After slipping out of the private corridor, Yekase found Jiang Bailu in the lobby, light from the monitors pooling like warm lanterns on still water.

On-screen was the Twin-Spire Dome—nicknamed the Sun Palace—its interior bright as noon; a cheer squad danced on the turf like petals caught by a spring breeze.

“I’m back.”

Yekase dropped into the empty seat beside her, a pebble into a quiet pond. “How’s the match?”

Jiang was speed-typing through the break, thumbs flicking like sparrows. “Queen’s Road versus SPRIT just now—on paper even, in practice ugly. It was a fix.”

“How can you tell?”

“Queen’s Road’s ten times SPRIT’s size, their fighters are name-brand enforcers. Even matchup, my ass. Not one signature skill used—just some geezer poking a ball with a stick—and then they still lost. If that’s not a fix, what is? Even if the players didn’t take a cut, the coach did. That guy’s a notorious crook, did time in detention.”

“Maybe they were hiding strats.”

“Hiding so hard you hide yourself into the losers’ bracket? That’s a masterclass.”

Jiang’s temper flared like dry kindling; she was trading blows with the Hard-Loser faction on the forum, keystrokes clashing like steel, the keyboard war hotter than the match. Yekase didn’t cut in; she went to the bar, fired up a rig like lighting a forge, then came back to her seat and ran a few rounds of mecha fighter.

After a while, Jiang let out a long breath and tossed her phone onto the table, a stone skimming to a stop.

“How’d it go?”

“Done. I flamed him till he deleted.”

“Uh…”

She was starting to sound like Shen Shanshan, and that simmer of resentment was trending toward Yekase’s office-era levels; Yekase refused to see her apprentice turn into something ugly, so she softened her voice like a cloth over a blade.

“You… didn’t bet on Queen’s Road, did you?”

“Of course I did!”

Got it. Loud and clear, like a gong in fog.

“Doc, I’ve seen the light. Fixers never end well. I’m done taking sportsbook money.”

“Lost that much, huh?”

Half exasperated, half amused, Yekase patted her back, a steady hand against stormy water, while the cheer squad streamed off the field like swans lifting from a lake; the next match was about to start.

Jiang handed Yekase one earbud, a silver fish on a line.

“This one’s A-Lu versus Erwang. Should be good.”

Sounded like community nicknames. Yekase only watched when she happened to catch a match, skimming faces like clouds; she’d never studied the rosters deep.

Both fighters walked in.

Luzhixing still had her bulging weapon bundle slung over her back, metal singing like windchimes in a sudden gust; she’d changed into loose cotton training wear that moved like clouds.

Erwang—Yu Yunxiu—wore a snow-white practice gi, belt cinched, her figure balanced like bamboo after rain. She slanted a spear taller than she was across her shoulder, her steps unwavering as a plumb line; drop her in any ancient tale and she’d pass for a stalwart hero.

Yu Yunxiu was one of the Fist Covenant Tournament’s famous grassroots: no organization, no coach, no funding; her weapon, an utterly ordinary cross-headed greatspear; her Mind Energy, self-taught and wild as mountain wind.

One person, one spear, one ferocious frame.

Most fighters like that last a year or two and quit under the weight of losses, but she kept swinging for ten years to pay her kid sister’s tuition, a wick burning slow in winter.

Twenty straight appearances.

Fifteen times the runner-up.

Still no crown.

Invincible in groups; throws the first round of playoffs away—then claws back like a wolf on a ridge, crashes into the finals—loses 2–3 at the tape.

An inspirational model, queen of group stage, war-god of the losers’ bracket, silver reaper, the eternal backdrop—she’s watched countless opponents lift the cup, hands steady as frost.

They say the champion isn’t always Luzhixing; it might be Xiaoyuan, Chubu Risa, Daoshangfei, any of the perennial or hot-form T0s; even Mila showed up once on a whim, grabbed the cup, retired on the spot—career championship rate, one hundred percent.

But the runner-up? Odds are, it’s Yu Yunxiu.

“Group stage or knockout?”

“Group.”

“Heh…”

Now that was interesting.

Luzhixing is a perennial, a pine that doesn’t yellow; even in her worst years she sits top eight, cold hard skill like hammered steel. But in groups she doesn’t sweat; once she banks enough points to advance, she saves fuel.

Her opponent, though, is Yu Yunxiu—the group-stage queen touched by mystic luck.

A mysterious force from the East.

Strictly speaking, both Mind Energy and geomancy sit under that big, red sunrise of Eastern mystery; but geomancy is fog you can’t hold, so it feels more occult than Mind Energy’s steady flame.

Modern feng shui types claim geomancy is just wild Mind Energy flows in heaven and earth, unbalanced and incomplete, kicking up odd phenomena—Yekase hadn’t listened closely, like rain pattering beyond a closed window.

In actual fights, it shows like this: in groups or in the losers’ bracket, spells and bullets skim Yu Yunxiu’s clothes like dragonflies on water; opponents commit impossible blunders; some even, unknowingly, guide their own foreheads onto her spear tip like moths to a single, cold star.

“Doc, rub me for luck—odd or even?”

Silence fell in Yekase’s chest like snow.

Then she grabbed Jiang’s ear and twisted, a reed between firm fingers.

“You’re still gambling? You’re still gambling?”

“I know, I know, I’m stopping!”

