The dimension repaired itself overnight.
There was no night.
Ji Xuanyue had decided that made the statement irritating rather than inaccurate.
They had left the temporary world after the final twelve-against-one exercise because even bodies built to carry Sovereign Gates remained bodies, and because Qi Qinghe had eventually threatened to collapse the access structure himself if Jin Lianzhen asked for "one more structural test" while everyone was exhausted.
When they returned, the plain was whole again.
Mostly.
The mountains on the horizon had returned.
The crater Lianzhen had made was gone.
The basin Han Zhenyu had pressed into the world had risen.
The section of ground Ji had accidentally removed from space had been restored without leaving a seam.
Only one thing remained.
A narrow pale scar across the artificial sky.
Ji looked up at it.
"Was that there before?"
"No."
Long Zhaoyan sounded delighted.
Ji turned.
He was staring upward with his hands on his hips.
"The dimension remembers Xuanye."
Xuanye, several paces away, did not look up.
"It is repairing."
"Slowly."
"It is repairing."
"That is what you said yesterday."
"And it remains true today."
Zhaoyan smiled.
Ji had begun to understand that Zhaoyan did not require another person to participate in an argument.
He only required proximity.
Long Jinheng was examining the ground.
Long Canglan stood beside him.
Neither appeared particularly impressed by the restored terrain.
Feng Chixiao did.
He looked across the returned mountains and then toward Xuanye.
"Can we break them again?"
"Yes."
Qi Qinghe closed his eyes.
Ji looked at him.
He seemed to be reconsidering every choice that had brought him here.
Jin Lianzhen brightened.
Qiu Liezhen immediately pointed at her.
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
"You don't know that."
"I know you."
"That feels judgmental."
"You are speaking to a Qiongqi."
"Fair."
Shen Yaoran laughed softly.
Chu Hanyin stood beside her, watching the others with the calm expression of someone who had already accepted that this group would eventually become impossible to manage.
Mu Shuyin had not accepted it.
She was trying.
Ji could see the effort.
Han Zhenyu merely looked tired.
Xuanye waited until everyone had gathered.
Then he said, "Today we stop measuring output."
Ji's attention sharpened.
Feng smiled.
Zhaoyan's smile widened.
Qinghe looked less pleased.
"What are we measuring?"
"Combat."
Lianzhen lifted one hand.
"Against the mountains?"
"No."
Her hand lowered.
"Disappointing."
Xuanye looked around the group.
"One against one."
The atmosphere changed.
Not dramatically.
No pressure descended.
No Gates opened.
Yet Ji felt everyone become more attentive.
They had sparred already.
Suppressed.
Frequently.
Sometimes brutally.
But suppression had become part of the environment.
A common ceiling.
It compressed differences.
Power that might erase a valley became power that cracked stone.
Techniques that could distort a horizon became movements constrained to a training field.
The skill remained.
The scale did not.
Yesterday had shown them the scale.
Today they would aim it at one another.
Mu Shuyin spoke first.
"Resonance?"
"Off."
Qinghe nodded immediately.
"Agreed."
Ji glanced at him.
He noticed.
"We need an individual baseline. The Ninefold Resonance changes too many variables."
"Especially now," Mu added. "We still don't fully understand which improvements come from amplification and which come from correction."
Feng folded his arms.
"So no Resonance."
"No Resonance," Qinghe confirmed.
Jinheng looked toward the Primordial members.
"Embodiment?"
"No," Xuanye said.
That answer came faster.
The eight authentic Primordial Beasts accepted it without argument.
Ji noticed that too.
Primordial Embodiment had been discussed enough that she understood the caution surrounding it.
Not transformation.
Not some larger beast shape.
Something far more dangerous.
A progressive apotheosis in which body and soul became increasingly complete incarnations of foundational affinity.
The Primordials had another name for the formal process.
Affinity Apotheosis.
Outsiders called it Elemental Apotheosis.
The Primordial races called it what it meant to them.
Embodiment.
And there were places along that road one did not approach carelessly.
Final Embodiment was not a technique to test because the training ground happened to be durable.
Past that point lay something with another name.
Apotheotic Extinction.
Ji had heard the explanation.
She had not liked it.
She liked even less that none of the eight Primordials had treated the subject as theoretical.
Xuanye continued.
"Full ordinary release. Gates permitted. Bloodlines permitted. Temporary weapons permitted. No Primordial Embodiment. No deliberate boundary attacks."
Zhaoyan raised one finger.
"Again with deliberate."
"You are why the distinction remains necessary."
"I respect your consistency."
"You will stop on yield, decisive restraint, loss of combat capacity, or referee call."
Qiu looked toward the four Dragons.
"Who referees you?"
"The others."
"That sounds unsafe."
Canglan answered.
"It works."
Qiu looked at him.
"For you?"
"Yes."
"That was not reassuring."
"No."
Xuanye glanced toward Qinghe and Mu.
"You two monitor structure."
Mu nodded.
Qinghe looked toward the artificial sky.
"If one of you adds another permanent scar, I am counting that as a loss."
Zhaoyan turned toward him.
"Arbitrary."
"Motivating."
Jinheng almost smiled.
Ji looked around.
"Pairings?"
Xuanye's gaze moved through them.
"Not random."
That disappointed Zhaoyan for reasons Ji did not understand.
Xuanye continued.
"We compare problems."
He looked toward Shen Yaoran.
Then Chu Hanyin.
"First."
Shen looked toward Hanyin.
Hanyin looked back.
Neither objected.
They walked onto the plain.
The others withdrew.
Farther than they would have under suppression.
Much farther.
