A senior Li Clan elder stepped onto the arena floor, his voice amplified by qi. "The first round will be a trial of survival! Contestants have been divided into three groups of three. You will fight in a free-for-all within your designated circle. Only one from each group will advance to the final round!"
The announcement sent a fresh wave of tension through the competitors. This was a chaotic melee, a test of awareness and adaptability as much as pure power.
The groupings were announced:
Group 1: Li Wei, Bai Yi (the stoic defender), Yun Chen (the close-combat specialist).
Group 2:Li Jin, Bai Ye (the ruthless strategist), Yun Yang (the illusionist).
Group 3:Li Yue, Bai Zixin, Yun Lian.
From the stands, the supporters roared. "Big Brother Jin! Show them the true power of the Li Clan!" Li Jun screamed. On the Bai side, Bai Chen pounded the railing. "Bai Yi! Be their unmovable mountain!"
In a less prominent section of the stands, Li Kang stood, his arms crossed. His expression was unreadable to the casual observer, but his eyes were fixed intently on his son.
High on the judging platform, the Azure Lotus Sect elders observed.
"The third group will be a spectacle of refined technique," Elder Mei noted. "But the first... it is a test of raw combat efficacy. The Li boy faces two who should, in theory, complement each other perfectly against a single target."
Elder Kwan grunted. "Theory is for textbooks. Let us see what the boy is made of."
Down in the first group's circle, the three contestants faced each other. Bai Yi immediately settled into a deep-rooted stance, his earth-attributed qi causing the ground to harden. Yun Chen began to move, his steps a fluid, unpredictable dance.
"Two against one. Eliminate the unknown first," Bai Yi stated, his voice a low rumble.
Yun Chen grinned. "Agreed."
They moved in unison. Bai Yi stomped, sending a wave of solidified earth to trap Li Wei's legs. Simultaneously, Yun Chen blurred, closing the distance, his fingers aimed like daggers at Li Wei's meridian points.
Li Wei didn't use a technique. He didn't need to. His perception, heightened by his awakened Divine Dao Bone, read their intentions before their bodies had fully committed. He saw the flaw in the earth wave's construction—a single point of instability. He saw the over-extension in Yun Chen's lunge, a commitment the agile fighter couldn't easily rescind.
He took a single, precise step, not away from the attacks, but through them. His foot came down on the unstable point of the earth wave, his immense physical weight and the density of his Primordial Chaos Body causing the technique to collapse harmlessly around his ankle. At the same time, he twisted his torso, letting Yun Chen's strike whistle past his chest by a hair's breadth.
Before Yun Chen could recover his balance, Li Wei's hand—moving with the relaxed speed of a striking serpent—clamped down on his wrist. There was no fancy throw. Li Wei simply used Yun Chen's own momentum, combined with an irresistible application of force, and hurled him. Yun Chen gasped as he was flung like a ragdoll, sailing cleanly out of the circle to land in a heap, disqualified.
The crowd gasped. It had looked less like a martial contest and more like an adult dealing with a child.
Bai Yi's eyes widened. He had never seen anyone treat Yun Chen's agile assaults with such dismissive ease. He roared, channeling all his qi into his defense, his skin taking on a grey, stony hue. "I am the unbreakable wall! You will not pass!"
Li Wei turned to him. He didn't summon his fist art. These opponents were not worthy of it. He simply walked forward.
Bai Yi met him with a crushing palm strike, meant to shatter boulders. Li Wei didn't block. He deflected, his forearm meeting Bai Yi's wrist at a perfect angle, redirecting the force harmlessly past his shoulder—a direct application of his father's lessons. Before Bai Yi could reset, Li Wei was inside his guard.
He didn't throw a punch. He drove his shoulder, backed by the weight of a mountain, into Bai Yi's chest.
It was the most basic of combat moves, infused with impossible power.
THUD.
The air left Bai Yi's lungs in a whoosh. The "unbreakable wall" shuddered, his stony defense groaning under the impact. His eyes bulged, his qi disrupted, and he stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet and collapsing across the circle's boundary, defeated.
The fight was over. Li Wei had won without a single flashy technique, using only superior perception, timing, and his overwhelming physicality.
In the stands, Li Kang allowed himself a small, tight smile of approval. His son hadn't just won; he had listened. He had used skill and control over brute force, hiding his true depths. It was a more terrifying display of dominance than any technique could have been.
On the Azure Lotus platform, Elder Han nodded slowly. "No wasted movement. Flawless application of fundamental combat principles. And a physical foundation... I have not seen its like in one so young."
Elder Kwan's earlier skepticism was gone. "He didn't just break their techniques; he broke their understanding of combat. That is a different kind of talent."
Li Wei stood alone in his circle, the winner. He glanced at his father and received an almost imperceptible nod. The message had been sent, not with a roar, but with a whisper that echoed with the weight of inevitability.