Gen stared, his mind refusing to connect the humble, straw-dusted "Canopy-Crasher" with the legendary name that had just been uttered. His mouth was dry, his thoughts a jumbled storm of disbelief.
The Bliss Palace Lord's sneer shifted to a look of sharp, wary recognition. "Faceless Ting. So the phantom finally dares show himself."
A ripple of shock went through everyone. The Jade Palace disciples, who had only known their master as a myth or a portrait, stared at the unassuming man in patched work clothes. The Serpent elders and disciples wore expressions of pure astonishment. This… this was the hidden power of the Jade Palace?
Ting's usual cheerful demeanor had melted away, replaced by a profound, weathered calm. He looked at the destruction—the shattered stone, the blood, Elder Mei's still form—and a deep sorrow etched itself into the lines of his ordinary face. His voice, when he spoke, carried the weight of centuries and the quiet resonance of true understanding.
"I am sorry," he said, and the words felt like a balm and a judgment all at once. "For letting things come to this. For the fear you've endured." He looked at his students, his elders, his broken home. "But understand: it is through the hottest fire that the truest steel is forged. I am proud… proud of every one of you who stood your ground."
The Silver Serpent elder found his voice, a mocking smirk returning. "Proud? You come too late, hermit! Your people are poisoned, your strongest disciple was nearly a feast, and your head elder lies broken. Is this your forging? Even demons would not train under such a master."
The conflicting emotions among the Jade Palace disciples were visible—resentment at his absence, shock at his identity, a flicker of desperate hope.
Ting simply smiled. It was a small, sad thing. He raised a hand, not in a grand gesture, but with the casualness of a man pointing out a bird. A thin, concentrated beam of white-gold light, thinner than a needle and faster than thought, lanced across the arena.
*Fzzzt!*
It struck Flore, who was still glowing with stolen power, directly in the shoulder. She screamed, a sound of shock and pain, and was thrown back from Kaito, the vile sucking connection severed.
The Serpent elder laughed, a harsh, relieved sound. "You missed her heart! Has age robbed your aim as well?"
"I was never aiming for her heart," Ting said, his voice still quiet.
A low groan came from the ground. All eyes snapped to Kaito. The pale, near-corpse was pushing himself up. But it wasn't the weary movement of a dying man. It was the deliberate, grinding heave of a mountain rising. As he stood, his body began to glow. But it wasn't the smooth, uniform golden light of standard **Jingdao**. This light was textured, granular. It shaped itself across his skin not like a coating, but like a surface—a landscape of compacted, celestial rock.
*The Walking Star technique,* Kaito thought, clarity burning through the last of his weakness. *Everyone thinks of Reinforcement as a shell, a static clock. I saw it as a moving comet. Its power isn't in being hard everywhere, but in being able to shift its density, to move its points of ultimate hardness instantly, like tectonic plates under the skin.* The rocky, adaptive **Jingdao** flared.
Flore, clutching her wounded shoulder, looked up in time to see a shadow fall over her. Kaito was there. He didn't punch. He simply grabbed the front of her robe, lifted her off her feet as if she weighed nothing, and slammed her back down onto the stone with earth-shattering force. The *crunch* was horrific. His foot, sheathed in a concentrated node of his rocky reinforcement, came down on her chest, finishing the motion.
"I was careless," Kaito rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "I apologize. The fight is mine now."
The Bliss Palace Lord's composure finally cracked. Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. He pointed a finger at Ting. "A duel! Above! I will not have collateral damage hindering my true power!"
Ting laughed. It was a genuine, almost boyish sound that seemed absurd in the devastation. "Collateral? You didn't seem concerned with it when you were raining comet-beasts on my school." Before the Lord could retort, Ting simply… wasn't where he had been. There was no blur, no burst of speed. He was just suddenly *in front* of the Bliss Palace Lord, standing casually in the air.
He raised a single index finger.
In the stands, Gen's breath hitched. The posture, the focused intent… it wasn't the same, the power was on an unimaginable scale, but the *essence*… *It's like my desperate finger-strike against Jun. It's the World's End Finger.*
Ting's finger touched the Lord's hastily raised guard.
The result was not an explosion, but an unraveling. The Lord's left arm, from fingertips to shoulder, simply disintegrated into motes of fading grey light, erased from existence. No blood, no sound. Just… gone.
The Bliss Palace Lord shrieked, a sound of pure, spiritual agony, and shot backwards through the air, clutching the void where his arm had been. "You—! This isn't over! The Bliss Palace rises! Jiang is dead! The world will drown in pain as our army marches from the—!"
Ting sighed, a sound of profound weariness. He flicked his wrist. A pinprick of light shot out, faster than the Lord's retreat, and pierced his forehead. The rant ceased instantly. The Lord's body went rigid, then crumbled into ash that scattered on the wind.
Silence, deeper than before, blanketed the arena.
The Silver Serpent elder was already trembling. He made a frantic gesture, abandoning his stupefied disciples—Silv, the wounded Flore, the others—and turned to flee in a streak of green light.
He didn't get far.
From the opposite direction, a familiar, stern presence materialized on the path. Madame Su stood there, her arms crossed, a knowing, cold smile on her lips. In that moment, Gen understood. *She knew. She always knew who 'Canopy-Crasher' was. This was all… a test? A trap?*
Ting didn't even turn to look at the fleeing elder. His body glowed with a gentle, inner light. His eyes, usually so ordinary, seemed to open onto abysses of compressed energy. He whispered a name: "**Lights of the Abyss.**"
The air around the escaping Serpent elder and his disciples *condensed*. It wasn't a net; it was a sudden, dense matrix of impossible gravity, trapping them in a sphere of distorted space. Within that sphere, countless needles of pure, solidified light—each a sliver of focused **Shidow** and **Zhidow**—blinked into existence. They didn't fly; they simply *were* at every point within the sphere at once, moving faster than perception. There was no scream, only a brief, terrible flash of light from within the sphere. When it faded, the space was empty. Not even ash remained.
Elder Kwan, who had been edging towards the periphery, saw his opening vanish. His hawk-like face twisted in fury and cunning. He slapped a jade amulet on his chest—a precious spatial treasure—and lunged, not at Ting, but at the two most valuable assets left: Yun and Yuan. His hands closed on their shoulders. "This is not over, Ting!" he snarled, and the amulet flashed. Space twisted around them, and with a *pop*, the three of them vanished.
Ting watched the empty spot, a flicker of regret in his ancient eyes. He made a slight motion as if to follow, then stopped, shaking his head. "Just a matter of time," he murmured to himself.
The fight was over.
Ting descended, landing lightly among the survivors. He walked past the awed, terrified, confused disciples, his aura once more that of an unassuming man. He came to a stop before Gen, Liang, Li Fen, and the now-stable Kaito. The four of them stared at him, a whirlwind of questions in their eyes.
"Go back to your pavilions," Ting said, his voice back to its normal, unassuming tone, though it now carried an undeniable weight of command. "Pack your things."
Murmurs rose, but they were the murmurs of the utterly spent. No one had the energy left to argue.
Gen, Liang, Li Fen, and Kaito followed as Madame Su and the remaining, shell-shocked elders gathered around Ting. The master glanced at their young, battered faces and gave a small, almost apologetic shrug.
"You probably want an explanation."