Ji settled beside Feng.
He glanced toward her.
"You're staring."
"I am watching."
"Very intensely."
"That is generally how watching works."
"Not for Zhaoyan."
From several paces away, Zhaoyan said, "I heard that."
Feng did not turn.
"You were meant to."
Ji looked back toward the field.
Shen and Hanyin stood perhaps two hundred paces apart.
Under suppression, the distance would have been excessive.
Now it looked small.
Qinghe raised one hand.
"Full release on my count."
Shen rolled her shoulders once.
Hanyin lifted her hands.
"Three."
The air tightened.
"Two."
Ji felt both Gates begin to stir.
"One."
Stillness and radiance entered the world together.
Hanyin's web appeared first.
Silver-blue threads spread outward in all directions, multiplying so quickly that the plain seemed to acquire a second horizon made from fine luminous lines.
They did not merely occupy space.
They defined it.
Every thread represented a possible contact.
A possible warning.
A possible restraint.
Shen's twin radiances rose behind her.
Two suns.
One brightened as the other dimmed.
Then reversed.
Return.
Continuation.
Energy passed through endings and came back altered without being lost.
The first wave of heat reached Hanyin's web.
The threads moved.
Not away.
Around.
They caught the radiance in thousands of minute pathways and redirected it sideways until the air beside Hanyin burned while the space directly in front of her remained cool.
Shen smiled.
Hanyin did not.
Then Shen moved.
She disappeared inside one radiance.
Hanyin's threads tightened.
Shen emerged from the other.
Three hundred paces to the left.
A spear of concentrated brilliance crossed the field.
Hanyin turned her wrist.
The spear bent.
Not much.
Enough.
It passed her shoulder and struck the plain behind her.
Stone vanished in a white column.
Before the explosion finished, Shen's second sun dimmed.
The first brightened.
The same attack returned from another angle.
Ji leaned forward.
Hanyin's web shifted.
The returned strike hit seven threads.
Five snapped.
Two held.
The radiance divided.
Shen was already moving again.
"Interesting," Qinghe murmured.
Ji looked toward him.
"Which part?"
"She is making her spend structure on the same energy twice."
Qinghe was looking at Hanyin.
Ji looked back toward the fight before the thought fully formed.
Hanyin understood the problem too.
She stopped redirecting.
Shen sent another strike.
The threads opened.
The radiance passed through.
Hanyin vanished.
Shen's expression changed.
A thread tightened behind her.
She turned.
Too late.
Hanyin emerged from an empty point in her own web.
Her palm struck Shen's shoulder.
Shen dissolved into light.
Ji's eyes widened.
The struck body collapsed into one of the twin radiances.
The other brightened.
Shen reappeared beneath it.
Hanyin's hand closed on empty air.
Feng whistled.
"So she can return herself."
"Partially," Qinghe said.
Shen attacked.
Hanyin retreated.
Not backward.
Through her web.
Every movement became difficult to follow because the threads did not merely mark where Hanyin was.
They marked everywhere she could choose to be next.
Shen's suns moved with her.
One ahead.
One behind.
Every time Hanyin redirected an attack, the rejected force reentered Shen's cycle.
Every time Shen committed to a line, Hanyin altered the geometry around it.
Neither could establish clean control.
The field between them became a contest of accumulated decisions.
Shen threw less power.
Hanyin used fewer threads.
Each had learned that giving the other more material simply made the next exchange harder.
The fight became quieter.
Ji found that more dangerous.
Hanyin flicked two fingers.
Six threads tightened around Shen's left wrist.
Shen did not break them.
She brightened the sun behind Hanyin.
Hanyin released the wrist and shifted.
Shen stepped through the opening.
A radiant palm stopped a finger's width from Hanyin's sternum.
A silver thread rested against Shen's throat.
Neither moved.
Qinghe's hand rose.
"Stop."
The power withdrew.
Both women remained where they were for another breath.
Then Shen lowered her hand.
Hanyin released the thread.
Zhaoyan clapped once.
"Excellent. Mutual murder."
Mu looked at him.
"That is not the technical term."
"It should be."
Shen and Hanyin returned.
Hanyin was breathing slightly harder.
Shen's left sleeve had been cut in four places.
Shen looked at the damage.
"I liked this sleeve."
Hanyin said, "You burned three hundred of my threads."
"They come back."
"So does the sleeve."
Shen looked at her.
Hanyin's expression remained perfectly calm.
Ji almost missed the humor.
Shen did not.
She laughed.
Xuanye looked toward Qinghe.
"Assessment?"
Qinghe folded his arms.
"Neither had a decisive advantage before the stop."
Mu nodded.
"Hanyin controlled more space. Yaoran controlled more reuse."
Shen looked toward her.
"Reuse sounds inelegant."
"It was effective."
"I accept the insult."
"It was not an insult."
"That makes it worse."
Zhaoyan nodded solemnly.
"She understands."
Mu ignored him.
Ji looked from Shen to Hanyin.
Under suppression she had known they were close.
Full release made the closeness more visible.
Not because their powers resembled one another.
Because they did not.
There was no meaningful way to ask which ability was greater.
Only which person solved the other first.
Xuanye looked toward Jin Lianzhen.
Then Qiu Liezhen.
Lianzhen's smile appeared instantly.
Qiu sighed.
"Of course."
"You say that like you aren't interested."
"I am interested."
"Then why sigh?"
"Because you are also interested."
"That feels unfair."
"It is accurate."
The two women walked forward.
Qinghe called after them.
"Try not to damage the lower structural channels."
Lianzhen turned.
"Which ones?"
