Chapter 455: 430 Lamp

"Devour..."

Tang Zhao felt a subconscious shudder as he looked at the young girl.

It was not that he did not understand the meaning behind it, but rather that he understood it all too well.

From the moment he embarked on the path of the Sword Guest, he had always known where the greatest danger of this path lay. It was not in combat or slaughter, nor in suffering wounds and bleeding, and not even in the Yin Calamity of the Heavenly Demons or defending the front lines; it was the Sword Heart.

The Sword Heart is the reliance for a Sword Guest's progress, the ladder for climbing to higher realms, and also the nightmare that haunts a Sword Guest for a lifetime.

Because it is an eternal risk, one can never afford to take it lightly.

Once it involves the heart, it enters a rather metaphysical realm. To this day, how to maintain, improve, and hone the Sword Heart remains in a stage of pseudo-metaphysics; many people remain in a muddled state even after reaching the Sword Hero realm. However, every novice Sword Guest knows what the consequences are if something goes wrong with the Sword Heart.

An unstable Sword Heart, failing to act in tacit coordination with the sword and unable to unleash one's full strength, is a minor matter compared to being sniped on the battlefield. If the Sword Heart is too rigid and suppresses the Sword Intent, it leads to a bottleneck in cultivation, leaving one unable to advance an inch, eventually forcing one to abandon the sword—this is also not considered critical. If the Sword Heart collapses, it is what is traditionally known as "going into demonic deviation"; the mildest outcome is severe injury, and the worst is madness and death, which goes without saying.

There is one type that Tang Zhao learned of early on: when the Sword Heart and Sword Intent run neck and neck but move in opposite directions, unable to reconcile and eventually perishing together, a Power Sword is born.

There is another type: when the Sword Heart is significantly weaker than the Sword Intent, and one is greedy for cultivation speed, blindly yielding to the Sword Intent, the consequences are the most unimaginable—the Sword Guest is devoured by the Sword Intent.

This consequence is the most terrifying. When Chi Qianli was exchanging pointers with Tang Zhao as a new Sword Guest, he had warned him: "In the relationship between a Sword Guest and their sword, it is better for the guest to offend the host than for the host to bully the guest."

Of two evils, choose the lesser; it is better to suppress the Sword Intent and progress slowly, or even come to a complete standstill, than to let oneself be driven by the Sword Intent, gradually becoming tainted and reduced to a puppet of the sword. And the tragedy of being finally devoured by the sword is something that must be avoided at all costs.

Chi Qianli had warned him that if, in the one-in-a-million chance, he truly reached that step, it would be better to sever his own heart meridian first, dying cleanly and swiftly, which is better than being devoured by the sword.

Other Sword Guests likely make the same choice: better to die than to submit. Tang Zhao had seen a Power Sword and had seen the Treasure Sword of one whose Sword Heart had collapsed, but he had never seen or heard of anyone being devoured by their Sword Heart.

Oh, no, he actually seemed to have seen one.

That white-haired Mr. Xing from before was ultimately devoured by his own sealed Sword Intent, turning into a "human-faced fish" that was neither human nor ghost, having almost lost his sanity, yet he still did not forget to harm others, still thinking of turning Tang Zhao into a "Sword Slave." This might be the state known as "a fate worse than death."

By comparison, Aqin's state was a bit better; at least she looked like a person.

However, it was only a look. Tang Zhao could not know how much of her was human and how much was sword beneath her seemingly complete young girl's form.

If she were a sword, how should he address her?

Right, Mr. Xing was also willing to be devoured by his Pure Yang Sword in the end, and Aqin was also willing; in the end, Sword Guests are all proud, and if it were not voluntary, they would truly rather walk a dead end than be left hanging in such a miserable state.

It is like falling into the Wangliang and becoming a Shadow, never to be reincarnated for eternity.

He phrased his words as cautiously as he could: "So you... are currently between a Sword Image and a human?"

