“Welcome to the second round of the tournament. Congratulations to all the contestants for making it this far!”

  A ripple of desultory applause followed the announcement, but most of the cultivators barely reacted. Their focus was locked on the hovering Core Formation proctor, who had introduced himself as Shen Taixu. He was an utterly unremarkable-looking middle-aged man in plain yellow robes, devoid of any insignia. That, paradoxically, made him stand out; almost everyone Bai Ning had seen recently displayed their sect or regional affiliations openly on their clothing.

  There were still far too many participants left after the first round. Gathered around the inner white arena, encircled by the green ring of the World of a Million Cubes, were at least a hundred cultivators by Bai Ning’s rough estimate. Since there was no chance all of them would advance to the final round, this stage would clearly eliminate a majority.

  She wasn’t the only one who had realized that. Tension hung thick in the air, and the moment the proctor appeared, every cultivator gave him their full attention. Bai Ning, who had located Li Kang and Chen Zhuhe easily enough and had even briefly glimpsed Yue Shuangyi before losing sight of her again, returned her gaze to Shen Taixu as soon as he began speaking.

  His qi-infused voice rolled across the island.

  “The rules for the second round are simple. This will be a group event. All participants will form teams of four cultivators each. You are free to choose your own groups; anyone left over will be assigned randomly. Each team member will receive a tile – a game tile stamped with one of twelve symbols, be it a wheel, a flower, a snake, or something else. All tiles within a team will bear the same symbol. Your goal is to finish the round, which will last for three days, with twelve tiles of your symbol. Any team that gathers twelve matching tiles will pass.

  “If a team loses a member at any point, it is automatically disqualified.”

  A murmur swept through the Foundation Establishment cultivators, but Shen Taixu continued, and the noise quickly died.

  “Only twelve tiles of any given symbol exist, so that means three teams will share each symbol. Any team may challenge any other team, regardless of symbol, to a match in the arena. A team may reject one match per day, but no more. The losing team must hand over all their tiles to the winner. No team can be challenged more than three times per day, unless they volunteer for additional battles. I will determine victory and defeat, though be aware that the elders’ eyes are upon you.

  “Any attempt at foul play will be dealt with harshly.” He smiled, a quick, knife-edged thing that promised pain to anyone considering such tactics.

  “If a team wins tiles that do not match their own symbol, they may trade those tiles to another team in in exchange for favors, alliances, or assistance in battles they cannot fight themselves. Such tiles cannot be won through battle, only traded.”

  “Any questions?”

  There were many, but no one seemed to have the courage to voice them to the proctor. Instead, the cultivators murmured among themselves in low voices, drifting into uneven clusters as they tried to digest the torrent of rules.

  Bai Ning was no different. She stayed close to her companions; Li Kang had been listening to the proctor’s entire explanation with narrowed, analytical eyes, while Chen Zhuhe was still absently rolling his prayer bead necklace around his fingers, the wooden spheres clicking with a quiet rhythm. When the proctor finished speaking, both men turned toward her with a shared look of intent.

  “Let’s form a team, Fellow Daoists,” Chen Zhuhe said. Bai Ning and Li Kang exchanged a brief glance before nodding.

  “Now we just need a fourth member…” Li Kang murmured, scanning the crowd as though one might materialize if he simply looked hard enough.

  Bai Ning waved a hand dismissively. “Leave that to me. I have someone in mind. But more importantly…” She hesitated, her brows drawing together. “The tiles, the numbers, the symbols… does it remind anyone else of mahjong? I can’t help but feel that there might be some hidden meaning in the rules based on that.”

  Chen Zhuhe gave a faint, rueful smile, and tucked his beads away, though his fingers still twitched around the necklace. “I noticed that as well. But if this round is taking inspiration from mahjong, it’s the most superficial inspiration possible. Yes, mahjong uses one hundred forty-four tiles, but the patterns are different, the rules are different, and the win conditions are different. At the very least, I don’t see any ‘hidden rules’ here.”

  His reasoning rang true. Bai Ning exhaled softly, conceding the point. The resemblance had struck her, but perhaps it was nothing more than coincidence.