"All of them."
"That is restrictive."
Qiu looked at her.
"If you ask for coordinates, I will hit you before the spar begins."
Lianzhen considered.
Then continued walking.
Ji heard Zhenyu murmur, "She was going to ask."
"Yes," Mu said.
"She absolutely was."
The distance opened.
Qiu manifested her temporary chain and weighted head.
Lianzhen looked at it.
Then at her own empty hands.
A Gate-made hammer appeared.
It was enormous.
Zhenyu closed his eyes.
Ji glanced at him.
"You expected something else?"
"No."
"Then why?"
"I hoped."
Qinghe raised his hand.
"Three."
Gravity changed around Lianzhen.
Boundary lines appeared around Qiu.
"Two."
The plain groaned.
"One."
Qiu attacked first.
The chain crossed two hundred paces with a sound like tearing metal.
Lianzhen swung.
Hammer met weight.
The impact did not explode.
It compressed.
For one heartbeat, the air between the weapons became a flattened plane.
Then the pressure escaped sideways.
Two distant ridges split.
Qinghe looked upward.
"They missed the lower channels."
Mu stared at him.
"That is what you are choosing to appreciate?"
"For now."
Qiu pulled.
Lianzhen did not move.
Instead the ground beneath her shifted.
The entire slab of stone under her feet began sliding toward Qiu.
Qiu released the chain.
The sudden absence of resistance sent several thousand tons of earth accelerating in the wrong direction.
Lianzhen's eyes widened.
Qiu was already there.
One palm.
Boundary power sharpened around her hand.
Lianzhen twisted.
The strike passed her ribs.
Her clothing split.
The gravity around Qiu multiplied.
She dropped.
Not uncontrolled.
She drove one hand into the ground and turned the fall into rotation.
Her leg swept toward Lianzhen's knees.
Lianzhen lightened herself.
Too much.
She rose several paces from the ground.
Qiu's chain snapped upward.
Lianzhen increased the weapon's weight.
The chain plunged.
Qiu let it.
The weighted head struck the plain.
The boundary around it cut downward.
A fracture opened beneath Lianzhen.
She had no ground to manipulate.
Ji smiled despite herself.
Lianzhen smiled too.
That worried Ji.
The Pixiu Gatebearer dropped the hammer.
Qiu's eyes narrowed.
The weapon fell.
Then became heavier.
And heavier.
And heavier.
The fracture beneath it widened.
Qiu moved aside.
Lianzhen changed the hammer's weight to almost nothing.
It stopped.
Suspended.
She kicked the haft.
The hammer crossed the distance sideways with absurd speed.
Qiu ducked.
Lianzhen was behind it.
Her fist landed.
Qiu flew.
The chain tightened around Lianzhen's ankle.
She looked down.
"Oh."
Qiu pulled from midair.
Lianzhen's weight increased automatically in resistance.
Qiu smiled.
The chain's boundary field activated.
It did not contest the weight.
It severed the direction through which the weight was being expressed.
Lianzhen lurched.
For the first time, her own gravity failed to behave as expected.
Qiu hit the ground.
Lianzhen hit it harder.
A crater appeared.
Qiu landed at its edge.
The chain remained tight.
Lianzhen looked up from the center.
"That was clever."
"Yes."
"I don't like it."
"Good."
Lianzhen stood.
The crater deepened beneath her feet.
Qiu pulled the chain free.
The two moved at once.
After that, Ji stopped trying to follow individual strikes.
Weight changed too quickly.
Boundaries appeared and vanished too abruptly.
Lianzhen made herself immovable.
Qiu made remaining in one place dangerous.
Qiu cut attack paths.
Lianzhen changed which paths possessed meaningful force.
A section of broken stone rose around them.
Qiu divided it into hundreds of fragments.
Lianzhen assigned each fragment a different weight.
The resulting storm crossed the battlefield in impossible curves.
Qiu laughed.
The sound surprised Ji.
Not because Qiu never laughed.
Because this one was delighted.
She ran directly into the storm.
Boundary lines flashed.
Stone divided around her.
Lianzhen met her in the center.
Hammer.
Chain.
Fist.
Knee.
Gravity.
Ruin.
The plain became unrecognizable.
Then Qiu's chain wrapped around the hammer haft.
Lianzhen increased its weight.
Qiu's arm jerked downward.
Lianzhen stepped in.
Qiu released one hand from the chain and placed two fingers against Lianzhen's ribs.
A dark boundary line formed.
At the same instant, Lianzhen released the hammer.
Her empty hand closed around Qiu's shoulder.
Gravity collapsed inward.
Both stopped.
Qinghe did not need to call it.
Qiu looked down at the hand against her ribs.
Then at the field compressing around her shoulder.
Lianzhen looked at the boundary line resting against her side.
"Mutual murder?"
Zhaoyan called from the distance.
"Yes."
Qiu closed her eyes.
"No."
"But—"
"No."
Lianzhen laughed and released her.
Qiu withdrew the boundary.
Their power fell.
The temporary hammer remained on the ground.
Lianzhen looked at it.
Her laughter faded.
She bent and picked it up.
Turned it once.
The Gate-made surface was flawless.
Perfectly formed.
Perfectly responsive.
Her expression changed anyway.
Ji noticed.
"So?"
Lianzhen ran one thumb along the haft.
"Wrong."
Zhenyu looked toward the weapon.
"What is?"
"The balance."
Qiu stared at her.
"You changed its weight continuously."
"I know."
"That is why the balance changed."
"No."
Lianzhen dismissed the hammer.
It dissolved.
"The Gate makes what I ask for."
