Hu Cheng swept his gaze over everyone present once more.
"Now that the reason for gathering you here has been explained, let's get down to business."
"What business?" Xiao Yu asked immediately.
"The training process, of course! For now, I only know most of you on paper — I've been given all the information about you, but dry reports give me a headache."
Hui Mi smirked.
"So you're suggesting a sparring match between us?"
Hu Cheng rolled his shoulders.
"A sparring match — yes. But not between you."
Finishing his stretches, he pointed at Hao Ming.
"You, go sit somewhere and stay out of the way. But watch closely — you need to see how real Spirit Masters fight."
<
"Understood," Hao Ming said, nodding, and sat down a short distance away.
He truly had never once seen a Battle Soul or a Spirit Ring used in combat before — until now, Hu Cheng had only ever fought him using the raw strength of his own body.
"Now then. Everyone except Hao Ming — attack me," Hu Cheng said, sweeping his gaze over the remaining six. "And don't even think about holding back. Attack with intent to kill. I want to see what you're really capable of."
The words had barely left his lips when lightning was already dancing around Hui Mi's body, as though he'd been waiting for exactly this. Six pitch-black Spirit Rings rose one after another beneath his feet, and without wasting a second on deliberation, he immediately activated his second Spirit Skill.
A strange white-blue bolt of lightning flared beside his palm — alive, writhing, coiling around his body like a serpent baring its fangs.
Hu Cheng was in no hurry to attack; instead, he watched everyone with interest — after all, his goal wasn't to beat them as quickly as possible, but to understand what they were truly capable of.
Hui Mi raised his hand to the sky — the white-blue lightning wound around his palm in a dense ring.
"Second Spirit Skill: Divine Judgment!"
He snapped his hand down sharply — the lightning vanished as if it had never been there, and in the next instant, a bolt of white-blue light struck Hu Cheng square in the chest.
"Ra-ra-ra!" Hu Cheng scratched lazily at the point of impact. "Tickles. Is that really all you've got? You didn't even scratch my clothes."
From the other side, Zhou Shengyang charged — no wasted motion, no hesitation, as though throwing himself into battle came to him as naturally as breathing. Golden-amber light rippled across his body, a pair of dark tiger stripes surfaced on his face, and his pupils narrowed into vertical slits.
Within a couple of breaths he'd closed the distance to Hu Cheng and landed a strike. Hu Cheng took the fist with his own body and, in the same instant, answered with a counterblow, sending Zhou Shengyang into a brief flight.
<
Sheng Ming, for her part, didn't charge in — she took a few steps back instead. She was in no hurry to release her Battle Soul, but five Spirit Rings — two purple and three black — already circled her in silence, ready to flare to life at any second.
Qin Ye remained perfectly calm. None of the tension written across the boys' faces touched her in the slightest — she had known this man since childhood and understood his mind well. Three pairs of magnificent angelic wings had already unfurled behind her back.
Six black Spirit Rings rose beneath her feet, and the first flared brighter than the rest.
"First Spirit Skill: Seraph's Sword."
Light instantly gathered in her hand, stretching out and taking the form of an elegant two-handed sword.
Jin Luo, meanwhile, didn't so much as consider moving — he stayed right where he was, hands shoved in his pockets, looking for all the world like a man watching someone else's brawl from the audience seats.
"Teacher, I forfeit," he drawled lazily.
"No one gave you a choice," a voice said, right behind him.
Jin Luo instantly felt the air around him grow heavy.
Hu Cheng was behind him faster than the eye could track — and in the next moment, a fist slammed into his back, sending him into a short but impressively arcing flight.
Xiao Yu, still keeping his distance from the general chaos, nervously licked his lips as he watched Hu Cheng amble unhurriedly toward him.
"Listen, maybe we can work something out?" he rattled off quickly. "I've got a great offer — I know where the Director hides his liquor..."
He didn't get to finish — Hu Cheng's figure was already standing right in front of him, fist cutting a short, swift arc through the air.