  Li Kang, however, was focused on something else entirely. “Similarity or not, did you notice, brother, sister? This round isn’t just about combat. It’s about leverage. If we get tiles with symbols not our own, we can use them to form alliances or pressure other teams. And if someone else ends up with the tiles we need, and we can’t beat them, we’ll have to convince another team to fight for us or trade for them.” He paused, grimacing. “This… could get very tricky, very quickly.”

  Chen Zhuhe nodded glumly, his expression tightening. Even Bai Ning couldn’t find a positive way to reframe that. In one sense, it was good that the tournament tested more than raw combat strength; but in another, being outmaneuvered was now a very real threat. All they could do was stack advantages early and hope to maintain them. At the simplest level, they needed to defeat two teams and seize their tiles.

  She opened her mouth to say as much, but Shen Taixu clapped his hands. He had clearly infused qi into the gesture, because the sound rolled through the assembled cultivators like a thunderclap, smothering every conversation at once.

  The proctor smiled again. Bai Ning was beginning to intensely dislike that smile. He seemed to take genuine pleasure in the participants’ uneasiness.

  “Assemble into groups of four. Those who can’t find enough members, or who simply don’t care to choose their teammates, gather on the right.” He gestured toward a bare patch of ground beneath his upraised hand. “I’ll distribute the tiles afterward.”

  A flurry of motion followed. Cultivators darted about, forming temporary teams, searching for familiar faces, or bargaining with whoever happened to be nearby. Bai Ning didn’t hesitate. In this chaos, hesitation meant missing her chance, and so she chose to act boldly.

  Infusing her own qi in her voice and flaring her aura as much as she could, she shouted, “Sister Yue Shuangyi, this is Bai Ning! Please join me and my two friends. Over here!”

  Several cultivators around them shot her irritated looks, but Li Kang and Chen Zhuhe met each glare with one of their own, forestalling any complaints. Embarrassing? Perhaps. Effective? Absolutely. Within seconds, others began imitating her tactic, shouting for friends, allies, or anyone they recognized. The gathering, already unruly, dissolved into something close to bedlam.

  Through that churning mass, Yue Shuangyi slipped through with practiced ease, her poise untouched by the commotion. Frost clung faintly to the hem of her robe, less as a display of power, and more like a habit her spiritual energy seemed unwilling to break. A pitch-black hairpin held her snow white hair half-bound, catching the light in a muted, sable shimmer. She stopped before Bai Ning, who was still waving energetically, and delivered a look of prim disapproval.

  “Was that truly necessary, Sister Bai Ning? I’m pleased you remember me fondly and wish to join forces – and admittedly, it benefits me as well – but must you resort to such… uncouth methods?” Her tone carried the crisp reprimand of a mother scolding a spirited child.

  Bai Ning only smiled. “It was the fastest way, and it worked. Come, let me introduce our other two members. This is Li Kang of the Seven Light Enclosure, and Chen Zhuhe, a rogue cultivator. Fellows, this is Yue Shuangyi of the Grand Ice Tower.”

  Yue Shuangyi turned toward the two men, dipping her chin in a shallow, elegant nod. “Excellent. Four late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators; and with your strength added to mine, Bai Ning, we have a promising chance at victory.”

  Chen Zhuhe returned the nod amiably. Li Kang, however, went curiously still. Not merely quiet; his mouth hung slightly open, and a faint dusting of red crept across his cheeks.

  “F-from the… the Grand Ice Tower?” he stammered, staring at Yue Shuangyi as if she had stepped out of a legend. “That… that haven of the celestial beauties?”

  Yue Shuangyi’s expression turned glacial in an instant. She fixed Li Kang with a look of pure disdain, as though he were something she had scraped from the sole of her shoe.

  Bai Ning blinked, baffled by Li Kang’s sudden loss of composure, and by Yue Shuangyi’s immediate fury. Chen Zhuhe, meanwhile, looked as though he wished the ground would swallow him whole.

  Bai Ning leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Brother… what’s wrong with Li Kang?”

