The air in Chakri Hall seemed to thicken, pressing against Takhon’s eyelids like a weighted blanket. He blinked again, genuinely unsure why Prajai looked so pleased. “Death-Swamp Gauntlet?” Takhon repeated, the words a gentle hum. He had thought he could just nap for a bit after the long ordeal.
“Indeed,” Prajai’s voice was a blade of ice. “The immediate entry protocol requires no prior rest. A teleportation array awaits you.” A ripple of shocked murmurs swept through the spectators. Sirin stepped forward, teeth pressed into her lower lip. Kiet’s face drained of color, his gaze darting between Takhon and the smirking Young Master Phan.
Before Takhon could fully process the words, a shimmering portal the color of stagnant pond water materialized behind Prajai. Two armored guards, their faces impassive beneath bronze helms, stepped from its depths. They flanked Takhon, their movements swift and practiced, guiding him without a word towards the swirling vortex.
“Wait!” Sirin’s cry was sharp, tearing through the hall. She lunged, but an elder’s hand clamped down on her shoulder, holding her back. Her gaze pleaded with Takhon, a silent agony etched on her face. Takhon offered her a small, sleepy smile, a flicker of reassurance that felt like a lie even to himself.
Then, he was pushed into the portal. The world spun, a cacophony of rushing air and distorted light, before spitting him out onto a slick, algae-covered gangway. The air hit him with a humid, sickly-sweet stench of decay and blooming corpse-lilies. Below, a murky expanse of black water stretched into a suffocating fog, dotted with gnarled, skeletal trees. Giant, iridescent swamp-flies buzzed with a low thrum.
“Welcome, Takhon, to the Shambling Fen!” a voice boomed from unseen speakers, echoing across the putrid landscape. “The objective is simple: cross the fen and reach the Naga-Stone spire before the toxic mist consumes all paths. Cultivation is suppressed by seventy percent within these waters. Any use of prohibited artifacts or outside assistance will result in instant disqualification and severe punishment.”
“Takhon! Wake up, you lump of sun-dried dung!” Chom’s ancient voice screeched in his mind. “They’ve thrown you into a meat grinder! This isn’t a competition; it’s an assassination attempt!”
Takhon yawned, stretching his arms. The humid air felt heavy, almost comforting. He could really use a nap here. The wooden gangway was narrow, barely wide enough for one person. He took a single, slow step.
Suddenly, the water beside him churned. Two figures, clad in the Naga-crest Pavilion’s dark robes, burst from the murk, their faces contorted with malice. They were followed by a lumbering hulk of mud and reeds, easily twice Takhon’s height, its eyes glowing with a sickly green light. It was a loam behemoth, a notoriously difficult swamp construct.
“Phan wants you to suffer, cripple!” one of them, a stocky disciple with a chipped tooth, snarled. “He said to make sure you don’t even reach the first bridge!”
Before Takhon could respond, another figure leaped from the misty bank onto the planks. It was Kiet, his face pale, his hands trembling. “Don’t!” he yelled, his voice cracking.
The two cronies ignored him. The loam behemoth raised a moss-covered fist, aiming for Takhon’s head. At the same time, the stocky disciple slammed a talisman onto the wood. A sickly purple light erupted, coalescing into a shimmering, hexagonal array directly beneath Takhon’s feet. It pulsed with a draining energy, meant to cripple one’s meridians.
“This is for Sirin!” Kiet screamed, throwing himself onto the glowing array, his body a shield. The purple light flared, searing into his robes, and he cried out, collapsing to his knees, his face twisted in pain. His spiritual energy visibly plummeted, leaving him pale and gasping.
Takhon’s eyes, heavy with sleepiness, snapped open. Kiet, on the ground, twitching in agony. The cronies laughing. The mud-beast’s fist descending. Something in Takhon’s chest tightened, a cold, hard knot. The lazy apathy, the profound desire for slumber, evaporated like mist in the sun.
A faint, almost imperceptible crackle sounded from deep within his chest, a hairline fracture appearing on the divine seal. A sliver of power, cold and ancient, leaked out, flowing not into his limbs, but towards his hand, where the grimy wooden artifact from his table leg now felt impossibly warm. He wasn't thinking of fighting; he was thinking of Kiet's pain, of Sirin's sacrifice, of the encroaching deadline.
“Chom,” he mumbled, his voice flat and low. “Just… ten breaths.”
“Ten breaths for what, you dolt?!” Chom shrieked. “To find a softer pillow?”
But Takhon was already moving. His eyes, though still heavy-lidded, seemed to see everything. The lumbering mud-beast, the two grinning disciples, the unstable walkway beneath his feet. The world around him slowed, blurred into a dreamlike fluidity.
He sidestepped the behemoth’s blow with a mere shift of his weight. The construct's fist splintered the timber where Takhon had stood an instant before. The two attackers lunged, one thrusting a poisoned dagger, the other unleashing a spray of corrosive swamp-qi. Takhon simply leaned back, his body swaying like a reed in a gentle current, letting both attacks pass harmlessly by.
His hand, guided by the weathered timber, moved with practiced ease. A light tap on the dagger-wielder’s wrist. The man's arm went numb, the dagger clattering into the water. A gentle shove to the other disciple's chest. The man stumbled as his venomous technique backfired, choking him into a coughing fit.
“What are you doing, you imbecile?!” Chom screamed. “Kill them! Disintegrate them! They’re trying to harm your friends!”
Takhon ignored him. He didn’t want to harm them; he just wanted them to stop. His movements were less like martial arts and more like a drowsy dance. He swayed, he dipped, he floated. He weaved through the construct's clumsy attacks, placing soft, open-handed strikes along its joints. Each contact caused the golem to shudder, mud flaking off, until a final nudge to its core dissolved it into inert muck.
The two disciples, enraged, lunged again, but Takhon was already moving down the walkway. One tried to tackle him from behind. Takhon, without even looking, extended his hand, palm open. The attacker ran straight into it, taking a soft impact against his forehead. His eyes rolled up, and he crumpled, unconscious.
The other disciple hesitated, backing away. Takhon merely yawned, his gaze still half-closed. He passed by, leaving the remaining swordsman frozen against the railing. Takhon didn’t look back.
He continued through the swamp, a blur of sleepy motion. Other ambushers hidden in the mist struck out from the reeds. Towering water-serpents lunged. Traps of sticky, venomous vines sprung from the murk. Takhon, in his drowsy trance, simply flowed around them, through them, past them. A soft touch to a water-serpent’s head, and it became docile, swimming harmlessly away. A light tap to a brawler's neck, and the man slumped against a trunk, snoring softly.
His path was a line of unconscious bodies and neutralized threats. He seemed to float, not walk, across the precarious, rotting planks, his eyes barely slits, a faint, almost imperceptible hum emanating from the ancient timber in his hand.
He reached the foot of the Naga-Stone spire, a black obelisk piercing the fog, its surface slick with algae. He placed a bare foot on the first step, stepping over the finish line. A collective gasp rose from the unseen spectators, followed by a stunned silence. Takhon blinked, the drowsy trance fading slightly, leaving him feeling utterly drained. He wanted nothing more than to curl up right there.
“Takhon! You idiot! You absolute, uncultured lump of gristle!” Chom’s voice roared in his mind, not with anger, but with sheer, unadulterated terror. “The seal is cracking under the strain! The deadline just skipped months ahead—you’re burning through your remaining days!”