Volume 2, Chapter 25: The First Round
The waiting area beneath the Capital arena smelled of sweat, cheap healing ointment, and old dust. It wasn't glamorous at all. Yuhao sat on a plain wooden bench, nervously picking at a loose thread on his uniform pants. His heart was beating fast and uneven against his ribs.
"Stop fidgeting," Ma Xiaotao said. She was pacing back and forth in the small room. Her skin gave off a dry heat that made the air around her shimmer slightly. "You're making me nervous. And I don't usually get nervous."
Tang Ya was adjusting her emerald wrist guards for the fifth time. "They're using heavy armor out there, Xiaotao. Sun-Moon tech. We haven't trained much against that kind of metal."
"Metal melts," Xiaotao shot back, her eyes flashing with golden fire. "I don't care how thick their suits are."
But Yuhao wasn't so sure. His forehead kept throbbing. Ever since the seedling had sprouted in the Chamber of Echoes, his new eye felt like a tight muscle he couldn't relax. It kept picking up small ripples in the movement of energy around them. Right now, the energy coming from the tunnel ahead felt jagged and wrong, like broken glass scattered across the floor.
"Team Anito," a bored official called out, poking his head through the doorway. "You're up. Platform Four."
••••••
Platform Four was a wide, flat area of packed earth, surrounded by protective Baybayin stones. On the opposite side stood a team from the Sun-Moon district called the Copper-Grid Academy. They didn't look like regular soul masters. They looked more like miners ready for hard labor.
All seven of them wore bulky, bronze-colored heavy armor. Thick cylinders were strapped to their backs, humming with a low, teeth-rattling vibration. They didn't hold any obvious weapons. They simply stood together in a tight, disciplined formation.
"Begin!" the referee shouted, dropping a yellow flag.
Ma Xiaotao didn't hesitate. She charged forward, her hands bursting into flames. "Let's go!"
A loud cry echoed as her Crimson Flame Hawk Soul Spirit manifested behind her. The majestic hawk spread its fiery wings, its feathers burning with deep orange-red flames. It let out a piercing screech and dove forward with her, amplifying her attack.
She sent a concentrated blast of fire straight at the center of the enemy formation. But the leader of the Copper-Grid team calmly reached up and flipped a switch on his collar.
The cylinders on their backs let out a sharp shriek.
It wasn't a normal sound. It was something you felt deep in your bones. Their resonance disruptors activated. They didn't create a shield. Instead, they threw chaotic static into the surrounding movement of energy.
Xiaotao's fire hit the static wall and sputtered. The strong, roaring stream of flames turned a sickly green color, then broke apart into harmless puffs of smoke before it could even reach the bronze armor. Even her Crimson Flame Hawk screeched in frustration as its fiery form flickered and weakened.
Xiaotao stumbled, her momentum completely ruined. She stared at her hands in shock. The fire had simply vanished.
"What did you do?" she yelled.
"We broke your rhythm," the Copper-Grid leader answered through an external speaker. His voice sounded like grinding gears. "Your fire techniques need a clean path to work. We just made the air messy and unreliable."
Tang Ya threw out her hands. Emerald vines shot forward from her wrists, her Blue Silver Grass Soul Spirit glowing brightly. But the moment they entered the static field, they tangled and knotted, growing backward and wrapping around her own boots.
"I can't control them!" Tang Ya cried out, dropping to her knees to avoid tripping over her own vines.
The Copper-Grid team began advancing slowly, raising their heavy mechanical gauntlets. They planned to crush the Anito team with raw physical force while their skills were jammed.
Yuhao closed his normal eyes. He took a deep breath and activated the Gaze of Openings.
The world around him shifted into a wire-frame view. The bright colors of the arena faded, revealing the underlying structure. He looked at the Copper-Grid team. The static they were projecting looked like a spinning ball of grey thorns, chewing up the natural movement of energy and turning it into useless noise.
But nothing was perfect. There were always small gaps.
"Xiaotao," Yuhao called out, his voice cutting clearly through the noise in her head. He shared his vision directly with her through the All-Seeing Library. "Don't force the fire. Hold it back and wait for the gap."
Xiaotao gritted her teeth and dropped into a low stance, fists pulled back to her waist. She trusted him completely. Her Crimson Flame Hawk circled above her, waiting for the right moment.
"The pulse cycles every three seconds," Yuhao said quickly. "It spins left. The weak point is on the right side, right when the cylinder draws in new energy. Ready?"
The heavy gauntlets of the Sun-Moon team were only inches away from Tang Ya.
"Three," Yuhao counted. The static roared louder.
"Two." The grey thorns spun wildly.
"One. Now!"
There was a tiny fraction of a second — a small, clean window in the flow.
Xiaotao punched forward. She didn't release a massive wave of fire. Instead, she condensed everything into a single, needle-thin spike of pure heat. Her Crimson Flame Hawk dove with the attack, adding its own power. She threaded it perfectly through the gap Yuhao had shown her, striking the exhaust port of the leader's cylinder.
The fire slipped past the static and hit the internal workings.
