Divine artifacts are one of the core systems of Swords of Legends. They are relics of the netherworld that Sipan can wield because of who the hero is, an emissary of the underworld who moves between the worlds of the living and the dead. That role lets Sipan call on all sorts of artifacts, and the developers describe them as the hero’s real edge against the bosses encountered through the adventure.
Confirmed Artifacts
A handful of artifacts have appeared in official showings, each pulling more than one duty rather than serving a single function. The studio has said there are many more beyond these for players to discover.
Artifact | Use in Battle |
|---|---|
Umbrella | A defensive tool that also closes the gap, letting Sipan guard against an attack and then rush in. Shown in the June 2026 gameplay trailer. |
Bagua Mirror | The simple, default artifact and the one carried at the start. One shoulder button guards, spending mana unless the guard is timed perfectly, and the other releases a wide-area lightning attack. Shown in the gamescom reveal trailer. |
Binding Wrappings | Ensnares and ties down foes to control the flow of a fight. |
Spiritual Seals | Bind enemies in place and set up multi-target strikes. |
Thunder Banner | Replaces the guard skill with a crackling dash that deals damage and carries generous invincibility frames, pushing the player toward aggression. |
Soul-Guiding Bell | Disperses ghosts outright rather than fighting them down, shown in the gamescom reveal trailer. It is the clearest example of an artifact that resolves an encounter instead of winning it. |
The wrappings do more than hold an enemy still. An enemy bound by them is turned into a paper figure, and those paper figures are the form a captured soul takes before it is summoned back as an ally, which makes the wrappings the hinge between the artifact roster and the Spirit Companion System.
Shoulder-Button Functions
The July 2026 hands-on build made the system concrete. Each artifact binds to the two shoulder buttons and gives the hero two entirely new actions, so the artifact in the slot largely decides how a player fights rather than adding a passive bonus. Three were available across the demo.
Artifact | First Shoulder Button | Second Shoulder Button |
|---|---|---|
Bagua Mirror | A straightforward guard, refunding its mana cost on perfect timing. | A wide-area lightning attack. |
Thunder Banner | Enchants the light weapon with lightning and upgrades the next two normal attacks into high-damage thrusts. | A teleporting emergency dodge that breaks out of pressure. |
Explosive Umbrella | Opens into all-round defence with no blind spot. Held down it stays open at a continuous mana cost. | Advances forward while still guarding, with a damage hit on the push. |
The umbrella additionally carries a dedicated resource bar of its own, drained by blocking ranged attacks and by dash-counters, which sits alongside the shared mana cost rather than replacing it.
Mana is what makes the whole system a decision. Every artifact action spends from the blue bar, and in the hands-on build no way to restore it was found other than drinking a potion. With no passive regeneration, an artifact is a limited number of uses per fight, and choosing when to spend them matters as much as choosing which artifact to bring. That is also why the three cover such different ground: a defensive player can lean on the umbrella, an aggressive one on the banner, and the mirror covers the middle.
The three artifacts carried in the hands-on build are named in the Chinese material as the mirror of heaven and earth, the parting-fire umbrella and the thunder-summoning banner. No official English names for the three have been published, so the descriptive names used above are working renderings rather than settled titles, and the mirror in particular has been referred to by more than one Chinese name across the reveal and the playtest.
Artifacts as Defensive Loadout
The July 2026 hands-on build made clear that artifacts are not only offensive tools. The game has no dedicated block button, so the ability to guard at all comes from the artifact a player has equipped. The artifact carried at the start includes a guard skill that spends mana unless it is triggered with perfect timing, and swapping it for the Thunder Banner removes blocking entirely, replacing it with a damaging dash that has generous invincibility frames. A player who makes that swap has to fight aggressively, because there is no longer anything to hide behind.
That makes artifact choice a real build decision rather than a cosmetic one, and it is why the studio describes the system as offering strategic options rather than demanding precise timing. Mana is the shared cost behind these skills, and in the hands-on build it refilled only through potions.
Role in Combat
Artifacts are one of three pillars the hero leans on in a fight, alongside the weapon roster and the summoned allies of the Spirit Companion System. The intended rhythm is to cycle through all three and combine them tactically into a build rather than relying on any single tool. Because Sipan’s authority over these relics flows from the duties of the role, the artifacts tie directly into the story laid out in The Underworld and the Judge of King Yama.
The wider fighting system is covered under Combat, and the major fights where artifacts prove their worth are collected under Bosses.