Xiao Yu yelped and dodged almost instinctively — his body reacting faster than his mind — twisting away at the very last instant, so the blow passed within a couple of centimeters of his ear.
"Are you trying to kill me?!" Xiao Yu shouted, leaping backward.
Hao Ming, sitting off to the side, watched the chaos unfold without much enthusiasm. So far, the whole thing looked to him like Hu Cheng's usual brand of bullying — just with some bright flashes added on top.
"Ooh," Hu Cheng said, sounding pleasantly surprised. <
Beneath Xiao Yu's feet, a row of six yellow, century-old rings rose one after another. The first flared to life immediately.
"First Spirit Skill: Windstep!"
Xiao Yu's body shot off as though it had stopped obeying the laws of physics. A blurred afterimage — and there he was, already a couple of meters from his previous spot, before starting to circle the edge of the fight.
"Heh," Hu Cheng chuckled, watching him go.
Xiao Yu was in no hurry to attack. He kept as much distance as he could, biding his time.
<
Hu Cheng's attention snapped back — Zhou Shengyang and Hui Mi had charged him from the same side at once.
Beneath Hui Mi's feet, the second black ring flared and went out just as quickly. He pushed off the ground, coming in from the left. White-blue lightning already coiled around his palm.
"Second Skill! Divine Judg—"
He didn't get to finish. Zhou Shengyang unexpectedly cut in front of him, fist flying straight for Hu Cheng's chest. Hui Mi managed to yank his hand back in time. The bolt went wide, only grazing Hu Cheng's shoulder.
"God damn it..." Zhou Shengyang snarled, forced to check his swing for a split second to avoid the lightning.
That instant was all Hu Cheng needed. With one hand he caught the now-slowed fist. With the other, he effortlessly grabbed Hui Mi's palm, still crackling with the dying remnants of the bolt.
"You two might want to agree on who's coming from which side," he said cheerfully, flinging both of them apart with a single motion.
"Get out of my way!" Hui Mi snapped, springing back.
"You're the one in my way," Zhou Shengyang shot back.
Qin Ye watched the confusion unfold from a distance. She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head — almost sympathetic. Then she slid forward — not in a straight line, but along a short arc, toward the empty space between Hui Mi and Zhou Shengyang, as if she already knew exactly where each of them would shift a second later. The second ring flared.
"Second Spirit Skill: Wave of Light."
The blade traced a wide arc. A dense beam tore free from its edge and struck Hu Cheng at the exact moment his attention was split between two opponents. This time he didn't manage to simply wave it off. The beam grazed him at an angle, leaving a long charred streak on his sleeve — the fabric singed at the edge.
"Now that's more like it," Hu Cheng said, nodding approvingly at her and brushing off the blackened sleeve. "Unlike some people."
Jin Luo still lay exactly where the first throw had left him. Eyes half-closed, body limp — completely out cold. For a split second, one eye cracked open just enough to catch the overall shape of the fight.
<
Zhou Shengyang didn't wait for Hui Mi and Qin Ye to settle into position — he charged forward first, relying purely on speed and instinct.
Hui Mi mirrored him — breaking into motion the very same instant.
Both realized too late that they'd ended up right next to each other.
"Oh, for—" Zhou Shengyang bit out, braking hard and veering aside to avoid colliding with Hui Mi.
"Damn it!" Hui Mi hissed through his teeth, forced to check his own speed as well.
Hu Cheng, once again taking advantage of their hesitation, closed the distance and, without much ceremony, drove a fist first into Zhou Shengyang's side, then, pivoting, into Hui Mi's shoulder — sending both flying, this time in opposite directions, further apart than before.
"Here we go again," he said with a smirk.
Qin Ye, meanwhile, was operating on an entirely different logic. She didn't rush after the other two — she paused for a moment, gauging exactly where both would land, and only then moved, arcing toward the spot where, by her calculations, the open ground between them would be.
"Second Spirit Skill: Wave of Light."
