Blade of Champions

The Blade of Champions, also called the Sword of Champions after its return to Karl, is a bonded sword that stores life force from defeated enemies and transfers that vitality to its wielder.

History

A monster-spawn blade funds Leafa's escape

Karl explains that he obtained the blade from a monster spawn before its first on-page identification. He trades it to Leafa for the resource that evolves Hawk, and the sword's bond transfers with it. Its accumulated life force gives the Haint enough power to break the Emperor of Newbon's control temporarily, demonstrating that its growth reserve can empower a new wielder as well as Karl. (Chapter 542)

The Emperor recaptures Leafa and returns the sword to Karl as the Sword of Champions. It is then completely drained and hollow, because Leafa spent the stored energy trying to escape. The return restores Karl as its bonded wielder without erasing the consequences of the exchange: the blade must rebuild its reserve through later battles. (Chapter 551)

Repeated wars turn stored vitality into advancement pressure

Karl uses the blade as his primary sword through the Golden Dragon and Darklight Host campaigns. It pulses when a creature truly dies, absorbs especially dense life force from stronger enemies, and feeds usable vitality into Karl's body. During the Bomgon war it collects more power than he can process; like the Haint Claw, it becomes oversaturated until Karl spends time draining it, though its life energy is simpler for him to integrate than partially personalized soul essence. (Chapters 644, 749, 834, 925–928, and 978)

By Totem rank the sword displays preference without becoming a fully speaking character. It resists Karl's attempt to bond another sword and then pulses as if asserting its claim, while still allowing him to use weapons of other types. Karl continues lending it tactically to Haint, Cara, and Thor, but it repeatedly returns to his own equipment and remains his principal blade. (Chapters 1000, 1007, 1454–1455, and 1685–1690)

Soul Harvest makes the blade part of an Immortal energy circuit

In later combat Karl layers spells over the sword, uses its vitality reserve to support developing allies, and combines it with Haint and [Soul Harvest]. The final major use shown drives the blade into a boss as the skill strips Immortal essence; the sword and Haint absorb the released life and soul energy and return a massive reserve to Karl after the explosion. The result confirms continued function at Immortal scale without establishing a separate spoken consciousness or an unlimited storage capacity. (Chapters 1307, 1546, 1620, 1862, and 1896–1897)

Abilities and properties

• The blade absorbs life force associated with defeated enemies and can transfer stored vitality to its bonded wielder, supporting bodily growth and durability. (Chapters 542, 749, and 928)
• Its pulse can indicate that a heavily protected target is not yet dead; the signal does not itself kill or expose the target's exact remaining health. (Chapter 982)
• Stored energy is finite in both directions: Leafa empties it during her escape, while later large battles oversaturate it and force Karl to drain the excess before reliable continued use. (Chapters 551 and 925–928)
• The sword accepts compatible weapon coatings and skill effects, including [Disintegration], [Blade of Divine Wrath], and the output of [Soul Harvest]. Those spells retain their own costs and rank limits rather than becoming permanent properties of the blade. (Chapters 1307, 1862, and 1895–1897)
• Life force taken by the blade can make resurrection more difficult because the victim's vitality is no longer left intact, but the corpus does not state that every wound or kill prevents revival automatically. (Chapter 1533)
• The blade becomes territorial about other swords by Chapter 1007, yet no source establishes the independent body, full speech, or personhood demonstrated by Haint. (Chapter 1007)

Ownership and custody