Rowan Mercer whispered an apology he didn't mean and moved.
The air around the Grand Master rippled as four overlapping seals snapped into place, pinning his limbs and locking his aura like a fly in amber. Rowan blurred behind him, boots barely brushing the stone. His palm came down in a compact, brutal arc.
"Wood Dragon Breaker."
The Grand Master's eyes flared open.
Too late.
Golden light detonated from his skin as he forced his body to turn, dragging both forearms up in a cross. Lightning crawled across his veins, a last-ditch reinforcement. The pressure from Rowan's strike hit like a collapsing bridge. Bone rang. The Grand Master's guard folded inward, his own hands driven into his forehead. The impact cracked the courtyard tiles.
He dropped without a sound.
Rowan exhaled slowly. The old man's body was absurdly tough, honed by a century of training, but Rowan's was worse. Layered enhancements, draconic augmentation, and a split-second giant-force amplification had stacked into something grotesque. Under normal circumstances, that golden shield would have kept the Grand Master conscious.
Tonight, it hadn't.
"Done," Rowan muttered.
He released the four seals and added a soft neural stasis charm for good measure. Then he knelt and pressed two fingers to the man's temple.
The moment his psychic probe touched the surface of the Grand Master's mind, it slammed into a wall of radiant gold.
Rowan recoiled.
It wasn't just a barrier. It was a cathedral of interlocking sigils, thousands of them, layered and woven into something ancient and deliberate. Every symbol carried weight, intent, and authority.
"A mind-lock," Rowan said quietly. "No. More than that."
He studied the structure, frowning.
He'd built prisons like this himself. This one dwarfed anything he'd ever designed.
This wasn't self-made.
This was inheritance.
Stories flickered through his memory. Old sect legends. Secret successions. Something passed down from master to master, generation after generation. Not knowledge.
A seal.
So that was it.
The so-called "Heavenly Mandate."
Not a technique. Not a title.
A mental vault.
What it contained, why it was guarded this ferociously, and who had created it in the first place were all very uncomfortable questions.
Rowan leaned back on his heels, staring at the unconscious Grand Master.
"So this world has teeth," he murmured.
He couldn't break that lock. Not without tearing the man's mind apart. Whatever was hidden behind it was off-limits for now.
Pity.
He stood, lifted the Grand Master with a careful anti-gravity cradle, and carried him back into his room. He tucked him into bed, pulled a blanket over his chest, and placed a folded note on the nightstand.
The note was simple.
Just a lie about being a wandering recluse who wanted to test himself against a legend and had now returned to seclusion.
Rowan left without a sound.
Outside the compound, he let his appearance slide back into its public version and started toward the bonfire grounds.
"No rush," he thought. "If the Grand Master's a dead end, someone else won't be."
The memory spell he'd taken from Alex Ward alone was worth weeks of study. And now that he knew this world was hiding things above his pay grade, patience mattered.
He cut through a narrow forest trail.
Then stopped.
There was someone in the branches ahead. Suppressed breathing. Coiled intent.
A competitor.
And not a friendly one.
Rowan smiled faintly and kept walking.
"So I get ambushed right after ambushing a legend," he thought. "Cute."
The figure dropped from the tree.
The man moved fast and ugly, going straight for Rowan's throat and eyes. No restraint. No warning.
Rowan caught his wrist and throat in one smooth motion. Electricity snapped across his fingers.
The attacker spasmed and went limp.
Rowan's eyes glazed as he skimmed the man's memories.
"…Not the Iron Front," he murmured.
That was new.
The man, Hugh Jett, wasn't an assassin. He was a puppet. A broken, manipulated tool dropped into the tournament to stir chaos. His strings led to a shadow cult that liked calling itself the Void Syndicate.
Rowan released him.
Footsteps rushed closer.
Two middle-aged men burst into the clearing.
"Please don't kill him," one blurted. "We're with the Locke family. We've been tracking him. He's connected to the Syndicate."
Rowan studied them for a heartbeat, then tossed Hugh Jett at their feet.
"Take him," he said. "He's more useful alive."
They bowed their heads in gratitude and dragged the unconscious man away.
Rowan continued on.
By the time he reached the bonfire grounds, the night had devolved into full chaos.
Most of the competitors were there. Drinking. Laughing. Singing badly.
Marcus Hale waved him over.
"Rowan! You vanished, man. What happened?"
"Traffic," Rowan said dryly and sat.
Across the firepit, Evan Clarke was drunk beyond redemption. Shirtless. Running in circles. A glowing barrier flaring around him as he shouted nonsense at the stars.
Rowan pinched the bridge of his nose.
"There are no laws strong enough for this man."
They drank. They ate. They talked nonsense.
People eventually collapsed where they sat.
Rowan slept lightly.
Morning came loud and messy.
Everyone scattered back to their dorms.
The third day of matches began.
Rowan's name was announced.
Then scratched.
His scheduled opponent had been Hugh Jett.
There was no fight for him that day.
Rowan stood in the arena tunnel, hands in his pockets, staring at the empty platform.
"So," he thought, "the cult is moving, the legends are hiding something cosmic, and my bracket just vanished."
He smiled.
"Good. Things were getting boring."