The beam tore free from her blade at the exact moment Hu Cheng hadn't yet fully straightened up after his second strike — and this time, the hit landed clean, right in the chest.
"Hm," Hu Cheng raised an eyebrow slightly. "You, on the other hand, are as sharp as ever."
Qin Ye didn't respond — she simply raised her blade again, calmly waiting for the other two to get back up.
Zhou Shengyang, the first to rise, shot an irritated glance at Hui Mi.
"You're deliberately getting in my way."
"You're the one who came in from my side," the other snapped back, brushing off his shoulder.
"I was in front. That makes it my side."
They were still bickering when, without any coordination, they both charged again at once — each on his own, from different directions, but along an identical, all-too-predictable trajectory.
Jin Luo, still lying on the ground with his eyes closed, smirked faintly at the corner of his mouth.
"Well, would you look at that — those two really can't work together," he thought lazily, settling back into his feigned sleep.
After another failed attempt to coordinate, Zhou Shengyang stopped. He exhaled heavily. For the first time in the whole fight, he allowed himself a moment to actually think.
"Fine," he ground out. "Since you keep getting in the way, we'll have to do this differently."
This time he didn't charge in right away. Five Spirit Rings rose one after another beneath his feet — three purple, two black. The fourth, black one, flared at the very same instant.
Zhou Shengyang clenched his fist. His knuckles flushed red for a moment — then the color began shifting rapidly, blazing from red to molten gold, until his entire fist glowed with an even, blinding radiance. The air around it trembled and warped, like heat rising off summer asphalt at noon.
"Fourth Spirit Skill: Solar Breakthrough!"
All his spirit power drew together into a single point. He took one single step forward and struck — a blindingly golden beam tore from his fist, ripping through the air with a dry, deafening crack, as though the earth itself had split in two for an instant.
Where the beam passed, the ground melted into pure gold — and long, smoking cracks raced outward from the glowing streak in every direction.
Hu Cheng didn't so much as move — he simply let the beam swallow him whole, as though it were no more dangerous than a gust of wind. For a moment his entire body vanished into golden light — and when the glow faded, Hu Cheng stood there completely unharmed, his clothes hanging off him in tattered, charred rags.
"Ooh," he said, examining with interest what remained of his shirt, then turning his gaze to the scorched golden path. "Now that's serious. A couple more of those, and I might actually have to start blocking with my arms."
Hui Mi didn't let the moment slip by — he activated his fifth black ring.
"Fifth Spirit Skill: Spear of the Myriad Thunder King!"
He brought his palms together — a pitch-black mass instantly condensed between them, millions of tiny bolts of lightning drawn into a single point. The air crackled. His hair, already disheveled, stood on end. He spread his hands apart — and a spear took shape between them, blacker than night itself, woven from countless black lightning bolts flickering ominously along its entire length.
Hu Cheng raised his eyebrows. For the first time in the whole fight, genuine excitement flickered in his eyes.
"Well, well," he drawled. "Looks like you've all decided to stop playing around."
Hui Mi wasn't a fool — he'd already realized that Hu Cheng was simply absorbing every attack thrown at him. Which meant precision could be discarded in favor of pure destructive force.
Hui Mi froze for a moment, weighing the spear in his hands — then wrenched his arm back sharply, his whole body twisting into the throw.
"Take this!"
The spear tore free from his hand and hurtled through the air with a deafening crack, trailing black sparks in its wake. The space along its trajectory crackled, filling with the smell of burning, and the air ahead began to blur and warp, as though space itself couldn't withstand the spear's force.
Hu Cheng didn't move. Instead, he leaned forward and, without any windup, drove his fist straight into the incoming spear.
BAM!!
A deafening crack rang out, as if lightning and thunder had struck simultaneously — the spear shattered on impact, breaking apart into hundreds of individual bolts that immediately began striking wildly in every direction, embedding themselves in the ground and nearby rocks, leaving smoking, charred marks scattered across the whole training ground. Black sparks wrapped around Hu Cheng's fist for a moment — then everything went quiet as abruptly as it had started.
