Mame's biting insult hung in the air, but the chaotic battlefield left no time for Tang San to formulate a retort.
The original timeline was asserting itself with brutal efficiency. Seeing Zhu Zhuqing knocked out of the sky and Tang San's Blue Silver Grass shredded, Xiao Wu's eyes glowed with a desperate, pink light. She locked eyes with the massive Vice Dean, activating her second spirit ability.
Demon Reveal: Charm!
It was a fatal miscalculation. Xiao Wu was Rank 29; Zhao Wuji was a Rank 76 Spirit Sage with a mental fortitude as thick as his physical hide. The moment her mental attack struck his overwhelming aura, it shattered like glass against a boulder.
Xiao Wu let out a piercing scream. The backlash of spirit power rebounded directly into her brain. Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed into the dirt, blood trickling from her nose and ears.
"Xiao Wu!" Tang San screamed, his voice cracking with sheer, unfiltered panic.
He scrambled across the dirt, catching her limp body. His jade-white hands trembled as he checked her pulse. She was alive, but deeply unconscious.
In that instant, the analytical, textbook-quoting "Control System Leader" completely vanished. Tang San's eyes turned a violent, bloodshot red. His hypocritical rage boiled over, completely erasing the tactical formation he had just lectured Mame about.
Tang San gently laid Xiao Wu on the ground and stood up, glaring at Zhao Wuji with absolute, lethal intent.
"Vice Dean," Tang San hissed, his voice cold and devoid of any respect. "I will fight you alone for the remainder of the incense stick. If I survive, we all pass."
Zhao Wuji, feeling a twinge of guilt for accidentally hitting a student that hard, grunted and nodded. "Fine. Show me what you've got, kid."
Standing safely on the sidelines, Mame lowered Zhu Zhuqing to the ground. He watched Tang San step forward with a look of profound, aristocratic disappointment.
And there it is, Mame thought, his pitch-black eyes narrowing. The moment his personal feelings are involved, he abandons his "Master's" sacred team-combat theories entirely and goes solo. What a fraud.
The fight that followed was a spectacle of Tang Sect assassination arts. Tang San abandoned his Blue Silver Grass almost entirely. His feet blurred as he executed the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, leaving afterimages in the dirt to evade Zhao Wuji's massive, earth-shattering strikes. His hands moved in intricate circles, using Controlling Crane Catching Dragon to deflect the sheer kinetic force of the bear's blows.
"Slippery little loach!" Zhao Wuji roared, growing increasingly frustrated as he missed punch after punch.
"You haven't seen anything yet," Tang San sneered.
He reached for his Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges belt. The air was suddenly filled with the sharp, metallic whistle of hidden weapons. Throwing knives, silent darts, and bone-piercing nails rained down on the Spirit Sage.
Zhao Wuji summoned his Vajra Barrier, a dome of solid golden light. Most of the standard weapons bounced off harmlessly, but Tang San's eyes gleamed with arrogant certainty. He pulled out a cluster of what looked like pure golden strands.
The Dragon Beard Needles. The armor-piercing ultimate weapon he had spent three days forging from the Plate Crystal he bought from Flender.
With a flick of his jade-white wrists, Tang San launched the golden strands directly at the Vice Dean's glowing barrier.
"Pierce!" Tang San commanded, fully expecting the needles to curl into Zhao Wuji's flesh and rip his muscles to shreds.
TINK. CRACK.
Instead of piercing the barrier, the golden strands struck the golden light and instantly shattered into a cloud of brittle, useless copper dust.
Tang San froze mid-stride, his jaw dropping in absolute, mind-breaking horror. What?! My Dragon Beard Needles... shattered?! But the structural integrity of the golden threads is absolute! Unless... the crystal was a fake?!
That momentary lapse in concentration cost him dearly. Zhao Wuji capitalized on the opening, slamming a shockwave into the ground that launched Tang San into the air.
Desperate, out of options, and robbed of his ultimate trump card, Tang San resorted to his dirtiest tactics. He unleashed a barrage of deeply poisoned darts, managing to scrape them against Zhao Wuji's exposed skin before summoning a , terrifyingly heavy hammer—the Clear Sky Hammer—for a split second to block a final, crushing blow.