She looked at her hand.
"That isn't the same as making what I need."
Silence followed.
Not long.
Enough.
Ji understood why everyone's attention had sharpened.
Lianzhen looked toward Qiu's temporary weapon.
"That chain flexed when you changed the boundary through it."
Qiu glanced down.
"Barely."
"It shouldn't."
"It didn't fail."
"It shouldn't."
Qiu's expression shifted.
She understood.
Lianzhen turned toward Jinheng.
"Your lightning spear yesterday dispersed through the grip."
Jinheng frowned.
"Very little."
"It shouldn't."
Canglan looked toward her.
"My spear pulls left."
Lianzhen pointed at him.
"Exactly."
Zhaoyan laughed.
Canglan did not.
"That was not agreement."
"It was to me."
Lianzhen looked around the thirteen.
The brightness in her eyes had changed.
Less mischievous.
More dangerous.
Ji had seen that expression before.
On researchers who had found a problem large enough to become irresistible.
"We need actual weapons."
Qinghe sighed.
"We knew that."
"No."
Lianzhen smiled.
"Now I know why."
Qiu muttered, "There it is."
Xuanye let the moment settle.
Then his gaze moved toward Ji.
Ji felt it immediately.
She looked at him.
"No."
Zhaoyan's eyebrows rose.
Xuanye's expression remained unchanged.
"You don't know what I was going to say."
"Yes, I do."
Feng began laughing.
Ji turned toward him.
"Don't."
He lifted both hands.
"I said nothing."
"You are about to."
"I was going to wish you luck."
"That is worse."
Xuanye looked toward Feng.
"Both of you."
Feng's smile disappeared.
Not entirely.
Enough.
Ji looked from him to Xuanye.
Then back.
"Oh."
Feng exhaled.
"So this is happening."
Ji straightened.
"Yes."
That came faster than she intended.
Feng looked at her.
Something in his expression sharpened.
Not amusement.
Good.
Ji did not want amusement.
She wanted the person who had stood among the four Dragons for weeks before the rest of them arrived.
The one who had already learned what it meant to fight opponents who did not politely remain within his expectations.
She walked onto the plain.
Feng followed.
They stopped opposite one another.
Farther apart than Shen and Hanyin had.
Ji noticed.
"So I require more distance?"
Feng shook his head.
"I do."
"That sounded flattering."
"It was not."
"Better."
Around them, the others moved back.
Zhaoyan stopped beside Jinheng.
"Five exchanges."
Jinheng looked at him.
"What?"
"Before Feng gets surprised."
Canglan said, "Two."
Feng turned his head.
"I can hear all of you."
Zhaoyan smiled.
"That is why we're speaking."
Ji looked toward Xuanye.
He had not offered a number.
That irritated her.
"Do you have a prediction?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"I'll tell you afterward."
"That means you think I'll lose."
"Yes."
The answer landed cleanly.
Ji stared at him.
Feng winced.
"Xuanye."
"What?"
"You could pretend."
"Why?"
Zhaoyan nodded.
"He has a point."
Ji's irritation became something hotter.
Not anger at Xuanye.
Not really.
Because she had asked.
And because she suspected he was right.
Feng had weeks.
She had days.
Feng had trained against the Cardinals before convergence.
She had spent most of her life believing the strongest beings she knew occupied a scale that now seemed embarrassingly small.
Power did not care whether the discrepancy felt fair.
Ji looked back toward Feng.
"Do not go easy."
His expression changed completely.
No smile.
No joke.
"Wasn't planning to."
Good.
Qinghe took position as referee.
"Same restrictions."
Ji nodded.
Feng did too.
"No Resonance," Qinghe said. "No Embodiment. Full ordinary release permitted. Stop on call."
His gaze moved toward Ji.
"If your time-space control destabilizes, I call it immediately."
"I know."
"Say it."
Ji looked at him.
"I stop immediately if my control destabilizes."
Qinghe nodded.
Then looked toward Feng.
"If your rebirth cycle begins self-escalating beyond controlled release—"
"I stop."
"Good."
Qinghe raised his hand.
"Three."
Ji opened her Gate.
Across from her, fire appeared around Feng.
"Two."
Space bent.
The first Phoenix cry entered the world.
"One."
Feng vanished.
Ji folded distance.
He was already there.
Her eyes widened.
A hand passed through the place her throat had occupied.
Ji reappeared forty paces away.
Feng followed.
Too quickly.
She folded again.
He did not chase.
Ji emerged.
Flame was waiting.
She twisted space.
The fire curved.
Feng came through it.
Ji blocked.
The impact threw her backward.
She turned the momentum into a fold and vanished before striking the ground.
Feng spun.
Ji appeared above him.
She slowed time around his right side.
His movement dragged.
For a heartbeat.
Then fire erupted from the slowed region.
The flame did not obey his body.
It continued cycling.
Renewing.
Feng used the returning heat as propulsion and threw himself sideways out of the temporal drag.
Ji landed.
He was already moving again.
Three exchanges.
Canglan had been wrong.
Four.
Feng struck high.
Ji folded low.
Five.
She sent a spatial shear across his retreat.
Feng stopped.
The shear passed a finger's width from his face.
His eyes sharpened.
Zhaoyan said, very softly, "There."
Ji heard him.
So did Feng.
Six.
Feng stopped testing.
The battlefield changed.
Ji knew it before the next attack landed.
His fire stopped behaving like separate techniques.
It became continuity.
Every place he had burned remained relevant.
Every ember left behind became a future route.
Every failed strike became material for another.
Ji folded space.
Feng used the distortion.