He calmly brushed the last sparks off his knuckles, as if dusting off dirt.
"Strong," he noted with approval.
Hui Mi, breathing heavily, lowered his hand. That skill had been one of the strongest in his arsenal, and it had drained his spirit power reserves considerably.
Qin Ye stepped forward, the blade of light in her hand shining brighter still. She didn't wait for a favorable opening — she charged straight in, putting her full weight behind every strike, as though she'd already decided to leave herself the bare minimum room to dodge.
Hu Cheng parried the first strike with the back of his hand, raising an eyebrow slightly.
"Oh! Looks like you've decided to stop being cautious too."
"I have excellent support," she replied curtly, already circling to the other side for a new strike.
The blade cut through the air — once, twice, a third time — with almost no pause between attacks. She spared neither her breath nor her strength, as though the goal wasn't to last longer, but to put everything into this exchange.
"Second Spirit Skill: Wave of Light."
The beam tore free from the blade with almost no preparation — not a measured, economical discharge, but a full, heavy release of energy that struck Hu Cheng's shoulder with enough force to make even him stagger back for a moment.
It was at that exact moment that Hu Cheng answered with a quick, sharp thrust — not a hard one, more of a probing test — and Qin Ye, too absorbed in her own attack, reacted a fraction of a second too late. The blow grazed her side, knocking her back a couple of steps.
She didn't even wince — she simply straightened up and threw herself forward again, as though nothing had happened.
Behind her, a short distance away, Sheng Ming watched her every movement with tension — not so much the attacks themselves, but the way Qin Ye kept absorbing hits she could have dodged with just a bit more caution.
Behind Sheng Ming, a colossal, translucent tree grew into being — trunk, branches, leaves, all a deep, saturated green. At the same instant, an enormous volume of life force gathered around her: spirits of life, normally hidden from prying eyes, awakened and swirled joyfully around her.
The first purple ring flared to life.
"First Spirit Skill: Sunflower Seed!"
An elegant sunflower sprouted from the ground beneath her feet, and a single emerald seed dropped into Sheng Ming's open palm — she immediately threw it toward Qin Ye. The seed touched her body, spread softly into green light, and dissolved without a trace.
"Thank you," Qin Ye said curtly, without turning, already accelerating again.
"Don't worry about me," Sheng Ming added, just as quietly.
Qin Ye nodded briefly and threw herself forward once more — faster, harder, giving no thought at all to what might come flying back at her in return. Every time Hu Cheng landed a blow, Qin Ye's body would flicker with green light for an instant — and it was visible to the naked eye how the wounds on her skin closed and vanished faster than they could properly open.
"Third Spirit Skill: Chains of Light!"
She'd activated it several moments earlier — the skill required ten seconds of preparation, and only now did it finally take effect. Golden chains surfaced from beneath Hu Cheng's feet, lashing upward to bind him, if only for an instant.
Hu Cheng jerked, breaking the chains almost immediately — but that one second of delay was enough for Qin Ye to pour everything she had into her next strike.
"Second Spirit Skill: Wave of Light!"
Half of her remaining spirit power surged into the blade all at once — the light around its edge grew so dense it became almost painful to look at. The Seraph's Sword traced a wide, heavy arc, and what tore free from its edge wasn't a thin beam this time, but a dense, blinding pillar of light, far wider and heavier than her previous discharges — it surged forward, cutting through the air with a low, resonant hum, as though the atmosphere itself resisted its passage.
Hu Cheng threw up his arm to block — for the first time in the whole fight, not just brushing something off, but genuinely bracing to take a hit seriously. The wave slammed into his forearm with a deafening roar, throwing up a cloud of dust and lighting the entire field, for a split second, brighter than the noonday sun. He was thrown back a good ten steps — he stayed on his feet, but his clothes on that arm had turned into smoking rags, and he stood still for a moment, shaking off the last dying sparks of light.
