Where Is the Limit?

The return of the Hoa Ky clanspeople did not bring the challenge matches to a halt.

Three days after the newly arrived one hundred and seventeen people had been settled in the southwestern district, Hao Nhien once again appeared on the top floor of the Hoa Van Treasure Pavilion.

Before him lay the Huyen Bang token.

The moment he sent a thread of spiritual power into it, names began appearing within his mind. Compared with the early days, the number of new challenges was no longer increasing as quickly as before, but those who truly met the requirements were becoming increasingly noteworthy.

Hao Nhien recorded several names and passed the list to Luu Van.

The token only told him which challengers had been confirmed as eligible and what conditions they had met. Where they came from, what cultivation arts they had used before, and what hidden methods they might possess were matters that still had to be investigated separately.

Two days later, Luu Van brought several jade slips.

“This is everything Thien Bao Pavilion could find.”

He placed them on the table one by one.

“Background, publicly known cultivation, previous battles, and any techniques or artifacts they have revealed.”

Then Luu Van added:

“But treat all of it as reference only. No one can remain on the Huyen Bang by letting everyone see every card in their hand.”

“I understand.”

Hao Nhien picked up the slips one by one.

He was not specifically looking for the highest-ranked opponent.

Sa Binh had shown him the combat style of the Sa Moc Tribe.

Duong Han had shown him an entirely different system built around heavy armor, mechanisms, hidden weapons, and fire bombs.

If Hao Nhien intended to treat the Huyen Bang as a way to temper himself, then what he needed was not five opponents who fought the same way.

He needed five different paths of combat.

Eventually, he stopped at one name.

Lac Thanh Ha.

Rank forty-three on the Huyen Bang.

Bich Van Cung.

The day her name was announced, the number of people heading toward the square immediately increased again.

When Lac Thanh Ha stepped onto the arena, even the noisy discussions around the square noticeably quieted.

She wore a pale purple dress, and her long black hair was held only by a white jade hairpin. There was almost no elaborate decoration on her, yet every step naturally drew the eyes of those around her.

Her skin was pale as jade, her long eyes clear yet seemingly covered by a thin layer of mist. Even the faintest curve of her lips softened an already beautiful face enough to make hostility difficult to summon.

A middle-aged male cultivator below sighed softly.

“Bich Van Cung truly lives up to its reputation.”

The person beside him immediately said:

“I think this match will be very difficult for Quan Hao Nhien.”

“Because of her charm arts?”

The man looked at Lac Thanh Ha with an extremely serious expression.

“Because I wouldn't have the heart to hit her.”

A woman's voice immediately came from behind.

“Get onto the arena first, then worry about that.”

The people around them burst out laughing.

Hao Nhien heard it as well, though the corner of his mouth only curved faintly.

Lac Thanh Ha had already reached the center of the arena. There was no sword in her hand, only a pale purple jade flute.

She looked at Hao Nhien and cupped her hands.

“Bich Van Cung, Lac Thanh Ha.”

“Please instruct me, Young Master Quan.”

Her voice was soft without being deliberately drawn out, yet it still made hostility surprisingly difficult to maintain.

Hao Nhien returned the gesture.

“Quan Hao Nhien.”

“Please.”

The bell rang.

Boong!

Almost at the same moment, Lac Thanh Ha raised the flute to her lips.

Only a single faint note emerged.

The voices around the square vanished from Hao Nhien's perception.

The arena disappeared.

The protective barrier disappeared as well.

Before him remained only a wide lake beneath moonlight, purple mist covering its surface, while flowers bloomed so densely along both shores that they nearly concealed the ground.

The Soul Art immediately began circulating.

A single point of clarity was held firmly within his consciousness.

Hao Nhien did not rush to resist the scene before him.

Far away, Lac Thanh Ha stood in the middle of a stone bridge.

Her dress moved lightly in the wind.

She looked at him and smiled.

“Young Master Quan.”

“Do you truly wish to draw your sword against me?”

A figure stepped out from the mist.

Then a second.

A third.

Within only a few breaths, hundreds of Lac Thanh Has appeared around the lake.

Every one of them looked identical.

