In the underground arena’s lounge, Ling Yi and Lu Yao watched the replay, screen-light rippling like cold pond water across their faces.

Ling Yi watched with childlike curiosity, like a kitten batting a new ribbon; Lu Yao watched with a knife-still focus, storm clouds tucked behind her eyes.

She’d already dug into Jiang Bailu’s past in secret, and knew the truth like a thorn under the nail—Jiang was an active member of a Sinister Organization.

Jiang Bailu pushed the door open and swayed in, like seaweed carried by a sleepy tide.

“I’ll grab a nap… the rest’s on you…”

She dropped onto the sofa with a soft thud, like a pebble sinking into silt, and fell asleep within a few breaths.

Ling Yi took the thin folded blanket from the sofa’s corner and tucked it over her, like laying frost over a field. “She’s not even injured…”

“She gambled on that last sword.”

Lu Yao stared at Jiang’s unguarded sleeping face, calm as winter moonlight. “That ghost’s pain hits her mind directly. The first time a blade pierced it, she froze for a full second. That power can’t be old.”

“Mhm. About a month ago, in Cloudlong City, during an incident. That’s when it awakened.”

So little time, like a sapling barely rooted; she hadn’t fought much, and wouldn’t know the ghost’s limit for taking hits.

She might not even know if there’ll be aftereffects—superpowers and Infinite Power run on different rivers, closer to demons and fox-fires, their costs and results like mist without tracks.

If the ghost took too much damage and dispersed, would her spirit burn out with it and leave an empty shell? No one could swear it wouldn’t.

But Jiang Bailu still tried.

In a best-of-three, she stepped wide into the unknown to seize the first point, like a diver cutting into black water for a single pearl.

Was it because a loss would bury independent heroes deeper in the mud, or just plain, bright-edged competitiveness?

“…Same damned mold as her master.”

A bruiser’s student grows into a bruiser; iron begets iron, and it tracks.

Lu Yao didn’t know if she sighed or marveled; the feeling came first, a wry ache, and then she stood and straightened the cross-hatched straps and little pouches inside her coat, like tightening a harness before a climb.

…

…

The second bout put Lu Yao against an Official Hero codenamed [Zhongshan Mirror King].

He had no fight records, no tags online, a blank page like fresh snow.

After hearing Soldier Hero had lost, the Mirror King—real name Liu Sheng, twenty-four—gripped his staff like a walking stick on a cliff path and stepped out of the lounge.

He walked an empty corridor, the lights a pale river above him, into the underground arena’s steel cavern.

He’d fought here for cash before signing on as an Official Hero; the ground felt familiar underfoot, like an old sparring mat, so he didn’t gawk.

But the clock hit the mark, and the woman who could represent the Beast King Squadron alone never showed; the whole arena held its breath like a cave before thunder.

Liu Sheng stood and waited a moment, arms folded like shutters against a wind, then snapped, impatience pricking like thorns: “Hey, host! Where’s my opponent? Did she oversleep in the lounge? For a fight this big, being late kills the vibe—”

She’s been waiting since just now.

…?

…Come to think of it,

When did the fluorescents go dark?

Liu Sheng lifted his head, slow as a man noticing snow in spring.

Muzzles. Muzzles. Muzzles.

Muzzles. Muzzles. Muzzles.

Muzzles. Muzzles. Muzzles.

Packed tight like a flock of crows,

In all shapes like a junkyard grove,

Black and hungry like night-blooming mouths—

“Celestial Speech—”

The next heartbeat drowned in bullets and blast, a summer hailstorm slamming the earth flat.

When the smoke thinned and the dust lay down, the arena looked plowed by a giant machine, the whole floor sunken like a field after rain—about five centimeters.

But… Liu Sheng still stood there.

Against Lu Yao’s prelaid saturation strike, he raised his staff and rode out the gale; his clothes were wind-tossed, but his skin was a blank page.

A dozen or so Omega-construct guns got chewed by some stray counterattack and burst into light like fireflies dying; at a thought, she recalled the rest, vanishing like beads on a broken string.

“Setting traps ahead of time? That’s sly—doesn’t feel heroic.”

Lu Yao hung upside down from the ceiling on a generated grappling claw, a steel spider under a silver web, and didn’t dignify him with an answer; she moved at once to the next volley.

“And anyway, women should stay backstage and do the books. The battlefield’s not a dollhouse—”

A stun bomb and an RPG fell by his boots, thunderdrum then hammer.

“…Mm!”

Before the RPG struck ground, he stepped into it, meeting steel with a forward lean; in midair the rocket flipped 180 degrees like a fish turning, and tore back at her along the same line—only to meet her prepped second shot and detonate mid-flight, a red flower cut short.