Aqin said decisively: "I believe I am human. Because I use the Sword Art I prepared. And my Sword Intent is different; it allows my heart and soul to remain intact."

She did not mention specifically what her Sword Intent was; after all, that is a Sword Guest's secret, and she certainly would not tell a friend of a friend casually. And Tang Zhao naturally would not press for details, even though he could probably know the secret of her sword if he touched Aqin, but he did not want to be abrupt right now.

"Before I invested my Sword Intent, I developed a Sword Art for fun that allowed me and my Sword Image to swap places. It is also my only Sword Art, and I spent three whole years developing it; it should be perfect. At that time, I relied on that Sword Art to transfer all my consciousness and soul into the Sword Image, and since my physical body was about to be devoured by the shadows, I had no choice but to destroy it..."

Another self-destruction. Tang Zhao sighed: as expected of a Sword Guest, her decisiveness is no less than Feng Zhilie's.

Aqin continued: "Once I became a reflection, I could hide in the mirrors. The mirrors were made by Her Highness, and those shadows could not get inside, so I escaped the first wave of the Wangliang's devouring. Later, after about three months, the shadows calmed down; they no longer popped out like before, with many dark, monstrous demons gnawing on everything they saw, but settled down like a pot of paste. Then I used the mirrors to refract, projecting from one mirror into another."

"Where there is a mirror, there is a reflection, and where there is a reflection, there is me. So I can shuttle through mirror surfaces. This floor is full of mirrors and glazed glass, so I have no restrictions moving around, but I have no way to go anywhere else; I can't go upstairs or downstairs, let alone get out. I was trapped on this floor for a few months, and luckily, I found a lamp behind a mirror..."

She pointed to a Palace Lamp on the table with a peculiar shape, resembling a revolving lantern. This lamp was over three feet tall, gorgeously decorated, and exquisitely crafted, making the Cloud Silk lamps Tang Zhao mass-produced look instantly inferior.

If that Palace Lamp was worth a thousand gold, Tang Zhao's were worth fifty at most.

"This must be a lamp left by one of the aunts? This lamp is very good; its light can penetrate the shadows and illuminate a clean area. It lets me come out and take a breather without hiding in the mirrors. Otherwise, I would still be hiding in the mirrors even now, and I wouldn't be able to greet Ling Gugu."

Tang Zhao picked up the lamp and glanced inside; it was indeed a Rune Lamp, but the Rune Formula was surprisingly not on the wick, but on the lampshade, while the wick was just ordinary lamp oil, and most of it had already burned away.

Tang Zhao stared at the Rune Formula for a long time, feeling extremely puzzled in his heart:

Those Rune Formulas were truly the ordinary ones only used on lampshades—things like windproofing, light transmission, and color enhancement; they were mostly for decoration, with no Rune Formulas related to sunlight or flame. How could it possibly repel darkness?

One must know that ordinary lamp light only gets eaten in the Wangliang.

At this moment, the white fox suddenly said: "This is not a lamp woven by our Cloud Silk."

Tang Zhao and Aqin said simultaneously: "Is that so?"

Tang Zhao was not familiar with Cloud Silk; he only thought this object was incredibly magical and had assumed that everything in this Xiancheng except living things was woven from Cloud Silk. And although Aqin lived in the Xiancheng, she was young and had little experience back then, and later lost her sense of touch, so she had not noticed the difference in this lamp. It was Ling Baoyu, being a fellow native of Baiyujing who had personally woven countless Cloud Silk, who immediately saw that something was wrong.

She said with certainty: "This is not our lamp; this is a lamp from the outside. Strange, how could Baiyujing have things from the outside? Could it be something belonging to the one surnamed Xu? Does he have such a lavish lamp?"

Tang Zhao shook his head; he also did not think it was Xu Congsheng's lamp. Not only was this lamp large and gorgeous, looking very expensive, but it was also an Art Tool to some extent. Xu Congsheng was a mere Mortal who did not even know martial arts; how could he have an Art Tool?

