Volume 2, Chapter 27: The Tangled Threads
Lakan sat in the VIP terrace, chewing on a hangnail.
It was a bad habit, but he couldn't stop. A tiny bead of blood welled up on his thumb. It stung. A God's blood, stinging just like a mortal's. He found that funny. He sucked the blood away and leaned back in his creaky chair, looking out over the crowded arena.
"Stop picking at that," Mu En said. The Dean of the Lakan Academy didn't even turn his head. His Radiant Dragon energy was perfectly still, a warm blanket of calm over the entire viewing box.
"I'll stop when the matches get interesting," Lakan replied, wiping his thumb on his pants. "I miss the old days. When Xishui used to just summon the Blood Demon Puppet and clear the ring."
Mu En cracked a tiny, rare smile. "Ye Xishui is the High Arbitrator of the Twilight Hall now. Bibi Dong's successor cannot be seen brawling with teenagers. Besides, she is busy hunting those Holy Ghost Church fanatics."
Lakan chuckled. It was the ultimate joke of this era. The Holy Ghost Church, led by the bitter descendants of Sun-Moon mages, actually thought Ye Xishui was a prisoner. They wanted to "free" her from the Phoenix's laws. They had absolutely no idea she was the one holding back, keeping herself from slaughtering them all to dust. If Long Xiaoyao wasn't running interference with his Shadow Sentinels, she probably would have wiped them out by breakfast.
"Look," Mu En pointed a wrinkled finger at Platform Three. "Your student's match is starting."
•••••••••••
Down in the waiting area, Ma Xiaotao was vibrating. Literally.
Her skin was flushed pink, and the air around her smelled like hot iron. She was pacing the small dirt room like a caged tiger.
"I can melt them in three seconds," Xiaotao muttered, her hands curling into tight fists. "Just let me open up the 'Sa' script. A little burst of Silakbo, and they turn into puddles."
"No," Yuhao said firmly. He was sitting on a bench, wrapping his hands with athletic tape. "If you rely on your fire against a physical enhancement team, you're going to overheat your Crystalline Vessel. Dean Yan Shaozhe warned you about this yesterday."
"Dean Yan is a bore," Xiaotao spat, though she stopped pacing. "He talks too much about the Eight-Cycle Breath. I'm a Phoenix. We are supposed to burn."
"You are supposed to flow," Yuhao corrected. He stood up and tapped two fingers against his forehead. Underneath his skin, the Third Eye throbbed, sending a sharp ache through his skull. He ignored it. "The Boulder Sect uses deep muscle condensation. They are walking bricks. If you blast them, they'll just absorb the heat and hit you harder. We fight this one quietly."
Tang Ya nodded from the corner, adjusting her emerald wrist-guards. "Yuhao is right. Save the big guns for the main Sun-Moon team. Today, we use technique."
The referee blew the whistle.
They walked out onto the hard-packed earth of the arena. The Boulder Sect team was waiting. They were all massive, built like brick walls, wearing thick leather armor. They didn't have heavy Shells, just raw, mutated physical strength.
"Begin!"
The Boulder Sect captain charged. He looked like a runaway freight train. Every step left a dent in the dirt floor.
Xiaotao growled, a flicker of orange flame lighting up her eyes. She wanted to meet him head-on with a wall of fire. But Yuhao's voice cut straight into her mind through the All-Seeing Library.
[Hold the fire. Look at his right knee. The Flow is heavy, but it's tangled.]
Yuhao was using the Gaze of Latency. The world turned into a wire-frame map. He saw the ambient energy moving through the big captain's body. The muscle condensation was strong, but it wasn't perfect. There was a knot of energy right below his kneecap—a gap in the armor.
Xiaotao gritted her teeth. She forced her fire back down into her core, feeling the intense pressure build up in her Crystalline Vessel. She dropped low, shifting her weight.
When the captain swung a massive, tree-trunk arm at her head, she didn't block. She ducked underneath it. Using a classic Sikaran move Jiang Nannan had taught her, she pivoted on her heel and drove her shin directly into the knot on the captain's right knee.
Crack.
It wasn't a bone breaking. It was the sound of his internal Flow snapping out of alignment.
The massive captain roared in surprise, his leg buckling instantly. He crashed to the dirt in a heap of tangled limbs.
Xiaotao blinked in shock. She hadn't used a single spark of fire, but the guy was down.
[Now the left flank,] Yuhao directed, his own head pounding as he processed the Flow of the remaining six opponents. [Tang Ya, use the 'Pa' script on your vines. Purify the ground under their feet to ruin their traction.]
Tang Ya slapped her hands against the dirt. Glowing blue-silver grass shot forward, spreading a slippery, purifying light across the arena floor. The heavy Boulder Sect students slipped and slid, unable to plant their feet for a heavy strike.
Xiaotao moved through them like a dancer. She used strikes, grappling, and perfect balance. She kept the fire trapped inside her body, using it only to fuel her speed. Every time Yuhao pointed out a gap in their Flow, she hit it with pinpoint accuracy.
It was a brutal, efficient dismantling. Within four minutes, the entire Boulder Sect team was on the ground, groaning.
"Winner, Team Anito!"
Xiaotao stood in the center of the ring, breathing hard. Her skin was incredibly hot to the touch, but she hadn't wasted a single drop of soul power on flashy explosions. She looked up at the VIP box and gave a small, proud salute.