Their eyes, breathing, smiles, even the way their skirts moved in the wind showed almost no difference.

If he relied only on sight, sound, or aura, distinguishing the real one would be extremely difficult.

But Hao Nhien did not immediately trust any of those things.

He had experienced illusions before in the Quan Clan Inner Secret Realm, and later he had repeatedly discussed with Quan Nha the Charm inheritance she had received from the Great Python.

Compared with what he had already experienced firsthand, the illusion before him was refined, but not enough to make him lose his bearings.

Hao Nhien did not react immediately.

Instead, he concentrated on the real airflow around his body.

The illusion could reproduce appearance, sound, and even aura, but a true physical body moving through space would still affect the surrounding air in ways that were difficult to conceal completely.

Hundreds of Lac Thanh Has advanced at once, their skirts moving almost identically.

Hao Nhien allowed those images to flood his vision while keeping his attention on the smallest changes in the Wind around him.

Most of the figures altered only the scene as they approached.

But behind him and slightly to the right, the air was truly being obstructed by something physical and split to either side.

His gaze immediately shifted.

Phong Van Step activated.

Hao Nhien moved through the countless illusions. The figures he passed through dissolved one after another into purple mist, while the Lac Thanh Ha behind him had barely lowered her flute when the sound of a sword leaving its sheath rang out.

Keng!

The Fire Spirit Sword came free.

Its point stopped only half an inch from her throat.

Lac Thanh Ha froze.

She looked at the blade, then raised her eyes toward Hao Nhien.

After a brief silence, she sighed softly and lowered the flute.

“Young Master Quan is indeed formidable.”

Hao Nhien did not withdraw the sword.

A faint feeling had just surfaced within him.

Too easy.

The instant that thought appeared, his eyes changed.

At the same moment, Lac Thanh Ha smiled.

A faint cracking sound followed.

A thin fracture appeared across her face, spreading rapidly down her neck and through her body.

In the blink of an eye, the figure before him shattered like a mirror and dissolved into countless purple petals.

Hao Nhien immediately turned.

A purple silk ribbon swept past his throat, missing his skin by the smallest margin.

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Behind him, the true Lac Thanh Ha stood on the lake, the flute still in her hand.

She looked at him, her gentle smile unchanged.

“Young Master Quan, your Wind affinity is indeed very strong.”

Hao Nhien watched her and slowly exhaled.

Now he understood.

The first layer of illusion had deliberately allowed him to discover a “true body.”

But that so-called true body had still been part of a second layer of deception.

If he had truly believed he had already won, lowered his sword, and relaxed his guard, that ribbon would have reversed the entire situation.

“Interesting.”

Lac Thanh Ha tilted her head slightly.

“Young Master still wishes to continue?”

“We stepped onto the arena. Naturally, we fight until there is a result.”

Hao Nhien raised the Fire Spirit Sword again.

The Soul Art continued circulating, keeping his consciousness steady.

This time, he no longer tried to determine what was real and what was false throughout the entire illusion.

The lake could remain.

The purple mist could continue covering its surface.

The flowers along the shore could keep blooming.

The flute could continue sounding through the space.

Hao Nhien only needed to find what did not belong among them.

He stood still within the illusion, allowing false sensations to continue passing over him without chasing any of them.

After several breaths, a tiny disturbance appeared behind him, slightly out of rhythm with everything the illusion was maintaining.

Hao Nhien turned almost immediately.

Xoẹt!

The Fire Spirit Sword swept across.

A purple figure that had just appeared stopped at once.

For the second time, the sword point rested before Lac Thanh Ha's throat, this time so close that a slight movement forward would have touched her skin.

The smile disappeared from her face.

The two looked at one another for several breaths before Lac Thanh Ha slowly lowered her flute.

“Impressive.”

The illusion began to dissolve.

The lake beneath their feet faded and disappeared.

The purple mist and flowers along the shore broke apart into light.

The voices from the square returned, and the arena and protective barrier once again appeared before Hao Nhien.

The Fire Spirit Sword remained before Lac Thanh Ha's throat.

At the exact moment their eyes met, Hao Nhien saw a tiny ring of purple light appear within hers.

