After that.
As arranged beforehand.
Ke Jie said goodbye to Bai Wuxie, who still had Judgment Hall duties on her hands, and returned to the Demon-Purging Bureau's main hall.
Waiting to receive him were the members of Team B, Joint Combat Division, who had been waiting a good while, and the warm welcome of the Bureau's other enrolled Blade Wielders and Sword Maidens who had the time.
From an introduction to the Bureau's history and culture to the latest big events within it, there was not one of them who did not patiently carry out the duty of guiding Ke Jie.
There was no grand welcome banquet or anything of the kind, but the atmosphere inside the whole Bureau, Blade Wielders and Sword Maidens living in harmony, close as brothers and sisters, came across to the newly joined Blade Wielder Ke Jie all the same.
In the course of this welcome Ke Jie also gathered a good deal of information and knowledge that might prove useful.
Such as: the Sword Maiden powers matched with Team A of the Joint Combat Division were the Judgment Hall and the Adjudication Tribunal; the Bureau's Director would be away for a time on assignment; and a few days ago the Execution Corps had detected the presence of a Greater Demon Tier Sword Fiend near Dongdu.
Close to an hour later.
His tour of the Bureau done, Ke Jie said goodbye to each of his seniors in turn and went back to his own room on the main hall's second floor.
"Time to absorb the demon crystal and the fiend core."
Ke Jie sat cross-legged on the soft bed.
The demon crystal in his left hand, the fiend core in his right.
To make sure the coming process of purifying and absorbing crystal and core in turn went smoothly, he had set aside a full four hours and more, right up to dinner.
"First, this Quasi-Demon Tier Blade Demon's demon crystal."
The Blade Spirit emblem in his left palm lit up and shed a faint blood-light over the demon crystal, purifying and dissolving it bit by bit.
As the pure Blade Qi in the crystal was absorbed into the Blade Spirit, some of the resentment and memory the Blade Demon had left behind poured into Ke Jie's mind as well.
"Chen Sheng! Why did you have to fight me for the slot to train in the Imperial Capital? Have you forgotten the oath we swore back then!!!"
"He actually lost outright to the Sword God of Nature, Ke Xi, in the death-duel bracket of the Grand Blade-and-Sword Tournament? Could it be that the one the newly made Wrath Blade King loves is......"
"Circuit Envoy of the Myriad-Fiend Empire. So long as you're willing to give me the strength for revenge, what does it matter if I kill by a borrowed blade? I'm old. The Blade Spirit is close to abandoning me......"
He saw, scene after scene, the moments carved deepest into the Blade Demon's memory. He heard, bursting beside his ear, the Blade Demon's low mutter of grievance and rage. He smelled a stink of blood that would not clear.
Illusion, or real.
But it was gone, all of it smoke.
"Rest in peace, Blade Wielder... Grey Tiger."
Like the words of mourning read before a burial.
Ke Jie murmured it, and took the last proof of existence this onetime senior had left to the world entirely into some corner of his own heart.
The next second.
"BOOM!"
The shattered demon crystal vanished completely.
The scenes flashing before his eyes faded, the murmur echoing beside his ear hid itself away, the unaccountable stink of blood was gone, and the Blade Spirit emblem in his palm shone brighter still.
"Zzz, zzz-zzz."
Blood-flame of wrath spread outward from that centre, wrapping his whole body inside it and touching nothing else around him.
What does it feel like to burn alive?
Ke Jie's answer: not one thousandth of the heartache a life's great regret can leave behind.
"Father, I will avenge you. Even if it burns up everything I have, I will not begrudge it."
Teeth clenched, left hand clenched.
He chose to take the pain of the Blade Spirit's deep fusion with him head-on.
Bear in mind that this was only the damaged Blade Spirit "Wrathblood Frenzy Blade", and already it felt like ten thousand ants eating him alive. It was hard to imagine what resolve and courage the Wrath Blade King had held to, back then, to cross the Embryo Tier's Soul-Fusing Realm.
A minute later.
The fusion was still going on.
"Nngh."
Ke Jie bit down; his awareness was blurring.
Dimly, he seemed to see a scene from some corner of the future — in a pool of blood, that Sword Maiden girl with seven stars hanging above her head, weeping for the dead.
"I can't fall yet. She's still waiting for me......"
Holding to a deep feeling he did not yet understand.
He held on all the same, and bore it by main force to the end of the fusion, four minutes and twenty seconds later.