Pain glazed Jiang’s eyes; only when Yekase let go did she curl into her seat, both hands over the reddening shell of her ear, teary gaze clinging to Yekase like dew.

“I was just blowing off steam… You know how brutal Dev is…”

She’d even slipped into cutesy third person. Yekase sighed, wind over empty fields. “You have to vent like this? Can’t you learn from me—street race a bit, strip a mech or two…”

“Uh, that’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

…Fair point.

In a syndicate, who doesn’t have a few bad habits? Yekase didn’t know what face to make, so she laughed, a spark in dusk.

Better than a massage-parlor vice.

The feed cut to the studio; Luzhixing, now on the field, couldn’t be a guest anymore. A dazzling hostess took that seat, flowers in a crystal vase.

[Welcome to Group A, Round Two! This match is Swordforging Manor’s Luzhixing versus the unaffiliated Yu Yunxiu! The Ever-Victorious versus the Group-Stage Queen—who strikes first?]

[Hard to say.]

[If Lu plays solid, her ceiling should pull clear of Yu by a margin.]

[True.]

[But the Runner-up Queen’s mystic buff is no joke.]

[Agreed.]

…Wasn’t that all hot air?

Everyone wanted the host and guest to actually break down form and state; if they couldn’t read the flow, they could at least make a few jokey jinxes. And we got this?

Even the commentary had slipped, like chalk on damp slate.

The two on stage finished warmups, then took their spots on either side of midfield, right palms extended; they touched lightly, a ripple across a clear pond.

“They say A-Lu and Erwang are close offstage. Looks legit.” Jiang’s eyes gleamed with gossip like lanterns under eaves.

“Is it strange for fighters to be friends?”

“They’re competing for places and prize pools. Hang out too much and you leak a weakness; get punished onstage for it and you might retire on the spot. So orgs don’t let their fighters mingle with others much.”

“Makes sense… so what’s with these two?”

“Swordforging Manor barely manages A-Lu; Erwang doesn’t even have an org. If they want to be friends, who stops them?”

“Damn.”

Masters are always odd in their own way; after meeting a few lately, Yekase had felt that wind over cliffs.

“Also, both are famous hex fighters—six stats all sharp. One hex is just bigger than the other. No obvious weak side, so you can’t hard-counter with a deck.”

Hex fighters…

Yekase admired that kind of all-rounder, a moon that’s full on every edge—but the reserve of a desk worker made her keep it in her chest.

She sipped her milk tea, pearls tapping like rain. “Spear versus sword, in a straight-up duel, Yu Yunxiu has the edge. But Luzhixing’s got a cheesy distance-closer, right?”

“Yeah. A Mind Energy footwork—‘Shrinking the Ground.’ Speed’s about the same as Xiaoyuan’s opening face-rush in the curtain-raiser, but with terrain immunity.”

The stronger the fighter, the more their everything’s leveled up—like a storm tide lifting every boat; against a hex, that pressure of she-does-everything-and-better hits like a mountain shadow.

Take that Shrinking the Ground; a face-rush opener like Yekase dreams of learning it, eyes on that horizon line—but the road never opens.

Her thoughts weren’t in order before the two on screen moved, flint against steel.

Luzhixing did exactly as predicted—Shrinking the Ground, she snapped into Yu Yunxiu’s chest, stepping under the spear’s reach like a swallow under a branch.

While sinking her hips, she drew two swords from behind her back, one to each hand, then slashed twin vertical arcs straight at Yu’s face like falling guillotine lines.

Yu had seen it in the wind; she rotated her spear before her chest, the springing shaft batting both edges wide, then launched her right knee, a meteor for Luzhixing’s lowered face.

Both opened with kill-shots; first exchange, no mercy, as if they carried a blood feud across lifetimes—whatever warmth from warmups vanished like mist at sunrise.

This was the Fist Covenant Tournament as it truly was. With top-tier medics ringside, if you hadn’t stopped breathing they’d yank you back; that’s why it was bloodier than inter-org grudge matches, a red river in flood.

Yekase found herself missing Xiaoyuan.

Who else could turn a blood sport run by bloodthirsty gearheads into a comedy of timing? What kind of spirit is that? What kind of control?

That’s how entertainment duels should hit—like fireworks, not artillery.

She pictured Xiaoyuan’s deadpan face, those dark-ringed fish eyes, and even that became cute, like a cat scowling from a kotatsu.

Cold outside, warm inside, a shut-in glow under snow.

—Boom!

Two bodies collided; cerulean fire blasted out like a tide, devouring the screen. Luzhixing had wrapped both hands in Mind Energy and met Yu Yunxiu’s knee head-on, steel meeting comet.

When the flames peeled back, both still stood; but Luzhixing’s pack had ripped open, and weapons poured out like a steel rain.

“…Wait.”

Swords. Spears. Blades. Halberds. Rods.

Different shapes, different sizes—none lay flat. Every tip bit the turf, each weapon standing upright around Luzhixing like pillars of a frozen forest.

It was as if a sword array had risen from earth.

The ones flung higher kept falling in, every single one dropping tip-first, stitching the ground with dull, relentless thuds, a drumbeat under thunder.

Luzhixing drew the nearest sword.

She tapped the iron staff beside it, knuckles a metronome.

—Clang, clang.

[Listen.]

She spoke with her brows lowered, lashes shadowing her eyes like dusk over a bell tower.

[This is the bell of a new era.]