Gravity's Lesson
A ripple of disbelief, followed by a swelling wave of astonished murmurs, passed through the significantly larger crowd ringing the arena. News of Class 5's brutal, efficient victory over Class 4 had spread like wildfire through Donghai Academy's senior divisions, transforming today's match from a curiosity into a must-see event. Hundreds of eyes, skeptical and intrigued, watched as the boy from the notorious weakest class did the impossible—he made the sky a liability.
"He's… throwing ice at them?"
"Did that just break his spirit possession?"
"What kind of arm is that? He's a human, not a siege weapon!"
The exclamations were a tapestry of shock. For senior students who'd long viewed the freshman promotion tournament as a petty formality, this was a disruption of the natural order.
From his position at the edge of Class 5's area, Wu Zhangkong observed the ice sphere's arc. His face remained a placid lake, but deep within his cold blue eyes, a minute spark of approval ignited. 'Adaptation. Utilizing environment and opponent's weakness. Not relying solely on spirit power.' This was the kind of pragmatic, intelligent combat sense he drilled into them. Yao Xuan wasn't just strong; he was teachable.
High above, Gu Tianming's confidence shattered the moment the sphere became an unavoidable blur. His aerial supremacy, a fact of life in every prior skirmish, had been rendered null by a simple, brutally physical object. The hesitation—a fatal second of disbelief—cost him. The sphere didn't just hit; it detonated against the spectral gray feathers of his Gale Sparrow wing in a puff of frost and dissipating spirit energy.
The impact was not on flesh, but on the soul power structure sustaining the martial soul manifestation. It was like striking the keystone of an arch. A violent, discordant tremor ran through the energy matrix. Gu Tianming felt a soul-deep wrench, a draining sensation as if a plug had been pulled. The vibrant connection to his martial soul sputtered and died. The majestic wings flickered, dissolved into motes of gray light, and vanished.
His stomach lurched. The solid platform of air became empty vacancy. A choked cry escaped his lips as he plummeted, arms pinwheeling against the sudden, terrifying embrace of gravity.
Two streaks of gray shot downward—Gu Tianri and Gu Tianyue, their faces masks of horror. But their dive, though desperate, was too slow. They could only watch their brother fall.
Then, a blur of serene blue intercepted the descent. Wu Zhangkong hadn't seemed to move with urgency, yet he was there, a steadying force in the chaos. A gentle, almost invisible cushion of soul power coalesced beneath Gu Tianming, arresting his fall and lowering him gracefully to the ground outside the boundary lines. The intervention was so swift and precise it appeared rehearsed.
Long Hengxu let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Gu Tianming has left the arena boundary. He is eliminated." He nodded once, sharply, to Wu Zhangkong—a gesture of professional gratitude between educators. A student's safety transcended competition.
On the sidelines, Ye Yingrong's hand flew to her chest. "Thank you, Teacher Wu!" she called out, her voice tight with relief.
Wu Zhangkong, already turning back to observe his own students, responded without looking. "It is nothing. I merely prevented an injury that would have reflected poorly on my student's victory." His words were characteristically austere, divorcing the act of kindness from any personal sentiment. It was a matter of duty and consequence.
Ye Yingrong's grateful smile faltered, then turned into a silent, exasperated sigh. 'Could the man ever acknowledge a simple 'you're welcome'?' Her frustration was with his impenetrable professionalism, not a bruised romantic ego. He was a puzzle she respected too much to be truly angry with.
Gu Tianming, now on solid ground, stumbled slightly. The physical fall was stopped, but the psychological one continued. He stared at his hands, then up at the sky where his brothers still hovered, his expression a raw mix of shame and confusion. His greatest asset had been turned against him, dismantled with the mundane brutality of a well-thrown rock.
"Did you see that? One shot!"
"He calculated the soul power instability point!"
"This Yao Xuan… he doesn't just fight; he solves fights."
The crowd's murmur evolved into a buzz of analysis. The initial mockery was gone, replaced by a dawning respect. This was no fluke.
