Chapter 145: The Rule of Forms
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[Third Person Point of View]
"I demand disqualification!"
The Tiger elder's voice was still ringing across the Nexus when the Crane Mother suddenly realized that she hated him.
She'd always disliked him. He was a blustering old man who confused volume for authority and thought being loud made him right, then hid that behind false tradition. Watching him stand there with his arm outstretched and his finger aimed at the arena floor toward her champion, demanding his disqualification, pushed it over into hate.
"The rules are clear!" The elder's voice carried well. He'd been practicing this, she was sure of it. After all, he and basically everyone important knew that Ben could transform into other forms as well. "A champion is registered by name and form. Tetra‑Man is a four‑armed demon warrior, isn't he? But the creature that just fought wasn't that! It was something else entirely. A different species with strange abilities. Think about it, isn't this just like a new combatant entering mid‑tournament? Naturally, the rules demand disqualification!"
Murmurs ran through the gallery as some of the other city lords shifted in their seats. The Dog Brother's sponsor leaned back with his arms folded, content to watch. The Spider Island representative tilted her head and whispered to an aide.
K'un‑Lun's section was quiet, with Danny Rand staring at the arena floor and clenching his glowing fist. What's up with him? Crane Mother wondered. The foreigner boy seemed uninterested in whatever was going on.
The elder wasn't wrong about the technicality. That was the irritating part.
The rules were written a long time ago, back when a fighter's body and their title were the same thing, both something the fighter was proud of. Because why would anyone imagine a champion who could swap bodies between rounds?
But this wasn't about rules. This was about Tiger Island's heir having her jaw broken in front of ten thousand people, which made the old man want some payback through any possible means.
The Crane Mother kept her hands still on her knees and waited.
Illyana Rasputina, Demon Queen of Limbo, stood from her seat at the edge of K'un‑Zi's section, Soulsword in hand. She didn't shout, but she was annoyed.
"You old bastards. Ben Tennyson is the champion I sponsored." Her voice was flat. "The name on the registration is an alias. It could be anything. Is Danny Rand using his real name, or his alias 'Iron Fist'? Don't be stupid."
"But the body–"
Someone tried to speak, but Illyana shot a glare and spoke over them. "What about the body? What if it's changed? It's still the fighter's own ability. What matters is the soul standing in the arena, and that soul has not changed." She looked directly at the Tiger elder. "You don't disqualify a fighter for changing his clothes, do you?"
A ripple of laughter ran through the lower tiers before it was stifled.
The elder's face darkened.
"Clothes do not grant new abilities, demoness!" He slammed his palm on the stone railing. "The four‑armed demon had strength and durability. This blue creature had speed and lightning absorption. These are fundamentally different powers! Allowing this sets a precedent that any sorcerer could send shapeshifted puppets into the ring and swap them at will!"
The Z'Gambo city's representative rose to support him, of course, since if they won this argument, then the Prince of Orphans would win. "How do tournaments work, Demon Queen? Our Prince prepared for a specific opponent, you see. He studied the Tetramand's patterns and weaknesses. The form that defeated him was one he had never seen and could not have anticipated. This is an unfair advantage at minimum."
Of course, that was stupid. Just because a tournament's format allowed people to prepare against their opponent, couldn't the opponent have hidden cards?
But the words resonated with people regardless.
Murmurs changed tone slightly. A few lords who had been keeping quiet started nodding against Illyana. Others stopped meeting the Tiger elder's eyes.
People were picking sides.
This could drag on for hours. Both the Crane Mother and Illyana had seen it before. City lords posturing and forming temporary alliances over rules while nothing important moved.
Then the Crane Mother felt something strange. A sensation.
Pain hit her bones, a soft ache that made even her ancient joints whine. Pressure rolled over the gallery a heartbeat later, like a hand on her skull. Her chi, vast and settled as it was, shrank in on itself.
Every lord in the ring felt it. The Tiger elder halted mid‑word. Illyana's grip tightened on the Soulsword, making her scowl. Danny Rand's fist flared bright gold and then went dark, like something had slapped it down.
The hooded figure in the eighth seat leaned forward.
When he spoke, the voice was quiet but it reached them without issue, inside every ear at the same time without any sense of it crossing the space between.
"Is the soul truly the same?"
The gallery went silent. The crowd below went silent.
