Golden Swordsman

The true puppetmaster behind the Master of Mirage and final pupil of Yunzhongzi, the realm's premier swordsman. He claims descent from fallen nobility.

Ruined by a lost imperial power struggle, he was barred forever from the scholar-official path. When he reached adulthood, his ailing father bestowed upon him an invaluable heirloom—the Golden Sword—before drawing his last breath.

An ancestral relic of remarkable length and breadth, this golden greatsword channels its wielder's inner power to unleash catastrophic devastation.

Driven by an ambition to stand unmatched at the pinnacle of martial arts, the young Golden Swordsman apprenticed himself to Yun Zhongzi, universally revered as the realm's foremost master of the blade.

Endowed with extraordinary martial aptitude, his swordcraft progressed by leaps and bounds. Yet ever the calculating schemer, he concealed his true brilliance to blend in as a forgettable disciple.

Stripped of the title 'Number One Swordsman Under Heaven,' a despondent Yunzhongzi buried his renowned blade and sword manual behind the Rite Sword Hall, withdrawing entirely from the public eye to nurse his wounds.

Losing patience, the Golden Swordsman feigned a bedside visit to murder the critically injured Yunzhongzi in his sleep, slaughtering the entire household down to a servant's young boy. Unearthing the legendary blade and sword manuals, he vanished without a trace.

Secluding himself away in secret, he spent years in rigorous training to finally master Yunzhongzi's sword art. Yet the hollow prestige of swordsmanship holds no sway over him, and he has consistently refused to partake in the martial world's endless pursuit of fame.

A chance encounter brought the Golden Swordsman together with fellow recluse Xuan Ji. Bound by mutual respect and captivated by Xuan Ji's vision of a 'New World,' the two orchestrated the fateful gambit atop Tianling Peak.

Watching the carnage descend into uncontrollable slaughter, the Golden Swordsman was seized by the horrific reality of the Heavenly Book and its 'New World,' sparking an obsessive hunger for dominion. In a flash, he impaled Xuanji—only for Xuanji's dying counterstrike to rob him of his sight.

Now blinded, the Golden Swordsman had crossed the point of no return. Choosing to press forward with the scheme he and Xuanji had forged, he wove in his own calculated variables to ensure the reins of fate remained firmly in his grasp...

Decades of tireless discipline honed his blade beyond mortal comprehension. Confining himself to a Sha-Qi-dampening chamber where he still wields fearsome swordplay, he would unleash power exceeding his master's by a hundredfold once those fetters fall away.

Beyond the Sha-Qi generator, Xuan Ji had built an inhibitor to counter volatile overloads—a safeguard shared only with the Golden Swordsman. With Xuan Ji's death, the swordsman held the sole trump card to subjugate the Cabin of Eleven and eventually bring the entire martial realm to heel.

The Sha-Qi Suppressor nullifies all Sha-Qi within its radius, effectively crippling standard martial artists and disabling the internal Sha-Qi generators of the modified Pavilion of Eleven. Aware of this threat, the Golden Swordsman kept the device secret even after assembling the Eleven. He secretly constructed an expanded suppression network and surgically implanted its master activation switch inside Duo, the mindless operative of the group.

As hostilities with the Order erupted, the Golden Swordsman set his scheme in motion: let his fellow Cabin of Eleven members exhaust themselves against the Order, then sweep in with the Sha-Qi Inhibitor. By seizing the Order's resources alongside the Celestial Tome breakthroughs from both the Cabin and Clan Xuan, he aimed to ascend as the supreme overlord of the martial world.

He fatally misjudged both the Order's true might and the hidden power of Xuan Yu, the Xuan family orphan he had raised with his own hands. In the martial world, those driven by blind ambition to rule inevitably meet a bitter end.