The arena—so often a roaring cradle of ambition and bloodlust—had fallen into a suffocating, unnatural stillness.
Not reverence.
Not awe.
But confusion… and the kind of discomfort that clings to the back of the throat like cold ash.
Thousands watched, yet none dared breathe too loudly. Even the Seven Leaders—veterans who had stared down storms of Ki, wars between sects, and the rise and fall of countless prodigies—were speechless.
At the center of the stage, separated by only a few paces, stood two figures whose presence devoured the silence.
Li Tie.
Xuan Zhe.
They faced each other on the ancient stone dais, its carvings of primordial beasts catching the noon light like coiling serpents of gold.
Xuan Zhe, the Profound Master whose earlier strikes had crushed the hopes of nearly every youth present, stood with hands clasped behind his back—expression unreadable, like he was regarding a curious stone on the roadside.
But Li Tie…
Li Tie's presence warped the silence.
Not through power, for he revealed nothing. Not through intent, for his aura was blank as a sheet of paper.
But through the stillness of a man standing in two different lifetimes at once.
His lowered lashes shadowed his white-colored eyes. The token of participant number 657 hung silently at his waist, touching the fabric of the simple robe he wore—white, clean, unembellished, as if deliberately stripped of origin.
Every whisper in the stands had died.
Every guess, every insult, every murmured speculation earlier about "the unaffiliated boy" felt absurd now.
Because the moment he stepped forward, the air changed.
Even those who lacked Ki felt their hearts skip a beat.
Something was wrong.
No—something was remembering.
A memory far too heavy for someone so young.
Li Tie exhaled once, a slow, measured breath that fogged faintly despite the warm sunlight. In that exhalation, he heard the unnerving quiet of another day—one carved into the marrow of his soul.
…It was as quiet as this one… that day.
His mind pulled him—not gently, but violently—into the past.
The world cracked open with the sound of death.
Jin Tie gagged on the taste of ice in the air as consciousness clawed its way back into his bruised, battered body. He lay beneath a boulder—a medium-sized slab of stone large enough to crush a grown man, yet somehow it had shielded him.
His fingers twitched.
The boulder trembled.
A second tremor.
A third—stronger.
Then, with a slow, grinding groan, the stone lifted just enough for a dirt-stained hand to emerge. Fingertips dug grooves into the soil as Jin Tie dragged himself into the daylight.
Daylight… if one could call it that.
The sky was a dead thing—grey, washed out, sick with the residue of frost and smoke. The air stung his lungs with every breath.
He staggered to his knees.
And he saw—
Burned buildings collapsing into piles of charcoal.
Walls frozen mid-melt, dripping icicles of indigo that devoured color itself.
Corpses—faces he knew, faces he loved—preserved in crystalline shards of ice.
Everything was gone.
Not a single bird.
Not a single ember of warmth.
Not a single voice.
Silence.
A silence so profound that even his heartbeat felt like an intrusion.
His breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened, pupils shrinking. His mind began to scream even before he formed the words.
What… happened…?
As if answering him, the memories surged.
Not in order.
Not in mercy.
But like shards of broken glass being shoved into his skull.
The storm.
The horned figure.
Father's desperate roar.
Mother's Last breath and cold hands.
The indigo rain—the daggers carved from cold.
The crushing pressure that made the world kneel.
Li Tie collapsed.
His forehead hit the frozen earth.
He clutched his head with both hands, shaking violently as the flashbacks ripped him apart. His breaths turned to ragged screams, torn from a throat that had lost all tone of humanity.
"No… no no no… it can't—It didn't—It DIDN'T HAPPEN!"
His voice cracked until it dissolved into hoarse sobs.
He curled into himself, knees drawn to his chest, trembling like a wounded animal. Tears froze on his cheeks almost instantly.
He could feel something cracking inside—
Not a bone.
Not a muscle.
But the last thread holding his sanity together.
He sobbed until his voice was gone. He screamed until only silence answered him. The human mind was not built to endure this—this absolute annihilation of everything it loved.
He felt himself slipping.
Not fainting.
Breaking.
But in that moment, as his consciousness frayed into madness—
Something stirred.
From deep within his left pupil, a black character surfaced like ink bleeding through paper.
抗
It gleamed like a brand forged in defiance.
抗 — káng.
To resist.
His pupils, normally a deep black, turned stark white—except for that single, jet-black character blazing at the center of his left eye.
A pulse.
Then—
Darkness swallowed him whole as his body collapsed beside the corpses of his world.
The roar of the crowd had not returned.
The world inside Li Tie's chest, however, had.
He stood across from Xuan Zhe.
His eyes no longer trembled at the memory.
They were cold.
Still.
