What Was Sent

The next morning, Hao Nhien and Quan Nha left Heavenly Eye City.

There was no farewell ceremony.

No rows of people kneeling along both sides of the road like the scene from the day before.

The desert wind still passed through the stone streets, carrying thin layers of sand close to the ground, while Heavenly Eye City behind them continued functioning as it always had.

Only now, from this day onward, a few things had begun to turn in a different direction.

The four Deputy City Lords did not accompany them.

Before leaving the great hall, Quan Nha had issued only temporary orders: Heavenly Eye was to remain stable, and areas currently in conflict were not to expand the fighting until the situation had been clarified.

She did not immediately try to overturn every rule that had existed for years.

Both she and Hao Nhien understood that a system like Heavenly Eye could not become something entirely different merely because of a few spoken commands.

But at the very least, what had happened the day before meant the road ahead would no longer be exactly the same.

Hao Nhien understood that.

And because he understood it, he could leave for now.

Before returning to Hoa Van, there was still one place he wanted to visit.

Lac Van.

Nearly half a day later, their flying swords descended outside the settlement.

Word of their return spread quickly.

Before long, Luu Ho emerged from inside, with Lanh Hoa following behind. The people of Lac Van working around the medicinal fields and wells also began raising their heads toward them.

No one rushed forward.

There were no loud cheers.

But the instant Hao Nhien touched the ground, he sensed something extremely faint brush against his soul.

He stopped.

The fluctuation was so weak that, in the past, he might have dismissed it as nothing more than a passing sensation.

But after what had happened in Heavenly Eye, Hao Nhien could no longer ignore it.

Quan Nha stopped beside him as well.

She looked at him.

“You feel it too, Brother?”

Hao Nhien turned toward her.

“Mm.”

His gaze slowly passed across the settlement.

The rows of medicinal plants beneath the sunlight.

The people standing near the wells.

Those returning from the fields.

Several children still hiding behind adults while peeking toward him.

No one knelt.

No one prayed.

No one showed the same worshipful reverence as the believers of Heavenly Eye the day before.

The people simply continued what they were doing or quietly looked toward Hao Nhien.

Yet that faint force was still there.

Coming from many directions.

Touching his soul so lightly that it was almost impossible to grasp.

Hao Nhien frowned slightly.

“It feels somewhat like what was in Heavenly Eye.”

Quan Nha sensed it quietly for a while before shaking her head.

“Not entirely.”

Hao Nhien looked at her.

Quan Nha turned her eyes toward the people before them.

“In Heavenly Eye, their faith was directed toward a God-Lord they believed they were meant to worship.”

She paused, then looked back at Hao Nhien.

“Here, it is different.”

“These people do not kneel to you.”

“They do not see you as something above themselves.”

“They simply trust you.”

“They trust what you have done, and they believe the things you once promised may become real.”

Hao Nhien remained silent for a while before asking,

“Then what I’m sensing doesn’t necessarily come from worship?”

“I don’t think so.”

Quan Nha looked toward an old man standing beside one of the medicinal rows.

When the old man noticed Hao Nhien looking, he merely smiled and nodded in greeting.

“Perhaps belief and worship were never the same thing.”

Hao Nhien did not answer.

She continued observing the people around them.

“When someone sincerely believes in another person, hopes that person survives, hopes what they are doing succeeds, or simply places part of their own hope in them…”

“Perhaps all of those things can leave something behind.”

Her voice carried no complete certainty.

“That is only what I can feel.”

“As for what it truly is, I still don’t know.”

Hao Nhien remained silent.

Then the Hoa Ky Jade suddenly came to mind.

He remembered the times the jade had trembled when the Hoa Ky people called his name together.

He also remembered several moments when the force inside it had suddenly become stronger even though he had not deliberately activated it.

Before, Hao Nhien had simply assumed that was a special reaction of the Hoa Ky Jade.

After what he had just sensed in Lac Van, he was no longer so sure.

With a thought, the glowing red jade appeared in his palm.

It remained quiet, rotating slowly without shining or releasing any obvious fluctuation.

Quan Nha studied it for a long time.

Then she raised a hand but did not touch the jade, stopping just above it.

“What I feel…”

She frowned slightly, searching for the right words.

“This feels more like a bridge than a source.”

Hao Nhien looked up.

“A bridge?”

“Mm.”

Quan Nha continued watching the Hoa Ky Jade.

“The jade does not create what you just felt.”

“At least, that is not what I sense.”

She paused.

“On the other side of the bridge are still people.”

Hao Nhien looked at the jade in his hand, then at the people of Lac Van farther away.

At that moment, he suddenly remembered Heavenly Eye.