••••••••
While the crowd cheered for the clean victory, Captain Ye Guyi was far away from the noise.
She was walking through the deepest sub-basement of the stadium, flanked by two Radiant Sentinels. The air down here was cold and smelled of damp concrete. This was where the spare equipment and backup Sun-Moon Shells were kept.
"Captain," one of the sentinels said, pointing his light-sword down a dark corridor. "The temperature drop starts here. It's off the charts."
Ye Guyi drew her own blade, a pure manifestation of the 'La' (Light) Baybayin. The golden glow illuminated the heavy steel door of Storage Room B-4. The metal handle was completely grey.
She reached out and touched it.
The handle didn't break. It crumbled. It turned into fine, ashen dust that drifted to the floor.
Ye Guyi's stomach tightened. She pushed the door open with her boot.
The storage room was a graveyard. Dozens of backup Sun-Moon armors, mechanical joints, and resonance disruption coils were stacked on the shelves. Or at least, they used to be. Now, they were all infected with a dull, matte grey color.
"By the Phoenix," a sentinel whispered, stepping back.
Ye Guyi stepped inside. The silence in the room was deafening. It wasn't just quiet; it was an active absence of sound. The natural Flow of the world had been deleted inside these four walls.
She recognized this feeling. It was the exact same chill she had felt watching the Desolate Thorns boy on the stage earlier.
She walked over to a heavy chest-plate. She pressed her glowing hand against the grey metal, trying to force her Radiant light into the Stagnation to purify it.
The light hit the grey metal and hissed. For a second, a bright golden spark flared up. But then the grey swallowed it. The light died, and the chill crept half an inch up her gauntlet before she yanked her hand back.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She was a Leaf of the Angel. Her light was supposed to be absolute. But this infection didn't care about the Phoenix's laws. It was a virus in the system.
"Quarantine this room," Ye Guyi ordered, her voice trembling slightly. She forced herself to sound commanding. "Nobody touches anything. Lock it down with triple-layered warding scripts."
"Yes, Captain. Who do we report this to? Dean Yan?"
"No," Ye Guyi said, turning on her heel. She brushed a speck of grey dust off her pristine white uniform with a look of disgust. "The Deans will just lock the building down and cause a panic. I need someone who can track the source without making a noise."
She hated the idea forming in her head. She despised relying on anything outside her perfect, Radiant training. But she had seen how the Anito boy's eyes worked. He had seen the gap in the Sun-Moon static.
If anyone could trace this silent disease, it was him.
•••••••
Yuhao was buying a can of cold green tea from a vending machine near the exit tunnels. His head was killing him. Using the Third Eye for a full match was draining, like reading a book in the dark for three hours.
The can dropped with a clunk. He reached down to grab it, but a white-gloved hand snatched it first.
Yuhao stood up, wiping sweat from his brow.
Ye Guyi was standing there. She looked immaculate, as always, but her eyes were tight. She popped the tab on the tea and handed it to him.
"Drink," she said. "You look terrible."
"Thanks," Yuhao muttered, taking a sip. The cold liquid helped a little. "Is the Radiant Sentinel offering table service now, Captain Ye?"
She didn't smile at the joke. She looked left and right down the empty concrete hallway. Then she grabbed Yuhao by the collar of his jacket and dragged him into a nearby maintenance closet, pulling the door shut behind them.
It was dark and smelled like floor wax.
"Hey, what are you—"
"Shut up and listen," Ye Guyi hissed, letting go of his collar. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She looked deeply uncomfortable. "I found something in the sub-basement. Someone is destroying the Sun-Moon backup equipment."
"Good for them," Yuhao said, leaning against a mop bucket. "I don't really like the Shells anyway."
"They aren't smashing them, Huo Yuhao," Ye Guyi snapped, her golden eyes glowing faintly in the dark closet. "They are infecting them. It's a grey disease. It eats the Flow entirely. I tried to burn it out with the 'La' script, and it nearly ate my light."
Yuhao stopped leaning. The joke died in his throat.
Grey disease. A dead Flow.
Chen Feng.
"The Desolate Thorns boy," Yuhao said quietly.
"You noticed him too," Ye Guyi said. She uncrossed her arms, letting out a frustrated sigh. "I hate asking for help. I really do. My job is to handle the dirt so the Capital stays clean. But my light is loud. If I start hunting him through the catacombs, he will feel me coming a mile away and vanish."
She looked at Yuhao's forehead, where the faint violet scar of the Third Eye rested.
"Your eye is quiet," she said, practically choking on the admission. "It reads the gaps. I need you to track the Stagnation for me. We find where he's spreading it, and I'll cut him down."
Yuhao looked at the proud, stubborn Paladin. She was everything the Hall of Radiance represented: bright, inflexible, and completely sure of herself. Yet here she was, hiding in a closet to ask the weird kid with a glitchy eye for a favor.
"I'll help you," Yuhao said softly. He took another sip of the tea. "But not because you ordered me to. Chen Feng... he's a mistake in the song. And someone has to correct him."
Ye Guyi nodded sharply. She pushed the closet door open, letting the harsh hallway light spill back in.
"Meet me at the east stairwell at midnight," she said, her professional mask slipping back into place. "And Yuhao?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't tell your crazy Professor," she said. "If he shows up eating street food while we are trying to hunt a ghost, I might actually stab him."
Yuhao smiled weakly as she walked away. "I'll try my best."
End of Volume 2, Chapter 27