1. The Arena Cracks Open
The crowd was deafening—until it wasn't.
When Lee Haneul's Mind Dantian ignited, it wasn't flashy. No booming explosions. No glowing runes stretching across the heavens. Just a slow, serene lotus of light blooming above his crown—soft and elegant like falling snow, but humming with infinite pressure.
The wind died.
Spectators leaned forward unconsciously, as if drawn into his gravity.
Across from him, Liang Bao grinned like a madman. Blood-red Qi curled off his arms in waves, the cursed sigils on his back glowing like demonic tattoos. He hadn't drawn his weapon. Not yet.
"So you did inherit it," Liang spat. "The Nameless One's breathing style. I'll rip it from your spine."
Haneul's eyes remained closed.
Then he whispered.
"You already lost the moment you tried to speak over silence."
And with that—the arena shattered.
2. The Puppetmaster's Banquet
Deep beneath the coliseum, behind a waterfall of Qi-infused mist, a banquet was taking place.
Six figures sat in a perfect hexagon. Their robes did not match. Some wore sect uniforms, some bore symbols of foreign clans, and one wore nothing—only flesh inscribed with ancient tattoos, each line pulsing with sealed power.
At the center of the table sat a bowl filled with black sand.
One drop of blood landed in it.
The bowl hissed.
And a name appeared in the sand: Murim Alliance Leader - Sung Ijun.
"It's confirmed," said the silent woman. "He's vulnerable during the last hour of the tournament. No aura shield. No decoys. No cursed wards. We strike then."
The tattooed man grinned. "What about his successor?"
"He has no heir. That was the point. The end of one world…"
"…brings the birth of another," they finished in unison.
A new symbol formed in the sand. One that hadn't been seen since the War of Wills.
The Godless Banner.
3. Mind vs. Madness
Back in the arena, Haneul and Liang still hadn't moved.
But everything around them had.
The stone platform was now a mental domain, projected by Haneul's activated Mind Dantian. A landscape of paradoxes: inverted mountains, rivers flowing in midair, and lotus petals drifting upward instead of falling.
But Liang laughed.
"You think you're the only one who touched the Everwake?"
He tore open his chest.
Inside: a corrupted Dantian—half Mind, half Spirit—glued together with void Qi. His entire torso roared as corrupted thoughts erupted into a storm of images, voices, and fragmented memories of other cultivators he'd devoured.
"We both walk between futures, Lee Haneul. But only one of us is real."
Then he attacked.
4. The Watching Kings
From the viewing platform above, the Five Kings sat in guarded silence.
General Kwan leaned forward. "That boy… he isn't just talented. He's beyond cultivation."
Elder Cho's eyes were hard. "He's touching truths he shouldn't even see. The Nameless One's influence is too strong."
The Third King, a quiet monk, simply muttered: "If he wins, the next world order won't be Murim… it'll be him."
But in the farthest shadow of the platform, hidden behind charm-woven veils, the Alliance Leader watched alone.
He did not cheer.
He