Bai li yue who was lost in her thoughts didn't notice anything. She was struggling to put her thoughts into a coherent order but her exclamation had nothing to do with her being unqualified and everything to do with shock. An immortal inheritance and her name had been mentioned in the same conversation. The seal inside her body was holding strong but one day, it will be gone. In preparation for that fateful day, she needed all the help she could get. This legacy had nothing to do with formations, but it would definitely have something to help her cultivate better. And a sword immortal at that! She now wished that she'd made a bet with the others. She would have made a killing.

The silent sword hummed at last

'Accepting or... rejecting?'

'Of course it's a yes. How do i take it?'

Little black buzzed.

'I should place the pommel in the indentation.'

She did as the sword said and slotted the pommel into the hole. It was a perfect fit. Her free hand touched the cool stone and she ran her fingers over the letters and read them in a solemn ceremony that had a mesmerising effect on her. The letters were not just inscribed into the stone. They appeared to be cut into it. The sharp edges appeared in her mind and the memory of the void blades resurged. 

No.

She shook her head. 

She didn't want to remember the pain. 

She didn't want to go back there.

'Focus.'

The word broke through the pain, steadying her trembling mind for a minute until she felt invisible blades slash through her again. 

'Aaahhg!'

Her scream was cut off suddenly as she spat out a mouthful of blood. Little black watched its mistress writhe in pain. She was doing better than it had expected. She had to hold on for a short while until the pain passed.

Thinking back to the mysterious force from her body that had targeted him, it snorted. 

It was only a remnant legacy, but it believed that it was superior to an immortal's inheritance. Bloodline legacies were the worst!

Once, Bai li yue finished accepting the sword immortal's legacy, it needed to restructure the hierarchy. The formation inheritance wouldn't be a problem. Its kind was usually wise. The problem was the bloodline legacy. It wasn't in the same league as a martial legacy but it wanted to throw its weight about.

'Why? Because it came first? It had to think again!'

The force returned and smashed into the sword spirit a few times, sending it reeling back. It was suffering now but once it was complete, it'll give the blood inheritance a good beating.

Little black's outrage fell on deaf ears. The other legacies were ignoring it and so it gathered its remaining dignity and dreamed of the future. There would be time enough to get payback. Right now, it had a more pressing concern. It checked on Bai li yue once more.

She'd fallen onto her knees. 

The legacy was being passed on.

Meanwhile on Bai li yue's side, the pain was gone. However, her body and soul still throbbed from the memory of it. 

When she finally woke up, she was no longer on the island in the void. She was a young little bright eyed boy clinging to his mother's side in a tiny hut. She played from morning to evening with the children of her age in the village until the day a stranger. He took a look at all the children and selected her to follow him. Her mother cried as her child left, but she wouldn't complain. She'd given up her child to have a better life elsewhere. She would never return home in this life. 

The stranger taught her and several other children to read and write. He taught them to cultivate and then sent them to the battlefield. 

Thirty years later, Bai li yue was a grizzled man marked by the unending war. She'd killed her fair share of invaders, but killing never got easier no matter what her superiors said. She was tired. She had given her youth to the empire. She was exhausted. She'd done her duty. It was time for her to rest. 

Dying was not an option when she wanted more than anything to live. The only solution was to vanish.

Disappearing during the chaos of battle was the easy part. However, finding a land where peace reigned was difficult. She roamed the world under different guises and many names. At last, she met a decent woman, married and raised a small family. Life as a farmer was pleasant and fulfilling in its bucolic simplicity. 

But.

Conflict was inevitable. Those who struggled to keep the peace couldn't outrun the fated war. And when it finally came, it cast a bloody shadow over the kingdom. War ravaged the land and finally entered her peaceful corner of the world. She lost her family in a raid while she was away on the field and despair led her back to the killing fields. Those fields she'd forsaken all those years ago. She killed and killed, bathing in the blood of her enemies. Hoping their blood will wash her soul clean of memories, of pain, of suffering. 

In her twilight years, two hundred years after she'd left the village she was born in, she had made a name for herself. She was now known as the bloody butcher. She'd honed her sword feeding it with the blood of her enemies. Year after year until one day, the interminable war ended. Bereft and without purpose, she returned to her home surrounded by memories she had failed to erase. She achieved enlightenment amidst the ghosts of her loved ones and cast away her blood soaked sword. 

Pain fades. 

Memories fade.

The bloody butcher is no more.

Rebuilding her crumbled home back up, she learned acceptance. She lived in peace for the rest of her life wandering the land. Her life was spent in the pursuit of the sword. With her faithful sword companions she crafted the soul sword formula.

Bai li yue started when she saw herself reciting the incantation for the soul sword. The sword energy was familiar to her. She had suffered untold pain from it.

Bai li yue wasn't the only person to feel this pain. Many cultivators, kings and devils suffered too. She used the soul sword formula to destroy evil. Her actions caught the eye of the celestial court. They granted her favour to reach immortality after a thousand years of cultivation.

Eons later, she ascended to godhood and her final act as human and her first act as a deity was to craft the immortal domain to house legacies that could be lost to war. The act gained approval from the heavens and she was permitted to ascend the heavens.

At that point, Bai li yue separated from the person she'd been. She watched him gain his spirit form and ascend into the heavens.

She'd walked in his shoes, lived his life and felt his suffering. 

The soul sword formula wasn't a simple legacy. It encompassed the entirety of Jian tian's life. He had felt the cruelty of life through war. It had shaped him, burdened him, doomed him and liberated him. However, the soul sword formula was not just an arsenal used for fighting. When used correctly it had many uses. It could bedevil the person's soul as easily as it could cleanse it by cutting away the festering wound. 

The pain she'd felt from the void blades hadn't contained the full strength of the soul sword formula. She shivered, remembering her fervent prayer for death to come for her. 

Could she do it? Could she wield the soul sword formula against others after knowing the kind of pain it inflicted? 

She didn't know if she could do it. In that moment of uncertainty, she heard a soothing voice in her ear. Somehow she recognised the voice as belonging to the immortal. She had spoken in that voice so many tiles not to know it.

'The soul sword formula is a dangerous sword made to be wielded by a reasonable hand. The responsibility weighs heavier than others. I myself only used it fully a total of nineteen times in my life. Only twice have I used it unjustly and both those times, I have regretted it deeply.'

'If even you failed, then how do i know that i'm the right person to inherit the legacy? I'm not a good person.'

'Be at ease. I created it, but unlike you, i have never felt the pain. You have. Perhaps, that makes you more suitable than I ever was. As for being a good person, i'll tell you from experience that goodness is overrated. As long as your reason is just and you can live with your actions, nobody can fault you.'

He said.