Only for one beat.

But the world before him immediately slowed.

The voices around the square seemed to stretch into the distance.

Light blurred.

The Fire Spirit Sword in his hand suddenly felt unnaturally heavy.

At the same time, an unfamiliar feeling slipped into his consciousness with such ease that it almost seemed as though it had always been there.

He wanted to stop.

He did not want to hurt her.

The thought appeared too naturally, without any obvious trace of force.

But that very smoothness caused the point of clarity maintained by the Soul Art to react immediately.

This was not his thought.

The moment Hao Nhien realized it, a cold sense of danger came from behind.

A faint tearing sound cut through the air.

A nearly transparent short sword was already flying toward his back.

The distance was too short for him to turn and evade completely.

Hao Nhien also immediately understood that Lac Thanh Ha must have positioned this blade beforehand, perhaps while he was still trapped inside the illusion.

Around the arena, the formation artifacts and lightning stones within the protective system continued producing extremely faint Lightning fluctuations.

Hao Nhien immediately caught the nearest strand.

He opened one of the routes tempered through repeated Lightning training, allowing the external Lightning to pass through his body and release toward the incoming short sword.

Tách!

Lightning touched the blade.

The spiritual connection between Lac Thanh Ha and the flying sword was disrupted for exactly one beat.

The sword still continued forward under momentum, piercing through Hao Nhien's outer robe and striking the inner armor beneath, but most of its controlled force had already been lost before the point could drive any deeper.

The impact pushed Hao Nhien slightly forward.

He still did not turn around.

Inside the Lightning Sacrifice Mountain Cave, Lightning had repeatedly disrupted his own control over the Tieu Dao Sword.

This time, he had simply returned the same principle to his opponent.

Hao Nhien's gaze remained fixed on Lac Thanh Ha.

The surprise that briefly appeared in her eyes told him that the flying sword had been one of her final killing moves.

The Fire Spirit Sword moved slightly forward until it finally touched the skin at her throat.

“Young Master Quan…”

Hao Nhien did not let her finish.

Another tiny strand of external Lightning was guided through his arm and into the Fire Spirit Sword before reaching the point of contact.

Tách!

Lac Thanh Ha's body immediately stiffened.

The flute in her hand trembled.

Several strands of hair that had been perfectly arranged lifted slightly from the electricity.

Hao Nhien looked at her.

“I haven't heard you surrender.”

The stands immediately burst into laughter.

Lac Thanh Ha clenched her teeth.

This time, the soft composure she had maintained before finally slipped.

“I surrender.”

Hao Nhien still did not lower the sword immediately.

Seeing this, the presiding cultivator finally stepped forward and confirmed it directly.

“Lac Thanh Ha concedes. The winner, Quan Hao Nhien!”

Only then did Hao Nhien withdraw the sword.

Lac Thanh Ha lifted a hand to smooth down the strands of hair disturbed by the electricity, then looked at him for a while.

“Young Master Quan truly doesn't know how to cherish flowers and jade.”

Hao Nhien sheathed the Fire Spirit Sword.

“If I think about cherishing flowers and jade while standing on an arena, I may be the one lying down.”

Lac Thanh Ha paused, then laughed.

“Fair enough.”

Five days later, the fourth challenge took place.

This time, Hao Nhien's opponent was Co Am, ranked thirty-seven on the Huyen Bang.

From the moment Co Am stepped onto the arena, he carried a black gourd and three small gray flags.

The bell had barely rung when poisonous mist poured from the mouth of the gourd, crawling across the stone before rapidly rising.

At the same time, the three flags embedded themselves in different positions.

Within the black haze, faint human shapes began appearing.

Hao Nhien did not rush forward.

The Wind around him continuously changed direction, forming controlled currents just strong enough to keep the poisonous mist from directly surrounding him.

He had no intention of using Wind to blow away the entire cloud.

Co Am was continuously feeding more poison from the gourd.

If Hao Nhien fought the mist directly in that way, the spiritual energy consumed would outweigh the benefit.

Instead, he maintained only a small clean region around himself, enough to move freely.

