The road into Iron Hammer City was a wide, sloping avenue carved directly into the mountain’s inner wall. Shops and workshops lined it, their fronts open to the heat and noise. The air smelled of ozone, hot metal, and stone dust.

Lin Tian led his group down the path, taking in the sheer scale of the industry around them. A team of bare-chested cultivators hauled a glowing ingot the size of a tree trunk on a stone sled. The heat from it made the air above it shimmer.

This place runs on power, he thought. Raw, physical power.

"Third terrace should be up that switchback," Su Lan said, pointing to a narrower street branching off to the left. "The air does feel... slightly less like a furnace throat."

They turned onto the side street, the noise of the main forges fading to a background thunder. The buildings here were still stone, but they had more windows, more signs of habitation rather than pure industry.

That’s when they saw the crowd.

A semi-circle of clansmen and women blocked the way ahead, all looking inward toward a small, open plaza. In the center, a figure stood with her back to them.

She was tall, nearly as tall as Lin Tian, and built with a warrior’s dense muscle. Her hair was a wild, dark mane tied back with a simple leather cord. She wore practical, ash-stained trousers and a sleeveless tunic that showed off arms corded with strength. Resting point-down on the stone before her was a sword.

It wasn’t a sword. It was a slab of dark, pitted metal taller than she was, with a rough-hewn grip. A greatsword that looked less forged and more quarried.

Lin Tian felt a familiar, internal chime.

[Candidate 4 Detected.]

[Name: Yan Jiao. Title: Princess of the Iron Hammer Clan.]

[Spirit Root: Magma-Vein. Cultivation: Earth Spirit Realm, 3rd Level. Peak Foundation.]

[Compatibility: 82%. Status: Suppressed. Void Parasite detected in dantian. Parasite is draining vitality and inhibiting breakthrough.]

[Recommendation: Establish Link to purge foreign energy and stabilize host.]

Lin Tian’s steps slowed. Another one. Suppressed. The pattern was getting clearer. Talented women, bound by something foreign. The System wanted him to fix them.

The woman—Yan Jiao—turned her head. Her profile was sharp, all strong jaw and focused eyes. She’d heard them approach.

She turned fully, planting a hand on the crossguard of her massive sword. Her gaze swept over Lin Tian’s group, lingering on Su Lan’s fire-aligned aura and Xueya’s glacial chill. There was no fear in her eyes, only a blazing, competitive curiosity.

"Outsiders," she said, her voice a low, rolling contralto that carried over the murmur of the crowd. "You carry the smell of mountain frost and... controlled flame. Interesting."

She took a single step forward, the sole of her boot grinding against the stone. "The Gatekeeper let you pass. She spoke of your ’density.’ My father’s guards whisper about a man who petrified a lava beast with a look."

Her eyes locked on Lin Tian. "You."

Lin Tian met her stare. "I am Lin Tian."

"Yan Jiao," she said, as if daring him to recognize the name. When he didn’t react, a flicker of something—approval?—crossed her face. "Princess of this rock. They say you seek the Sea."

"We do."

"Then you’ll need the map." She leaned on her sword, the metal groaning against the flagstones. "You plan to enter the Festival."

"I do."

A grin split her face, fierce and full of teeth. "Good. I am the reigning champion. Last three festivals. No one here can match my ’Weight.’"

She said the word like it was a proper noun, capitalized. Lin Tian understood. Not physical weight. Spiritual density. The very quality the Gatekeeper had praised.

"You want to test me," Lin Tian said.

"I want to see if the rumors are hot air or molten truth," Yan Jiao shot back. She straightened up, hefting her greatsword onto her shoulder with terrifying ease. "A trial of Weight. Right here, right now. No weapons. No techniques. Just core against core. Pressure against pressure."

The crowd around them buzzed. This was entertainment. This was data.

Su Lan shifted beside him. "Lin Tian, her energy is..."

"I know," he murmured.

Xueya’s voice was a cool thread in his mind through their bond. She is strong. But there is a sickness beneath the fire. A cold spot.

He could feel it too, now that he was looking. A dissonance in her blazing aura. A hollow note, like a forge bellows with a tear. The Void Parasite.

Yan Jiao saw his assessment. "Well? Does the mountain-man have a spine, or did he leave it at the gate?"

Lin Tian walked forward, stopping ten paces from her. He ignored the crowd, focusing on the woman before him. Her spirit burned like a sun, but it was a sun with a black spot at its center, slowly eating the light.

"Your terms," he said.

"Simple," she said, slamming the point of her greatsword into a crack in the stone floor. It stood there, a monument to her strength. "We stand. We release our spiritual pressure. Not to attack. Just to exist. The first one to take a step back, or whose aura wavers, loses."

She cracked her neck, a sound like grinding stones. "We measure the depth of the foundation. The ’Weight’ of your soul. This is how we judge smiths here. The metal knows a weak heart."

Lin Tian nodded. It was a test of pure stability. Of everything he had built since his meridians were first awakened. His chaotic core, harmonized by three profound bonds.