"Hm," he straightened up, looking at her now without a trace of his earlier casualness. "Now that's a real strike. Your swordsmanship and your command of spirit skills really are at a Titled level."
Qin Ye didn't answer, only breathing heavily — that brief clash had worn her out considerably. On the other side, Zhou Shengyang and Hui Mi were still recovering their spirit power.
Hu Cheng decided to go on the offensive and took a step — and vanished.
Bang! Bang! Bang! — three simultaneous impacts rang out.
The first blow landed square in Zhou Shengyang's chest, before he'd fully caught his breath after the Solar Breakthrough — he was sent flying backward, tumbling over his shoulder and landing a couple of meters away, throwing up a cloud of dust.
The second struck Hui Mi in the side just as he was beginning to turn for a new attack — the blow sent him flying in the opposite direction.
The third, the fastest of all, went to Qin Ye — she managed to raise her blade to block, but the force of the strike still knocked her off her feet, hurling her back a good ten steps.
At that exact second, seemingly forming out of thin air, Xiao Yu appeared behind the now-stationary Hu Cheng. He'd been patiently circling at the very edge of visibility this entire time, waiting for precisely this moment — when Hu Cheng's attention would be split three ways at once.
The fifth yellow ring beneath his feet flared, and for an instant the air currents around him stopped resisting his movement — instead flowing around his body, gathering at his feet in a dense, invisible vortex.
"Fifth Spirit Ring: Maximum Velocity!"
He gripped his dagger, and the full force of the gathered wind surged toward its very tip, as though the blade had suddenly found itself at the center of a raging current. Xiao Yu shot forward at a speed unthinkable even for his own previous bursts of speed — the air behind him collapsed shut for a moment with a low hum, marking the line where he'd just been standing.
The dagger traced an arc, aimed precisely beneath the shoulder blade — the one spot where even a single instant of hesitation from Hu Cheng would have meant a hit.
He jerked aside at the very last moment, reacting more on the instinct of a seasoned fighter than on sight — the human eye simply couldn't have tracked speed like that. Still, the dagger grazed his side, leaving a long, ragged tear in his shirt, with no blood showing beneath it, only a reddened line.
Hu Cheng spun around, genuinely raising his eyebrows in surprise for the first time in the entire fight. <
Xiao Yu, breathing hard after burning through nearly all his accumulated spirit power in an instant, immediately sprang back, widening the distance between himself and Hu Cheng.
<
Meanwhile, Sheng Ming, who had held back until this point, finally moved.
She surveyed her companions carefully. Hui Mi was already breathing hard. Zhou Shengyang maintained his outward composure, but even his movements betrayed the fatigue building up in him. Xiao Yu had nearly exhausted his entire reserve of spirit energy, and Qin Ye had noticeably slowed down.
Sheng Ming clasped her hands in front of her chest.
"Oh ancient tree, whose roots feed the earth and whose branches touch the heavens."
A soft green light began rising from the ground.
"Gather the scattered spirit light and return the strength lost to those I have chosen."
She closed her eyes. Images of her allies appeared one by one in her mind. Hui Mi. Zhou Shengyang. Xiao Yu. Qin Ye.
"Bloom once more..."
Her voice grew quieter — but the last words rang out with particular clarity.
"Fourth Spirit Skill — Light of Restoration!"
The fourth black spirit ring flared brightly.
Behind Sheng Ming, the translucent silhouette of the Tree of Life flared to life, its branches slowly reaching toward the sky — and countless particles of green and azure light began falling from its crown.
The light didn't scatter at random. As though possessed of its own will, it unerringly sought out the chosen targets.
In the next instant, the bodies of Hui Mi, Zhou Shengyang, Xiao Yu, and Qin Ye were wrapped in a soft green-azure glow. All four froze at once, feeling their nearly-depleted spirit power flooding back into their bodies — as though a dried-up river had suddenly found a new source.