Quan Nha seemed to think of the same thing.

“Heavenly Eye may once have been a bridge too.”

Hao Nhien looked at her.

Quan Nha remained silent for a while before continuing.

“It is just that, over there, it feels as though that road had been directed in one direction for far too long.”

Hao Nhien asked nothing further.

Neither of them had enough evidence to go deeper yet.

After a while, he asked,

“Then can the thing touching me be used?”

Quan Nha looked at him and shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

Hao Nhien raised an eyebrow slightly.

A small provenance clue: the chapter belongs on the NovelPhoenix site, while this copy was made without approval.

She answered naturally,

“I only feel that you are blocking it.”

Hao Nhien immediately focused inward.

Sure enough, every time those faint fluctuations touched his soul, the Soul Art instinctively raised a defensive layer around him.

Almost entirely by reflex.

Quan Nha looked at him.

“Don’t pull it in.”

“And don’t try to absorb it.”

Hao Nhien asked,

“Then what should I do?”

“Nothing.”

The corner of her mouth curved slightly.

“If it is truly directed toward you, perhaps you only need to stop blocking it.”

Hao Nhien looked at her for another beat, then closed his eyes.

He did not circulate True Qi.

He did not use spiritual sense to pull those fluctuations closer.

He simply began lowering the defensive layer that had automatically formed around his soul.

Almost immediately, the thin strands of force that had only brushed past the outside began moving deeper.

They did not rush in.

They did not erupt violently.

They simply followed the opening he had allowed, quietly moving inward until they began touching where the Soul Art existed.

The instant the first strand truly made contact, Hao Nhien’s soul trembled faintly.

He still did nothing.

Yet the Soul Art began circulating naturally, slowly completing a cycle on its own.

That unfamiliar force moved slightly deeper along with the circulation.

Hao Nhien did not feel it being devoured or crushed.

He only noticed that with every completed cycle, the sense of unfamiliarity faded slightly.

As though the Soul Art itself were slowly learning how to recognize what had entered.

He did not force it.

Nor did he immediately call this absorption.

He simply maintained the state and quietly observed.

During that process, several old images suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Tien Thanh.

He remembered the day he had once stood before countless people of the Western Wastes and said that one day, those living on this land would no longer need to bow before others merely to earn the right to exist.

Back then, countless gazes had turned toward him.

Some excited.

Some admiring.

Some almost worshipful.

Then came Hoa Van.

A place built in the middle of the sea of sand.

He remembered saying that Hoa Van did not belong to the Clan Chief alone, that it had to become a place where those living there could stand through their own hands.

He remembered the cries of “Clan Chief.”

He remembered eyes once dried hollow by despair gradually regaining light as life began to change.

Finally came Lac Van.

The people here had never cared how strong Hao Nhien was.

What they truly cared about was whether the medicinal fields could survive.

Whether their children would still go hungry tomorrow.

Whether those who had left the settlement to earn a living might finally have the chance to come home.

Those ordinary wishes made Hao Nhien remember more clearly the strange sensation that had brushed across his soul many times before.

Looking back now, he suddenly realized that something very faint had seemed to touch him during all those moments.

Perhaps he had been sensing it for a long time.

The fluctuations had simply been too thin, and back then he had not known how to understand them.

So they had always passed by and faded away.

Now, as the Soul Art continued circulating, Hao Nhien increasingly felt that what was touching him today had not necessarily appeared only today.

Perhaps some traces had existed for a very long time.

He had simply never known how to recognize them.

He did not chase the answer.

He maintained that state for a while longer before slowly opening his eyes.

His cultivation had not changed in any obvious way.

But deep within his soul, the places that had felt slightly scattered after battle after battle and repeated fluctuations now seemed a little more stable than before.

Quan Nha looked at him.

“How is it?”

Hao Nhien thought before answering.

“There is a reaction.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Quan Nha did not ask further.

The two looked at each other for a moment, then turned toward Lac Van together.

Luu Ho had already approached.

Hao Nhien stored the Hoa Ky Jade away.

“We’ll talk inside.”

Duong Long was still staying in Lac Van.

His True Qi remained sealed, but he had long since stopped being confined separately like a prisoner.

As Hao Nhien and Quan Nha passed the medicinal fields, they saw the old man bent among the rows of young plants, his rough hands carefully pressing soil around the base of a newly planted herb.

His movements were not fast.

But they were careful.

Completely different from the image of a Foundation Establishment layer-eight cultivator who had once led troops across the Western Wastes.

Perhaps hearing footsteps, Duong Long raised his head.

His gaze first fell on Hao Nhien.

