Be Gentle, Immortal Master

245  A Ritual Gone Awry

Bai Ye took my hands and held them between his palms, rubbing his fingers over mine in a soft, almost careful touch. "When I first started to notice that something had gone amiss with … your bonding with Twin Stars, I searched for every possible way to untangle you from its influence. One of the solutions I came across was an ancient ritual to break the connection between a sword spirit and the sword. It was perfectly suited for your situation, and if only I had followed through … It might have been able to put an end to all your troubles with the demonic power."

He paused. The sorrowful look that I hadn't seen for quite a while settled on his face once more. "But I wasn't able to perform that ritual alone. It required three different symbols to be activated at precisely the same time, so I had to ask Teng Yuan and Chu Yang for help. I assured them that I had modified the ritual as much as I could, which allowed them to channel most of the power through me instead of draining their own, but that wasn't enough to convince them. I was still looking for other alternatives when …"

He trailed off, though I already knew the rest—I had been too far gone before he could find a feasible workaround. I winced at the silence that told me he was lost in those dark memories again. "Bai Ye," I breathed. "You might have ended up taking a harder route … But it all worked out in the end, didn't it? I'm alive and well right now, thanks to everything you went out of your way to try."

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A faint smile crossed his lips. "You're right," he replied softly and squeezed my hands, as if to confirm that I was truly alive and well. "And frankly, although I couldn't come to terms with their decision, I understand that they had good reasons to make that choice. This method wasn't guaranteed to succeed. The sword is the only physical tie that tethers a sword spirit to this world. Once that tie is severed … It affects the spirit tremendously and can lead to an entirely different set of problems, if not handled properly."

So that was why Teng Yuan had told me that he didn't have enough faith in the path Bai Ye had chosen. That was why—

Suddenly, something came together in my head. "You're saying that … This girl is an example of what would happen if that ritual turned out the wrong way?"

Bai Ye nodded. "If a sword spirit is forced to give up the connection to their sword without thorough preparation, they would feel as if a piece of their soul had been torn apart. They will do anything to try to fill that void in them, and with time, this sense of loss and pain will twist their personality no less than the demonic power can affect them." He paused again with a deep sigh. "I don't know the full history of Twin Stars, so I can't guess who had performed this ritual before the swords came into my possession. If it had been done with more caution, then the scene at Misty Mountains would've turned out quite differently."

"Wait … So you are certain that this girl is the sword spirit … of Twin Stars?" The last piece of the puzzle still fell short. "Is a sword able to regenerate a new spirit once the original one is forced away?"

His gaze dropped to the blades over my waist. "Not typically, but don't forget that there are two swords in a twin pair. I suppose you can say … that this girl is your twin sister."

Maybe I should have expected that, but I didn't. I stared at Twin Stars blankly as the revelation slowly sank in. My twin sister … Bizarre as it sounded, that explained everything. Her look, her familiar spiritual power, her desperate need for Twin Stars, the similarity between her twin swords and mine …

"That was why she killed all those cultivators," I blurted as realization dawned on me. "She lost her physical counterpart because of the ritual, so she lured every swordsman passing her territory into that cave and killed them, not only for revenge … but also to collect their swords so that she could find a replacement to reconnect herself with."

"That is my guess," Bai Ye agreed. "The stack of blades we saw the first time in that cave was likely the trophy of her retribution. But sadly, she wasn't doing it right even for her own sake. The twin swords she found only looked like Twin Stars. It didn't share a similar spiritual power, so it could never be the right replacement for what she needed. Her wrong anticipations might have only driven her further down that berserk path."

For a moment, I felt a little sorry for my twin. After all, she had been forced into this fate by a hastily prepared ritual against her will. But that wasn't enough reason to forgive her for what she had done. With the blood of hundreds of innocent cultivators on her hands, she was even farther gone than I was in my previous life. "We need to stop her," I said. "Especially if she was once bonded with Twin Stars as well … Does that mean she might be able to summon its power as much as I can?"

"I can't say for sure, but it is possible, which is why you need to be very careful around her." Bai Ye squeezed my hand again, this time a little worriedly. "If she still has control over the swords …"

Then I couldn't even begin to imagine what she could do once she regained possession of this demonic power. "I'm keeping Twin Stars from her at all costs," I said. Flipping my palm, I clasped my hand over his. "It's not just for me. We need its power to save you and all those souls trapped in them, remember? There's no way I'd let her get her hands on this and ruin it all."