Hui Mi slowly clenched his fist — the lightning around his body began crackling noticeably livelier than before.
"Thanks, Sheng Ming."
Zhou Shengyang gave a brief nod.
Xiao Yu, meanwhile, perked up instantly.
"Mingming's skills are always top-notch!"
While the others rejoiced at their sudden recovery, Hu Cheng ambled unhurriedly toward the spot where Jin Luo still lay.
He hadn't even tried to get up — eyes closed, arms sprawled loosely to either side, body utterly still, as though he really had lost consciousness.
Hu Cheng stopped directly over him.
"How much longer do you plan on lying there?"
No response.
A smirk crossed Hu Cheng's lips.
"Fair warning: if you're not up in five seconds, I'll bury you myself, with my own two hands."
Jin Luo still didn't stir.
"Five... four..."
One of Jin Luo's eyes cracked open, just barely. Just enough to gauge the distance to Hu Cheng.
"Three..."
"Alright, alright," Jin Luo said, propping himself up lazily on his elbows and yawning as widely as if he'd genuinely been roused from a beautiful dream.
"Two..."
"I'm getting up, I'm getting up." He finally rose to his feet and slowly brushed off his sleeve — his whole manner suggesting that participating in this fight was the single greatest inconvenience to befall him all morning.
He let out a heavy sigh.
"Well, since I wasn't given a choice anyway..."
Four rings rose one after another beneath his feet — one purple, three black.
The purple ring flared.
"First Spirit Skill: Draw."
In the next instant, a fan of thirty-three identical cards spread out before him.
Jin Luo reached out, pulled one at random, and flipped it over.
For a few seconds he stared silently at the image — chains coiling around the figure of the Fool. His usually drowsy face darkened slightly.
The card flared with a dark red light.
"Oh," he sighed. "'Shackles.'"
Hu Cheng raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"Bad luck?"
"To put it mildly."
Thin dark threads materialized around Jin Luo's body — not binding him physically, but settling directly onto his spirit power. He immediately felt the flow of energy inside him grow heavier, thicker, as though pushing through tar. Nearly a third of his spirit power was suppressed.
"Great start to the fight," he muttered with obvious sarcasm. "Just magnificent."
He looked back at the remaining fan of cards.
"Guess I got up on the wrong side of the bed today."
Hu Cheng stepped forward.
"Don't worry. However you'd gotten up, the day would've ended the same way regardless."
Jin Luo immediately drew a second card — not even managing to flip it properly before Hu Cheng had already vanished from his previous spot, fist flying straight at his face.
"Third Rank: Defensive!"
The card flared. A translucent spirit barrier sprang up instantly in front of Jin Luo.
The blow crashed into the shield — it held for only a fraction of a second, cracking and crumbling, but it managed to absorb most of the strike's force regardless. Jin Luo was thrown back — he slid several meters across the ground and, by some miracle, kept his footing.
"Phew," he rubbed his shoulder. "Just in time."
Hu Cheng advanced on him slowly.
"Pretty weak, for a defensive ability."
"Couldn't agree more," Jin Luo said, drawing a new card. "But, as they say — we work with what we're given."
The card flared gold.
"Attack type," he glanced at the image. "Rank two."
Light streamed down his arm, gathering in his fist into a dense charge. Hu Cheng was already close — and instead of retreating, Jin Luo unexpectedly stepped forward himself, putting the charge into the strike.
The fist slammed into Hu Cheng's side with a dull thud.
He didn't so much as flinch. He slowly looked down at the point of impact, then back up at Jin Luo.
"What was that supposed to be?"
"Don't judge too harshly," Jin Luo said, already backing away, drawing the next card. "I'm having a bad day."
"I noticed."
Hu Cheng lunged forward again. Jin Luo sprang back immediately.
It was at that exact moment, with Hu Cheng's attention focused on a single target for a second, that the rest of them rejoined the fight.
Hui Mi, already fully restored thanks to Sheng Ming, charged in first.
"First Spirit Skill: Lightning Flail!"