At the same time, after realizing the poison was more complex than expected, he swallowed the antidote pill Tieu Lan had prepared beforehand.

The yin souls hidden within the mist began closing in.

Individually, they were not especially strong.

But they appeared repeatedly from multiple directions, fading in and out of the poisonous haze and making judgment far more troublesome.

Hao Nhien tested them with a sword sweep.

Firelight cut through one gray figure and dispersed part of its form, but only several breaths later, the yin soul began gathering again.

He immediately changed his approach.

A small strand of Lightning from the environment around the formation was drawn through his arm and released at the sword tip.

When the Lightning passed through the gray figure, the yin soul's form shook violently, while the portion that had just begun reforming scattered once again.

Hao Nhien observed for several breaths and understood the effect.

The Lightning available to him was not enough to erase these yin souls outright with a single strike.

But it could destabilize their structure and greatly extend the time required for them to reform.

That alone was enough to break Co Am's coordination.

Hao Nhien began using Wind to keep the poison away from his immediate movement area, Fire to pressure Co Am into changing position, and Lightning only when the yin souls attempted to surround him.

As the battle continued, the poisonous mist was gradually driven toward the edges of the arena.

At first, Co Am continued adjusting his formation.

But once the three gray flags were forced into positions where they could no longer properly support one another, the coordination of the yin souls began breaking apart.

Eventually, Wind gathered the remaining poisonous mist into a dark mass against the protective barrier.

Co Am stood in the cleared area and looked around very seriously.

“Where did my poison go?”

Hao Nhien pointed to the side.

“Over there.”

The stands immediately erupted in laughter.

Co Am looked at the mass of poison trapped at one edge of the arena, then at the three flags whose positions had been broken apart.

He sighed.

“I surrender.”

The following matches came one after another.

One sword cultivator forced Hao Nhien to close the distance and disrupt the rhythm of the sword with fist techniques instead of trying to compete directly in swordsmanship.

A body cultivator relied on sheer toughness to force Hao Nhien to change his approach after several direct exchanges.

There was also a wandering cultivator who possessed no especially remarkable cultivation art, yet whose survival experience ran so deep that every retreat and advance forced Hao Nhien to think one step further.

Hao Nhien did not always win cleanly.

In one match, he stepped down with part of his robe torn away.

In another, his shoulder remained bruised and aching until night.

Once, the moment he returned to the courtyard, Tieu Lan pulled him into a chair and began applying medicine.

Tieu Nhan stood beside him, looking at the bruises across his shoulder.

“You won. Why do you look like you were the one who got beaten?”

Hao Nhien answered naturally:

“My opponent wasn't standing still for me to hit him.”

Tieu Nhan thought for a moment and nodded.

“That makes sense.”

Quan Nha, sitting across from him, glanced over.

“Last time, you said you wouldn't keep trading punches with body cultivators.”

Hao Nhien fell silent.

Tieu Lan immediately laughed.

Tieu Nhan turned to stare at him too.

Hao Nhien coughed lightly.

“Only… half the match.”

Quan Nha said nothing.

Her eyes were enough.

Hao Nhien immediately changed the subject.

“The medicine today is quite good.”

Tieu Lan continued applying it to his arm without looking up.

“Young Master, don't change the subject.”

Tieu Nhan burst out laughing.

A month passed quickly.

After Sa Binh and Duong Han came Lac Thanh Ha, Co Am, and then battles against sword cultivators, body cultivators, and wandering cultivators.

The name Quan Hao Nhien remained at the top of the Huyen Bang.

But the most obvious change was the number of people still genuinely willing to place an exceptional-grade spirit stone on the line.

At first, many had believed that first place was merely a ranking token passed down by Doc Hanh.

If they defeated Hao Nhien, they could take both the title and an additional exceptional-grade spirit stone.

After Sa Binh, people still doubted.

After Duong Han, doubt began turning into caution.

By the time Lac Thanh Ha and Co Am also lost one after another, those who truly understood combat no longer saw Hao Nhien as someone relying on cultivation realm or a single technique.

Moreover, from the third battle onward, quite a few people had confirmed that he was no longer at the sixth layer of Foundation Establishment.

