The phantom head of the bearded overseer coalesced above the ruined arena, its misty features drawn into an expression of pained amusement. He stroked his spectral beard with a translucent hand, the gesture somehow weary.
"Real monsters," the voice echoed, a mixture of exasperation and deep appreciation. "At this rate, you will drain every drop of energy this old ghost has stored over a thousand years." He sighed, the sound like wind through a cavern. "But the performance… it is worth the price. Keep going."
With a wave of his wispy hand, the shattered arena floor shimmered. The broken stone melted and flowed, rising and re-forming into a new, larger platform of seamless, dark grey rock. Around it, two layers of shimmering, opalescent barrier solidified in the air, one inside the other.
"This time," the phantom said, a hint of challenge in his tone, "none of you will break it." Another wave, and faint streams of white light drifted down to where Ning and Baili sat recuperating. The deep bruises on Ning's chest faded, the scorch marks on Baili's arms smoothed over. The healing was swift, but the memory of the pain—the deep ache in the bones, the sting of torn flesh—lingered like a ghost, a reminder of the limits they had touched.
In the newly forged arena, Gen and Juxian faced each other. No words were exchanged. The air between them grew heavy with intent.
Both were masters of the First wheel, the **Root**. **Jingdao**—Reinforcement—was their native tongue. Their bodies began to glow, not with a flashy light, but with a deep, internal radiance that hardened the air around them. Gen's skin took on the faint, sun-gold sheen of the **Eternal Body**. Juxian's glow was a steady, earthy bronze, solid and unwavering.
They moved.
There was no feint, no circling. It was a declaration. Gen shot forward, a bolt of golden intent. Juxian met him head-on. Their fists connected not with a clap, but with a deep, concussive ***THUMP*** that shuddered through the new arena floor and made the inner barrier ripple violently, like a stone dropped into a vertical pond. The air itself seemed to flinch.
The contact was brief. Both figures rocketed backward from the point of impact, skidding to a halt ten paces apart. Gen shook his hand, feeling the vibration all the way to his shoulder. Juxian flexed his fingers, a flicker of respect in his calm eyes. In that single exchange, a clear, wordless understanding passed between them: raw power was near-even.
Gen's mind worked. *He's solid. Like hitting a mountain. Can't just overpower.* He activated his Second Wheel, **Shidow**. He didn't create anything. He manipulated the air around his legs, pulling at it to enhance his motion. He became a blur of afterimages, sidestepping left, vanishing right, trying to weave around Juxian's formidable guard.
Juxian didn't chase the blurs. His expression remained preternaturally calm, the clay jar bouncing gently against his chest with his steady breath. He simply watched, his stance rooted. When Gen finally committed, launching a golden fist straight at his center from a feinted angle, Juxian didn't throw a counter-punch.
He moved his hand with a soft, almost lazy grace. His palm, glowing with dense bronze light, came up not to block, but to meet Gen's wrist. He didn't stop the blow; he redirected it, sliding his palm along Gen's forearm with a subtle, grinding pressure. His other hand tapped, almost gently, with the back of his fingers against the side of Gen's neck.
***Tok.***
The sound was deceptively small. The effect was not.
It was not the pain of a cut or a break. It was the profound, sickening shock of perfect structural disruption. Gen's knees buckled instantly. His vision swam. It felt as if the entire weight of the arena had been focused into that single, precise tap and dropped onto the pillar of his neck. His **Eternal Body** had absorbed the force, but it hadn't stopped the message of absolute, grounded power from hammering into his nervous system.
"Training with the Rock-Ape," Juxian said, his voice still calm, as if commenting on the weather, "who is ten times stronger than any human, teaches you that **Jingdao** alone is a blunt instrument. Without the right angle, the right touch, it is just noise." He increased the pressure of his hand, which still rested lightly against Gen's shoulder.
The arena around them groaned. The stone beneath Gen's feet didn't crack outward—it *depressed*, curving inward in a perfect bowl as if a giant, invisible hand was pressing down. Gen felt the pressure multiply, a crushing weight settling on his skin, his bones, his spirit. Waves of tangible, heavy energy pulsed from Juxian's palms, pressing the very air down. Gen gritted his teeth so hard he tasted blood. His body was going numb. At this rate, even the **Eternal Body** would reach its limit and fracture from the inside out.