The blue bolt didn't shoot at Hu Cheng himself, but cut across his path of movement — forcing him to break his rhythm for a split second.
That momentary lapse was all Zhou Shengyang needed, coming in from the opposite side in a low, sweeping stance. He didn't waste time activating a skill — he simply struck with his fist, putting the full speed of his charge into the blow.
Hu Cheng blocked with his forearm — but this time the impact was noticeably heavier than before: he was knocked back half a step, and he grunted in approval.
"Oh, finally stopped holding back?"
"Talk later," Zhou Shengyang bit out, already moving in for a second strike.
Qin Ye, having waited for Hu Cheng's attention to split between Hui Mi and Zhou Shengyang, slid into the opening — a short, economical motion, her blade already glowing in her hand.
She wasn't in a hurry to strike with full force — she simply kept him under constant pressure, forcing him to split his attention across three directions at once. Three attacks, three different rhythms, none of them repeating the last — the coordination that had been absent at the start of the fight was now working almost flawlessly.
Xiao Yu moved slower, but more inconspicuously than anyone, now closing in nearer than he'd allowed himself the whole fight — circling along the inner rather than the outer perimeter of the clash. He still hadn't attacked: he didn't want to waste his remaining strength, and the moment — the moment had to be chosen flawlessly.
<
Jin Luo, taking advantage of the fact that the group's attention had momentarily shifted away from him, finally caught a second of peace — and immediately drew a new card.
It didn't flare red, or gold, or the familiar, calming purple of a defense card.
It lit up in every color at once — shimmering, pulsing, as though every possible card existed within it simultaneously.
Jin Luo froze.
"Well, would you look at that," he murmured, and for the first time in the entire fight, there wasn't a trace of his usual laziness in his voice. "The Joker."
But this time Hu Cheng, it seemed, had already learned his rhythm — he turned a fraction of a second earlier than he needed to, and caught Xiao Yu's wrist right out of the air.
The card settled into his open palm in a soft, warm flash. The remaining fan of cards seemed almost unreal in that moment — the thin line between everything he could become in the next second, and the one choice that finally belonged to him alone, rather than to luck.
He swept his gaze across the battlefield — Hui Mi, still pressing forward with lightning; Zhou Shengyang, gathering himself for a second approach; Qin Ye, methodically holding her rhythm of attacks; Xiao Yu, waiting for the right instant — and gave a short smirk.
"Well now. What should I pick..."
"Don't stall," Hu Cheng warned, sparing enough attention from the three attackers to glance in his direction. "You think I forgot about you?"
"Patience," Jin Luo said, not taking his eyes off the fan, stepping back to buy himself a couple more precious seconds. "A good strategy beats a fast mistake."
Hui Mi, meanwhile, snapped his hand aside, sending a new bolt — but this time calculating the trajectory so as to force Hu Cheng to shift exactly into the spot where Zhou Shengyang's next strike was already waiting for him.
The plan very nearly worked — Hu Cheng dodged the lightning, but noticed the trap a fraction of a second before it would have landed, and slipped aside from both attacks at once, laughing briefly.
"Good, you almost had me there."
Qin Ye, seizing that tiny window, immediately slid forward with a new thrust — this time aiming not at his body, but at his very position, forcing him to choose between dodging her and continuing his maneuver away from the other two.
Xiao Yu, who had been watching all of this with perfect, patient stillness, finally felt it: this was the moment, the one instant when Hu Cheng's attention was stretched to its absolute limit across four directions at once.
But he still didn't move.
<
"Well then," Hu Cheng said, tilting his head as he swept his gaze over the whole battered group at once, "since none of you seem willing to show me your trump cards yourselves — I'll just have to drag them out of you by force."
He tipped his head back and burst into loud, rolling laughter — so sudden and genuine that, for a moment, all six of them froze, unable to tell what exactly had amused him so much.
"Ra-ra-ra! You know," he forced out through his laughter, wiping away a tear, "you're holding up pretty well! There's even something like teamwork forming here..."