The impact sent Tang San flying backward. He hit the dirt, completely drained of spirit power, and instantly fell unconscious.
The incense stick burned out.
The clearing was a disaster zone. The ground was cratered, and Zhao Wuji looked terrible. The Vice Dean was panting heavily, his face swelling rapidly as the toxic, purple venom from Tang San's darts began to spread through his veins. He looked like a giant, bruised pincushion.
Mame sighed, a long, dramatic sound that echoed through the quiet clearing.
He walked slowly across the ruined field, his silver shoes stepping lightly over the craters. He stopped next to Tang San's unconscious body, looking down at the Tang Sect genius with absolute disdain.
"How profoundly disappointing," Mame said aloud, knowing Zhu Zhuqing and Ning Rongrong were listening. "He lectures me on the 'qualifications' of leadership and the absolute necessity of his Master's Control System theories. Yet, the moment the vanguard fails, he Abandons his team, Abandons his Martial Soul, and relies entirely on toxic metal toys to survive. He couldn't put a single one of his so-called Master's theories into practice."
Mame shook his head, stepping over Tang San and walking up to the groaning Vice Dean.
"Hold still, you overgrown bear," Mame muttered, his aristocratic mask slipping slightly to reveal the exasperated King Beast underneath.
Mame's hands moved with multiversal precision. He channeled his Asura Ki, forming invisible, surgical tweezers of energy. In a matter of seconds, he plucked the poisoned darts and hidden nails out of Zhao Wuji's thick hide. He then reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a Cleansing Moon Root, crushing it in his palm.
"Eat this," Mame ordered, shoving the glowing paste into Zhao Wuji's hand. "It will neutralize the toxins and bring the swelling down. You should know better than to let a child turn you into a target dummy."
"Thanks, rich boy," Zhao Wuji grunted, swallowing the bitter herb and sighing as the purple hue immediately began to fade from his veins. "Kid hits like a truck, though."
Mame didn't reply. He turned his attention to the battlefield itself.
His eyes scanned the deeply poisoned craters, the toxic purple sludge dripping from the discarded darts, and the wilted, blackened grass where Tang San had unleashed his venom.
Deep down, the soul of the Star Dou Forest's Apex Hybrid physically revolted. The Rule of the King Beast. You do not poison the earth you walk on.
Mame crouched down, his immaculate silver robes pooling into the dirt as he began to manually gather the toxic needles and neutralize the poisoned sludge with pulses of his Sun-Ape Ki.
"Children these days," Mame started muttering, his voice dropping into a gruff, exasperated grumble that sounded entirely too old for his twelve-year-old face. "Absolutely no respect for the environment. Tossing toxic metal around like it's candy. Do they have any idea how long it takes for the soil to recover from concentrated neurotoxins?"
He picked up a blackened, dying stalk of Blue Silver Grass, shaking his head in sheer, unfiltered disgust.
"And the sheer stupidity of it all," Mame continued his rant, tossing the toxic darts into a sealed lead box from his ring. "Blue Silver Grass is the literal embodiment of nature's vitality. It grows everywhere. It survives everything. It is a spirit of pure, unyielding life force. And what does this 'genius' do? He mixes it with necrotic poison. It's like trying to put out a fire with raw sewage! Who teaches a kid to fundamentally corrupt their own Martial Soul?!"
Zhu Zhuqing and Ning Rongrong stood a few yards away, watching in utter bewilderment. The terrifying, untouchable silver aristocrat who had just casually insulted their Vice Dean was currently on his hands and knees, aggressively weeding the training field and ranting like an angry environmentalist groundskeeper.
"Disrespectful. Shortsighted," Mame grumbled, incinerating a puddle of venom with a snap of his fingers. "If Da Ming saw this, he'd drown the kid in the core lake just on principle."
Mame finally stood up, wiping his hands on a silk handkerchief. The field was clean. The poison was neutralized.
He looked over at Zhao Wuji, then at the two conscious girls.
"Well?" Mame asked, raising an aristocratic eyebrow as his "Young Master Bai" persona flawlessly snapped back into place. "The incense is out. I assume this means the circus has officially been admitted?"
Mame finished wiping his hands with the silk handkerchief, tucking it away. The training field was spotless again, the lethal poison neutralized by the raw, holy fire of his Sun-Ape Ki. He turned his pitch-black, aristocratic gaze back to the massive Vice Dean sitting in the dirt.
