Dawn crawls across the drained pavilion like the slow opening of a copper fan, its first rays snagging on the wet sheen of freshly carved blood-grooves. The koi pond has been emptied; what remains is a stone lotus diagram cut into the floor, eight broad petals veined with channels that slope toward a throat-wide drain. Two identical jian lie at opposite tips of the bloom—blades untarnished, hilts wrapped in new hemp as if the weapons themselves were guests forced to wear house colors. Jang tastes iron in the chill vapour lifting off the flagstones. Each inhalation drags the scent of old water and sharper, alchemical dust ground from star-vine to keep the runnels thirsty. The hush that holds the pavilion does not belong to morning; it belongs to a court awaiting the first footstep that will decide whether it becomes a temple or a slaughterhouse.
That step arrives as Grandmaster Baek mounts the jade dais. Polished staff thuds once, absorbing the scattered coughs of the gathered elders, the rustle of banners, the frog-croaks still clinging to the pond's far wall. Baek's robes fall into perfect pleats. Beside him the crimson ledger waits, pages pinned open by a single obsidian stylus, and behind it the Execution Bell hangs—no bigger than a rice pot, yet every disciple swears its toll can fracture marrow. Jang's wrists throb in time with that memory. The manacle burn left jagged welts that still smell of scorched leather; yesterday's heat seems to live inside the skin, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Guard-captain An presses a palm between Jang's shoulder-blades, guiding him onto the western petal. The stone is colder than frost through the thin soles of servant shoes. Across the lotus Seo Yun-tae steps into the eastern petal, bronze tiger-mask gleaming with lacquered menace. Beneath the mask a satisfied curl of lip leaks through, and the pavilion's hush frays into whispers—Copper-Tiger style, perfect match for the armour motif, a spectacle for the nobles who crane from the outer rail.
Baek lifts his staff again; three measured strikes against the dais produce a resonance that ripples through the stone diagram. "Creed enters," he intones. "Blood weighs truth. Let strength weigh guilt." The elders echo the line in a braid of old voices, and a scribe repeats it onto parchment as though the phrase itself were a verdict already signed.
Manacle scars itch. Jang flexes fingers once, then stills them. A steward steps forward bearing silk cords; they tie one around Seo's sword wrist, one around Jang's—ritual measure to prove neither combatant wields hidden talismans. The steward retreats; the cords glow a brief ember-white and fade, spell bound.
Baek gestures. Two junior adepts lift the twin jian and carry them to their places at the lotus tips. No signal is needed; the audience breathes in, a single lung of expectation.
Seo moves first, snapping up his blade in a reverse grip, letting the tiger mask catch the sun so it blinds onlookers behind Jang. Copper-Tiger Saber Form normally favours the dao, but Seo adjusts, wide diagonal arcs translating saber memory into straight-sword edge. The first sweep whistles toward Jang's neck. Branch-Step answers: heel skims the rail, sole kisses bamboo just long enough to divert weight, and he is gone, leaving the arc to shear empty air. Second strike comes low; Jang's balance tilts, torso folding over the pass like reed beneath storm. Footwood clacks echo under him, a heartbeat counter-point to the crowd's murmur cresting like surf against rock.
He lands inside the third strike and feels wind graze the top of his ear. Too close. Seo's grin widens behind bronze; he pivots, reverse cuts hammering from hip to temple. Jang ducks—faster than thought now, muscle memory drilled in coal-cellar hours, but the saber line kisses cloth at his shoulder, slicing thread without touching skin. Wood splinters where the blade finishes, sparks scattering like startled fireflies.
Voices surge from the elder rings: surprise, approval, worry—each faction colours its exhale. Baek does not move. The Execution Bell remains silent, its mouth a dark promise.
Jang circles left, Branch-Step light yet deliberate, never giving the rail enough weight to crack. He tastes metal at the back of his throat, Gate-pressure climbing as he holds Lotus-Mist in check, refusing to spend it yet. Across the diagram Seo sets feet in the ten-claw stance: knees flexed, sword fore, offhand claw angled to rip at openings. The mask growls when he speaks. "Run, rat-petal. Bridge won't save you twice."
Jang does not answer. Instead he lets memory slow time—the furnace hiss, the coal crack, the bloom of slate petals against stone—until pulse thins to a silent thread. He sees the lotus beneath their feet: eight petals, each a pathway of possibility. He steps again, this time letting heel touch full weight, stone grating under worn sole. The sound is deliberate, a challenge. Seo accepts, lunging.
Saber tip flickers under guard, a Copper-Tiger feint meant to draw parry high while the real claw scythes ribs. Jang reads the shoulder twitch a fraction sooner; Branch-Step folds him around the first line, but the second still grazes. Steel kisses forearm. Pain is instant, bright, yet small—until blood, hot and thin, streaks down to the manacle scar. Crimson meets char. A hiss rises, audible even over the collective gasp. The Execution Bell answers with a single, low chord that vibrates inside teeth and bone, the sound of guilt measured and recorded.
Crowd roar breaks like cresting surf: first blood for the tiger. Elders nod; junior disciples cheer. Somewhere Jisoo's breath catches, though Jang cannot hear it, only feels the crowd's swell as pressure against skin.
He slides back three paces, arm burning like a brand. Qi skitters around the wound, eager to clot, but he clamps down on flow—he needs the pain, needs the rhythm. Lotus-Bloom is not built on serenity; it flowers from ash and marrow. He exhales, long and flat, visualising three slate petals rotating in the air between them. Petal one anchors on Seo's leading foot. Petal two angles toward the exposed rib seam just under copper lamella. Petal three hovers in the mind's eye, ready to close the triangle into force.
Seo comes again, confident now, saber high. Jang plants, pivoting off the painful arm, and drives the triangle home.
Stone booms beneath the strike. Three petals—grey Qi visibly flaked with iron dust—hammer Seo's breastplate in rapid succession: thump-thump-CRACK. Copper scales buckle inward, rib cartilage bending. Seo staggers, breath punched free in a ragged bark.
Around them elders murmur, voices tilting from certainty toward wonder. Jang remains rooted, pulse hammering, tinnitus rising in one ear like distant surf. Lotus-Bloom has answered first blood; the duel stands even, yet the tiger's armor shows the tale in metal bruise.
He inhales through nostrils that smell of blood and star-vine dust. The wound on his arm pulses, but Gate-pain beneath it beats harder. Another hybrid burst will push tinnitus into white silence. He files the cost away; Dawn's promise does not accept bargains.
Across the lotus Seo rips buckled plates aside and laughs, bronze mask gleaming with fresh dents. "Petals can dent a beast, but claws tear the root." Voice echoes metallic, but bravado wavers under pain.
Jang lifts sword point and lets silence answer.
The tiger roars and charges.