Aqin did not think that much; she just said very easily: "No matter who brought it, it works very well anyway. It was truly my good luck to get this lamp. I held this lamp and went to the floor below first, the Shan Chamber, which is right below the Glazed Chamber. We store many of our lamps there."

Every floor of the Qianqiu Tower has different themes and landscapes, and the Shan Chamber was naturally the lamp-themed one.

"I originally thought that if one lamp could light up a floor, then if I lit many lamps floor by floor, wouldn't the Qianqiu Tower be safe from the dark? I went downstairs, but although there were many lamps below, none of them could be lit. Every time I lit a lamp, the flame would brighten for a moment, only to be sucked away immediately. I tried for a long time, but not a single one could be lit."

That is the logical truth; even Cloud Silk lamps cannot be lit in the land of Wangliang without the reinforcement of sunlight.

"I was distressed for a long time. Fortunately, I had plenty of time, so I studied it slowly. Later, I discovered that there was a layer of gold powder inside this Palace Lamp, which was particularly strange. I scraped off some of the gold powder and put it into other lamps, and sure enough, they could be lit without fearing the dark. Unfortunately, there was too little gold powder, enough to cover only a few dozen lamps. I tried to put one lamp on each floor to drive away the darkness. By persisting like this, most of the Qianqiu Tower was not harmed by the shadows."

The more Tang Zhao heard, the more curious he became, and he could not help but look at the inner wall of the lamp again, very carefully.

Looking closely, there really were specks of gold powder, but the powder was too fine and sparse to be seen easily. He used his Gang Qi to form a small spoon and scraped off a tiny bit.

Aqin said anxiously: "Don't scrape it! There is only this little bit left in this one; it can't be any less. If it gets any thinner, it will be useless. I tried for a long time before I found this amount."

Tang Zhao smiled: "I'll wipe it back in a moment."

Rubbing the gold powder, which was as fine as nothingness, in his hand, Tang Zhao felt a stir in his heart and thought to himself:

Have I seen this somewhere before?

Where was it?

At this moment, Ling Baoyu asked: "Since lighting the lamp repels the darkness, why didn't you light the lamp just now?"

Aqin said: "Lighting it every day wastes too much candle wax, doesn't it? Although there are many lamps, there is little lamp oil. The stock here is used up a little bit at a time, so it must be used sparingly. Lighting it once every three months is enough. Lighting it once per floor, the shadows won't be able to get in for three months."

The white fox and Tang Zhao said in unison: "How is that possible?!"

Tang Zhao found it especially unbelievable.

His own sunlight had a miraculous effect on the Wangliang; within the range of the light, the ailment was cured, but once the light went out, the shadows would naturally roll back in, without any cooldown time.

This was not strange; the relationship between light and shadow is just like that. Where the light shines, there is no shadow, and where the light cannot reach, there is shadow; this is true in the natural world, and Tang Zhao's sunlight was not weak at all.

How could it be possible for one lighting to last for months? Is this reasonable?

Aqin said naturally: "Didn't you feel warm when you came in? I can feel it too; when the room is warm, the reflections become a bit fluffier. As long as this warmth does not dissipate, the shadows will stop outside the floor. I go to patrol once every three months, light the lamps on the floors, and then extinguish them in turn. When the lamps are lit, the Qianqiu Tower lights up, and it is very beautiful. It is just like when we used to light lanterns for the Lantern Festival back then."

Ling Baoyu found it incredible, yet she had no choice but to believe it, and she could not help but look at Tang Zhao again, her gaze seeming to say: Look at someone else's Lamp! Is your Lamp a pirated version?

Tang Zhao did not look closely at her expression, merely immersed in his own thoughts, when he suddenly said, "Dongjun!"

Ling Baoyu was taken aback and said displeased, "What? Why bring him up again?"

Tang Zhao said, "If there is anyone in this world who could crush the nether-spirits like this, it can only be Dongjun!"

He remembered where he had seen this gold powder before!