The blast failed to draw blood, but Liu Sheng’s mood dropped like a stone into a well—this sallow, thin woman had already read his power?!

That RPG had been a test—no blind probing, but a check with the answer pre-written!

How?! Two exchanges, tops!

Had his name already spread outside? Which useless staffer leaked the file—

Five more RPGs streaked in tight, a crosshatch that penned him center, forcing him to reflect the middle shot and abandon the other four riding a knife’s edge of distance; the combined shockwave flipped him like a leaf.

“Wait! I take it back. You’re strong, worthy of the name Hero! We can talk this out—”

Her answer was the third, then the fourth sweeping wave, RPG trails lacing the air, Type-88 guns howling like iron wolves.

“—Ugh! Damn it!”

He ran ragged across the floor like a fox under hounds, flicking his hand to reflect the shells he couldn’t possibly sidestep; the reversals chewed up several gun mounts in turn.

Lu Yao’s armory wasn’t bottomless; RPGs cost dear like gold coins in a drought; each wave grew thinner, until she stopped the carpet-bombing.

Liu Sheng finally sucked air, chest heaving like a bellows.

“Listen… hear me out…”

Lu Yao straddled the Peace Walker—Part 3 glider and hovered, a hawk in cold air, an incendiary grenade pinched and ready between two fingers.

“Look, you can only tag me with splash damage. You’re burning her ammo. Direct shots on me do nothing, and this grind’s exhausting. You already won one match. How about we call this a draw?”

Lu Yao let the incendiary fall, a red seed seeking dry grass.

Liu Sheng barely slipped the burst of flame, heat licking his heels like a dog. “How about this! Tell me how you knew my power, and I’ll surrender on the spot!”

A bullet spun harder than usual, kissed the metal wall with a ping, and ricocheted toward his back like a swallow; at a set distance it reversed course again and blew the firing gun apart, smoke curling like burnt paper.

So you want to pry the source.

Annoyance bloomed, then cooled like quench-steam. Too bad. There isn’t a source. We just have someone on our side with a similar baseline—words she’d never say aloud.

Liu Sheng hadn’t watched Jiang Bailu’s fight, or watched without comprehension; Lu Yao wore no disguise, and a cursory search would tell you the outline of her armory style. He’d made no preparations—his arrogance, or his stupidity, or both, carved an abyss of information.

And that abyss turned straight into chips on the table.

Lu Yao stayed untouched the whole time, cycling through weapons like pages in a field manual, and sketched the outline of his rare spell: an auto-reflection of ballistic weapons within a close radius.

That simple. Hence [Mirror King].

It also showed how weak Ms. Gu’s picks were… no, Soldier Hero was likely a step above this one.

Given the matchup Jiang had flagged, they probably chose him to counter Lu Yao’s all-ballistic offense; instead he got run under her boot.

…Still, pressing him wasn’t the same as ending him.

Her ammo pool rode the level of the Omega Ray, and thirty-some RPGs had drunk it nearly dry.

“Partial deployment, Unit Two.”

Peace Walker—Part 2!

In the spill of silver light, a steel giant’s hand reached for Liu Sheng like a falling gate—and snapped back mid-grab, slamming the arena wall with a clang like struck armor.

“Forgot to tell you. That sort of attack’s useless too!”

Liu Sheng finally clawed back a little pride, his voice loud as a gong.

Not just bullets—any attack traveling toward him along a line rebounded?

That was trouble—Lu Yao’s brow tightened like drawn thread. Was she going to be ground down? If the armory ran dry and Peace Walker couldn’t bite…

…Keep testing.

Next mode—pure energy.

“Protocol: Grand Cross Alpha!”

The floor lit white in a cross centered on Liu Sheng, like frost etching glass.

His pupils shrank to pinpoints; he dove left-forward with frantic speed, even eating a fall to get there, a tumble like a deer crashing through brush.

Boom!!

Silver light erupted from the floor, swallowed most of the arena like a breaking wave, and tore the stands and cameras free, debris whirling up like a storm-lifted roof.

The glare held for five whole seconds, a noon sun nailed to the earth, then drained away.

…

…Liu Sheng still lay there.

The ground around him gaped with trenches, deep enough to peel back the sand and show the cement bones beneath; rebar lay cleanly cut by the Omega Ray storm, pipes and cables ripped open like entrails.

“Hah… hah…”

He wasn’t unscathed, but compared to Grand Cross Alpha’s bite it felt like a scooter bump on an open road.

Even Lu Yao frowned at the dud of a finisher, her calm rippling like wind on rice—he could even reflect energy, then why had he scrambled so hard to dodge the earlier RPG?

That reflection must have a limit, a condition he had to trigger like a switch—

Without that answer, Lu Yao couldn’t beat him.