Pop.
The disruptor short-circuited. The sudden internal heat caused a backfire. The leader's heavy armor seized up with a loud clank, freezing his joints in place. Without the central pulse, the rest of the team's static field fell out of sync and became a messy, uncoordinated hum.
"Tang Ya, sweep them!" Yuhao yelled.
With the static broken, Tang Ya's vines shot forward clean and strong. They wrapped around the thick ankles of the bronze armor and pulled hard. The heavy Sun-Moon students toppled over like bowling pins, unable to regain their balance in their bulky, now-useless suits.
"Match over," the referee announced, looking slightly surprised at how quickly the fight had turned. "Winner, Team Anito."
Xiaotao stood up, wiping sweat from her forehead. She looked at Yuhao, still breathing hard. "That… was too close."
Yuhao nodded, rubbing his forehead. His third eye was burning. Finding the small openings in something as complicated as those machines was exhausting work.
••••••
An hour later, Yuhao was walking down a quiet corridor, looking for a water fountain. The taste of dust and ozone still lingered in his throat. He found a copper basin near an exit and splashed cold water on his face.
"You see things differently than the others."
Yuhao froze. He grabbed a rough towel and turned around.
Ye Guyi was standing a few feet away. She had changed out of her armor and now wore a crisp white uniform with the golden sunburst of the Hall of Radiance on the collar. Up close, her pale blonde hair caught the light, making her look almost too bright for the dim corridor.
"I have good eyes," Yuhao said carefully. He tossed the towel into a bin.
"It's not just your eyes," she replied. She stepped closer, her gaze sharp and analytical. She wasn't angry, but she was clearly suspicious. "I watched your match. That Sun-Moon static field was a strong disruption. Your fire-user didn't overpower it. She slipped through a gap that shouldn't have been there."
"We got lucky."
"Luck is just what people call a stream of power they don't fully understand yet," Ye Guyi said smoothly. "I am a Leaf of the Angel. My job is to notice anything that feels wrong. The energy coming from your forehead right now… it doesn't match the usual Phoenix markings. It feels older. And colder."
Yuhao's hand twitched slightly. She was sensing the leftover presence of the new seedling mixed with the strange observing nature of his eye.
"Are you accusing me of using forbidden markings?" Yuhao asked, keeping his voice steady.
"I'm asking a question," she replied. She tilted her head, studying him like a difficult puzzle. "You're a student of Professor Lakas. The man who sleeps through meetings and eats street food during official events. Yet he produces a student who can take apart a Sun-Moon armor suit with just a glance. Who exactly is he? And what is he really teaching you down in that basement?"
Yuhao looked at her. She was powerful, confident, and completely loyal to her Goddess. But she didn't know the full truth. She didn't know that the God she served was the same man casually eating peanuts in the stands.
"He teaches us how to survive," Yuhao said simply. "The Capital looks clean and peaceful, Captain Ye. But the borders are getting messy. Maybe you should spend less time worrying about my eyes and more time checking the water supply."
He walked past her. Their shoulders brushed lightly. She didn't stop him, but he could feel her gaze following him all the way down the corridor.
••••••
High up in the VIP terrace, Lakan was discreetly picking at his teeth with a thumbnail.
He had a tiny piece of roasted peanut shell stuck between his back molars. It was small and annoying. He could have removed it with a thought, but he chose not to. Using divine power for something so ordinary felt wrong. So he just kept digging at it, grimacing slightly.
"You look ridiculous," Long Xiaoyao muttered without turning his head.
"I'm experiencing normal life, Long," Lakas muttered back. "It builds character."
Lakan looked down at the arena. He had watched Yuhao's match closely. He had seen the Sun-Moon technology in action. The Copper-Grid team was just a basic example, but it proved his point. The mortals were trying to build their own path to power using machines and forced energy. It was clever, but it was loud and rigid.
'Chen Feng must be enjoying this,' Lakan thought, finally dislodging the shell with a quiet sigh of relief.
The Sun-Moon armor relied on rigid, artificial systems. Chen Feng's draining force could probably tear through that bronze plating in seconds if he wanted to.
He watched Yuhao emerge from the tunnel and rejoin his teammates. The boy was growing. He was learning to use the Gaze of Openings not just to strike hard, but to strike smart.
"Did Ye Guyi speak with the boy?" Mu En asked quietly, his ancient voice barely audible over the crowd.
"She did," Lakas replied, leaning on the stone railing. "She thinks he's hiding something. She's trying to protect the house, but she doesn't realize the termites are already inside the walls."
Lakas looked toward the far side of the arena where the Sun-Moon delegation sat. It was a block of grey and metallic uniforms. Somewhere in that crowd, the leader of the Holy Ghost Cult was quietly watching.
"Let them play their games for a few more rounds," Lakas said softly to himself. "Let the kids get used to the smell of static. Because when the real trouble comes, they'll need to know how to fight in the dark."
He reached into his pocket, cracked another peanut, and settled back to watch the rest of the matches.
End of Volume 2, Chapter 25