On the arena floor, Yao Xuan bent down. The clinking sound of ice spheres was crisp in the sudden quiet. He selected another. His movements were economical, devoid of theatricality. He looked up at Gu Tianri, who had wisely gained another twenty feet of altitude, his face now pale and wary.
'Trajectory adjusted. Increased arc. Wind negligible.' Yao Xuan's mind was a calm engine of calculus. His arm whipped forward in a motion more akin to a pitcher's than a brawler's. The sphere became a white streak.
Gu Tianri, forewarned and fearful, juked to the side. The sphere shot past, missing by a foot. A flicker of triumphant defiance lit his eyes. Maybe they could outlast this ground-bound monster!
Yao Xuan's response was to pick up two spheres in his left hand, two in his right. He didn't hurry. He looked like a man selecting tools for a job. Then he moved.
It was not a volley, but a sequence—a swift, fluid series of throws where each launch was subtly different. The four spheres shot forth not in a spread, but in a tight, interweaving pattern, their paths curving slightly as Yao Xuan imparted different spins. They became a net of frozen probability closing around Gu Tianri.
The defiance on Gu Tianri's face melted into pure panic. He twisted, dove, then tried to climb. One sphere grazed his boot. Another missed his shoulder by inches. The third and fourth, however, found their mark—one against the joint of his wing, the other against his lower back. The dual impacts triggered the same catastrophic soul power feedback. With a cry that was more shock than pain, his wings dissolved. Wu Zhangkong was already moving, a blue ghost intercepting the second falling brother.
The outcome for Gu Tianyue was a foregone conclusion. Isolated, demoralized, he lasted only another thirty seconds before a deceptively simple, looping ice sphere caught the edge of his wing. His descent was the final period on the sentence.
Silence, for a beat, then the dam broke. The students of former Class 5 erupted. Their cheers were not just for victory, but for vindication. "We're Class 3! Class 3!" "Yao Xuan! Boss!" The celebration was chaotic, heartfelt, a release of years of being the overlooked and the dismissed.
Long Hengxu stepped forward, his gaze lingering on Yao Xuan with a complex mixture of admiration and deep professional regret. "Class 5, Grade 1, is victorious. You will retain your current designation until the tournament's conclusion, at which point your formal promotion will be recognized." He left unsaid the thought screaming in his mind: 'What a waste. This diamond was left in the rough.'
Ye Yingrong stared at the arena floor, where the last motes of frost were melting. Her months of strategy, of drilling the triplets in aerial coordination, had been dismantled not by a superior spirit, but by a brutal, elegant simplicity. Her eyes flicked to Wu Zhangkong's impassive profile. 'Did you teach them this? To see the world not as a contest of spirits, but of physics and weakness?'
As the cheers began to settle, Wu Zhangkong approached his trio. The celebratory noise around them seemed to part before his quiet intensity.
"The adaptability was adequate," he stated, his voice cutting through the din. "You used the environment and exploited a fundamental weakness of low-rank flying opponents: the instability of their manifested spirit forms under sharp kinetic impact."
He paused, his eyes sweeping over Yao Xuan, Gu Yue, and Xie Xie. "However, do not mistake a clever solution for inherent superiority. Your victory was opportunistic. Your opponents were inexperienced and fragile. Against a seasoned flying Soul Master with a stronger martial soul or a ranged spirit skill, your ice would be useless. Until you possess mechs or battle armor, the most reliable counter to aerial dominance is not improvisation—it is impervious defense. Force them to come to you, to exhaust themselves against a wall they cannot break. Today, you threw stones at birds. Tomorrow, you must become the mountain."
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving them with the cold water of reality to temper the heat of victory. His lesson was clear: celebrate the win, but understand its context. The true test was still to come. Yao Xuan watched him go, the words settling in. He nodded slowly. The teacher was right. This was a single move in a much longer game. He glanced at Gu Yue, who met his gaze, her own eyes thoughtful. They had won the sky today with earth and ice. The next challenge would demand something different entirely.