Zhao Wuji's swelling had gone down significantly thanks to the Cleansing Moon Root. He was still battered and breathing heavily, but the deadly purple hue of Tang San's toxins had completely faded from his veins.
Mame's immaculate silver-white robes were completely devoid of dust. He hadn't fought, he hadn't sweat, and he hadn't even summoned his spirit rings.
"Well, Vice Dean?" Mame asked smoothly, the dangerous, thrilling resonance of the King Beast briefly bleeding back into his voice. "The incense stick has burned out. Our self-appointed leader lies unconscious in the dirt, entirely reliant on toxic toys and completely failing to employ a single one of his Master's 'Control System' theories."
Mame stepped closer, his shadow falling over the Vigorous Vajra Bear. A dark, challenging smirk touched his lips. "The question is... can you still fight? Or are you going to disappoint your newest student before I even officially enroll? I was promised a beating, after all."
Zhao Wuji looked up at the boy. The sheer, terrifying arrogance of the challenge sent a thrill through the Spirit Sage's blood, but his bruised ribs and the lingering ache of the poison grounded him in reality. He looked at Mame's relaxed posture and the absolute, bottomless confidence in those abyssal eyes.
If I fought him right now, Zhao Wuji realized, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck, with my spirit power drained and my body battered... I don't think I'd walk away. He wouldn't even need those impossible rings.
A massive, booming laugh erupted from Zhao Wuji's chest, shaking his broad shoulders. He slapped his thick thigh and slowly pushed himself up from the dirt.
"Maybe next time, rich boy," Zhao Wuji chuckled, wincing slightly as a fractured rib protested. "You're a little monster, alright. The way you handled..."
Zhao Wuji paused, gesturing with a thick finger toward Zhu Zhuqing, who was standing quietly nearby, perfectly stabilized and completely unharmed thanks to Mame catching her out of the air.
"...her," the Vice Dean finished. "That kind of absolute, pinpoint control over your spirit energy to instantly neutralize a concussive backlash? It shows you're more than good enough to be here. Besides..."
A sly, toothy grin spread across Zhao Wuji's scarred face as he looked down at Tang San's unconscious form. "...that kid did explicitly state that if he survived the incense stick, you all pass. Technically, he survived. Barely. So, by his own arrogant rules, you're in."
For a moment, Mame just stared at the massive bear of a man. Then, the aristocratic facade shattered entirely.
Mame threw his head back and let out a genuine, roaring laugh that echoed across the Shrek Academy grounds. It was the unrestrained, joyful laugh of a Saiyan who appreciated a good loophole.
"You sly bear!" Mame cackled, pointing a finger at Zhao Wuji. "Hahahaha! Using his own self-righteous challenge to admit the guy he hates! I love it!"
Mame's laughter subsided into a dark, highly amused chuckle. He casually adjusted his cuffs, looking down at Tang San with a mixture of pity and intense anticipation.
"I am perfectly fine with that arrangement, Vice Dean," Mame smiled, his pitch-black eyes gleaming. "We can have our good fight later, when you're fully recovered. But I must warn you..."
He gestured vaguely to the cratered ground where Tang San had desperately tried to deploy his ultimate armor-piercing weapons, only to watch them shatter into harmless copper dust against Zhao Wuji's barrier.
"...he is going to throw an absolute, monumental tantrum when he wakes up and realizes his 'unbeatable' toys are broken and you let me pass with out a battle."
Zhao Wuji snorted, crossing his massive arms. "Let him. If a Spirit Master relies that heavily on external tools, they deserve to have them broken. A true monster fights with their own strength."
"My thoughts exactly," Mame agreed smoothly.
He turned his back on the unconscious "leader" and looked at Ning Rongrong and Zhu Zhuqing. The Princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan was still staring at him in absolute bewilderment, while the Hell Civet's cold eyes held a strange, calculating respect.
"If you ladies will excuse me," Mame offered a flawless, aristocratic bow, "I believe I have a dormitory to claim before the peasants wake up and start complaining about the accommodations."
Without waiting for a response, Mame casually stepped over a smoldering piece of Blue Silver Grass, walking off the ruined training field as if he owned the entire academy.