  “Ah.” Chen Zhuhe rubbed the bridge of his nose, clearly uncomfortable. He hesitated, choosing his words as if navigating a bed of thorns. “How to put this… Lady Liu Rushi, the master of the Grand Ice Tower, is quite famous. In her earlier years, before founding the sect, she was a celebrated… performer. Many of her disciples later became… renowned entertainers as well.”

  Bai Ning stared. That was an explanation that explained almost nothing, and yet, she understood perfectly. No wonder the air had grown awkward. Against her better judgment, she stole a glance at Yue Shuangyi. Surely, she wasn’t…?

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  Yue Shuangyi had evidently heard the whispering. Her expression frosted over entirely as she turned a piercing glare on Chen Zhuhe. “Hold your disrespectful tongue,” she said coldly. “My teacher has never shamed herself in the manner you imply. It is because of men like you that such vile rumors persist, and why the Grand Ice Tower is forced to keep the world at arm’s length.”

  She reached out and drew Bai Ning to her side with a firm, protective hand.

  “Ignore them, Bai Ning. Stay with me, and I will shield you from their… less than pure intentions.”

  She ended the declaration with one final, cutting glare at Li Kang, who was now waving his hands frantically, stumbling over half-formed protests of innocence.

  Before the tension could grow any worse, another thunderous crack rolled across the field.

  Shen Taixu had clapped his hands again.

  This time, the qi-infused sound was even sharper; sharp enough to sting, puncturing through every scattered argument, every shrill call, and every desperate attempt to form last-minute alliances. A hush fell over the cultivators, broken only by the reluctant shuffling of feet.

  The proctor surveyed the crowd with that same insufferable smile, showing equal parts amusement and muted interest.

  “Now that you’ve sorted yourselves out,” he said, tone dripping with satisfaction, “let us proceed.”

  He lifted a hand, letting the wide sleeve of his robe catch the wind. From the opening, dozens of lights shot forth, descending into the outstretched hands of the cultivators below. No one needed to move; in barely a minute, a hundred and forty-four tiles had been distributed with enviable precision.

  Bai Ning looked down at the tile in her hand. It was a square of pale ivory, banded with dark green bamboo wood, smooth and cool to the touch. On its front, like a shadow cast over a curtain, a small, dark wheel had been stamped. She raised it to the light, exchanging glances with her team; they all mirrored her, holding up their wheel-marked tiles. This would be their symbol for the second round of the tournament.

  Shen Taixu clapped his hands in evident satisfaction. “Good. Now, would any team like to kick things off? I will serve as judge for each round, so step forward without hesitation.”

  Bai Ning’s fingers tightened around her tile. Should they strike first, testing their strength blindly against the other teams? Or should they hold back, gather intelligence, and observe the competition? Yet before she could decide, the choice was taken out of her hands.

  A man stepped onto the stage. His stride was confident and effortless. He had hopped up from where he had been standing near the edge of the arena, and simply walked forward without consulting anyone. He was one of those cultivators who hadn’t bothered to form a team, standing aside while others scrambled to organize. Three cultivators followed him hesitantly; clearly his team members, though they did not look like they had any idea of what was going on. They simply followed as shadows, pulled along by his certainty rather than any conviction of their own.

  The man’s face was fair, framed by long, loose hair falling to his shoulders, almost feminine in its softness. His robes were pink, chased with silver and gold, embroidered with sparrows in flight. They hung loosely, revealing a portion of muscled upper chest, a striking contrast to his delicate features. Even his face was a study in contradictions: smooth, almost gentle, yet with a prominent nose. He was, Bai Ning noted, handsome because of how his features clashed, and not in any orthodox sense.

  A ripple ran through the assembled cultivators as he stopped beneath Shen Taixu. He lifted his chin, voice carrying over the murmuring crowd.

  “This Fu Zhan will start,” he announced. “Is that acceptable, Proctor?”

  The crowd’s murmur rose to a roar. Bai Ning’s breath caught. Leaning forward, she examined him more closely. So this was Old Devil Fu’s grandson, the most renowned Foundation Establishment cultivator in all of the Thousand Shattered Islands. He looked the part: bold, arrogant, but not so much as to seem a caricature.