His late-stage Foundation Establishment aura was obvious.

He had entered the seventh layer.

But even his cultivation realm was not what made him most difficult to prepare for.

Hao Nhien was not strong in only one way.

Against a sword cultivator, he could close the distance and use fists to break the opponent's rhythm.

Against poison, he used antidotes together with Wind to limit its effect.

Against yin souls, Lightning could destabilize them.

Against charm arts, he did not try to destroy the entire illusion, but instead searched for inconsistencies within his own senses and the surrounding environment.

Against body cultivators, if trading blows was unfavorable, he changed methods instead of trying to prove his body was tougher.

That adaptability was what made preparation difficult.

Hoa Van Town changed with every battle as well.

By day, the square was packed.

At night, the taverns were even more crowded.

The challenge matches became a subject of discussion from the commercial district all the way to the rest stations outside town.

Some people analyzed swordsmanship.

Some argued about the true extent of Hao Nhien's ability to use Lightning.

Others cared only about when Lac Thanh Ha might return.

Many younger cultivators of the Hoa Van Alliance began sitting with their team leaders after each match to review recording jade slips.

Luu Thanh had people isolate the most noteworthy sections.

The way Duong Han combined mechanisms with fire bombs.

The way Co Am used poisonous mist to conceal yin souls.

The way Lac Thanh Ha layered charm illusions and hid a killing move behind them.

They were not studying these things to copy someone else's techniques.

They were studying so that when they one day truly encountered hidden weapons, poisonous mist, charm arts, or similar methods, they would not be completely unfamiliar.

Tieu Nhan was the most dedicated viewer.

Once, she replayed the battle with Lac Thanh Ha three times.

Tieu Lan finally could not help asking:

“Are you planning to learn Charm arts?”

Tieu Nhan shook her head.

“No.”

“Then why are you watching it so much?”

Tieu Nhan answered with complete seriousness:

“I want to know when Hao Nhien was actually charmed.”

Across the room, Hao Nhien's hand stopped halfway through lifting his tea.

Quan Nha slowly turned her head.

Tieu Nhan immediately sensed that something about the atmosphere had gone wrong.

She hurriedly added:

“So I can learn how to defend against it.”

Quan Nha nodded.

“Mm.”

Hao Nhien continued drinking his tea.

He did not participate.

Tieu Lan had to turn her face away to hide her smile.

A month passed quickly.

That night, Hao Nhien sat on the upper floor of the Hoa Van Treasure Pavilion, the Huyen Bang token still lying before him.

His spiritual power remained abundant.

But other things had begun to accumulate.

His left shoulder still ached from the body cultivator he had fought two days earlier.

The shoulder and back area that often bore the strain whenever the Spirit Wings burst into action still carried a faint tightness and heat.

More importantly, after so many battles against completely different styles, each night of meditation now required more time before his mind could return to complete stillness.

Hao Nhien was not exhausted to the point that he could no longer fight.

But he knew that if the next battle dragged on too long, his concentration would no longer be as sharp as it had been at the beginning of the challenge series.

Luu Van placed a fresh pot of tea on the table.

“Three days.”

“No new challenges?”

Hao Nhien nodded faintly.

“Mm.”

He looked at the list for a while before saying:

“That isn't necessarily bad.”

Luu Van watched him for several breaths.

Hao Nhien lifted his gaze from the token.

“But there are three challenges I have no intention of avoiding.”

The smile on Luu Van's face slowly disappeared.

“Three people?”

“Yes.”

Hao Nhien reached out and touched one name.

“Mac Ta.”

Luu Van fell silent.

Only after a while did he speak.

“This man isn't coming for the spectacle.”

Hao Nhien looked at the name on the token.

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

“I know.”

He sent spiritual power into it.

Golden light immediately rippled across the token.

Hao Nhien transmitted his intent.

Accept.

The token lit up.

Outside the window, Hoa Van Town remained as lively as it was every night.

No one yet knew that the next match had already been confirmed.

This time, the man about to step onto the arena was no longer someone merely trying to see how strong the number one really was.

Mac Ta was already very close to that position himself.

Rank three on the Huyen Bang.