The temporary alliance was a house of cards, and the first gust of distrust blew through it immediately. Yu took a step forward, his eyes fixed on Han Lei. "I'll take that one," he stated, his voice calm.
Lin Shu didn't even look at him. "No, you won't." His words were flat, final. "I was fighting him before you got here. His qi is obviously lower. You're not taking the easiest one, Yu."
Yu's placid mask didn't crack. He merely tilted his head. "Alright. Then I'll give you half his points."
Lin Shu's mind, a well of cold pragmatism, accepted the offer for what it was: a meaningless promise. "You know what? It wouldn't matter. I'll backstab him immediately when I'm done with Xie Lang and take all his points anyway." He shifted his stance toward the grinning brawler. "Fine. You can have him."
A flicker of a smile touched Yu's lips—a predator pleased the bait was taken. He turned his attention to Han Lei, and the placid mask melted away into something sharp and focused. "Let's see what made you so superior to me in the past."
Han Lei's brow furrowed in genuine confusion; he was certain he'd never met this man. He got no chance to question it. Intense light burst from Yu's arms. His bluish hair lifted as if caught in a static charge. Then he vanished, not in a blur, but in a blinding, straight-line streak of solidified light.
Han Lei roared, meeting the charge not with a dodge, but with a corona of erupting lightning. CRACK-BOOM! The two forces collided, light against storm.
What followed was a dizzying display. Yu didn't just move fast; he flashed, disappearing from one point and appearing at another in jarring, photonic jumps. He harried Han Lei from all sides. The swordsman was not much slower, his lightning-refined body allowing him to parry and weave through the onslaught. Yu opened his palm and fired a compact sphere of condensed light. Han Lei, wary, sidestepped it. The sphere shot past him and detonated ten feet behind, not with force, but with a silent, overwhelming burst of brilliance that turned the world white.
Han Lei cursed, throwing an arm over his eyes. That half-second of blindness was all Yu needed. He materialized inside Han Lei's guard and drove a fist sheathed in hard light into his stomach. The air left Han Lei's lungs. A flurry of follow-up strikes, each a short, sharp flash of impact, hammered his ribs and chest, sending him crashing to the dirt.
Han Lei rolled, lightning erupting from his body in a desperate, expanding sphere to force Yu back. As Yu retreated, he fired another thin beam of light. Han Lei met it with a whip-crack of lightning, but the beam wasn't meant to pierce; it was another flash-bang. It exploded on contact, filling Han Lei's vision with searing whiteness again.
Blinded, Han Lei tried to rely on his other senses, straining to feel the shift in the air, the vibration in the ground.
"HE'S BEHIND YOU, LEI!"
The voice was Xie Lang's, raw with warning from across the clearing. Han Lei spun, his blade lashing out in a full-force arc of lightning behind him. It cut through empty air.
Yu appeared not behind, but beside him, smashing an elbow into the side of Han Lei's head. "Didn't he say he was behind me?" The disorientation was weaponized.
Han Lei shook off the stars and counter-attacked, but Yu was already a fading afterimage, flashing away. As Han Lei's vision began to clear in watery blotches, another sphere of light detonated in front of his face. This time, he slammed his eyes shut, relying on pure instinct.
"HE'S ABOVE YOU, LEI!" Xie Lang's voice shouted again.
Han Lei didn't question it. He thrust his sword skyward, a thick bolt of lightning ascending with it. He felt no contact. He blinked his eyes open, looking up at an empty sky.
Light flashed directly in front of his down-turned face. Yu was there, smiling faintly. A piston-like punch rocketed up into Han Lei's jaw, snapping his head back and lifting him off his feet. Before Han Lei could even begin to fall, Yu's mouth opened.
"Peak-Tier Rank 1 Technique: Deafening Roar."
There was no visible wave, only a sudden, violent pressure. The very air compacted and vibrated with a frequency that bypassed the ears and attacked the brain directly. The ground at their feet cracked in a spiderweb pattern. Han Lei screamed, a raw sound of pure agony, as blood instantly seeped from both his ears. Everyone else in the vicinity—Ouyi, Xiyao, Xu Jin, Yun Qiu—clutched their heads, their faces contorted in pain.