  Shen Taixu nodded from where he was hovering in the air, his indifference vanishing in front of a Nascent Soul cultivator’s disciple and family member. “By all means,” he said, sweeping his arm in invitation.

  Fu Zhan turned to the crowd, raising his tile high. The sun glinted off the pale ivory, momentarily making it shine like an ingot of silver. “I bear the mark of a bamboo shaft, with three leaves clustered around it,” he declared confidently. “I challenge both teams that share the same tiles to face me as one. I alone will fight. If you refuse, you will have to face me individually later, but right now, the odds are in your favor: eight cultivators against one. Surely that is enough for you to show some courage?”

  An ugly silence fell over the arena for a heartbeat, before the assembled cultivators erupted into chaos. Voices overlapped, shouts collided, hands waved, and startled glances darted between participants. Fu Zhan’s audacity had shattered the temporary calm.

  Shen Taixu did not bother with clapping this time. His voice rolled out, powerful and all-encompassing, shaking the arena itself. Tiny pebbles on the island vibrated in sympathy.

  “Silence!” he boomed. Like a curtain drawn over a lamp to block its light, the din vanished. He swept a gimlet eye across the crowd, ensuring every cultivator was still, before turning to Fu Zhan. “What you propose does not break any rules, so it is allowed. You may challenge multiple teams at once, and fight alone if you choose.”

  Fu Zhan’s eyes glinted with amusement. He turned to the crowd, one eyebrow raised in challenge, as if daring his opponents to step forward. For a long moment, no one moved; the assembled cultivators frozen in uncertainty. Then, hesitantly, as if still negotiating among themselves, two teams stepped forward, climbing onto the stage.

  One team consisted of four cultivators at the final stage of Foundation Establishment, just like Bai Ning’s own team. The other had two members at the middle stage of Foundation Establishment. Bai Ning did not recognize any of them, but the fact that they had cleared the first round meant they were powerful and skilled, emerging as some of the top cultivators of their realm in the Thousand Shattered Islands.

  They clustered at one end of the arena, exchanging hurried, urgent words, their expressions firming and stances strengthening as if drawing courage from each other. Fu Zhan simply watched, amusement evident in every relaxed line of his posture.

  “Fools,” Yue Shuangyi muttered beside her, and Bai Ning almost jumped. For a moment, she had forgotten she was not alone. She looked at her, noting the bitter curl of her lips.

  “With eight people on their side, they have a good chance,” Bai Ning said questioningly.

  Yue Shuangyi shook her head, a shadow of pity crossing her features. “It won’t help. He is that man’s grandson. Numbers will not triumph over him. All they are doing is handing him a victory. They should have refused, forcing him to fight another team with different tiles. That way, they could have cut him off from winning through combat, making him face them on their terms with more members.” She shook her head again, quieter this time. “Fools,” she repeated.

  Bai Ning drew in a sharp breath but said nothing. Instead, she turned her attention to the eight cultivators arranging themselves into a hastily formed formation, their magic tools hovering around them. Fu Zhan stood opposite, serene and unarmed, radiating confidence. She had to wonder: in his place, could she overcome such odds? She did not know. Her master believed her chances in the tournament were fair, but she also did not share Fu Zhan’s unshakable self-assurance.

  Shen Taixu descended slowly, landing with a soft thud that still made the white stone arena tremble beneath him. He raised a hand, a subtle signal that the match was about to begin. “Prepare yourselves,” he intoned. His voice carried the weight of absolute authority, leaving no room for hesitation. “Respect the rules, respect your opponents, and show the skill you have honed for years. Fu Zhan will fight alone, but do not underestimate him, nor each other.”

  Fu Zhan grinned, stepping forward as the sun caught the edges of his robes, illuminating him in a fleeting, almost divine glow. With a flick of his wrist, a banner materialized in his hand: a pale pink wooden shaft topped with a square red flag of rich cloth. The artifact shimmered faintly in the sunlight. “Ready,” he called.

  Shen Taixu glanced at the eight cultivators across the stage. They nodded or gestured, acknowledging readiness, and he rose into the air again, bringing his hand down decisively. “Begin.”

