Wei Tianhai descended from the fractured VIP box like a vengeful black phoenix, his dark robes whipping around him. The air crackled with a cruel intent that silenced even the rioting crowd. His grip on Xia’s throat was not just a threat, but a promise of imminent, irreversible end. The glowing dagger, honed from compressed Qi, pressed a cold, sharp line against her skin, a bead of dark scarlet already welling beneath the edge. “The game is over, boy,” Tianhai’s voice was a low growl, devoid of his usual controlled cadence. “You failed to follow the script.” Zhan stood frozen for a fraction of a breath. The shouts of the crowd, the cheers for his name, the lingering heat from his spectral blade—all faded into a dull drone. The world narrowed to his sister, trembling, her eyes wide with fear, and the man who was both his father and his executioner. The rules. The league. The etiquette. They were meaningless. They were a lie. This was not a contest. This was murder. “You… you can’t do this!” Zhan shouted, his voice tearing raw and unpracticed. The fury was cold, precise, stripping away every absurd notion of fair play he’d clung to. This wasn't a foul; it was a blade at his sister’s neck. From a hidden vantage high above, a figure moved with blinding speed. Su Meilin, her face a mask of concentrated resolve, launched herself from the overhang of the highest spectator tier. Her silken robes billowed, not with air, but with a sudden, violent surge of pale azure Qi. A dozen crystalline shards, each keen as an icicle, materialized around her, whistling down like a blizzard of death. They weren't aimed at Tianhai, but at the elite, armored guards converging behind him, their reinforced crossbows already drawing aim at Zhan. The shards struck with surgical precision, embedding themselves in joints and weak points of their armor, freezing limbs, and forcing yelps of pain from the enforcers. It was a calculated, devastating distraction. “Xia!” Meilin’s voice, sharp and clear, sliced through the pandemonium. She landed with a dancer’s grace, a whirlwind of ice and fury, pushing past Tianhai’s momentary shock. With a swift, practiced movement, she hooked an arm around Xia’s waist, pulling her from Tianhai’s grasp just as the dagger began to descend. Tianhai snarled, his eyes flashing with a mix of betrayal and rage. “Traitorous wretch!” Xia stumbled, gasping for breath, as Meilin half-carried, half-dragged her away from the immediate danger, weaving through the chaos that had erupted among the guards. “Zhan! The core array! The plans!” Meilin screamed, her voice cutting through the din. Tianhai rounded on Zhan, his face contorted into a mask of pure venom. “You bring ruin on everything, boy! You should have stayed crippled, stayed dead!” He lunged, a whirlwind of dark robes and malevolent Qi. The glowing dagger, no longer pressed to Xia’s skin, was now aimed squarely at Zhan’s chest. This was not a quick kill; this was an intent to carve out the very heart of his defiant son. Zhan met the charge. The carmine glow around him intensified, reflecting the bloodthirsty glint in Tianhai’s eyes. He didn’t dodge. He moved with a brutal, direct force, a single-mindedness born of absolute desperation. The phantom broadsword, Gluttonous Rust, roared into existence in his hand, an ochre outline mirroring his rage. Tianhai sneered, a dark, pulsing aura flaring around him. “Such raw power, boy. But it’s *mine*!” He channeled his own Qi, a corrupted, jagged force, attempting to create a resonance, to tear at Zhan’s bloodline from within, to make the stolen power turn on its rightful owner. A sickening grinding pressure bore down on Zhan, his own essence twisting and tearing itself apart. “*Mine?*” Old Man Gou’s voice, a delighted cackle deep in Zhan’s mind, reverberated with ancient malice. “You think you can command *my* meal? Such audacity!” Before Tianhai’s technique could fully coalesce, Gou reacted. The ghost blade in Zhan’s hand pulsed violently, not with Zhan’s Qi, but with an insatiable hunger. It wasn’t just the corrupted Qi from Tianhai’s technique that was drawn in; it was the very essence of Tianhai’s bloodline, the essence he had stolen and nurtured in himself. A dark, jagged stream, like thick tar, poured from Tianhai’s outstretched hand, not into Zhan, but directly into the gleaming maw of Gluttonous Rust. Tianhai stared in dawning horror, his face paling as his own Qi felt like it was being ripped from his core. The energy that Gou devoured didn't just vanish; it was processed, purified, and then violently expelled, surging through Zhan’s meridians like a tidal wave of pure, concentrated power. It was too much, almost unbearable, threatening to burst him from within. He felt every nerve, every fiber of his being, screaming with a force he had never imagined possible. “You cheated!” Zhan bellowed, his voice booming with the raw force coursing through him. The blade vanished, the power condensing into his right fist, which glowed with an infernal, pulsing scarlet. Every rule, every perceived infraction, every single wrong Tianhai had inflicted upon his family, culminated in this single, devastating strike. “For Xia! For… Disqualification!” Zhan unleashed the blow. It was not a technique of elegant flow, nor a subtle manipulation of Qi. It was a pure, unadulterated release of destructive force, a punch that bore a lifetime of suppressed fury and the borrowed power of a gluttonous ancient entity. His fist slammed into Tianhai’s chest with the impact of a meteor strike. There was no resistance, no parry. Only a sickening crunch that echoed across the vast arena. A sheet of ruby light erupted from the point of impact, engulfing Tianhai. His body went rigid, his eyes staring, wide and unseeing, at the arena ceiling. The dark, malevolent Qi that had always defined him flickered, sputtered, and then extinguished, like a snuffed candle. His bones groaned, his meridians screamed in agony, his cultivation base, the very foundation of his power, detonated within him, not with a bang, but with a terrible, silent implosion. Wei Tianhai fell, a broken, empty husk, his robes deflating around him, leaving him a pathetic, trembling mess on the cold stone, his Qi utterly annihilated. He coughed, a wet, rattling sound, his eyes unfocused, a stream of dark, viscous fluid dribbling from his lips. The entire stadium shuddered, a deep, resonant hum vibrating through the stands. Zhan’s devastating punch, bolstered by Gou's power, had not just shattered Tianhai. The residual force, a concussive wave of raw, unbound Qi, had ripped through the very foundations of the arena. Deep beneath the floor, the colossal core array, already strained by the day’s brutal events and Zhan’s earlier tampering, groaned. Cracks, thin as spiderwebs, raced across its ancient Runes of Containment. A high-pitched shriek, like the death-wail of a dying beast, emanated from below the earth. The sky above the Vermilion Crane Pavilion, once a placid blue, began to warp, swirling into a vortex of dark, unstable energy. The very air grew thick, shimmering with an impending, catastrophic meltdown that threatened to vaporize the entire city before Xia could be secured.

Disqualifying the Coach