The morning sun rose with a crimson haze, as if the sky remembered yesterday's massacre. The arena grounds were divided into four smaller rings, each surrounded by tiered stone seats packed with roaring spectators. Today, the martial contest would decide who among the outsiders had the right to enter the Stormguard ranks. For those who sought no banner or oath, there were still rewards: gold coins, weapons, and armor forged by the finest blacksmiths in the eastern realm.
In the first arena, Kastor stood beneath a fluttering banner. Broad-shouldered with flat eyes, he waited with hands wrapped in black cloth, expression void of all warmth. His opponent, a lean spearman from the eastern realm, barked a challenge and performed a sweeping spear form, the Flourish of Nine Limbs, meant to intimidate. Kastor remained motionless.
The match did not last long.
As the spear lunged, Kastor stepped inside the arc. He caught the haft under his left arm, twisted, and yanked the man forward. With a brutal shift of his hips, Kastor drove an elbow into the throat, crushing the windpipe. The crowd gasped. The spearman choked, staggered, but Kastor did not relent. He hammered a palm into the man's sternum, followed by a series of straight punches to the face. Bone split beneath knuckle. Blood gushed onto the sand. The corpse twitched once before going still. Kastor stepped back, stained and silent, then walked off the ring.
In the second ring, Serron adjusted his bindings. The oldest among the agents, his beard was streaked with white, and the lines on his face marked wars long past. His aura held weight, a veteran's qi that coiled low around his frame. Before him stood an agile twin-blade duelist from the eastern provinces, whose weapons danced in pre-combat rhythm, an old ceremonial form called Whispering Steel.
But Serron had no need for elegance.
The eastern fighter opened with a burst of strikes, spinning and slashing from twin angles. Serron took a glancing cut across the ribs to step inside. His footwork shifted into Iron Wall stance, a grounding style. One hand locked the man's wrist. The other plunged a dagger up under the ribcage. A twist. A second stab under the armpit. The third blow buried into the heart.
The man gasped, eyes wide. Serron held the body upright as if to whisper something into his ear. Then he let him drop. He turned to the crowd and bowed once, calm and composed.
In the third ring, the deep-cover Dazhum agents, those who had arrived as the first infiltration cell, revealed their hidden lethality. Though officially just contestants, these were trained infiltrators. Their movements followed no singular style, but each strike held traces of high-level internal arts. One sabre-wielder moved with Windstep transitions, his blade curving with Hollow Fang cuts that opened arteries with precision. Another fought using low, circling footwork, favoring chained strikes and sudden grapples, clearly a practitioner of Red Chain doctrine.
There was no frenzy. Only the quiet mastery of their craft.
One agent disarmed his opponent with a flick of the wrist, then snapped the man's elbow before driving a palm into his throat. Another caught a falling blade with a reverse grip and transitioned instantly into a spinning cut that opened his foe's belly.
These weren't duels. They were demonstrations. Each kill was clean. Efficient. Blood soaked the sand, but the crowd didn't jeer. They watched, uneasy.
Then came the final ring.
Nask stepped into the light without prayer or ritual. Just the quiet breathing of a man who had already made his peace. His aura pulsed low, dense with repressed aggression. His first opponent, a broad-shouldered man in partial armor, activated a defensive qi barrier just before the bout began. A common trick, Stone Frame technique. But Nask's offense was designed to shatter it.
He opened with a shoulder feint and shattered the man's nose with a vertical palm strike. The barrier cracked. His next blow struck the chest directly, breaking ribs with focused internal pressure. Then came a knee to the solar plexus, folding the man. The final strike was a blade-draw across the throat, quick and decisive.
The crowd roared. But Nask remained cold.
In his second match, Nask faced a faster opponent, one with light armor and a longer reach. They traded strikes in rapid bursts. The clash was clean and technical at first, but as the moments dragged on, the rhythm began to turn against him. The other fighter moved with fluid confidence, his footwork unbroken, his strikes landing more often with each pass.
Nask's movements shifted, slower and more reactive, as if baiting. But the margin between bait and desperation thinned with each exchange. His counters grew tighter, his guard narrower. A missed deflection forced him to pivot hard, nearly stumbling as a palm strike grazed his ribs. The flow of the fight tilted, subtle and sharp, and the crowd began to feel it too. This was no longer even.
Each breath came heavier. Nask's stance widened, shoulders rising, and a flicker of uncertainty was shown in his expression.
A faint pulse of qi slipped out, almost imperceptible. A signal.
Far above, hidden behind the pavilion's shade, Rhak (Nivak) remained still. He sent a silent qi transmission to the Agonarch, marked with Veilguard verification. A single directive followed.
Do not kill. Wound only. He is marked.
The Agonarch hesitated, then relayed the message. A glint of qi shimmered through a thin scroll near the judge's platform, dissolving into the senses of Nask's opponent. The fighter blinked, registering the instruction, then resumed as if nothing had changed.
Nask slipped, leaving a deliberate opening. The opponent moved without hesitation. A sweeping leg hook caught Nask off balance, and a hammerfist crashed into the side of his head. Nask crumpled.
Medics rushed forward. Blood ran down the side of his face, but he was breathing. The announcement came moments later: he would not be fit to fight in the finals.
Drevi watched from the stands. Unlike the others, his gaze didn't follow the matches. He observed the crowd, the guards, the organizers, their posture, their reaction. Always calculating.
When the bracket was announced, Nask's name was not among the finalists.
It was just as planned. Enough strength to earn recognition. Enough restraint to remain useful.
In the shadowed hall behind the gates, Rhak (Nivak) waited. His expression unreadable as he watched Nask pass on a stretcher. Alive. Unbroken.
The game was still in motion. And tomorrow, more pieces would fall into place.
That night, in the safehouse, Rhak (Nivak) tended to Nask's injuries. He sat beside him, unrolling fresh bandages and dabbing a soaked cloth against the side of his bruised face.
Nask grimaced. "Did it work?"
"Yes," Rhak said without looking up. "All agents advanced to the final bracket. Except for you. Just as we intended."
Nask exhaled, equal parts relief and frustration. "Still hurts."
"It should," Rhak said. "Better a cracked skull than a slit throat."
Nask looked at him, searching for any hint of doubt in his voice. There was none.
Rhak finished wrapping the cloth and sat back. "Tomorrow, Serron and Kastor will go forward. So will the others. Drevi will stay among the crowd. If anything changes, he'll move. We're in position."
Nask nodded, then winced again as he adjusted his shoulder. Rhak handed him a cup of water and sat in silence. For a moment, there was no sound but breathing.
Rhak's voice came low. "You did well today. Rest. The real work begins soon."