He did not resist being moved.
He let her pull one of his flames into the fold, then emerged through the reborn fire from an angle she had not intended to connect.
Ji barely blocked.
Her forearm went numb.
She tried to step back.
He was already inside the movement.
She slowed time.
He attacked from outside the slowed region.
She widened it.
He withdrew before it completed.
Ji's teeth clenched.
He knew.
Not what she would do.
When she needed to do it.
That was worse.
She changed tactics.
Instead of folding herself, she folded the battlefield.
Distance shortened beneath Feng's next step.
His stride carried him too far.
Ji attacked.
Her palm struck his ribs.
Fire exploded.
She recoiled instinctively.
Wrong.
The body she had struck burned away.
Feng reformed from the flame behind her.
His hand touched her shoulder.
Ji vanished before he could complete the strike.
She reappeared across the field.
Breathing harder.
Feng remained where he was.
He did not pursue.
For one breath they stared at one another.
Ji understood the insult.
Not intentional.
Still an insult.
He had chosen not to chase because he did not need to.
She was the one spending more.
Her Gate and bloodline gave her things that should have been unfair.
Space.
Time.
Causality.
Energy.
Relationships between events.
But she used them like powerful tools.
Feng used fire like a limb.
That was the gap.
Ji hated it.
Good.
Hatred was useful when it pointed at something real.
She closed her eyes.
Feng did not attack.
That surprised her.
Then she realized why.
He had learned this too.
Attacking someone because they appeared vulnerable was exactly the mistake Canglan had punished yesterday.
Ji breathed.
Once.
Twice.
She stopped thinking about how to hit Feng.
Instead she watched the battlefield.
Not with her eyes.
With the Gate.
Burn marks.
Heat.
Residual pathways.
Potential return points.
Feng had filled the field with himself.
Fine.
Ji opened causality.
Possibilities multiplied.
Most were useless.
Some were impossible.
A few were probable.
Feng stepped.
Ji saw seven continuations.
She ignored six.
He vanished into flame.
Ji did not move.
The fire behind her brightened.
She still did not move.
Feng emerged.
Ji folded the space he intended to occupy.
His foot landed.
Not behind her.
Directly in front of her.
For the first time, surprise appeared openly on his face.
Ji struck.
Feng blocked.
Too late.
Her palm drove into his sternum.
He flew backward.
The field exploded around him.
Ji followed.
Not with her body.
With the cause.
She caught the sequence of his retreat and shortened the interval between impact and landing.
Feng struck the ground before his balance had time to adjust.
Stone shattered.
Ji folded above him.
A blade of distorted space formed along her hand.
Feng looked up.
He smiled.
Ji's stomach dropped.
Fire bloomed beneath the ground.
Every ember from his earlier movements returned at once.
Not around her.
Around the fold.
The spatial path itself filled with rebirth flame.
Ji's movement collapsed.
She tore herself out of the transition.
Pain ripped across her senses.
She emerged sideways.
Feng was already standing.
He looked more alive than before.
Not healthier.
Sharper.
The surprise had done something.
He was enjoying himself.
"Again," he said.
Ji laughed once.
"That was the plan."
They collided.
The next exchanges blurred.
Ji improved because she had to.
Feng changed because she improved.
Every time she solved one rhythm, he discarded it.
Every time he exploited one weakness, she stopped giving it to him.
She bent distance beneath his attacks.
He began attacking where the bent distance would end.
She slowed his body.
He used independent flame cycles.
She interrupted the flame.
He turned the interruption into renewal.
She forced one possibility closed.
He chose another before she finished.
The world around them became a map of failed predictions.
Ji took three hits.
Landed one.
Took another.
Nearly landed two.
Feng's temporary flame weapon appeared for only a moment—a bright edge formed from compressed rebirth fire.
Ji collapsed the space around his wrist.
The weapon missed.
He dismissed it instantly rather than fight the distortion.
His empty hand struck her ribs.
Ji twisted.
The hit glanced.
Still enough.
She flew.
She opened a fold behind herself and passed through it rather than striking the ground.
She emerged standing.
Barely.
Feng did not look tired.
That was infuriating.
Then Ji noticed the tremor in his left hand.
Small.
Very small.
She smiled.
Feng looked down.
Then back at her.
"Rude."
"You're tired."
"So are you."
"I didn't say I wasn't."
"Fair."
Ji attacked.
Not because she saw an opening.
Because she saw the beginning of one.
Feng moved.
She had predicted it.
He moved again.
She had predicted that too.
His eyes widened.
Ji folded three distances simultaneously.
One behind.
One left.
One above.
Feng's possible routes narrowed.
He burned through the upper path.
Ji had expected that.
Time slowed there.
His body dragged.
Fire continued.
Ji had expected that too.
She severed the spatial connection between Feng and the nearest rebirth point.
For half a heartbeat, his cycle had nowhere clean to resolve.
Ji appeared in front of him.
Her hand reached his chest.
Feng's expression went calm.
Not surprised.
Calm.
He let the cycle fail.
Ji froze.
The accumulated rebirth fire collapsed inward.
Not into Feng.
Into absence.
The technique died.
Completely.
Ji had spent too much attention ensuring it could not return.
Feng stepped through the dead space his own extinguished technique had created.
No flame.
No brilliance.
Just a person.
His hand caught Ji's wrist.
His shoulder struck hers.
Her balance broke.
She folded reflexively.
He went with her.
Ji's eyes widened.
They emerged together.
Feng twisted.
Ji hit the ground.
A knee pinned one arm.
His hand stopped against her throat.
Fire appeared around two fingers.
Not touching.