Xie Lang, farther away, winced but remained functional. "A sound technique? That's a nasty trick."
His moment of distracted analysis cost him. Lin Shu, seeing the opening, closed the distance in three strides. A punch cratered Xie Lang's cheekbone. A second shattered his guard. A third snapped his head back before he could even process the first. By the time Xie Lang roared and dropped into a defensive stance, his nose was bleeding and his vision swam.
"Hey! That's a cheap shot, Li!" Xie Lang spat, wiping blood from his lip.
Lin Shu ignored him. His eyes swept the periphery. He saw Ouyi and Xiyao, seeing their leader grievously wounded, begin to fall back. Xu Jin and Yun Qiu, sensing the tide turning, immediately disengaged and followed, melting into the trees. Chi Su saw her chance. She grabbed Ran's arm and hissed a command. They hauled the unconscious Weize up and began a stumbling retreat into the forest.
She looked back once, her eyes full of venomous promise, meeting Lin Shu's gaze across the ruined field. In that frozen second, she could have sworn she saw him smile behind the remnants of his broken helm. Then he raised his arm, not at her, but at Jue, who was struggling to support Weize's other side.
"GET DOWN, JUE!" Su screamed.
It was too late. A thin, incandescent line—a Scorch Piercer—lanced from Lin Shu's fingertip. It tore through Jue's thigh with a sizzling tear. He collapsed with a shriek, dropping Weize. Yue screamed and ran toward her twin. Another Piercer took her in the shoulder, spinning her to the ground. A third shot toward Su, who threw herself sideways, feeling the heat of it sear past her cheek.
"Damnit! He'll kill me at this rate! I have to get out!" Survival instinct, cold and absolute, overrode everything else. She turned and fled, abandoning her siblings without a backward glance.
Ran looked from her fleeing sister to her wounded siblings on the ground. The calculation of loyalty versus survival was brief. "WAIT! DON'T LEAVE US HERE! RAN! SU, PLEASE!" Jue's desperate cries were met with the sound of Su's retreating footsteps. Ran's face crumpled, but her feet moved, following Su into the safety of the trees.
Lin Shu watched the pitiful scene for half a breath before a furious roar brought his attention back. Xie Lang's magma-wreathed fist was inches from his face. "Hey, you bastard! Don't mock me! Focus on our fight! You have more than you can handle right in front of you!"
Lin Shu flowed backward, letting the punch graze his already-cracked chest plate. He re-engaged, his movements becoming purely defensive again, a holding pattern.
On the ground, Jue and Yue sobbed, clutching their ruined limbs. Weize groaned, his eyes fluttering open as he clutched his pounding head. They grabbed at him, their voices desperate. "Weize! We have to go! Help us, please! We saved you from them!"
Weize blinked blearily, pushing himself up. "Where's Su?" he mumbled, looking around.
"She left us! We need to get away before that freak comes back to finish us!"
Weize's face hardened, but he didn't seem surprised. With a grunt of effort, he hauled Jue over one shoulder and helped Yue to her feet, supporting her with his other arm. He began a staggering, painful run for the opposite tree line.
Lin Shu, mid-parry with Xie Lang, saw the movement. He tried to angle a Scorch Piercer toward them, but a sword suddenly flashed into his vision. Yun Qiu had circled back, his face set. Lin Shu dodged the slash and launched a kick at the swordsman's knee, but Xu Jin was there, his body having swelled with mass and muscle. He intercepted the kick with a meaty forearm and drove a counter-punch into Lin Shu's side.
Lin Shu used the impact on his raised leg to push himself into a spinning retreat, but Xie Lang was already there, a human battering ram. Lin Shu raised his arm, and the last of his stored lightning crackled to life, meeting Xie Lang's charge in a concussive clash that forced the brawler back a step.
