The battlefield had shattered into a dozen frantic duels. Lin Shu flowed away from Xie Lang's magma-fist, and Yu was suddenly there, a streak of hard light intercepting the brawler and driving him back with a series of precise, searing strikes. The momentary relief was all Lin Shu needed. His target wasn't Xie Lang, not anymore.
He pivoted, his eyes locking onto Zeng Shiyang. The axe-wielder was a whirlwind of brute force, trading blows with Han Yi, who danced around his powerful but less agile strikes with the grace of a lightning sprite.
"Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds before my qi core is completely dry and the chameleon technique fails." The countdown was a drumbeat in his skull.
He took a step toward Zeng, but Han Lei, having shaken off his dizziness, cut him off. A blade sheathed in sputtering lightning aimed for his heart. Lin Shu twisted, letting the tip score a line across his already-torn undersuit. Before Han Lei could press, Zeng Shiyang's heavy axe came spinning through the air between them, forcing both to leap back.
"Didn't get them!" Zeng growled, retrieving his weapon with a pull of qi.
Han Yi seized the opening, closing the distance to Zeng and unleashing a point-blank barrage of lightning arrows that forced him into a desperate, clanging defense.
Lin Shu used the chaos. He made his movement look like a stumble, a fighter forced into retreat by Han Lei's relentless pressure. He backed toward the fray between Han Yi and Zeng, his path seemingly dictated by his foe.
Yu, having fended off Xie Lang, Xu Jin, and Yun Qiu in a dazzling display of light and sound, saw Lin Shu's trajectory. He flashed away from his own opponents, becoming a line of brilliance that intercepted the rushing Ouyi and Xiyao, who were trying to flank him. He smashed through their formation, then opened his mouth.
Another Deafening Roar tore through the clearing.
Everyone who heard it clutched their ears, faces contorted. Han Yi flinched, her rhythm broken. Lin Shu had no such luxury to pause; he let the sonic wave hammer into him, feeling his eardrums throb and warm blood trickle down his neck, but he kept his feet moving, his focus absolute.
Yu, unaffected by his own technique, realized Lin Shu's intent the moment he saw the line of his retreat. "Oh don't tell me he's trying to use her, that would mean that he has no other option making this the perfect time to beat him" With another photonic flash, Yu closed the distance, appearing beside Lin Shu as if they were allies regrouping.
"Why is that guy heading towards me now?" Lin Shu thought, a spike of cold annoyance cutting through his pain.
"I think it's time for our fight, don't you think, Li?" Yu's voice was a pleasant murmur right next to his ear.
Then the world turned white. Not a defensive flash, but an offensive one—a burst of light aimed at Lin Shu's face. Lin Shu slammed his eyes shut, but his other senses were a half-step behind. Two hammer-like blows, moving at impossible speed, smashed into his jaw and cheekbone. He swung a blind backhand where the attack had come from, hitting only air. Another fist, this one to the temple, snapped his head sideways.
"Wasn't that guy helping him? Why is he fighting him now?" The question flashed through the minds of everyone still standing—Han Lei, Xie Lang, Ouyi. The alliances had dissolved into pure, opportunistic chaos.
Yanqi, in the arena, watched with a grimace. Yu was within his rights. He could do nothing but watch his investment get pummeled further.
Lin Shu forced his eyes open, vision swimming. He dodged a straight punch from the blur that was Yu, only for the afterimage of the fist to detonate in a concussive burst of light right behind his head. The blast staggered him, ringing his skull like a bell. He didn't fall. He threw himself into a roll, then scrambled backward, his path now taking him directly toward where Han Yi was fending off Zeng Shiyang.
Han Yi saw him coming, a wounded animal fleeing a new predator. She looked at him as suddenly she squinted her eyes"did I meet him before?"she looked at his face it looked familiar to a degree but she couldn't pinpoint where she met him, she quickly got her thoughts together as she prepared herself. As Lin Shu neared, and Yu closed in behind him, she raised her bow and fired a spread of lightning arrows, aiming to pin them both.
Yu dismissed the arrows with a contemptuous wave of light, but the distraction gave Lin Shu a half-second. He was now within ten feet of Han Yi. Yu flashed forward, a blade of solidified light forming in his hand, aimed to pierce Lin Shu's back.
"Let's just end this, Li," Yu said, his voice calm even as he moved to kill. "Give me your token, and I'm on your team again. How about that?"
Lin Shu didn't answer. He couldn't afford the breath. Instead, he made a decision. The last dregs of qi sustaining the chameleon technique were diverted. The subtle, artificial tan of his skin softened to its natural, lighter brown tone. His hair, darkened for disguise, returned to its true, deep brown. The golden color that he kept using his chameleon technique after he stopped using the owl's gaze faded from his eyes, leaving them a dark, familiar browm.
His ivory gauntlets, the last remnants of his armor, began to glow with their inherent, bone-white color, no longer obscured by the dark steel veneer.
Yu's blade of light pierced Lin Shu's shoulder from behind. Lin Shu grunted, the pain a white-hot spike, but he used the forward momentum of the thrust. He planted his feet and, from the soles of his boots, released a controlled, propulsive burst of white flame.
It shot him forward, ripping the light-blade from Yu's grip and out of his own flesh in a spray of blood. He landed in a skid right in front of Han Yi.
