The arena air crackled with the raw power emanating from Bao Hu. He held his posture rigid, flexing the thick cords across his back and shoulders. The spiked iron club carved arcs of wind-shearing force as he spun it. It was a clear statement of intent: dominance, blunt and undeniable. Su Zhiqiu, in contrast, seemed to shrink against the vastness of the arena, a wisp of gray against the sunlit gold of the sand. She adjusted the cedar clip on her left sleeve, a tiny, domestic gesture out of place amidst the grandeur. Her eyes, the colour of pale river stones, held a placid curiosity as she observed Bao Hu, not fear. The smooth bone slat in her hand was as unassuming as she was, its ivory surface unblemished. “Begin!” roared Elder Tian, his voice amplified by a sonic array. The call was barely out of his mouth before Bao Hu moved, a blur of dark muscle and iron spikes. He charged, each ponderous stride shaking the ground, raising plumes of sand that obscured his approach like a miniature dust storm. The heavy mace swung in a shearing arc directly toward Zhiqiu’s head, whistling with lethal momentum. To Zhiqiu, the charging opponent was less a threat and more an exceedingly untidy manuscript. His roaring aura felt like crinkled margins, the iron weapon a particularly stubborn dog-ear. Old Wen often said, “Uncataloged sheets breed chaos. Chaos impedes the flow of knowledge. Restore order, Su Zhiqiu.” She took a short step forward, meeting his momentum with an almost imperceptible shift of her weight. As the iron descended, Zhiqiu’s movements were precise and economical. She didn't dodge. Instead, her left hand, still holding the bone tool, moved like a librarian closing a ledger. With a flick of her wrist, she brought the flat edge of the bone against the weapon's trajectory, not as a block, but as a guide. The world seemed to ripple around Bao Hu. The charging force, the whistling iron, the roaring aura—all of it seemed to compress, to flatten. His momentum didn’t halt; it simply… folded. The spikes of his weapon sank into themselves, the iron flattening into a thin, metallic veneer. His skin, his snarling face, and his massive bulk collapsed into a single, seamless plane of color and shadow. With a faint *snick*, like a fresh leaf being pressed smooth in a leather-bound volume, Bao Hu and his iron weight were no more than a flat, two-dimensional imprint on the sand. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by a distant bird cry. The thousands of spectators, who had been on the verge of erupting in cheers for Bao Hu, now sat frozen, their mouths agape. Elder Tian, halfway through bringing his fist down for a resounding “What a strike!”, found his arm suspended in mid-air, his face a mask of utter disbelief. Zhiqiu, mildly annoyed by the dust, brushed her sleeves with a small sigh. Then, a furious roar tore through the stunned quiet. “You… you witch! What foul art is this?!” Three figures, clad in the vermilion robes of the Blazing-Cauldron Sect, leaped into the ring from the spectator stands. Bao An, Xun Fen, and Ma Zili—senior sect members—landed with bared teeth. They were the lieutenants of Gongsun Ye, and now, they were met with the sight of their comrade, Bao Hu, reduced to a strange, flat etching on the ground. “First Senior Brother Gongsun vanished! Now Bao Hu is… this!” shouted Bao An, veins bulging along his neck. “You demonic wretch! We shall avenge them!” Together, the three seniors unleashed their full cultivation. A vortex of searing scarlet Qi erupted from their cores, spiraling upward into a towering shape. Flames roared, superheated air shimmered, and from the inferno, a colossal serpent of living flame materialized with a deafening shriek. It filled half the arena, coiling its burning body, its maw snapping with hellfire squarely at the diminutive girl. “Such an unruly, burning piece of parchment,” Zhiqiu murmured to herself, squinting against the heat. “Old Wen always said that burning scrolls are a menace to the entire collection. They disrupt the filing order, you see. Must be properly contained.” She gripped her bone smoother more firmly. This was a larger, more volatile sheet than the last. It required the 'Crease-and-Flatten' technique. Old Wen's instructions echoed in her mind: *“For unruly leaves that occupy too much space, a firm scoring along the crease will restore them to proper form. Efficiency in storage is key.”* Guided by repository guidelines, Zhiqiu advanced toward the colossal, fire-breathing beast. The fiery phantom lunged with fangs of pure heat. Zhiqiu lifted her bone tool without a change in stride. She didn't strike with power, but with an odd, almost delicate precision. As the fiery maw descended, Zhiqiu brought the bone flat down in a swift, measured chop. It wasn’t a blow designed for impact, but for definition. Where the tool met the flaming snout, the surrounding space snapped with an audible pop. The roaring flame, the coiled body, and the three summoners fused into its essence buckled together. From the point of impact, an invisible crease propagated across the beast’s entire form. The construct did not explode or dissipate. It simply… collapsed inward. The flames compressed into vibrant scarlet streaks, the scales shifted into fine creases, and the three disciples settled as minute, rendered details inside the perimeter. In less than a blink, the colossal summoners and their beast were transformed. The entire mass compressed into a palm-sized paper-craft lizard, its fiery colors vibrant, the tiny furious faces frozen in two-dimensional detail. The folded craft fluttered down, landing gently on the sand a foot from Zhiqiu’s worn hemp shoe. She bent, picked it up, and examined it with a critical eye, as if checking for proper alignment. “Much tidier now,” she decided, then tucked it into her sleeve beside the cedar clip, a satisfied expression on her face. The arena was utterly, horrifyingly silent. Even the distant bird had ceased its song. Thousands of spectators stared past Zhiqiu into the empty space where two bouts of martial fury had just vanished. Up on the observation deck, the Orthodox Alliance judges rose stiffly to their feet. High Grandmaster Han Xuan, a man whose spiritual pressure could shatter mountains, stood up, his face ashen, his finger trembling as he pointed at Zhiqiu. His voice, usually a booming resonance, was a strained whisper of terror. “She… she is a demonic spy! A practitioner of forbidden spatial arts! Seize her! She must be executed!”

Flattening the Competition