The internal ledger was grim. "This doesn't look good. My qi is two minutes away from complete depletion. The armor is cracking in too many places. I can't use Infernal Force without the armor to channel it and defend against the backlash. All I have left are the gauntlets and leg greaves to use in battle. I should use Piercers just to keep them off me, but that's a delaying tactic, not a victory. Fighting Xie Lang, who still has at least a third of his qi, is an obvious loss. And there's no guarantee Yu won't turn on me the second I'm vulnerable. I need to guarantee my survival. Now."
Across the way, Yu was systematically breaking Han Lei down. The sonic assault had given him a dominant advantage. "This guy has sound-based techniques mixed in," Han Lei realized, his ears still ringing. "When Xie Lang 'called' to me... that was him mimicking the voice."
Just as Yu moved in for what looked like a finishing combination, Ouyi and Xiyao surged forward from where they'd been guarding Han Yi. Their synchronized attacks—a whip of thorned vines from Ouyi and a concussive blast of air from Xiyao—forced Yu to disengage in a flash of light.
Yu landed lightly, a smirk on his face as he watched them form a protective ring around the kneeling, bleeding Han Lei. "Of course you need others to help you," he taunted. "Why did I expect anything else?"
Han Lei said nothing, using the precious seconds to circulate his remaining qi, trying to stem the internal bleeding and repair his damaged eardrums.
---
Back in the arena, Yanqi was no longer just watching; he was analyzing with a fierce, proud intensity. His disciple hadn't just survived a gauntlet of prodigies; he had, through sheer grit and ruthless calculation, beaten them back. He was certain that even without Yu's intervention, Lin Shu would have found some brutal, pragmatic path to survival. Kuang Baotu grinned at the spectacle. Lu Zhenhai watched his nephew's plight with concern but not anger; this was the tempering fire of the hunt. Tianhun observed Lin Shu's performance against his grandson with a measuring, respectful gaze.
"Still, it's disappointing he didn't bag any of the Chi heirs," Yanqi mused, "but it was inevitable, fighting so many at once." A new thought took root. "I should take him as my official disciple after this. He'll be of great use. And I'm sure Aoyan will have picked up a few things from him, too."
His hopeful thoughts faltered as he watched the cube. Lin Shu's armor, the magnificent, resilient shell that had defied so much, was finally failing. A punch from Xie Lang shattered the chest plate. A combined blow from Yun Qiu and Xu Jin sheared away the shoulder guards. The dark steel fell away in pieces, leaving only the scarred ivory gauntlets and greaves clinging to his limbs as well as half his helm, his torso and head now exposed but for his undersuit.
"He's reached his limit," Tianhun observed, his voice carrying no malice, only factual assessment. "Amazing tenacity, but it can only carry you so far after so many battles."
Yanqi's face tightened with worry, but then he looked closer. On Lin Shu's half exposed face, streaked with dirt and blood, there was no panic. His eyes were calm, calculating, almost… expectant.
"Wait. He's not panicking. He must have something left. If he's this calm, he has a plan." Clinging to that sliver of hope, Yanqi leaned forward, his eyes glued to the projection.
---
"I can't use my Infernal Force without hurting myself now. Without the armor to channel and contain it, the backlash would be catastrophic. I only have my gauntlets and leg pieces left. I should just use Piercers to push them back and create an opening... for my real move."
Han Lei and Yu were locked in their stalemate, Yu momentarily held at bay by Ouyi and Xiyao. Yu took a half-step back, his mind working. "Spent a lot of my qi on that flurry. I don't have Li's insane armor. Fighting a 3-v-1 now isn't safe. I should leave." A brighter, more malicious idea bloomed. "Actually, why not do something even better?"
He disengaged from the standoff completely, ignoring Han Lei, and flashed toward the other fight, where Lin Shu was being cornered.
Han Lei watched him go, baffled. "What is that guy's deal?"