The Crane Mother's fingers dug into her knee beneath her robes. She kept her mask facing forward, but her thoughts sharpened. The Celestial Being had not spoken once since the tournament began. He sat in his ring and watched and waited. The other lords had been pretending he wasn't there since day one. Easier than admitting what his presence meant.
And now he'd asked a question. About Ben Tennyson.
That was very bad.
The tournament officials scrambled. An elderly man in K'un‑Lun ceremonial robes stepped forward and bowed so deeply his forehead nearly touched his knees. His voice shook when he answered.
"The soul is the same, Great One. The registration artifacts confirm an unchanged essence signature. The champion's core identity has not been altered or substituted."
The hooded figure nodded once. The motion was barely visible beneath the layered gold fabric.
"Then the champion remains."
Three words, and the argument was dead. The Tiger elder sat down hard, shoulders folding in a way that would sting his pride later when he replayed this and realized how fast he'd obeyed. The Under City's representative followed.
Illyana stayed on her feet for a moment longer, then slowly lowered herself back to her seat. Her eyes stayed on the hooded figure, and the girl's knuckles were white around the Soulsword's grip. That pretentious bastard, acting like a God and everything. She clicked her tongue, not bothering to hide it.
Perhaps she was the least scared of that entity among all the City Lords, given she was a natural counter to him, while he was a natural counter to her, one being a Demon with the one being a Divinity.
The Crane Mother did not look at the Celestial Being. She looked at the arena floor, where Ben Tennyson was still standing in his blue form, visor retracted, staring up at the gallery with confusion on his alien face. He'd heard the silence but he couldn't have heard the words. He didn't know what had just happened.
Good, she thought. Let him stay ignorant a little longer.
She had brought Ben here to be her instrument. She'd poured chi into him, tied his Dantian to her domain, and invested political capital in his victories.
He was hers! He was supposed to win the tournament, secure K'un‑Zi's standing for the next cycle, and serve as a weapon she could aim at whatever threatened her authority.
But cosmic entities did not care about city politics…
Her eyes flicked back to the Celestial Being. They operated on scales that made even long‑lived rulers feel small and temporary. If the Celestial Being had noticed Ben, it was because Ben served some purpose in a design she couldn't see.
Was it the tournament, the Iron Fist spirit she could feel circling closer with every round, or something she couldn't see yet? Perhaps, that incident in Genosha?
She didn't know. She hadn't survived this long by tolerating gaps in what she knew.
Below, the announcer recovered his composure faster than anyone else in the arena. His chi‑amplified voice filled the Nexus.
"The ruling stands! K'un‑Zi's champion advances! The tournament proceeds!"
A display of glowing script materialized above the arena floor, like a hologram on a translucent jade plate.
The tournament bracket updated in real time, and Tetra-Man's designation moved forward into the next round. His opponent's slot remained empty, waiting for the winner of the next scheduled match.
The Crane Mother studied the bracket. Two more rounds remained for the first stage. The first stage had six champions fighting, while one received a "bye" by lottery, the lucky one being Bride of Nine Spiders, to fix the seven-person issue.
Next, Fat Cobra of Pen-Li was to fight Storm Tiger of the Tiger Islands. Afterwards, Iron Fist of K'un-Lun would fight Dog Brother Number One of Under City. Then the Semi-Finals, followed by Finals.
[Image Here]
She glanced at the other champions in the gallery. Fat Cobra had stopped eating his plums. Danny Rand's fist was dark and still, pressed against his knee like he was trying to keep it from moving on its own.
The Crane Mother turned her attention back to the arena. Ben's blue form shimmered with green light, and then the boy was standing there in his human body, brown‑haired and young and clearly more focused on his bruises than on the politics he'd just crashed into.
He rolled his shoulders, shamelessly waved at the crowd which earned a mixed reaction, and then walked toward the fighter's tunnel.
Crane Mother held back a sigh of worry.
…..
In the eighth seat, the Celestial Being settled back. His hood tilted, tracking the boy's movement across the arena floor until he disappeared into the tunnel's shadow.
So that is him, the being thought. He Who Reversed a Million Deaths.
The supposed [Machine God], titled such by billions of people who'd watched the news on live television.
Hah. They gave a mortal boy the title of a god and didn't stop to think what that attracts. The being's attention lingered. What a young fool.
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