Under the gaze of Zhuge Su Yeon
The combat ended with the characteristic sound of a blade finding nothing. Not peace — only that brief suspension in which the air still carries the heat of blood but no longer has a place to deposit it.
Fen and Yuan He Lin separated almost as if rehearsed, each retreating to the side destiny had reserved for them, their weapons still hanging from their fingers as if the fight had not truly ended, only taken a step back.
I did not fear that Fen would be hurt.
With me there, any fatal wound could be torn from the claws of reality before becoming definitive. It would only take a decision of mine, and the entire stage would turn into something far less pleasant to watch.
What truly frightened me was the possibility that I might have to intervene.
These girls were… simply too violent.
Not in the disordered and hysterical sense that some young cultivators mistake for bravery — but in a calculated, cold, almost clinical way. Fen moved like a fox that had studied the anatomy of its prey; Lin responded like water that had learned to drown with the same naturalness with which it quenches thirst.
If it were my little brother in that arena, I would already expect blood to gush everywhere, for he has the delicacy of thunder and the patience of a wildfire. But two girls? One only fourteen, the other barely seeming to have reached eighteen?
And yet, there they were, willing to open flesh and cut tendon for the honor of a clan.
The audience saw a spectacle.
I saw the cost.
Twenty-eight years living in this world, and I still have not grown used to its brutality. Perhaps because, even after all this time, my mind insists on comparing what I see with what should be. And in that "should be," children should carry books, not blades; compete in speed of reading, not in who can make the other bleed first.
But Grey Sky is not that "should be."
Here, even the lightest steps leave deep marks.
Fen walked back to us with a neutral face, her daggers sheathed, as if nothing extraordinary had happened. Lin, on the opposite side, vanished into the crowd of her clan without a gesture of exhaustion. Perhaps, for them, this was nothing more than another afternoon of training.
For me… it was a reminder.
This world was carved to test even what we swear will never harden.
And, it seems, even silence must learn to defend itself.
The last combat was not announced immediately.
The arena remained submerged in that dense interval, as if even the herald was weighing his own words before releasing them. But there was no mystery in what would come.
The names that remained were two, and one did not need to be an elder to know which.
Zhuge Yu Jin — my little brother, direct heir of the Zhuge clan by right and inevitability.
Tie Xuan Hao — the son of stone and steel of the Tie Xuan, molded to be a wall even before learning to walk.
The delay in announcing the fight was no accident.
It was a carefully built prelude, a sustained chord meant to increase the tension in the audience's chests, so that each beat of an imaginary drum sounded louder than the last. The longer the silence stretched, the more the spectators leaned forward, as if the arena itself could tell them what was coming before the official voice.
And I… I only thought of how violent this fight would be.
If two girls — one fourteen, the other barely eighteen — who, according to the cultural logic of this world, would sooner or later be married off and transferred to another clan, were willing to pay the price of blood for the honor of the surname they carried… then what to expect from two heirs?
Not heirs by name alone, but by function.
Men who, one day, would sit in the patriarch's chair and hold in their hands not only the clan's seal but its entire destiny.
Men who would inherit not only the techniques but the blood debt accumulated over generations.
There was an invisible weight in this kind of combat.
It was not merely a duel of strength; it was a duel of legitimacy.
Whoever won would not only advance in the tournament — they would etch into the memory of all present that their clan possessed the most worthy heir.
And that, in this world, is more dangerous than any martial technique.
The audience knew it.
The murmuring no longer had that light quality of betting on an unlikely fight. It was denser, almost ritualistic, as if each spectator were preparing to witness something that, one way or another, would shape the city's coming years.
From my seat, I observed Yu Jin.
He did not seem nervous, nor anxious. His body was relaxed like a rope that nevertheless holds tension ready for release. His gaze remained low, as if he were still listening to the sound of steel from the previous fight and weighing, within himself, his own measure.
On the opposite side, Tie Xuan Hao waited with the exact posture of his nickname: a wall. A firm base, broad shoulders, a neck that seemed to fuse head and torso. He was not yet a grown man, but his body already bore the sketch of the structure that, in a few years, would make doorways seem too narrow.
If Fen and Lin had reminded me that even water and wind can cut deep, Yu Jin and Tie Xuan Hao were the reminder that when two mountains collide, no spectator remains unscathed.
I drew a deep breath, not to calm myself, but to engrave in my chest the feeling of that moment: the arena's air heavy as iron, heat rising in waves from the floor, collective breath suspended in anticipation of the first name to be called.
Yu Jin was already practically healed.
The cuts that once seemed deep — red lines opened by Zhen's blade — were now only recent scars, fine as hurried scribbles across the skin. It was no miracle, but method… though a method few could apply with such precision.
I had to admit: Yui Lan's talent for spiritual medicine was absurd.
Not only because of technique, but rhythm. She did not treat wounds like a mason repairing a wall, but like a musician tuning an instrument already known by heart.
My eyes turned to her.
While Yu Jin stepped away, she was already kneeling before Fen, cleaning with calculated movements the cut on her leg and the deep scratch on her left arm. Her hands were quick, but not rushed; each touch seemed to follow an invisible map only she could read.
And it was in that moment that an insistent thought crossed me.
Yesterday, when she was absent, there had been no wounds beyond superficial scratches — nothing requiring more than a clean cloth and a bit of hemostatic powder.
Today, with her here, blood seemed determined to flow.
Coincidence?
Perhaps.
Or perhaps not.
Did she know this would happen?
As a reincarnator, she might have seen this day before. Or perhaps she simply felt it — the instinct of a healer, that kind of premonition that defies logic and yet is right more often than it should be.
Honestly, I did not know.
But for the first time since the tournament began, I had to admit something I do not like to admit: it was good that she had come.
Because if Grey Sky's arena insisted on demanding blood… at least someone was there to gather it before too much was lost.
When the names were finally drawn, Yu Jin and the Tie Xuan heir were already in the arena.
There was no common theater — that slow descent measured in steps that feed the crowd's expectation. It was impossible to say who stepped down first and who followed; the fact is that both advanced.
Neither of them was willing to wait.
Tie Xuan Hao crossed the stage with the firmness of a pillar sunk in the riverbed. Each step seemed to weigh more than the last, not from slowness, but solidity. He did not walk on the arena floor — it was as if the floor had to adapt to his weight.
Yu Jin, on the other hand, advanced with that controlled step that wastes no energy but makes it clear that the distance between two points is a matter of decision, not space. The black saber at his waist seemed less a weapon and more an inevitable extension of his body.
In the instant they faced each other, something changed in the air.
It was not Qi.
It was not technique.
It was will.
The audience needed no judge to know the battle had already begun. Even before the herald raised his hand, before the dry sound marking the start echoed, there was already an invisible clash between them.
It was not an impact one could see. It was something one could feel.
A silent push in the space between the two, an almost imperceptible adjustment of their stances, as if each were testing how far he could advance without moving a muscle.
The steel was still in the sheath, but the fight was already underway.
And, from my seat, I realized that when the first blade moved, there would be no room to retreat — not out of pride, but because neither would accept being the first to yield.