Lin Shu dodged a wild haymaker from Xie Lang only to take a solid, bruising punch from the enlarged Xu Jin directly on his now-unarmored ribs. He grunted, the air knocked from him, but his hands shot out. Instead of blocking, his ivory-reinforced fingers closed like vices on Xu Jin's massive forearm and ripped, taking a chunk of flesh and muscle with them. Xu Jin bellowed in pain. Yun Qiu lunged to his partner's defense, his sword a silver streak. Lin Shu sidestepped the blade, let it pass harmlessly in front of his chest, and drove his forehead into Yun Qiu's face with a sickening crunch. The swordsman dropped like a stone.
But the motion left him open. Xie Lang, a force of pure momentum, was there. A fist, sheathed in glowing, hardened magma, connected with Lin Shu's jaw. The sound was like a rock breaking. The last remaining pieces of Lin Shu's facial helm exploded away, revealing his full face, bloody but set in a grimace of pure will.
---
In the bushes thirty yards away, Kai and Aoyan watched, their breaths held. Kai's face was slick with cold sweat. Aoyan's hands were clenched so tight her nails drew blood from her palms.
"We have to go and help him now, Kai!" Aoyan whispered, her voice trembling with urgency.
Kai didn't answer, his mind racing. "Damnit! What happened after we left? Where did all these monsters come from? Even Yu is here! I can't risk Aoyan around them... but I can't just watch Li get torn apart. If it was just me, I'd have jumped in already. But I have to keep her safe, and she keeps refusing to leave!"
A hand, heavy and sudden, landed on Kai's shoulder from behind.
"Damn, our brother doesn't look like he's in a good shape, Kai."
Both Kai and Aoyan nearly jumped out of their skins, spinning around and falling back onto the moss. Crouched beside them, as if he'd been there the whole time, was a young man with long, shaggy brown hair streaked with black stripes like a beast's pelt. Shang smiled, his eyes gleaming with manic amusement.
"What's with that reaction, Kai? It's just me."
"What is wrong with you?" Kai hissed, his heart hammering. "Can't you greet people like a normal person? Why do you have to sneak up on us in the middle of a battlefield? And who the hell said we're your brothers?"
Shang's smirk widened. "So, what are you doing? You're not gonna go help him? That's not a good brotherly example."
Kai gave up. Arguing with Shang was like arguing with a hurricane. "It's pointless to argue with a chicken brain like you." His thoughts moved to something else" wait how did you even find us?"
Shang shrugged. "Well, don't you know? There are bounties on multiple individuals now, including you guys. And myself, of course. I just followed the trail of broken things and loud noises as well as location you were seen at by others. You didn't think all that commotion only attracted the strong, did you? The weak ones are watching too, selling locations to everyone who can pay. It's happened to me twice already on the way here."
Aoyan couldn't take the casual conversation. "WHY ARE YOU TWO TALKING? LI MIGHT ACTUALLY DIE IF THIS CONTINUES!"
Kai jolted, Shang's arrival having momentarily derailed him. "Damnit, this guy is wasting my time!"
Shang's smile didn't fade. He pointed a finger toward the clearing. "No, he's not. Look at him. Is that the face of someone who's dying?"
They looked. Through the foliage, they saw Lin Shu, now trading blows with Zeng Shiyang while using precise, small Ivory Detonations from his gauntlets to keep Xie Lang at bay. Across the way, Yu had engaged Han Yi, forcing Zeng to split his attention. On Lin Shu's exposed face, despite the blood and bruising, there was no fear. There was only a cold, terrifying focus.
"You don't have to worry about him," Shang said, his tone unnervingly confident. "He'll be just fine."
Aoyan shook her head violently. "I don't care! I'm still going to help!"
Kai looked from Aoyan's determined, frightened face to Shang's amused one, then back to the brutalizing fight. The calculus of risk and loyalty tore at him.
Shang stood up, brushing leaves from his pants. He cracked his neck, and the air around him seemed to grow denser, hotter. "Alright," he said, his voice losing its playful edge, gaining a predatory roughness. "Let's go help our brother, Kai."
"You know I hate you, right?" Kai muttered, pushing himself to his feet, his own qi beginning to stir, black gas curling from his fingertips.
Shang threw his head back and laughed, a sound that was more bark than mirth. "You're as funny as ever, Kai! Come on. Let's go."