Then it shifted to Quan Nha.

In that instant, Duong Long’s entire body went rigid.

The hand resting on the earth stopped where it was.

Hao Nhien immediately recognized the reaction.

Not long ago, he had seen nearly the same thing in Huu Liet, Tien Phong, Ta Minh, and Trung Vu.

Duong Long stared at Quan Nha.

His eyes slowly widened.

His steady breathing lost rhythm for a beat.

“This aura…”

His voice was very low.

Almost nothing more than an instinctive sound.

Quan Nha said nothing.

Duong Long braced one hand against the ground.

Then his body slowly lowered.

One knee touched first.

Then the other followed.

Until he was kneeling completely before her.

No command had been given.

No invisible force pressed his body downward.

From beginning to end, Duong Long made the movement himself.

“God-Lord…”

The words came out hoarsely.

Luu Ho, standing farther away, immediately turned.

Lanh Hoa beside him also shifted his gaze slightly.

Quan Nha watched Duong Long for a while before speaking.

“Stand.”

Duong Long reacted immediately.

But when he had raised himself halfway, his movement suddenly paused for a brief instant.

It was very short.

But Hao Nhien still saw it.

Duong Long slowly raised his head.

There was still reverence in his eyes.

Still the almost instinctive reaction of a man who had devoted most of his life to the same faith.

But beneath that reverence, Hao Nhien saw something else for the first time.

Doubt.

Duong Long straightened.

His lips moved several times, as though even deciding how to address her had become something he needed to think about.

Finally, he asked,

“Are you… truly the God-Lord?”

Quan Nha did not answer immediately.

Wind passed through the medicinal fields, causing the young plants to lean together in the same direction.

After a while, she said,

“What you recognized is still here.”

Duong Long paused slightly.

Quan Nha looked directly at him.

“But I am still Quan Nha.”

Duong Long remained still for a long time.

Hao Nhien did not interfere.

At last, the old man slowly lowered his head.

“I understand.”

Hao Nhien did not know how much Duong Long truly understood.

Perhaps even Duong Long himself could not immediately make sense of everything happening before him.

But his reaction had already shown Hao Nhien one thing.

A faith buried deep for decades could not disappear after only a few questions.

It was still powerful enough to make Duong Long kneel almost instinctively when he sensed the familiar presence.

The difference was that this time, after kneeling, he knew how to raise his head and ask something he might never before have dared to question.

Hao Nhien watched him for another moment, then lowered his gaze toward the medicinal plants by Duong Long’s feet.

“How is it here?”

Duong Long also looked down at the young plants.

“Quiet.”

Hao Nhien asked,

“Used to it?”

The old man was silent for a moment.

“Not yet.”

Then Duong Long bent down and gently adjusted the plant he had disturbed when he knelt.

“But I could become used to it.”

Hao Nhien nodded slightly.

He said nothing more and continued inward with Quan Nha.

Behind them, Duong Long remained standing beside the medicinal field for a long time before finally bending down to work again.

Their farewell from Lac Van did not take long.

Luu Ho would remain for several more days to deal with unfinished matters before returning to Hoa Van.

A portion of the Hoa Ky people would remain as well, helping stabilize medicinal trade and supporting Lac Van through the early stage.

Lanh Hoa and several others would return with Hao Nhien.

Quan Nha, after seeing the group out of Lac Van, would return to Heavenly Eye City.

When everyone reached the edge of the settlement, quite a few people of Lac Van were already waiting along both sides of the road.

No one knelt.

There were no loud cries.

No words of praise like those heard in Heavenly Eye City the day before.

They simply stood quietly and watched the group preparing to leave.

A child suddenly ran out from the crowd, clutching a small pouch in both hands and holding it toward Hao Nhien.

“For you to eat on the road.”

Hao Nhien paused slightly before accepting it.

When he opened the pouch, he found only a few pieces of dried fruit, carefully wrapped.

He laughed.

“Thank you.”

The child smiled too, then turned and ran back to his mother.

An old man standing behind them called out,

“Travel safely.”

Then another person added,

“Remember to come back.”

No one called him God-Lord.

No one called him savior.

Only ordinary words.

Travel safely.

Remember to come back.

Hao Nhien looked at the people before him for a while longer before cupping his hands and bowing.

“Take care.”

Only then did he turn away.

The desert wind carried a thin layer of sand beneath their feet as the group gradually left Lac Van behind.

After traveling some distance, Hao Nhien unconsciously looked back.

Quan Nha was still standing at the edge of the settlement, with the people of Lac Van behind her.

The distance between them had already grown, but their eyes still found each other easily.

Hao Nhien raised a hand.