Yu smiled, preparing to flash forward and finish it.
A storm of black, slicing feathers shredded the air between them, forcing Yu to abort. Then a rolling wave of black gas and orange fire, a familiar chaotic blast, washed over the space he'd just occupied.
From the bushes, Kai and Shang had entered the fray.
Han Yi, who had been tracking Lin Shu's desperate approach, now froze for a full second. Her eyes, sharp and analytical, locked onto him. The white gauntlets. The white leg greaves. The way he moved—that specific, economical brutality. The hair, the eyes, the face, now clear of artifice... it was coming together. A ghost from a buried, infuriating memory began to stir. "Is that... him?" The question ignited a slow-burning anger in her chest.
Ouyi, always the tactician, saw Lin Shu's trajectory and Han Yi's hesitation. "He's going after Han Yi!" he shouted, lunging forward in a panic.
The shout broke Han Yi's trance. Her confusion crystallized into fury. She attacked, a flurry of lightning-fast strikes with her bow, using it as a blunt staff. Lin Shu, his speed flagging, used tiny, precise bursts of white flame from his feet to correct his dodges, creating small explosive steps that kept him just ahead of her onslaught.
From the other side of the clearing, a new streak of fire joined the chaos. Aoyan, her red hair a banner, emerged from the trees and sent a volley of flaming projectiles at Han Yi. Han Yi conjured a crackling barrier of lightning that dissipated the fire but gave enough time for aoyam to reach her.
Aoyan threw herself at Han Yi, a kick wreathed in cyan flames aiming for her side. Han Yi was forced to divide her attention, parrying Aoyan with her bow while keeping an eye on Lin Shu.
It was the opening he needed. He lunged, his hand shooting for her weapon. Han Yi was ready. With a sharp click, two wickedly sharp blades snapped out from either end of her bow. She slashed horizontally. Lin Shu didn't flinch. His ivory gauntlet shot up and caught one of the blades mid-swing, the metal screeching as it bit into the living bone but failed to break it.
Han Yi's eyes widened at the sheer audacity. She yanked on the bowstring with her other hand, and a crackling arrow of pure lightning formed, aimed point-blank at his exposed chest.
He raised his other gauntlet in a desperate cross-block. The lightning arrow struck. The sound was a deafening CRACK. The ivory gauntlet, already stressed, webbed with fractures and then exploded into shards, leaving his hand bare and bleeding.
But in that same instant, Aoyan's fist, fueled by protective fury, connected solidly with Han Yi's ribs. The impact made Han Yi gasp, her posture breaking.
Ouyi and Xiyao were almost upon them. Aoyan turned to meet Ouyi's charge, their techniques colliding in a blast of opposing elements.
Han Yi tried to stagger back, to regain her footing and distance. Lin Shu, his right hand a ruin, was faster. He pointed his left index finger. A Scorch Piercer, so thin that it didn't equal half the strength of the original, lanced out and took her in the foot. She cried out, her leg buckling, and she fell to one knee.
Lin Shu was on her before she could rise. He closed the distance in one final, explosive step. His bare, bloodied right hand was useless, but his left, still sheathed in its cracked ivory gauntlet, shot out. It didn't strike. It closed like a snake around her throat.
He hauled her up, using her body as a shield, turning to face the clearing. His claws—the sharp, reinforced tips of the gauntlet—pressed into the soft skin of her neck, drawing thin lines of blood.
He found Han Lei's eyes across the carnage. The swordsman had been slowed by Kai's persistent, harassing blasts but was now frozen, his face a mask of horror.
Lin Shu's voice, when it came, was calm, flat, and carried with chilling clarity over the sudden silence. "Give me your tokens. All of them. And back away. If you don't..." He tightened his grip slightly. Han Yi choked, her hands flying up to claw at his wrist, her feet scrambling for purchase. "...I'll twist her neck until it snaps."
Han Yi's struggles slowed. Her wide, furious eyes were no longer on her brother, but on the arm holding her, on the remnants of the white gauntlet. The feel of it. The specific, unyielding pressure. She managed to turn her head just enough to look at Lin Shu's profile from the corner of her eye. Blood was seeping from the scratches his claws had made, warm against her skin.
"Wait... this looks like..." The memory was clawing its way to the surface. "Wait, no. He can't be. Mother said they fell and died in the ravine." Her gaze swept over his face—clean of the web of scars she remembered, but his face, she remembered a younger version that was as equally ruthless as this one, the cold emptiness in his dark brown eyes... it was all a memory she despised, and yet so terrifyingly familiar that she could not take it out of her mind. "He could have healed the scars. His hair, his eyes... it's that same damned look. And his fighting style and this gauntlet I am certain it's made from bones it's the thing that almost took my life how can I forget it."
The pieces locked into place with a horrible, undeniable click. The weak, scarred boy from the institute. The one who'd fought like a cornered rat with Ren Hao and Yan Qing. The one who'd somehow, infuriatingly, gotten the better of her and almost killed her before vanishing, labeled a demonic deserter.
"It must be him. I can't be wrong."
Her furious glare turned into an intense, searching examination. She stared at him, into him, sifting through years of buried humiliation and rage, comparing it to the battered, ruthless young man who now held her life in his bloodstained hand. The question was no longer in her mind. It was in her eyes, burning with a demand for confirmation.