Sharpened by a truth carved into bone:
He lived because he was not allowed to die.
Somewhere beyond the Seven Mountains, in a realm he had not yet reached,
a single flickering flame—his sister's presence—still shone faintly.
He would not break.
He would not kneel.
He would not fall.
Not here.
Not ever.
Xuan Zhe studied him quietly, a faint crease forming between his brows.
"What is that look…?" the master murmured to himself.
It was not arrogance.
Nor anger.
Nor youthful bravado.
It was the look of a wolf that had already walked through the ruins of its pack and come out the other side carrying the scent of a god.
A hush rippled through the crowd as Li Tie lifted his chin, meeting Xuan Zhe's gaze fully.
And the Seven Leaders—men who had risen through blood, talent, and countless battles—felt their pulses stutter.
Because that gaze…
It did not belong to someone standing before a trial.
It belonged to someone standing after the end of the world.
And stepping forward anyway.
The silence cracking across the arena felt brittle—thin enough that even a breath could shatter it.
But Xuan Zhe did not breathe.
Not at first.
The Profound Master stood rooted in place, eyes locked on the youth before him. Moments earlier, he had nearly taken a half-step back—an involuntary retreat his pride refused to acknowledge. Now, he reclaimed that sliver of composure, spine straightening with a soft, measured exhale.
His face settled once more into its disciplined calm, but his gaze…
It had sharpened.
He had seen countless prodigies—monsters blessed by rare meridian gates, sons of ancient clans, disciples molded by sacred manuals. Yet the presence radiating from the boy called Li Tie did not belong to any of them.
It was neither bright nor overwhelming.
It was not the heat of ambition.
Nor the brazenness of youth.
It was something quieter, older—like standing before the blackened, cold ruins of a battlefield where every life had already been claimed.
Something in Xuan Zhe's chest tightened at that sensation.
This boy has walked through death, he realized.
And returned with eyes that refused to turn away.
He cleared his throat, his voice steadying into its usual tempered firmness.
"Young man," Xuan Zhe began, folding his hands behind his back once more. "Before I strike, I require your answer to one matter."
The entire arena leaned in.
Even the Seven Leaders—usually aloof, detached observers—focused fully on this exchange.
Xuan Zhe continued, his tone level but edged with genuine curiosity:
"I cannot discern your realm."
A ripple of disbelief surged through the crowd.
He cannot discern it?
But he's a Profound Concept master!
How could that even be possible—?
Xuan Zhe's voice cut cleanly through the rising murmur.
"So tell me, Li Tie."
He paused, his next words spoken clearly, each syllable ringing like a bell across the ancient arena stones.
"What level of Ki should I use for my attack?"
The question was not merely procedural.
It was a test—of awareness, of talent, of confidence.
And it was a challenge.
Even geniuses would have hesitated.
Even heirs of mighty clans would have measured themselves carefully, conscious that one wrong word could become a joke whispered for generations.
But Li Tie did not hesitate.
His eyes did not waver.
No pride stirred in his chest.
No fear whispered in his bones.
Only certainty lived there.
He lifted his chin slightly—just enough to look Xuan Zhe in the eye, yet not enough to be disrespectful. His voice carried steady across the arena, devoid of tremor, devoid of arrogance.
"Your current stage will do," Li Tie said.
A sentence delivered without flourish.
Without raised tone.
Without any attempt to provoke.
Yet the words struck the arena harder than any Ki technique.
A shock rippled through the stands.
Xuan Zhe's pupils tightened minutely.
The jade seats of the Seven Leaders stilled.
Even the mountain winds seemed to halt, stunned.
And it wasn't the content of the sentence that froze them—it was the manner in which it was spoken.
Not a declaration.
Not a boast.
It was simply an answer.
A factual statement delivered with the same tone one might use to confirm the time of day.
Confidence, yes.
But deeper than that—certitude.
A certitude that only appears when someone has nothing left to fear in this world.
Xuan Zhe studied him, his expression unreadable.
"…Very well," he said at last.
The words stirred the air like a blade drawing close to a sheath.
He stepped forward once, Ki humming faintly beneath his skin. His Profound Concept flickered like a restrained storm, bound tightly, ready to be molded into a single, crushing strike.
"Prepare yourself," Xuan Zhe murmured.
Li Tie's eyes narrowed slightly, not in challenge, but in acknowledgment.
The arena trembled with anticipation.
The crowd held their breath.
The jade pillar recording the tournament glowed faintly—already etching these moments into its timeless memory.
For what was about to occur would be spoken of for generations:
The moment a nameless youth looked a Profound Master in the eyes and said—
Use your current stage.
It will be enough.
The air tightened.
Xuan Zhe moved.
And—