CHAPTER 245: ABYSS (PART 3)

---) Abyss (1/3): One of the three Fragments of Abyss, a Soul Armament that shattered during the Ancient War.

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Azrael was stunned when he read the details of the small blade and frowned slightly.

"A fragment of a Soul Armament..." He murmured, staring at the pitch-black blade resting in his palm, wondering what he could possibly do with it.

The blade was only about three inches long, without a tip or handle, and appeared to be the middle section of a dagger.

As Azrael examined it, the blade suddenly trembled faintly, as though stirred by some unseen force.

Azrael’s eyelids jumped, and his instincts immediately kicked in as he tossed the blade away, thinking something might be wrong with it.

The small fragment clattered to the floor a few meters away, but the moment it left his hand, it stopped moving and became completely still.

"What’s the deal with this thing?" Azrael muttered under his breath, eyeing it warily.

After not detecting anything unusual from a distance, he cautiously walked over and picked it up again.

The instant his fingers touched it, the blade began to tremble once more. This time, however, Azrael didn’t throw it away. Instead, he focused on the sensation carefully.

’Could it be the spirit of this Soul Armament?’ He thought, narrowing his eyes.

As the name suggested, every Soul Armament possessed its own soul, or more accurately, a spirit.

Azrael’s own weapon, Fallen Star, also contained a spirit. However, since a Soul Armament grew together with its wielder, and Azrael was still only at the Class level, the spirit of Fallen Star was nearly nonexistent. It would only begin to gain sentience and develop as Azrael’s level rose.

The small blade in his hand, however, was a fragment of Abyss, a Soul Armament powerful enough to have developed its own spirit long ago.

Although Azrael wasn’t sure how strong Abyss had been before it shattered during the Ancient War, he could guess that it must have reached a level where its spirit was fully formed.

The strange tremors coming from the fragment were likely caused by that lingering spirit.

Azrael closed his eyes and used his heightened senses alongside his Infinite Comprehension to probe the blade more deeply, trying to detect any trace of consciousness or energy within it.

He still couldn’t use his spiritual senses, a higher form of perception that could easily identify the presence of a weapon’s spirit, since that ability was only attainable after reaching the Legend rank.

Even so, with the assistance of Infinite Comprehension, he managed to faintly sense weak fluctuations of spiritual energy emanating from the fragment.

Though the fluctuations were extremely faint, almost imperceptible, they were enough to confirm his suspicion that the strange behavior of the blade was indeed caused by the weakened spirit dwelling inside it.

"Since it’s a fragment of a powerful Soul Armament, even in this shattered state, its power should still be considerable..." Azrael muttered quietly, turning his gaze toward the wall of the spaceship with a thoughtful expression.

He walked over to one of the walls and tried to test the blade’s sharpness.

The spaceship was a Legend-grade vessel, built entirely from materials of the same level. Some critical areas even incorporated Planetary-grade alloys for enhanced defense.

The wall Azrael chose to test was one such durable surface, made from Legend-level metal.

He pressed the edge of the Abyss fragment against the wall and sliced.

A sharp, grating sound filled the room, but when he pulled the blade back, there wasn’t even the faintest scratch on the surface.

Azrael: "..."

He stared blankly at the blade in his hand, completely dumbfounded, wondering which language would be the most appropriate to curse it in for being so utterly useless.

"Is it because it’s just a fragment that it can’t even leave a scratch on a Legend-level material now?" He mused aloud, frowning as he examined the blade again.

Suddenly, the blade trembled once more.

"Why is this thing so restless?" Azrael muttered, raising an eyebrow as he studied the shaking fragment.

It almost felt like it was trying to communicate with him, wanting to tell him something.

Azrael activated his True Focus skill. Instantly, time seemed to slow down around him, his perception sharpening until every detail was clear.

As Azrael stared at the trembling blade under the effect of True Focus, through his heightened senses, he realized something startling, the blade wasn’t shaking randomly.

It was actually trying to cut his palm.

However, due to his high defense, the fragment couldn’t even pierce his skin.

"Why does it want to cut my palm?" He asked himself, confusion flickering in his eyes.

Then, a thought suddenly crossed his mind and his expression changed slightly.

"The purpose of the Sanguinal Throne was to grant me an Eternal-grade bloodline... and this blade was inside the storage ring beneath that throne," He muttered in a low voice, staring at the blade intently.

’Could it be that this blade wants to cut my palm because of the bloodline I received?’

As the idea formed, Azrael observed the fragment of Abyss even more closely and sure enough, he could feel that it truly wanted to draw his blood.

A few seconds later, when the blade realized it couldn’t cut through his skin, it stopped trembling and went still again, lying quietly in his palm as if exhausted.

’What should I do?’ Azrael thought, frowning as he studied the fragment.

’Should I cut my palm intentionally to see what the blade wants, or should I simply ignore it?

He recalled what he knew about Soul Armaments, and his eyes narrowed slightly.

’From the looks of it, this thing is trying to form a contract with me, just like Fallen Star. But unlike Fallen Star, which tested me through combat, this one seems to want to test my blood before forming a contract.’

Azrael paced around the room, deep in thought for several minutes, before finally making up his mind.

"Let’s give it a try," He said to himself. "It’s not like I’ll lose anything by doing so."