Enough.
Qinghe's voice crossed the plain.
"Stop."
Everything vanished.
Ji stared upward.
The artificial sky was pale.
Whole except for Xuanye's scar.
Feng remained above her for one breath.
Then immediately moved back.
He offered a hand.
Ji looked at it.
Then took it.
He pulled her upright.
She was breathing hard.
He was too.
Less.
Annoyingly less.
Ji looked at him.
"How many?"
Feng blinked.
"How many what?"
"How many times did you lose to them?"
The Dragons heard.
Of course they did.
Feng looked toward the four.
Zhaoyan smiled.
Jinheng looked interested.
Canglan remained unreadable.
Xuanye merely waited.
Feng looked back at Ji.
"At first?"
"Yes."
"All of them."
Ji stared.
"All?"
"All."
"How often?"
Feng considered.
"Do you want the dignified answer?"
"No."
"Almost every time."
Zhaoyan corrected him.
"Every time."
Feng turned.
"I beat Jinheng once."
"You knocked him outside the marked field."
"That was the victory condition."
Jinheng nodded.
"It was."
Zhaoyan looked betrayed.
"You are helping him."
"He won that exercise."
Feng pointed at Jinheng.
"See?"
Ji looked between them.
"How long before you started forcing real fights?"
Feng's expression changed.
"Weeks."
That was what she had expected.
It still mattered to hear.
Ji looked down at her hands.
Feng spoke more quietly.
"You have more power than I did when I started."
She looked up.
"That sounds like consolation."
"It isn't."
He gestured toward the ruined field.
"You nearly caught me three times with things you've used properly for less than a fraction of the time I've spent learning how to fight them."
"Four."
Feng frowned.
"What?"
"I nearly caught you four times."
He stared at her.
Then smiled.
"Fine. Four."
Ji looked toward Xuanye.
"You predicted when?"
"Six."
Feng made an offended sound.
Ji's eyebrows rose.
"Six exchanges?"
"He stopped testing you at six."
Ji looked back toward Feng.
He shrugged.
"I was curious."
"And then?"
"Then I wasn't."
Ji smiled.
That helped more than consolation would have.
Not enough.
She looked toward the four Cardinals.
"How far?"
No one pretended not to understand.
Feng followed her gaze.
His smile faded.
Zhaoyan exhaled through his nose.
Jinheng crossed his arms.
Canglan looked at Xuanye.
Xuanye looked back.
Something passed between them.
Then Canglan stepped forward.
"Show her."
Ji's attention snapped toward him.
Xuanye remained still.
"Now?"
"Yes."
Zhaoyan brightened.
"Oh."
Jinheng took three steps backward immediately.
That was concerning.
Feng moved too.
More concerning.
Qinghe stared between the two Dragons.
"Do I need to remind you about the boundary?"
"Yes," Zhaoyan said.
"No," Canglan said.
Qinghe looked at Xuanye.
Xuanye answered.
"No."
Zhaoyan sighed.
"You've all become terribly dull."
Canglan walked onto the plain.
The humor left him before he reached the center.
Not because he became another person.
Because something in him aligned.
Ji had seen it yesterday.
Canglan could joke.
Could participate in the Dragons' nonsense.
Could quietly add one sentence that made Zhaoyan louder and Jinheng regret speaking.
But when combat became the question, he stopped spending attention on anything else.
Xuanye followed him.
Ji and the others retreated.
Far.
Then farther.
Qinghe and Mu established overlapping structural monitoring arrays.
Hanyin spread a secondary thread network around the spectators.
Zhenyu anchored the ground.
Lianzhen adjusted local weight to reduce shock transfer.
Qiu traced boundaries across the defensive layers.
Shen raised both returning suns.
Not to attack.
To catch and recycle whatever energy the defenses could safely receive.
Ji looked around.
"We didn't do all this for my fight."
Feng laughed once.
"No."
"Should I be offended?"
"No."
"That answer suggests yes."
"You should be practical."
Ji looked toward the two distant Dragons.
"That's worse."
Zhaoyan stepped beside her.
"It helps if you stop thinking of this as sparring."
Ji looked at him.
"What should I think of it as?"
"A conversation."
She stared.
"With what language?"
"Violence."
Jinheng sighed.
"He rehearsed that."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
Zhaoyan looked wounded.
Ji turned back toward the field.
Canglan manifested his temporary spear.
He rotated it once.
The same movement he had complained about yesterday.
The point drifted slightly left at the end.
Zhaoyan noticed.
"So it still pulls."
Canglan did not look at him.
"Yes."
"You had an entire rest cycle."
"Yes."
"You failed."
"No."
That made Xuanye's gaze sharpen.
Canglan lowered the spear.
"I stopped correcting it."
For the first time, Xuanye almost smiled.
Ji was not certain.
The expression vanished too quickly.
Qinghe raised one hand.
His voice crossed the distance through an array.
"No Embodiment."
Neither Dragon answered.
Qinghe's eyes narrowed.
"I need verbal confirmation."
Zhaoyan laughed.
Canglan said, "Confirmed."
Xuanye said, "Confirmed."
Qinghe lowered his shoulders fractionally.
"Full ordinary release permitted. Stop on yield, decisive restraint, structural call, or loss of controlled state."
Canglan nodded.
Xuanye did too.
"Three."
The atmosphere deepened.
"Two."
Cold entered the world.
Pressure followed.
"One."
They disappeared.
Ji saw the impact before she saw either Dragon move.
The center of the plain folded downward.
A ring of black stone rose around it.
Then sound reached them.
The defensive layers shook.
Hanyin's threads screamed.