Now.
Had anyone else been present, they would have found that once the blood-flame receded, Ke Jie had entered his transformed state of his own accord.
No. To put it precisely, it was that Ke Jie's own body, remade by the Blade Spirit, had come infinitely close in outward traits to the transformed one.
This was the road every Blade Wielder and Sword Maiden who crossed the Soul-Fusing Realm had to walk, and their typical mark.
Bai Wuxie's crane-white hair over a child's face, for instance; Feng Rui's cat traits; Fang Zheng's sleepiness; Wu Yuan's holy amber eyes; and Ke Jie's own blood-coloured demon eyes.
A moment to catch his breath.
Breathing steadied.
"Whew."
Ke Jie called out his weapon and looked over the Wrathblood Frenzy Blade after its advancement.
The ring-pommel saber, which had looked rather long sealed away before, was now as good as new.
The ring showed the substance of red agate; the haft was coated in a layer of dark red cinnabar; both faces of the snow-white blade were engraved with blood-coloured flame patterns; and the edge threw back a cold light.
Most striking of all, blood-red Blade Qi coiled and circled, sketching the phantom of a blade sheath wrapped around the blade.
When that phantom all but condensed into substance, it would mean he had broken past the Sublimation Realm where he now stood and stepped into the Sheath Tier.
Done admiring his own Blade Spirit.
Ke Jie did not pause long. Without hesitation he pressed the Blade Spirit's influence down and called out the Twin Sword Souls.
"Next, the Lesser Demon Tier fiend core."
The Sword Soul emblem in his right hand lit.
The deep violet fiend core began to melt in answer.
With the experience of that first purification and absorption of the demon crystal behind him, handling the fiend core came naturally to hand.
Set against the Blade Demon, which had died in resentment after a brief fall, the owner of this fiend core had likely been fallen a long time, and had died with a martyr's feeling of giving herself for the one she served, and the comfort of a goal essentially achieved.
Purification and absorption went very smoothly.
Only a great, pure quantity of sword-force poured steadily into the Twin Sword Souls, and a small amount of emotion and memory flooded his mind.
"What... is this?"
Perhaps because it was small in quantity and concentrated.
Ke Jie was drawn, with utter clarity and as if present in person, into the last few deep memories of the fiend core's original owner before her death.
***
Two days before now.
The foot of Mount Nanxuan, Dongdu.
A cave nobody knew of.
"Drip. Drip."
Water slid from the stalactites of the cave roof.
And fell in front of the feet of the fiend core's original owner.
"Your subordinate, Circuit Attendant of the Myriad-Fiend Empire, the Sword Fiend Ziling, gives thanks to the Lady Envoy for the special assignment she bestows!"
The fiend core's original owner knelt, her voice fervent, and saluted with cupped hands toward the figure in the darkness ahead.
"No need for that. You've lain hidden in Dongdu for years now. The Empire will remember your contribution."
The figure came slowly nearer, revealing a mature face, alluring in its own way, with pale violet shadow about the eyes, that gave a devil-may-care impression.
From the voice, this Circuit Envoy of the Myriad-Fiend Empire was a mature woman.
"Yes! Your subordinate will without fail complete tomorrow night's assignment, drawing off and pinning down the main strength of the Dongdu Demon-Purging Bureau and the Judgment Hall, to make the conditions for the Blade Demon's attack. May I ask, Half-Fiend... Lady Thousand-Faced Poison Maiden, may I touch your foot?"
At that.
"Heh-heh. As you wish, my attendant."
The Circuit Envoy extended her left foot, smiling.
***
One day before now.
The headquarters of the Dongdu Judgment Hall.
The eve of the Blade Demon's attack on Ke Jie.
The fiend core's original owner had collapsed to her knees, strengthless, and before her Feng Rui was slowly approaching.
"Kill me! Spirit Cat. My old classmate, take my fiend core and climb to a higher Tier."
"......All right."
"Lady Envoy, I did it......"
The fiend core's original owner closed her eyes and met her death in silence.
***
The moment the memory ended.
"I see."
Ke Jie came to with a start.
Setting aside for now the pleasure of the rich harvest he had reaped from the memories of the fiend core's original owner.
He glanced at his right palm.
The black thorns that stood for Darknight had regained their lustre; the pure white cross that stood for Dawn shone brighter than ever.
Which meant that the Twin Sword Souls' further fusion with him was about to begin......