knew that he had to take that sword with him. That was the feeling he missed while trying the other swords. It was just tailor made for him. He picked up the scabbard on the ground and let his sword enter it.

Now, with a huge sword on his back, Yasha moved to the exit of the Weapon Pavilion. The picture of the little boy with the huge sword on his back looked a bit comical, because the sword was a lot bigger than the boy, but at the same time, they seemed to belong to each other.

On the way to the exit, Yasha was filled with excitement and happiness. I did not expect to find such a good sword. It’s as if it was made for me! That feeling, it was exactly what I was searching for. Now, I only must find a suitable name for it.

Let me think... Ah, I know. I will call you Destiny Devourer! Destiny, so that I always remember, that I wanna change my fate, and devourer, because I am gonna take from destiny what is rightfully mine!

As if reading Yasha’s mind, the sword hummed unnoticeable in response. It looked like the sword liked the name.

After Yasha passed the old man on the side of the pavilion, it seemed as if the old man did not care at all about the departure of Yasha, but in reality he was paying close attention to him.

Interesting. He chose the nameless black sword. Even that old codger was not able to wield it, because it was heavier than a mountain! But this boy is actually able to wear it on his back. This Yasha boy gets more and more interesting... haha.

Yasha’s next goal was the Hall of Scriptures, which was located right next to the Weapon Pavilion. The Hall of Scriptures was a huge building, made out of red stones. The entrance had a sign with the words Hall of Scriptures on it. The words had a certain charm to them, making them even more exceptional.

At the entrance, a similar light like that from the Weapon Pavilion appeared and scanned Yasha’s body, but to Yasha’s astonishment, the light did not turn hostile this time. Contrary to his expectations, it directly vanished after scanning. He was already expecting to be kicked out, because this time the old man could not help him, but strangely, he could enter it without a problem.

Hm, did the old man do something to me or my identity token? Anyway, I will thank him later. Now, I should focus on finding a technique that complements the Way of the Asura. A sword technique is probably the best choice, as I already have a movement technique. With my basic sword moves and low cultivation level, a sword technique focused on attacking should be the best choice.

The Hall of Scriptures had five floors, but only the first floor was accessible to beginners like Yasha. To enter the higher floors, you had to have a high enough cultivation. You also had to do some sort of contribution to the clan to get a chance of entering the higher floors of the Hall of Scriptures.

The first floor alone was very spacious and contained many shelves, with scrolls, books, jade slips or animal skin. Unsurprisingly, the Hall of Scriptures looked like a huge library.

Yasha wasted no time and started directly with the shelve in front of him. He could not help but gulp, because there were so many different techniques. There was everything that a cultivator longed for. But he could only choose one technique. He would have loved to read through every single one of them, but he knew that he did not have enough time. The kingdoms tournament came closer and closer and he still needed to train and cultivate.

The first shelve alone contained countless techniques. One technique was named Three steps to Heaven. It was a shocking technique, that build upon the momentum one built during a fight.

Yasha was immediately interested in it, because he was sure, that he could easily built up momentum. But on further thought, he changed his opinion, because he was searching a good sword art, and not something else. Also, the technique wasn’t complete, only the instructions of the first step was contained in the manual and thus its use was highly limited.

Another interesting art was the Shadow Move Art. It was another immensely useful technique used to move like a shadow. If trained to the peak, it would transform the cultivator to become a shadow on the battle field, haunting their enemies. Of course the requirements to train in such a technique were also a lot harder.

Time quickly passed by, during which Yasha found many more interesting techniques, nearly crying that he could not take them all.

However, not long after, Yasha stumbled upon a little black and white book in the corner of a broken shelve. He took it out of the shelve and was greeted by a swirling cloud of dust. That book clearly was not taken out in a long time. Upon further inspection, Yasha could identify the name of the manual, it recorded a technique called Life Sword. Without further ado he carefully opened the book, afraid of accidentally damaging the old book. A small introduction welcomed him.

“To walk the path of the Sword, one has to embrace the dance of life and death together with the sword. With a sword in hand, you shall walk freely!”