"I accept."

The crowd pulled back, giving them a wide circle. The air in the plaza grew still, the ever-present hammer-falls seeming to fade away.

Yan Jiao took a deep breath, her broad chest expanding. She planted her feet wide, knees slightly bent, as if bracing to hold up the sky.

Then she let it out.

Her aura erupted. It wasn’t a wave of force. It was a sudden, immense presence. The air around her thickened, warping with heat haze. The stone beneath her boots didn’t crack, it sank, grinding down by a full inch. The sheer density of her spiritual pressure pressed down on the entire plaza. Disciples in the crowd grunted, taking unconscious steps backward.

Lin Tian felt it hit him. It was like standing next to a mountain that was also a volcano. The heat was immense, but the real power was the weight. It pushed on his bones, on his spirit, trying to compress him into the ground.

She’s incredible, he thought, a spark of genuine respect igniting. This is her power even with a parasite draining her.

He didn’t brace. He didn’t fight it. He simply let his own foundation answer.

He breathed in.

And allowed his core to resonate.

Not the Ice Flame Divine Domain. Not any technique. Just the raw, stabilized truth of his cultivation. The chaotic core, refined by the Progenitor Fragment, anchored by three unbreakable bonds.

His aura didn’t explode. It settled.

A sphere of perfect stillness bloomed around him. The warping heat from Yan Jiao’s pressure hit its edge and smoothed, neutralized. The stone at his feet didn’t sink. It didn’t need to. It became... more solid. The very air within his space grew clear and heavy, like deep ocean water.

The two auras met in the middle of the plaza. There was no violent clash. It was a slow, grinding contest of realities. Her zone of crushing heat and magma-density. His zone of harmonious, absolute stability.

A hairline fracture appeared in the flagstones along the invisible line between them.

Yan Jiao’s fierce grin had vanished. Her eyes were wide, burning with intense focus. A muscle in her jaw twitched. Sweat beaded on her temple, not from heat, but from strain.

Lin Tian stood perfectly relaxed. His heart beat slow and steady. He felt Xueya’s glacial calm, Su Lan’s resilient fire, Yue Chan’s flexible strength—all flowing through the bonds, reinforcing his foundation. He was not one person standing there. He was four.

"Impossible," Yan Jiao gritted out, the word strained. Her boots scraped against the stone. She hadn’t stepped back, but the force of her own pressure was starting to push her.

Lin Tian saw it then, clearly. The moment her parasite reacted. A flicker of wrongness in her dantian, a void that suddenly sucked at her own energy. It was a tiny instability, a stumble in the relentless output of her power.

Her monumental pressure wavered. Just for a fraction of a second.

It was enough.

With a final, silent push of his will, Lin Tian allowed his ’Weight’ to fully manifest.

The stone beneath Yan Jiao’s feet crunched, sinking another half-inch. She let out a sharp gasp, her body swaying. To keep from falling, her right foot slid back six inches, scraping a harsh line on the ground.

Silence.

Then the crowd erupted into shouts and disbelieving murmurs.

Yan Jiao stood panting, staring at the scuff mark behind her heel. The line of her defeat. She looked up at Lin Tian, her expression a storm of shock, fury, and something else—a desperate, hungry hope.

She had lost. For the first time in years, someone had outweighed her.

Lin Tian let his aura recede back into his core. The oppressive feeling vanished, leaving the plaza feeling strangely light.

Yan Jiao straightened up. She yanked her greatsword from the stone and hefted it back onto her shoulder. The movement was still powerful, but Lin Tian saw the slight tremor in her hands now. The parasite was agitated.

She walked right up to him, stopping so close he could feel the residual heat coming off her skin.

"You’re not a smith," she stated, her voice low.

"No."

"But you have the Weight of a master." She searched his face. "That stability... it’s not just power. It’s anchored. How?"

I’m linked to three amazing women, he thought. But he couldn’t say that. "I had to build a strong foundation," he said simply. "I had no other choice."

Yan Jiao held his gaze for a long moment. The fury faded, leaving behind that stark, hungry look. She nodded once, a sharp, decisive motion.

"The Festival is in seven days," she said. "You will enter. I will be your opponent in the final round."

She turned to leave, then glanced back over her shoulder, her dark mane swinging.

"And Lin Tian," she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper only he could hear. "When you win... we need to talk about this ’cold spot’ in my fire."

She walked away, the crowd parting for her like stone before a lava flow.

Lin Tian watched her go, the System’s alert still glowing in his mind.

[Candidate 4: Yan Jiao. Compatibility: 82%. Status: Suppressed. Void Parasite detected.]

Another piece of the puzzle, he thought, turning back to his waiting partners. And this one isn’t waiting to be saved. She’s demanding a fight first.

Su Lan raised an eyebrow. Xueya gave a slight, knowing nod. Yue Chan just smiled, her silks shimmering.

The path to the Sea of Eternal Embers just got a lot more interesting.

End of Chapter 166