Chapter 158: 152 The Shattering of the Golden Dream

Ai Xin was actually still alive; he came down from the mountain and rushed before the sword.

The explosion had leveled half the mountain, turning the Huangjin Shanzhai, along with the soil, rocks, and all the trees on the mountain, into nothingness; yet Ai Xin, who had been at the center of the explosion, was actually still alive.

He was worthy of being a Sword Guest.

Especially a Sword Guest without a sword.

However, just looking at Ai Xin's staggering and stiff posture, one could tell his condition was dire.

His figure drew closer, and it could be seen that his entire body was half charred black and half golden yellow.

The charred black was his true body; he had not a single hair or eyebrow left, and his body was mangled and incomplete, his hands and feet missing, already crippled and in tatters.

The gold was his outer shell. His body was wrapped in a layer of armor, encasing him from head to body; although charred, the slightly cleaner areas revealed the color of gold. This was a complete set of Golden Armor.

The current Golden Armor was the skeleton outside his body, supporting him to stand, supporting him to move, and supporting him as he staggered toward the Sword Smith.

He had not come to find the Sword Smith; he had come to find his sword, staking his last breath to grasp at a life-saving straw.

He could sense his sword and had followed its trail to arrive here; up until this moment, he was still the Sword Guest of the Treasure Sword.

"So that's how it is, you used a Sword Technique—Golden Armor," the Sword Smith said thoughtfully.

Can a Sword Guest release a Sword Technique without a sword?

Of course they can.

However, the power is not as great as when using a sword, just as a Sword Technique used before the Sword Image descends is not as powerful as when the Sword Image has descended. A Sword Guest's Sword Technique originates from the sword; the closer one is to the sword, the greater the power.

But this difference in power gradually narrows as the Sword Heart improves; once the Sword Heart reaches the realm of "Man and Sword as One," there is no difference whether one carries a sword or not. At that point, the sword is no longer even in the shape of a sword, but another kind of existence.

This Ai Xin's Sword Heart attainment was low, merely at the entry-level of "Gold and Stone Open," and his relationship with the sword was on the verge of breaking, so releasing a Sword Technique empty-handed had many limitations. His Golden Armor had not blocked the explosion of the Thunder Symbol for him, or if it had, it had already shattered; this was the second set of Golden Armor he had condensed.

The Golden Armor mask covered half of his face, while the skin and flesh on the other half were a bloody mess, his eyeballs bloodshot to the point of bulging, his expression so ferocious it hardly looked human.

"Bang!"

The Time Jar exploded, and the Treasure Sword finally broke through the blockade of the Sword Law and returned to the Sword Guest's hand.

The Sword Smith did not stop him; blocking a sword from returning to its nest in front of a Sword Guest was a task that yielded half the result with twice the effort, and it was impossible to succeed.

However, he had already completed most of his plan.

All the advantages that could be taken had been taken; the remaining matters could only be settled by his own hand, and there was no room for trickery.

The golden hand of the Golden Armor opened and grasped the sword; the sword was also golden yellow, as if it had always been a part of the Golden Armor.

Ai Xin glared at the Sword Smith with his single eye and shouted in a hoarse, wheezing voice: "You... you actually betrayed me!"

The Sword Smith found it amusing: "What does betrayal mean? As if we were ever friends."

Ai Xin said angrily: "Isn't that so... I hired you with heavy gold and treated you with great respect, yet you are so wolf-hearted and dog-lunged... Wait... you... you are not the Sword Smith?"

A flash of pity crossed the Sword Smith's eyes: to still be asking such questions at this late hour, bullying a fool was truly immoral.

He said calmly: "I am, of course, the Sword Smith. But the one you hired with heavy gold was not me. I have nothing to do with you; I simply cannot stand you!" Having said this, he waved his hand lightly and finally drew his own sword.

The sword was covered in a white-gold light, as if flames were dancing.

His figure surged, and together with the sword, he transformed into a white-gold light and rushed over.

Imperial Sword Art—White Rainbow Piercing the Sun!

Ai Xin was furious; the golden giant hand gripped the sword, shot into the sky, and shouted: "Sword Technique—Golden Warrior!"

The Golden Armor on his body instantly thickened and reinforced, and then his whole person expanded, just like the Supernatural Power of "Law of Heaven and Earth," his head touching the sky and his feet treading the earth, the gold transforming into hands, feet, and torso, finally becoming a Vajra as tall as a mountain.

The Sword Smith's sword was thrust directly in front of his chest. He charged extremely fast, and that sword had already pierced through the armor, almost reaching Ai Xin's chest, but then the golden armor suddenly thickened, and the sword became stuck in the golden armor, moving further and further away from Ai Xin's true body. Finally, the sword was hung in mid-air by the towering chest armor, dragging the Sword Smith along with it, looking like a woodpecker hanging on a large tree.

"Haha, haha!"

The Golden Warrior laughed loudly; not only was Ai Xin in the chest and abdomen of the armor laughing, but the golden-made head also split its mouth and laughed along.

"Stupid, stupid! Are you tickling me?" As he moved a thought, the golden giant hand immediately grabbed toward his chest. The Sword Smith pulled out his sword and dodged the grab, his figure like a monkey leaping on a tree, jumping on the Golden Armor.

He seemed to want to find Ai Xin's position and attack from the front, but the surface of the Golden Warrior was formed of condensed gold and was entirely under Ai Xin's control; with a single thought from him, countless golden spikes rose from the surface, stabbing toward the soles of the Sword Smith's feet. After several failed attacks, the Sword Smith jumped off the Golden Warrior and used the sword to remain Floating, level with Ai Xin's gaze.