Outside the barrier, the spectators leaned forward.
"Interesting," Duo Yi murmured, adjusting her glasses. "A purely physical lock. How will the flame-bearer escape a mountain's embrace?"
Lorel's hands were clenched in the fabric of her robe. She didn't speak. She just watched Gen's straining form, holding onto a single, stubborn thought: *It's Gen. He always finds a way. He has to.*
Chubbs, who had been leaning against the wall with an air of detached entertainment, now sat up, his round face alight with genuine admiration. "Now *that*," he declared to no one in particular, "is proper **Jingdao**. Not flashy explosions. Just… undeniable weight. I revise my standings. This Juxian fellow is moving up my list."
Inside the crushing vortex, Gen's mind raced through a haze of pain. *Push!* He gathered every shred of his will and energy, trying to flare the **Eternal Body** brighter, to erupt upward in a blast of pure force. A surge of golden light pulsed from him, so intense it made Juxian's steady glow waver for a single heartbeat. But Juxian's feet remained rooted to the sinking stone; he did not budge.
The failed surge cost Gen dearly. The pressure redoubled. In that moment of supreme strain, a memory surfaced, clear and sharp: the feeling of his **Jingdao** being *blocked* in the forest, the helplessness. Madame Su's voice: *Your body is not a tool. It is your temple. You must be its master, not its brute.*
*I've been treating it like a hammer again,* he realized, the thought a spark in the dark. *Trying to smash the mountain. I'll break before it does.*
He stopped trying to push back against the weight. Instead, he accepted its existence. With a final, bitten-off grunt, he let his left hand drop from its futile struggle against Juxian's arm. It flew to the bamboo staff slung across his back. He didn't draw it to strike Juxian.
He channeled his **Shidow** through it. He focused not on the air, but on the point of contact between Juxian's foot and the arena floor. He *pulled*.
It was a minute, incredibly focused manipulation. He didn't create a hole. He encouraged the dense, packed energy of Juxian's own stance to shift, just a fraction, to flow around a suddenly unstable point beneath his heel.
Juxian's perfect, rooted balance stuttered. It was less than a stumble; it was the briefest unseating of absolute stability.
It was enough.
Gen's body, coiled and waiting for any release, exploded upward not with a push, but with a whip-crack twist. His leg, empowered by the **Eternal Body** and all his pent-up force, lashed out in a golden arc. The kick connected with Juxian's chest not as a blunt impact, but as a focused, cracking wave of released energy.
***WHUMP.***
Juxian was lifted from his rooted stance and flung backward through the air. He flipped once, gracefully, and landed lightly fifteen feet away, his feet settling into a new stance. A genuine smile touched his lips. "Not bad."
Gen stood panting in the center of the stone bowl he'd been crushed into. He wiped a streak of blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. The crushing pressure was gone, replaced by the fiery ache of overtaxed muscles. Without a word, he vanished.
He reappeared a moment later, not with his fist, but with the bamboo staff in hand, held like a sword. The fight changed. No more thunderous clashes. Gen became a whirlwind of precise, reinforced strikes—thrusts at the knees, sweeping blows at the ankles, sharp jabs at the elbows—each one aimed not to overpower, but to disrupt, to exploit the smallest opening. He used his speed, weaving in and out, his staff a blur of dark green and gold.
Juxian parried with his palms and forearms, the bronze light deflecting the strikes with sharp *cracks*. He tried several times to land his own weight-shifting touches, but Gen was already gone, striking from a new angle, forcing him to defend.
In a handful of breaths, the momentum had shifted. Gen was dictating the pace.
A ripple of surprise went through the onlookers. Not just because Gen was now on the offensive, but because of what Juxian did next.
As he swayed back from a particularly vicious staff-strike aimed at his temple, his hand—almost casually—came up and touched the clay jar hanging from his neck. There was a soft, definitive ***click*** as the lid was removed, just as Gen's bamboo staff whistled through the space his head had occupied.
Juxian's calm expression didn't change, but a new, profound focus entered his eyes. He looked at Gen, who had skidded to a halt, staff held ready.
"I didn't expect," Juxian said, his voice still light but now carrying a subtle, resonant depth, as if the open jar was amplifying it, "to need this so soon."