  The banner in Fu Zhan’s hand gleamed, releasing a dense, dark fog that poured across the stage. In an instant, a cloud of red mist engulfed the area, rising high enough to brush the bottom of Shen Taixu’s shoes. The eight cultivators immediately raised shields and lashed out with beams of light, but the fog swallowed everything within its radius.

  Bai Ning noted uneasily that the mist was the color of freshly spilled blood; if anything, darker, richer, almost alive. Sunlight struck it strangely: instead of being swallowed, the fog reflected it, amplifying every hue around it. The white stone arena blazed with a blinding purity, like sunlight on fresh snow. Shadows at the edges deepened into an almost living void, swallowing light entirely. The blue of a cultivator’s robe near the stage transformed into sapphire, alive with glints of indigo, cobalt, and navy.

  It was breathtakingly beautiful, and simultaneously terrifying.

  The red fog did more than obstruct vision. Not a single sound penetrated it. Over a hundred cultivators watched, not counting the spectators circling above on cloud rings, as the swirling crimson cloud held its shape, indifferent to the breeze. Bai Ning reached out with her spiritual sense, but it could not pierce the mist. Whatever was happening within, she, and every onlooker, were blind.

  Then a roar split the silence. Her heart leapt. Had one of his opponents struck Fu Zhan? But no. A lion, sculpted from the same red fog, surged from the cloud, connected to it only by thin, carmine trails. It roared again, a sound like thunder made flesh, before vanishing into the swirling mass. And that was only the beginning.

  A flood dragon coiled within the mist, its massive form barely contained, muscles of vapor rippling as it moved. Above it wheeled three phoenixes, flames flickering yet untouchable, and there—a tortoise, enormous, ancient, its shell etched in crimson fog, before it shattered into mist and merged back with the cloud. The stage was alive with beasts, impossible in number, impossible to strike, yet each exuding a terrifying, tangible power.

  Bai Ning pursed her lips. That was a powerful artifact: one that could conceal its user, unleash attacks that couldn’t be avoided, and render any counterstrike useless. Even without testing it, she knew that attacking those beasts would only scatter them briefly before they reformed.

  Yue Shuangyi seemed to read her thoughts. She leaned closer, voice low yet carrying enough for Li Kang and Chen Zhuhe to hear. “It’s worse than that. The banner doesn’t just hide him, it also transforms him into the mist itself. While it’s active, Fu Zhan is untouchable. And he can strike at anything, indiscriminately. My master spoke of it: the Sanguine Blood Banner. Old Devil Fu refined it himself, just for his grandson. No one here can stand against it.”

  Bai Ning’s eyes widened. “Wait… the Nascent Soul elder refined it personally? But aren’t you only supposed to use artifacts you’ve refined yourself until Foundation Establishment, and only use natal artifacts afterwards?”

  Yue Shuangyi’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, and even Li Kang shook his head. Chen Zhuhe, by contrast, observed with quiet curiosity.

  “That’s an outdated way of thinking, Sister Bai Ning. True, you’re supposed to rely on artifacts you make yourself, but who would refuse a clear advantage offered openly? Even the lotus I carry was refined from my teacher’s core flames, which is why I was surprised you managed to cut it. Don’t tell me you…”

  Bai Ning gaze dropped down as she considered her own magic tools. Master Mo Jian had always insisted she forge them herself, supervising the process, guiding her with raw materials and refined steel, but the final work was always hers. Was that not… the proper way?

  She shook her head. No. She trusted Master Mo Jian. He likely had his reasons. And, if needed, she could ask him later.

  Still, her worry lingered. Her attention returned to the stage. The mist was finally lifting, revealing exactly what she had feared, and yet, hoped against seeing.

  Fu Zhan stood at the center, completely untouched, with his clothes still pristine, as if the carnage around him had never happened. Around him lay eight corpses, torn and mangled. They were not just dead, rather, they had been savaged, as though a pack of demonic beasts had descended upon them.

  Shen Taixu lowered himself. “Victory,” he announced. “Fu Zhan.”

  The whole arena was completely silent.