The roar of the crowd broke against the arena’s shimmering Sky-Glass barriers like battering rams. Below, a thousand disciples clamored for glory, their cultivation a cacophony of surging Qi. Teng Kui, cloaked in a plain, oversized hooded robe, stepped onto the chalk-dusted arena floor, his limp a subtle, practiced exaggeration. His opponent, a broad-shouldered youth named Zhen Xian, stood opposite, his chest puffed out, a gaudy ruby medallion swinging from his neck. Zhen Xian, the same young master whose Blood Lotus Teng Kui had snatched, now sneered. His eyes, though, were fixed on the VIP pavilion where a cluster of inner sect beauties fanned themselves, among them, a bored-looking Ming Xiya.
“The Limping Phantom from the Outer Reaches,” Zhen Xian declared, his voice booming with cultivated arrogance, amplified by a minor vocal art. “Come to be broken by a true Heaven-Bound talent. I heard you crawl your way up from the Abyssal Forge itself.” He brandished a colossal broadsword, its obsidian edge wreathed in flickering, orange flame. “Behold, the Blazefang! Forged in the Volcanic Womb, it has never tasted defeat.”
From the stone at his chest, Jiao Zang's voice slithered into Teng Kui’s mind, thick with avarice. *“A Volcanic Womb blade? Such a waste on that whelp. Snap it cleanly, Teng Kui. I have a… particular affinity for scorched steel.”*
Teng Kui ignored the dragon. He picked up a discarded training rod, no thicker than his wrist, from the edge of the arena, testing its heft. A hush fell over the crowd, quickly replaced by jeers.
“A stick?” Zhen Xian bellowed, clutching the hilt tighter. “You dare insult the Summit of Falling Scales with such insolence?” He charged, a blur of fiery motion. The burning steel arced down, blistering heat preceding it, intending to split Teng Kui from crown to navel.
Teng Kui didn’t move. Not an inch. Only when the flaming blade was a breath from his face did his body shift, a minuscule pivot of his bad foot, a whirl of his torso. The pine staff, held like a quarterstaff, met the weapon's flat just below the hilt. There was no clang, no violent rebound of Qi. Only a sharp, sickening *crack*.
The crowd gasped. Zhen Xian's mouth fell open. The famed blade now lay in two halves. The flaming half, still sputtering, had splintered off, falling to the dust with a pathetic *thud*. The other half, still in Zhen Xian’s grip, was a mangled stump of jagged metal. Teng Kui stood motionless, the dried pine shaft perfectly intact. He didn't even breathe heavily.
Hou San, a whirlwind of opportunistic glee, chose that precise moment to strike. He sprinted through the outer disciple stands, waving a scroll furiously. “Odds! Odds on the Hobbled Ghost! Ten to one! Who wants to bet against the stick wielder? He just shattered a Volcanic Womb blade with dry pine! Who’s got the stones to bet on the great Zhen Xian now?”
Inner sect disciples began to shout in disbelief at Zhen Xian’s humiliation. The weapon was an heirloom, a symbol of pure lineage. To see it snapped by scrap pine defied logic.
“One hundred spirit stones on the Limping Ghost!” A voice boomed.
“Two hundred! He’s a dark horse!”
Hou San’s grin was predatory. He snatched the spirit stones, his fingers a blur, then flicked his wrist. A tiny, nearly invisible thread of Qi snaked from his palm, delivering the hoarded wealth directly into Teng Kui’s pendant.
*“Exquisite, Hou San. Truly exquisite,”* Jiao Zang purred in Teng Kui’s mind, deep satisfaction rippling through the stone. *“More, much more. The Soul-Devouring Art hungers.”*
Zhen Xian, still clutching the broken hilt, finally snapped out of his daze. “You… you gutter rat! You dare!” He lunged, abandoning all technique, simply striking with a furious, unrefined punch.
Teng Kui side-stepped, his movement fluid, almost lazy. He brought the pine shaft up, lightly tapping Zhen Xian behind the knee. The young lord's leg buckled, sending him sprawling face-first into the dirt. A gasp rippled through the stands.
From the high terrace, Ming Xiya watched, her manicured fingers digging into the ornate railing. Zhen Xian’s defeat was irrelevant. What arrested her pulse was the way the hooded fighter shifted his weight, the almost imperceptible dragging of his left foot, the precise, unhurried arc of his arm. It was too familiar. A phantom pain, like a severed limb, flared in her memory. That *footwork*. No disguise, no robe, could hide it. That cold, unyielding precision belonged to only one person.
*He survived,* she thought, a frantic, icy tendril coiling in her gut. *He’s here. He found me.* Her eyes darted to the arena arbiter, a gaunt elder overseeing the matches. She knew the secret controls for the arena’s defensive arrays. They weren't just for keeping spectators safe; they were for ensuring certain outcomes.
A manic gleam entered her eyes. Her fingers twitched, then moved, subtly, beneath the folds of her silken sleeve, tapping a series of hidden runes etched into the terrace railing. A surge of forbidden Qi flooded the conduits, bypassing the elder’s authority. She watched, a predatory smile twisting her lips, as the Sky-Glass barriers surrounding the arena began to hum, not outward as they normally would, but inward, drawing raw Heavenly Lightning from the storm-clouds gathering overhead.
Zhen Xian lay whimpering in the dust. Teng Kui stood over him, the dried bough still in his hand, his hooded face impassive. He heard the subtle shift in the array’s harmonics, a high-pitched whine that spoke of overloaded power. He looked up, his gaze cutting through the Sky-Glass, straight to Ming Xiya on the terrace. For a single terrifying instant, their eyes met.
Then, with a deafening crack that swallowed the crowd’s panicked screams, the Sky-Glass barriers turned black, and a volley of lethal Heavenly Lightning, thick as tree trunks, descended directly upon Teng Kui.