Shen's twin suns flared as they caught escaping force.
Zhenyu's feet sank into the ground.
Ji stared.
"Where are they?"
Feng pointed.
She followed.
Nothing.
Then lightning flashed.
Not Jinheng's.
Friction.
Canglan crossed the field inside a current of compressed atmosphere.
Xuanye moved through the dark cold opposite him.
Spear met palm.
The collision froze the air between them.
Canglan twisted.
The spear pulled left.
Xuanye adjusted right.
Canglan smiled.
The spear curved back.
Not correcting the pull.
Using it.
The point crossed an angle that should not have existed.
Xuanye moved his head.
The spear passed close enough to cut three strands of hair.
Zhaoyan shouted.
"Yes!"
Canglan did not hear him.
Or did not care.
Xuanye's hand caught the shaft.
Cold spread.
Canglan released it.
The spear froze solid.
Then shattered.
Canglan was already inside Xuanye's guard.
One elbow.
Xuanye blocked.
Canglan's knee followed.
Blocked.
A current formed behind the movement and struck from another direction.
Xuanye turned.
The ground beneath both vanished under pressure.
They dropped.
Neither fell.
Canglan rode the descending atmosphere.
Xuanye froze the pressure front itself.
Ji's mind rejected what she was seeing.
Air should not become a structure one could freeze in place.
Apparently nobody had informed Xuanye.
Canglan struck the frozen pressure wall.
It broke.
Not outward.
Toward Xuanye.
Thousands of crystalline fragments crossed the distance.
Xuanye vanished into dark tide.
The fragments entered it.
Slowed.
Stopped.
Canglan was behind them.
Xuanye was already facing him.
They collided again.
Ji lost count.
Not because they were simply fast.
She had seen speed before.
Their fight was difficult to follow because every exchange contained history.
Canglan moved as though he knew which response Xuanye preferred.
Xuanye answered as though he knew that Canglan knew.
Each adjustment carried another adjustment behind it.
Feints existed to trigger counters that existed to reveal second counters that existed only because both men had seen the earlier version years ago.
Ji felt dizzy.
"They aren't reacting," she said.
Feng heard her.
"No."
"What are they doing?"
"Remembering."
Ji looked at him.
Feng's expression was fixed on the fight.
"They've fought each other too long. Half of this happened before either of them moved."
Another impact shook the dimension.
Canglan's spear reformed.
Xuanye released enough pressure that the pale sky dimmed.
The Dragon shadows behind them appeared.
Not transformations.
Not Embodiment.
Bloodline manifestations.
Two colossal ancestral presences pressing against a world built to survive them.
Canglan's domain became depth without water.
Currents crossed everywhere.
The battlefield no longer possessed a neutral direction.
Upward pressure became downward.
Forward became lateral.
Every motion entered an ocean made entirely from force.
Xuanye's cold spread through it.
Not ice.
Something deeper.
Stillness.
Canglan accelerated the current.
Xuanye slowed it.
Canglan multiplied routes.
Xuanye denied them.
The two powers filled the dimension until Ji could no longer tell which one had begun first.
Then Canglan attacked through twelve directions.
Not twelve copies.
One strike carried by twelve currents.
Xuanye raised one hand.
Eleven froze.
The twelfth reached him.
A line opened across his sleeve.
Ji inhaled.
Zhaoyan's grin widened.
Jinheng's expression sharpened.
Feng whispered, "Good."
Xuanye looked at the cut.
Canglan did not wait.
The next attack arrived.
Xuanye moved differently.
Ji noticed immediately.
Not faster.
Less.
Every previous motion had contained room.
Testing.
Allowance.
That disappeared.
Canglan's spear thrust.
Xuanye shifted half a step.
The point missed.
His fingers struck the shaft.
Canglan rotated.
The left pull curved the weapon around.
Xuanye had expected it.
His hand closed where the curve ended.
Canglan abandoned the spear again.
Xuanye let it go.
That surprised Canglan.
One heartbeat.
Probably less.
Enough.
Xuanye entered.
Canglan's pressure field collapsed inward.
Xuanye's cold met it.
The center of the battlefield vanished inside a dark blue-white sphere.
Every defense around the spectators activated.
Mu shouted, "Hold!"
Lianzhen increased weight.
Zhenyu anchored harder.
Qiu reinforced the boundary.
Shen's suns blazed.
Hanyin's threads became visible by the millions.
Ji bent the final layer of space instinctively.
The sphere burst.
The horizon disappeared.
Mountains became fragments.
The artificial sky split along three pale scars.
Qinghe swore.
Ji had never heard him do that before.
The force passed.
Dust filled everything.
For several breaths, no one could see the center.
Ji extended her senses.
Feng caught her wrist.
"Don't."
She looked at him.
"Why?"
"Wait."
That was enough.
Ji waited.
The dust fell.
Two figures remained.
Canglan stood with one knee bent.
His temporary spear had reformed.
Its point rested against Xuanye's side.
Xuanye's hand rested against Canglan's throat.
Neither moved.
Ji stared.
"Draw?"
"No," Jinheng said.
She looked at him.
His eyes remained on the field.
"Xuanye."
"Why?"
Zhaoyan answered.
"Distance."
Ji looked again.
Xuanye's hand was already touching Canglan.
The spear point rested against Xuanye's clothing.
A fraction farther from flesh.
Almost nothing.
Enough.
Canglan looked down.
Then up.
He dismissed the spear.
"My loss."
Xuanye lowered his hand.
"You fixed the pull."
"No."
Canglan straightened.
"I used it."
Xuanye nodded once.