Quan Nha raised hers slightly in reply.

Neither said anything.

After a while, Hao Nhien turned around again.

The flying sword continued carrying the group into the distance.

Behind them, Quan Nha remained where she was until they disappeared completely from view.

Only then did she turn back toward Heavenly Eye City.

That night, the group stopped to rest in a relatively flat stretch of desert.

The fire was kept small to avoid drawing attention.

The wind was not strong.

Lanh Hoa sat on the outer perimeter keeping watch while the others gradually went to sleep.

Hao Nhien remained awake.

He sat some distance away from the camp with his legs crossed.

At first, he only intended to examine the state of his soul after everything that had happened during the day.

But when the Soul Art began circulating, the faint traces that had appeared in Lac Van slowly returned.

After the first few cycles, Hao Nhien gradually realized that they did not come only from what had happened that day.

Old sensations from Tien Thanh, Hoa Van, and the Hoa Ky clan emerged one after another in his awareness.

They carried fragments of calls, gazes, and hopes that had appeared at different times.

They were not complete memories.

More like traces that had once brushed his soul and then sunk away.

But this time, as the Soul Art continued circulating, those traces did not quickly dissolve.

Instead, they slowly merged into the flow.

Hao Nhien did not know whether this counted as absorption.

He did not try to force an answer.

The clearest thing he felt was simply that his soul was becoming more stable.

The small fluctuations and wounds accumulated after one battle after another seemed to be reorganizing themselves little by little.

The part of his soul that had never fully settled after so much pressure gradually became firmer.

Hao Nhien continued observing without interfering.

He did not know how much time had passed before he suddenly noticed that the True Qi in his meridians had also begun adjusting itself to the rhythm of the Soul Art.

The amount of True Qi did not increase.

No foreign force entered his dantian.

Yet the entire system within his body was gradually becoming more harmonious.

Hao Nhien focused immediately.

After the successive battles involving Duong Quang, Tien Thanh, and Heavenly Eye, his Foundation Establishment layer-eight cultivation had already accumulated close to its limit.

His True Qi was sufficient.

His body, after repeated tempering and adaptation, was sufficient.

And his soul had advanced greatly under continuous pressure.

What seemed to have been missing was only a moment in which all that accumulation could finally connect.

Now that moment had arrived.

The Soul Art continued circulating.

True Qi passed through his meridians and returned to the dantian.

His breathing and the reactions of his body gradually fell into the same rhythm.

Hao Nhien did not force the bottleneck.

He did not accelerate the process.

He simply kept the state from being disturbed.

The barrier of Foundation Establishment layer eight began to tremble.

Hao Nhien still did not push.

He continued circulating.

Then, deep within his body, something gave way with the faintest sound.

The barrier broke naturally.

True Qi immediately flowed through the final separation.

His meridians expanded slightly.

The spiritual liquid within his dantian surged more strongly, yet remained fully under control.

Nothing exploded violently.

His entire state simply became deeper, denser, and more stable than before.

Foundation Establishment layer nine.

Hao Nhien remained seated.

He did not immediately celebrate.

Instead, he continued sensing the changes that had just occurred.

He understood very clearly that the faint force had not directly supplied True Qi or cultivation.

Without the accumulation already having reached its limit, that force alone could never have pushed him through the barrier.

Its effect seemed to lie only in stabilizing his soul enough for everything already full within his body to complete the final step on its own.

Beyond that, he still did not understand.

Hao Nhien slowly exhaled.

A voice came from behind.

“Congratulations on your breakthrough, Clan Chief.”

Hao Nhien opened his eyes.

Lanh Hoa stood some distance away.

Clearly, he had arrived earlier but had kept enough distance not to disturb Hao Nhien.

Hao Nhien nodded.

“Mm.”

Lanh Hoa cupped his hands slightly.

“This subordinate will continue standing guard.”

Then he turned and returned toward the outer edge of the camp.

Hao Nhien watched his back and laughed very softly.

“Good.”

Afterward, he closed his eyes again and let the Soul Art circulate a little longer.

The fluctuations that had touched his soul had already weakened greatly, leaving only a few traces difficult to grasp.

Hao Nhien still did not know the true nature of that force.

But after what had happened, he no longer believed that everything people sent toward one another was merely passing emotion that vanished without leaving anything behind.

Perhaps some things, though invisible, truly left traces.

The desert wind passed through the camp, causing the small fire to sway gently.

Hao Nhien opened his eyes and looked east.

Hoa Van was still very far away.

If what he had sensed today was correct, then when he returned there, he would probably encounter this force again.

And next time, what awaited him might no longer be so faint that it was almost impossible to notice.