The dented lamellae over Seo's heart still quiver from the slate-petal impact, but the tiger is already moving, rage turning pain into raw acceleration. Copper-Tiger footwork devours the remaining distance, claws scraping stone for grip, saber snapping around his torso in a crescent meant to shear Jang from hip to crown.
Jang lets the blade come. One Branch-Step places him inside the arc, elbow brushing the hiss of steel. The next beat he feels—rather than hears—the gate in his spine flare, a deep bronze ringing under the tinnitus that has begun to cloud the edges of sound. He rides the ache, pivots on the ball of his rear foot, and launches the second movement of Lotus-Bloom.
This time the petal is a feint.
Seo answers the flicker by dropping low, unleashing the Tiger-Tail Sweep: a spinning cut that turns the saber into a waist-high scythe and his plated boot into a hooking talon. Crowd gasps fuse into a single inhalation. Stone dust skitters after the sweeping leg. Jang is already airborne, knees tucked. For an eyeblink he hangs inverted; in that stillness memory overlays the moment—grey petals intersecting violet talon vectors at one-hundred-and-twenty degrees, the sketch he drew in lamp-lit secrecy.
He lets the geometry choose for him.
Sword in the left hand acts as axis, body corkscrews. The Heart-Lotus Spiral blooms: leading foot slams onto Seo's sweeping shin, killing the rotation; right arm descends, straight blade drilling down through the narrow guard ring of Seo's saber-hand with the inevitability of water finding a drain. Metal shrieks. The guard splits; point drives through and punches flesh. A mist of arterial red arcs across the nearest lotus petal on the floor before suction pulls it into the blood groove.
Only then does sound return—a layered roar: steel clatter, elder shouts, a child's shriek smothered by adults. The Execution Bell remains mute, as if stunned into respect.
Seo howls, staggering backward, sword dangling uselessly from ruined fingers. The tiger mask twists, breath rasping against bronze. Anger eclipses agony; orange Qi ignites along the seams of his armour, leaking from vents like forge-fire searching fresh ore. Tiles vibrate. Cracks crawl from the tiger's boots, webbing outward to the groove drains. Elders lean forward—some in awe, some in calculation—because everyone recognises the tell-tale flare of the Tiger-Maul Finisher. It has ended more duels than the bell has ever witnessed.
Jang's ears ring so loudly the world seems wrapped in frost. Blood trickles from his left nostril, tapping stone in tiny, even beats. He feels the manacle scars pulse, as if the iron fangs still clamped there are warning him: one more surge and the Gate may sheer. He breathes anyway, shallow but precise, counting the rise and fall of his ribcage like steps on invisible bamboo.
Grey-Pine breath. Wan-Il's grave, roots drinking pain.
Seo stamps forward, each step cratering stone. He abandons finesse; every clawed gauntlet strike aims to shatter bone. Jang meets the first hammering chop with the flat of his blade angled just so, letting momentum glance down the prepared line. Petal one. The second blow rides up toward his throat; elbow intercepts, the sheathed Lotus-Mist kissing copper with a hiss. Feather one. Pain arcs from wrist to shoulder, but alignment holds.
Then the third beat arrives—the core of Tiger-Maul, a two-handed overhead crash that would split a cart axle. Jang doesn't parry. He slides half a pace inside, bones screaming protest, and releases Bloom-and-Feather Reversal.
Left forearm sweeps upward, guiding the coming saber just past his ear—he feels wind comb hair. Simultaneously his right elbow hooks beneath Seo's exposed arm, driving into already-dented breastplate with all the mass of his turn. Slate-grey petals explode from the impact point, the bloom detonating inward rather than outward, force funnelled straight through cracked copper into sternum.
There is an instant of impossible quiet, as if the pavilion itself inhales.
Then copper sings a brittle note and gives way. Seo is lifted from his feet, armour folding like parchment. He lands six paces back, sword tumbling from nerveless fingers. Shock removes the tiger's voice; mask gapes wordlessly before clanging aside. Blood spills over lips, bright against pallid cheeks.
Manacles sense the shift. Inscribed sigils in their hinges flare, read Jang's steady—but ragged—Qi pulse, and decide. Click—clang. Iron rings drop to stone, rolling into opposite grooves until the drains swallow them whole. The collective gasp of the courtyard feels colder than dawn air.
Jang does not raise his sword for the finish. Sect law is clear: disarmed opponent, ribs collapsed, Qi reserve spent—verdict decided. He merely stands, swaying, tinnitus receding enough to let the distant croak of horned frogs leak back into the world.
A quill scratches somewhere on the dais. Elder Choi's robes rustle as he steps forward, voice amplified by breath-powered cochlea shell: "By Maxim Thirteen, strength has spoken. The servant Jang—" he pauses, tasting the words in front of the entire sect "—is, by tradition, elevated to the rank of Outer Disciple, rights and burdens thereto."
Somewhere to the right, Kwan's eyes glisten; beside him Ma Gok exhales a sigh no judge can read. Jisoo's knuckles whiten around her sleeve; ink, not blood, stains her fingers, and she will not meet Jang's gaze.
On the dais Baek's expression does not change, but the frozen corners of his mouth glint like hoarfrost. Factions begin to whisper, calculations already rewriting the future of the pavilion tiles that are still trembling under cooling Qi.
Jang bows once—low enough to respect doctrine, high enough to keep lungs from tearing. Lotus-scar at his wrist glows faint jade where flesh burned raw. He turns, limping toward the archway where morning light spills in pearl bands, leaving behind the drained pond, the blood grooves, and the tiger who can no longer roar.
Noise recedes. Inner pulse grows louder: root… stem… bloom…