"Better."
That single word carried more satisfaction than most people could fit into praise.
Canglan's mouth shifted.
Barely.
Then both withdrew their power.
The dimension exhaled.
There was no other way Ji could describe it.
Pressure vanished.
Cold receded.
The sky brightened.
The Dragon shadows disappeared.
Everyone remained silent.
Zhaoyan broke first.
"Again."
Qinghe turned on him.
"No."
"But—"
"You split the sky three times."
"I did nothing."
"You encouraged them."
"That is not structurally measurable."
"It is spiritually measurable."
Shen laughed.
Mu looked toward Qinghe.
"That was good."
"Thank you."
Zhaoyan stared.
"You're all against me."
Jinheng nodded.
"Yes."
Canglan and Xuanye returned.
Canglan looked entirely normal.
His sleeve was torn.
One side of his hair had partially come loose.
Otherwise he looked as though he had completed a mildly demanding exercise.
Xuanye had one cut sleeve.
That was somehow worse.
Ji stared at them.
Then at Feng.
Then back.
Feng noticed.
"There."
Ji frowned.
"There what?"
"The answer."
She understood.
How far?
She had asked.
The answer had not been a number.
It was everything she had just watched.
Ji looked toward Canglan.
Yesterday, twelve of them had eventually restrained him under suppression after changing the way they thought about fighting together.
Today, at full release, Xuanye had defeated him by less than the length of a finger.
And yet Canglan had just operated at a level Ji could barely follow.
The contradiction bothered her until she realized it was not one.
The Cardinals were close to each other.
They were far from everyone else.
Those statements could both be true.
Feng stood nearer to that distance than she did.
Weeks of training with them had already changed him.
But even he had watched their fight without pretending he belonged inside it yet.
Ji looked down at her hands.
Power.
She had enough.
Perhaps more than enough.
That was not the problem.
The problem was everything between possessing something and becoming the kind of person who could use it correctly before conscious thought arrived.
Habits.
Judgment.
Failure.
Repetition.
Pain survived enough times to become information.
A decade.
She hated that number.
Not because the Dragons had it.
Because she did not.
Xuanye stopped beside her.
Ji looked up.
"You knew Feng would win."
"Yes."
"You knew when he would stop testing me."
"Yes."
"You knew Canglan would use the left pull."
"No."
That surprised her.
"You didn't?"
"He changed it."
"You still won."
"Yes."
Ji stared at him.
"That isn't helpful."
"It wasn't meant to be."
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead she looked toward the destroyed horizon.
"How long?"
Xuanye was silent.
Ji knew he understood.
"How long until I can fight like that?"
His gaze moved toward the shattered field.
Then toward Feng.
Then back to her.
"I don't know."
It was the first answer she had expected least.
Ji frowned.
"You don't know?"
"No."
"You usually have an answer."
"I usually have enough information."
"And now?"
"You have been using your full power properly for days."
The word properly felt generous.
Xuanye continued.
"You learned during your fight with Feng."
"So?"
"So I don't know how quickly you will continue."
Ji considered that.
It should have comforted her.
Instead it felt like another challenge.
Good.
She preferred challenges.
"What if we don't have ten years?"
Xuanye looked at her.
"We don't."
The humor around them quieted.
Not because everyone had heard.
Though most probably had.
Because the truth already lived among them.
Time was not generous.
Whatever waited ahead would not politely delay itself until thirteen people had accumulated ideal experience.
Ji looked again at the field.
Shen and Hanyin had shown her closeness without similarity.
Lianzhen and Qiu had shown her strength finding flaws in the tools meant to carry it.
Feng had shown her the distance between knowing what she could do and knowing when to do it.
Canglan and Xuanye had shown her what years of surviving one another could become.
Different gaps.
Different answers.
None solved by simply becoming stronger.
Ji exhaled.
"Then we train faster."
Xuanye looked at her.
"That is not how time works."
"I manipulate time."
"You do not manipulate experience."
Ji narrowed her eyes.
"That sounded rehearsed."
Zhaoyan appeared beside them.
"It did."
Xuanye looked at him.
"It was not."
Zhaoyan smiled.
"I believe you."
"No, you don't."
"No."
Feng joined them.
He looked at Ji.
"Rematch tomorrow?"
Ji answered immediately.
"Yes."
Qinghe heard.
"No."
Ji turned.
"Why?"
"Because tomorrow you are both going to learn what recovery is."
Lianzhen looked offended.
"We know what recovery is."
Qiu stared at her.
"You tried to test gravity while eating."
"That was efficient."
"You dropped the table."
"It was a weak table."
Zhenyu muttered, "It was stone."
"Exactly."
Shen covered her mouth.
Hanyin looked away.
Mu did not bother hiding her smile.
Ji laughed.
The sound came easily.
She looked once more across the repaired world they had already ruined again.
The mountains would return.
The sky would heal.
The craters would close.
They could fail here without burying anyone beneath the consequences.
They could lose.
Learn.
Return.
Again and again.
For however much time remained.
Ji looked at Feng.
"After recovery."
He smiled.
"After recovery."
Behind them, Jin Lianzhen was still staring at her empty hands.
Not at the sparring ground.
At something that did not exist yet.
A weapon the Gate could imitate.
But could not truly make.
Her eyes narrowed.
Ji noticed.
So did Xuanye.
Lianzhen looked around at twelve people whose power had spent the day exposing every weakness in temporary things.
Then she smiled.
This time, nobody laughed.
Because they were beginning to understand what she was thinking.
The next problem would not be learning how hard they could strike.
It would be making something worthy of surviving the answer.