He had never imagined that he would communicate with another intelligent being in such a miraculous way—in his own mental world, contacting another spiritual entity in a purely spiritual manner. This entity was, in a sense, an intruder into his mental world, and even more astonishing, this intelligent being didn't even know it was an intruder; it didn't even know how it got there.

Information exchange in the mental world was highly efficient, but no matter how efficient the information exchange, Hao Ren couldn't get much useful information from the "Godslaying Sword." In their exchanges, the "Godslaying Sword's" intelligence was almost all-knowing and willing to tell everything. Its frank attitude even made Hao Ren suspect whether this guy was the real body of that evil weapon. After the exchanges, he roughly understood the origin of this guy, and he regretfully discovered that this consciousness was actually very ignorant.

"So, after you were created, you've been in a state of muddled confusion? You can think, but you don't think?" Hao Ren asked curiously. He still found some of the other party's phrasing strange: A sword, no matter how intelligent, couldn't possibly have the same worldview as an ordinary person.

"I receive information, I remember it, I observe everything that happens, but I don't process it," the Godslaying Sword initially stumbled a bit when communicating with Hao Ren, seemingly lacking a rich enough vocabulary to describe its situation, but now it seemed to have absorbed enough knowledge, and its expression became clear. "I can be aware of my existence, and I can be aware of everything around me, but I have never...thought like this before."

"Sounds like a simulated intelligence program suddenly gained true wisdom," Hao Ren muttered.

According to the Godslaying Sword's own account, it had always maintained a state of near numbness since its birth. It possessed the foundation of a mind and the ability to think, but its mind was almost still. It was like a monitoring program in standby mode, running but not processing anything. It had never considered who it was, nor had it considered the meaning of its existence, and had never even been curious about anything in this world—without curiosity and exploration, and without questioning, which meant that it was not a true intelligence.

But today, it suddenly started thinking.

"You only started thinking today?" Hao Ren looked curiously at the magnificent black mountain on the sea, unable to believe that this behemoth, so grand in the mental world, was actually an ignorant and naive fellow. "Why? Did something suddenly activate your intelligence?"

"I have had intelligence from the beginning, but I only started using it today," the Godslaying Sword corrected earnestly. "But I don't know why. I feel very...curious about this now. Oh, curious, what a strange feeling."

"Do you know that you once killed a god?" Hao Ren asked. "Um, you might not know what 'god' means..."

The Godslaying Sword interrupted him: "I know. I have drawn some knowledge from your spiritual sea that you are willing to open to me. I know what you are talking about. It seems I am a weapon, once used, and achieved the designed effect."

This was the Godslaying Sword's own assessment of the "Godslaying Incident" of that year.

Hao Ren pressed for more information about the Godslaying Incident, but gained little. The Godslaying Sword didn't know who created it; when it gained consciousness, it was already a weapon in the hands of the rebellious son. And treating a weapon, no rebellious son would talk to it as earnestly as Hao Ren did. Even its former user only regarded it as a weapon, albeit an exceptionally powerful one. The Godslaying Sword was used numbly, breaking through the defenses of gods on the battlefield, destroying the power of the Goddess of Creation, and ultimately killing that deity. But apart from a series of battlefield memories, its understanding of the "rebellious son" race was not even greater than Hao Ren's.

"I was placed in a complex container. I couldn't observe what the outside of the container looked like. Whenever the container was opened, I was on the battlefield, and then I was quickly slashed into various bodies, and then put back into the container," the Godslaying Sword described its "life" back then. "I couldn't possibly know too much. I feel 'sorry' about this...is that the right word?"

Hao Ren shook his head: "You don't need to be sorry. It's not your fault."

Then he sorted out his thoughts and asked the question he was most concerned about: "What exactly is the whispering sound?"

Now he was almost certain that the Godslaying rebellious sons, like the crazed demon hunters, were actually bewitched by a certain "sound" in the depths of their hearts. The demon hunters were influenced by the "whispering sound" of the Godslaying Sword, while the rebellious sons seemed to be influenced by something more advanced, but in essence, it should be the same thing. So what exactly was this "whispering sound"? Hao Ren once thought that it was the will of the Godslaying Sword that was taking effect, but now he discovered that the Godslaying Sword itself was a nascent mind with exceptionally simple thoughts, so the "whispering sound" naturally couldn't be its doing.

The Godslaying Sword was silent for a moment as it organized its language to explain this question, and finally it spoke: "That is an echo."

"Echo?" Hao Ren was taken aback, not understanding.

"It is the echo of the heart, something that is passively produced, thoughts that are generated by the dark side of their own hearts," the Godslaying Sword used a series of obscure words. "'Whispering sound' is not emitted by me, nor by anything else. What they hear is the voice of their own hearts."

Hao Ren was a bit confused at first, but he soon understood what the other party meant.

"So...the Godslaying Sword is essentially a 'sounding board'?!" he said almost to himself. "What those demon hunters heard were just their own inner voices, but these inner voices were amplified and distorted? Then could it be that those 'rebellious sons' heard the same thing?"

"I don't know," the Godslaying Sword answered honestly. "But based on the knowledge you have opened to me, I think it should be like this. No one taught them to do anything; they created a commanding voice for themselves."

Hao Ren's heart tightened: "Then the babbling things I heard before were also echoes?"

The Godslaying Sword's answer confirmed his guess: "I have not spoken to you before. This is the first time I have made a sound to you. So what you heard before could only be the echoes of your own heart."

"But what I heard was chaos, all kinds of noise, not even a complete sentence," Hao Ren felt an strange feeling gradually spreading in his heart. "Could that be my mind?"

The Godslaying Sword still had only one answer: "I don't know."

Hao Ren suppressed the doubts and unease in his heart: "Okay, I'll study this question with others after I get out. Looking at your state, you probably can't explain the cause and effect entanglement between you and the Goddess of Creation either...but you can probably tell me about the situation when the Goddess of Creation fell?"

He felt strange as soon as he said this: He was asking a murder weapon to describe the scene of a homicide from the perspective of a weapon. This situation was simply too damn weird!

"I...don't know how to describe this matter. I don't quite understand the concept of death," the Godslaying Sword's voice was troubled. "I am a tool, used where a tool should be used. The deity you speak of did die under my blade, but I don't know why she had to die, nor do I know why my user did this. According to you, my user was bewitched by the 'whispering sound' in his heart? But even those whispering sounds were not emitted by me; I never even knew what you all heard. I am just a...according to you, a sounding board."

"Then recall the others," Hao Ren coaxed patiently. "Don't think too deeply about those things. Just talk about the scene at the time, such as the expression and demeanor of the Goddess of Creation when she fell, whether she made any comments, what actions your user took before acting...damn it, the more I talk about it, the more perverted this thing feels."

The Godslaying Sword didn't know what "perverted" was, but it still honestly answered the question: "The scene at the time? It was a long time ago, let me think...that 'Goddess of Creation' was very calm when she died, which should be worth mentioning. I have killed many people, but I have never encountered a situation like that. The 'Goddess of Creation' seemed to have known what was going to happen, and I think she even expected it—because before my user acted, she said a sentence."

Hao Ren immediately spoke: "What did she say?"

"She said: 'It's finally going to be like this.'"