From Zhuge Su Yeon's Perspective
Zhuge Fen descended the steps toward the arena without hurry, unconcerned with the eyes waiting for her. Two daggers hung at her waist, crossed so the right hilt pointed slightly forward—a detail many might mistake for aesthetics, but I knew it was a conscious choice.
To the crowd, she was only a fourteen-year-old girl, a child walking from anonymity into combat. Some heads turned from the stands, not with expectation of victory, but with the uneasy curiosity of watching a fawn step among predators.
They didn't know.
But I did.
Fen wasn't remarkable only for her Blue-grade potential—which alone placed her above ninety-nine percent of the city's youths. What set her apart was the speed with which raw, primal instinct turned into refined technique.
Of all the ten promising Zhuge youths I'd observed last month, none absorbed as much as she did.
And I don't mean just mimicking movements, but something rarer: grasping the why of a strike before practicing it ten times.
Fen didn't merely execute—she read. And in reading, she learned where to cut, when to cut… and above all, why to cut.
I had seen it clearly on a cloudy morning in the smooth-stone courtyard, when I'd set the youths to spar in short rounds.
Fen faced Zhuge Ren, one of our "wall brothers"—solid as a rock.
The first minutes were as expected: Ren pressed forward, she retreated, the tip of her foot always slipping a palm's width before the strike's edge. But then… something shifted.
I remember how her eyes narrowed, as though her pupils had turned into spearpoints. Her rhythm changed, her body relaxed at the very instant it should have tensed. Ren, not understanding, stepped one step too far. That was when she struck—not with dazzling speed, but with precision that bypassed all defense. The training dagger halted a hair's breadth from his throat.
Ren drew back, baffled, while she sheathed the weapon with a flick of the wrist so natural it looked like returning a brush to its case. Only one word came to me then: predator. Not the kind that hunts from hunger, but the kind that waits, knowing patience is part of the cut.
With the martial techniques I'd given her—all Early Earth-rank, adjusted to her build and style—that instinct surfaced like magma breaking crust: fast, hot, inevitable.
Today, in the arena, I knew it would be no different. It didn't matter that her body was small, her stance seemingly frail. Fen walked like someone who had already tasted blood before ever seeing it.
Her opponent was a Yuan He girl, tall for her age, her movements revealing the Steps of Enshrouding Mist—the same root technique as Yuan He Lin. Even outside combat, her steps carried the subtle sway of hips and shoulders meant to distract and conceal her attack's true angle. Her long sleeves swayed as she walked, hiding her hands just enough to obscure her starting position.
At the arena's center, the two stopped three paces apart. The breeze made their robes dance first, announcing the fight before the fighters.
I leaned back, resting into the seat.
This would be a good show.
The judge raised his hand, his face polished by the same repeated protocol since the tournament began.
"—Begin."
Fen and the Yuan He girl moved toward each other as if continuing a duel already long in progress.
The opponent, true to her clan's legacy, slid sideways before even raising a hand, her sleeves flowing around her like mist. The dance had begun. Her feet traced soft circles, sometimes closing, sometimes opening, hips and shoulders marking rhythms that could confuse untrained eyes.
To an inexperienced observer, it looked as if Fen was being pressed. The Yuan He circled her, mixing palm strikes with spinning kicks, and Fen's small frame seemed to retreat by mere millimeters, a leaf tossed by wind.
But my eyes saw differently.
So did Fen's.
There was no urgency in her posture. Every dodge was measured, minimal—the sleeve's edge brushing her shoulder but never touching, the enemy's sole grazing a hair from her cheek but never striking. Enough to feed the illusion in the Yuan He's mind: I'm almost hitting. The next strike is mine.
Fen wasn't retreating. She was studying.
The next two minutes were a restrained choreography. The scrape of feet across granite was broken only by the occasional dry clash of a block. Fen twisted only when needed, stepped half back to adjust an angle, sometimes leaned forward as though inviting a strike—only to steal it with a minimal dodge.
Then came the first sign of change.
Fen took a long step back, something she hadn't done before. Like the first stone tumbling before an avalanche.
Her hands dropped to her waist, and the daggers left their sheaths without hurry. Cold metal seemed to drink the morning light.
The Yuan He girl didn't notice. To her, that step was retreat. Retreat meant advantage.
She rushed forward, feet beating faster, determined not to let pressure slip away.
She never got the chance.
Fen surged. Her body leaned forward, legs propelling her in a motion that defied her size. With Steps of the Free Wind, she didn't just run—she slid as though the arena had tilted toward her prey. A subtle twist of her hips sent the daggers into rotation with her body, and when she was a palm away, calm erupted.
The Rising Thunder Blade was no spectacle—it was a concentrated storm.
In less than two seconds, five cuts bloomed across the Yuan He girl's torso and arms. Short strikes, each from a different angle, alternating between upward and diagonal lines, every one driven by body weight. There was no time for defense—the first strike stole her breath, the second her balance, the next three forced her to yield the center.
Fen didn't linger. She passed through, her final step carrying her beyond, robe swaying with the echo of her motions.
The Yuan He fell to her knees, gasping, Qi flickering like a candle in wind. Her hands shook as they touched her wounds, but still she tried to rise, dragging one foot, face twisted with sheer stubbornness.
But when she finally stood… the fight's end was already waiting.
Fen was one step away, her right dagger resting lightly against the side of her neck.
Her eyes—dark, steady, without hate or haste—watched with the patience of one deciding whether the prey deserved to keep breathing.
In that instant, the arena understood: this was no child.
This was a predator who had chosen the moment of the cut long before drawing her blades.
The silence that followed bore a peculiar weight—not the natural quiet after a fight, but the pause of those still trying to grasp what they had seen.
The Yuan He girl stood frozen, rigid, as though any deeper breath might break the thin line between standing and collapse. Fen's dagger lay against her throat without excess pressure, but with precision leaving no doubt: a single misstep, and the cut would come.
The Han elder, today's judge, didn't move at once. His hands stayed behind his back, eyes locked on the scene. I couldn't tell if he hesitated from reluctance to declare the Zhuge's fourth consecutive victory—or simply from shock at how swiftly the tide had turned. Perhaps both.
Understandable.
Moments before, all had seen Fen as prey, hemmed in by a dancing huntress. And then, in a heartbeat, the "prey" had overturned the board, pressing a blade to her opponent's neck.
At last, the Han elder's voice rang, weighted with what he couldn't hide:
"—Victory… Zhuge Fen!"
Only then did she move. The dagger withdrew in a clean motion, steady as a brushstroke.
And then came what, to me, has always been the clearest proof of Fen's difference: the predator's eyes vanished. Not gradually—instantly. The lethal tension dissolved, replaced by the calm, almost indifferent look of a fourteen-year-old girl. As if nothing extraordinary had happened, as if wounding and cornering someone were no more remarkable than fixing her hair.
She turned, slid her daggers back into their sheaths, and walked out of the arena with calm steps, her robe swaying lightly. No smile, no arrogance, no celebration—only the simplicity of one who had finished a task and returned to her place.
As though she had done nothing special at all.