The Final Gauntlet
The White Tiger's Protective Shield, a skill that had weathered countless storms in legend, hung in the air before Yao Xuan's descending claw. It shone with a valiant, pale luminescence—a final, desperate bulwark.
It lasted less than a heartbeat.
Yao Xuan's claw, sheathed in the overwhelming might of his Ancestral Dragon Body, did not tear or pierce. It simply obliterated. The shield shattered with a sound like crystal breaking under a mountain's weight, dissolving into harmless sparkles of extinguished light. There was no resistance, only cessation.
The claw continued its inexorable path.
THUD.
A clean, dense impact. The illusion of Dai Mubai's head did not explode grotesquely; it disintegrated structurally, collapsing inward before the entire form fragmented into a constellation of cooling blue particles that drifted away into the sterile white of the arena.
The reward was more substantial, a recognition of the higher tier. Yao Xuan absorbed it with a sense of detached efficiency. The battle had been less a fight and more a demonstration—a calibration of his new normal against a historical benchmark. It confirmed what he felt: his foundation had transcended these early hurdles.
In the observation chamber, Wu Changkong watched the data streams flow across the main screen. A rare flicker of surprise crossed his stern features. "He ended it even faster than the preliminary assessment. His parameters have surged again." His analytical mind raced, attributing it to the tempered growth from the Spirit Ascension Platform's Riotous Period. A profound sense of pride, deep and quiet, settled within him. This was a student he had guided, a monster he had helped unleash upon the world's stage.
"Hmm, this child shows remarkable promise. You've brought a fine sapling to our attention, Changkong." An elder's voice, dry yet warm as aged timber, echoed from a hidden speaker.
Wu Changkong gave a slight, respectful bow towards the voice's source. "It is my duty, Vice Hall Master. However… his inclinations seem to lean toward the Spirit Pagoda. When I last sounded him out, his commitment was elsewhere."
A sigh, faint and carrying the weight of centuries, filtered through. "The Spirit Pagoda… their visibility is their strength, and our secrecy, at times, our weakness. The world remembers the brightest lamp, not the surest foundation. But our way has always been one of choice, not coercion. The door remains open. Ensure he knows that."
"Understood, Vice Hall Master."
Back in the Hall of Heroes, the trials progressed with mechanistic inevitability. A second Soul Elder-tier Dai Mubai fell just as swiftly, a redundant testament to a concluded chapter.
'Endure again. The wording suggests a qualitative shift.' Yao Xuan's focus, which had been languid, snapped back to razor sharpness. His gaze fixed on the point where light began to weave a new opponent.
The figure that coalesced was slimmer, younger in frame than the robust Dai Mubai. Hair the color of a misty sky, a lean build clad in simple combat attire. The face was blurred, but the eyes… even in this simulated form, they glowed with a subtle, penetrating violet light—the hallmark of the Purple Demon Eye.
Tang San.
A complex cocktail of emotions stirred within Yao Xuan—respect for the legend, cold recognition of the hypocrite from his foreknowledge, and a pure, blazing desire to test his own cultivated strength against this pinnacle of the Tang Sect's mythos.
The illusion moved. It didn't charge. It flowed. One moment it was ten meters away, the next it was everywhere and nowhere, its body splitting into a cascade of ethereal afterimages that weaved a disorienting, beautiful tapestry of motion. The air whispered with the sound of shifting feet—Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, the pinnacle Tang Sect movement technique.
To an ordinary observer, it would be a nightmare. A dozen Tang Sans approached from all angles, each step a feint, each afterimage a potential killing strike. It was meant to confuse, to paralyze, to create an opening for the fatal needle or the entangling vine.
Yao Xuan's eyes, however, were not ordinary. The [Eye of Observation], heightened by his formidable spiritual power and the Ancestral Dragon's sovereign perspective, cut through the artistry. He didn't see a dozen phantoms; he saw the intricate, flowing algorithm of energy and intent. He saw the single, coherent core of the illusion tracing its path through the chaos. Within half a second, the mesmerizing dance resolved into a clear, predictable trajectory in his mind.
A faint, confident smile touched his lips. "An impressive illusion. But against true perception, it's just a dance."
He didn't wait to be surrounded. He activated Ancestral Dragon Body, his form solidifying with majestic power. Instead of retreating from the advancing phantoms, he took a single, decisive step forward, his right claw lancing out with deceptive simplicity, aimed not at any of the afterimages, but at a seemingly empty point in the air to his left front.
It was there that the real Tang San illusion, committed to its offensive flow, emerged from the blur of its own steps, its hands already moving—the right forming a seal to control Blue Silver Grass, the left subtly poised near its waist, likely for a hidden weapon draw. Its violet eyes widened in simulated shock as Yao Xuan's claw, precise and inevitable, arrived to meet it, completely bypassing the defensive facade of its Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track.
The first clash of the final assessment was not a meeting of brute force, but a clash of comprehension against artistry, of supreme perception against legendary technique. The dragon had seen through the ghost's dance.