Ai Xin laughed loudly: "Fool, do you want to kill me? Come, I am right here, kill me! If you can't kill me, let me let you taste the feeling of being worse than dead—Golden Tornado!"

A golden, glittering tornado rose from beneath his feet; in an instant, a violent wind blew, and everything within several miles fell into darkness.

Ordinary violent winds and darkness were caused by swirling yellow dust and sand, but in this tornado, pieces of golden grains were actually being swirled; although the gold was fine, in the violent wind it was more vicious than steel knives, constantly cutting everything it approached. Trees swept into it were instantly scraped with marks, and thinner saplings were cut to pieces directly.

"Sword Technique—Vermilion Bird Fire!"

Amidst the golden storm, a ball of fire condensed in the air. That flame was originally pure white, but rendered by the gold, it carried a layer of dim yellow halo. Within the halo, it seemed as if a vermilion bird was Dancing.

No matter how violently the wind swirled, the firelight remained unmoved, as if this wheel of flame had always been in the sky, hanging high like the sun.

A violent wind can blow a flag, but when can it blow the sun?

After a while, the violent wind subsided; the trees on the ground had fallen, but there was an extra layer of gold. At first glance, the gold looked like gold powder, but upon closer inspection, they were actually tiny gold ingots. If a gold prospector had arrived here, they would have been overjoyed, thinking they had come to the legendary land of gold.

The flame remained unextinguished, but with the violent wind gone, the Floating Sword Smith could be seen in the flames; he was standing in the center of the fire, a layer of faint flame light floating on his body.

Ai Xin stood in the Golden Armor and was naturally unharmed, but he was even more shocked and angry at the other's ease; he had seen clearly from within the Golden Armor just now that the flying golden fragments dissolved the moment they entered the flames, unable to pose any threat at all. Still disbelieving, he shouted: "It's fine that you can defend against the wind, but why can you defend against gold? You must know that true gold does not fear the refining of fire!"

The Sword Smith laughed dismissively: "It doesn't fear the refining of fire, but it depends on what kind of fire. Also, it depends on what kind of gold. True gold... you call this true gold?"

As they watched, the layer of gold ingots spread on the ground had already turned into gold powder, and finally dissipated into golden light in the air, leaving only withered grass and debris on the ground. If a gold prospector had seen this scene, they would have just been weeping with joy, only to turn around and wail in despair, crying over their golden dream shattering in an instant.

Seeing this, Ai Xin's heart sank; he only then remembered that his sword already had problems, otherwise the gold would not have disintegrated so rapidly; it was not that he had survived a tribulation and reunited with his sword that the problem would resolve itself.

Thinking of this, he could not help but waver, and as his heart wavered, even the Golden Armor began to waver; he hurriedly steadied his mind and shouted: "You... you mere Sword Smith, not even a Sword Guest, if you couldn't succeed in a sneak attack, how could you be my opponent? As long as I make a move, you will surely die! And I will make you suffer every torture before you die! Unless... unless you perform Sword Washing for me, I will spare you."

The Sword Smith was both annoyed and amused, saying: "You really are obsessed. Do you remember what I said? We were never friends."

Ai Xin sneered: "So you choose to refuse a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit?"

The Sword Smith said: "No, I mean... why would I tell the truth to an enemy?"

"A sword can be washed, but a sword that has had its Sword Image washed away will never recognize its original Sword Guest again!"

Ai Xin's head buzzed, and he shouted: "Nonsense! Washing away the Sword Image just means it has returned to its original state. I am still eighty percent compatible with it, how could it not recognize me?"

The Sword Smith shook his head and said: "I really don't know how you became a Sword Guest—swords have spirits! The sword and the Sword Guest are like husband and wife, and the Sword Image is the result of the Sword Guest and the sword. Would you recognize a lover who killed your child and then voluntarily broke up with you? Stop insulting the sword, will you? There are plenty of better matches for the sword in this world; what are you? To be able to summon and dismiss a priceless Treasure Sword at will?"

Ai Xin was struck as if by lightning and said: "Impossible... then... am I not at a dead end?"

The Sword Smith said slowly, "I previously told you there were two paths; one I called treating the symptoms, but it is actually the root. When a rift forms between a sword and a Sword Guest, you must take the initiative to mend it. If you have the ability, make the sword follow you; if you lack the ability, then humble yourself to follow the sword—there is no other way! Those who do not even try and wish to borrow external force are all following crooked paths and are unworthy of being a Sword Guest. There are not many Sword Guests in the world, yet not few either, but those who can reach the end are few and far between; most of those eliminated are just defective goods like you."

Ai Xin stayed inside the Golden Armor, feeling dazed one moment and bewildered the next, wavering between understanding and not understanding several times, while the Golden Warrior stopped on the ground and remained motionless.

After a while, he shouted, "Surrender! Give yourself up, explain the matter of the sword to me clearly, and I will not kill you."

The Sword Smith shook his head and said, "You are truly stubborn and refuse to listen. You are actually still dreaming. I have truly never seen a worse Sword Guest than you; have you not even discovered until now that besides your Sword Heart, the sword itself is already in imminent danger?"

Ai Xin said, "What? What is wrong with the sword?"

The Sword Smith pointed forward and said, "Come, take two steps. If you think there is nothing wrong, you walk forward two steps."