The laughter cut off just as abruptly as it had started.
Hu Cheng's face turned serious in an instant — his features sharpened, and every trace of the playful excitement that had filled his eyes only a second before vanished without a trace.
"But since we've reached this point," he said, in an entirely different tone now, low and even, "I suppose I'll have to get a little more serious."
The air around him suddenly shuddered — a heavy, crushing aura surged around his figure in a wave, and everyone present felt their breath catch at once. The ground beneath his feet cracked faintly, and a chill ran across everyone's skin, as though an invisible weight, dozens of times heavier than before, had settled onto their shoulders simultaneously.
And in that instant — for only a fraction of a second, but long enough to sear itself into every one of their memories — Hu Cheng's figure seemed to stop being human.
What stood before them looked, for that instant, like a monster. But the illusion vanished as quickly as it had appeared — and standing on the field once more was simply Hu Cheng, in his tattered shirt, a tired but sharp half-smile on his lips. But none of the six could quite shake off what they'd seen — as though, for one moment, a door had been cracked open onto who he truly was, before he ever became their good-natured, grumbling mentor.
Xiao Yu, still struggling to stay on his feet, let out a quiet gasp.
"Ha-ha—" he laughed nervously, "—this is a bit much..."
He didn't get to finish.
The sun had long since sunk below the horizon, staining the sky a dull crimson, by the time it was all finally over.
The six of them lay sprawled across the trampled, scorched, and cracked earth — some with arms flung wide, others curled on their sides — breathing hard, unable to rise. The training ground looked like the aftermath of a battle fought to the death: charred patches where Hui Mi's lightning had swept through, deep furrows carved by Zhou Shengyang's Solar Breakthrough, shards of Seraph's Swords slowly fading in the grass where Qin Ye's attacks had struck.
"I can't... feel my legs anymore," Xiao Yu groaned, staring up at the darkening sky with a glazed look in his eyes.
Zhou Shengyang stubbornly tried to stay on his feet — pride wouldn't let him collapse like the others — but his body wouldn't obey. He swayed, barely kept his balance, and went still, breathing heavily, unable to manage another step.
Hui Mi made an indistinct sound, something like a laugh, and immediately dissolved into coughing.
Jin Luo, thoroughly battered, lay flat on the ground — it looked as though his soul had left his body even before the fight had ended.
Qin Ye sat with her legs crossed, but looked utterly drained. Her hair was in a dreadful state — it was hard to find any part of it that had survived intact.
Sheng Ming sank to the ground beside Qin Ye, leaning her shoulder against hers in exhaustion. Outwardly she'd suffered the least of anyone — no burns, no wounds — but her pallor and her trembling, overworked hands betrayed exactly what it had cost her to sustain four threads of restoration at once.
After catching her breath a little, she suddenly let out a quiet, tired laugh.
"You know... that was fun."
"Fun?!" Xiao Yu lifted his head off the ground, staring at her in genuine bewilderment. "Mingming, are you out of your mind? I thought I wasn't going to wake up tomorrow."
"Well, I liked it," she said, shrugging, still smiling. "Wasn't it great, fighting together?" She raised a trembling fist, sweetly.
Hui Mi, lying nearby, propped himself up on one elbow, looking at her with something warm, something like quiet relief on his face.
"If Sheng Ming says it was fun, then I guess it was fun for me too," he said with a faint smirk, immediately collapsing back onto the ground.
Hu Cheng, standing off to the side, rolled his shoulders with a satisfied look, as though the last several hours had cost him no more effort than a light warm-up. Not a single trace remained on him of the day's continuous assault — only his clothes had turned into a picturesque ruin, charred, scorched, and torn in a good dozen places.
He took his time sweeping his gaze over the whole group, and a pleased, almost fatherly smile spread across his face.
"Well then," he said, "got to know each other a bit better out there? It's one thing to know a name and a face — it's another thing entirely to fight shoulder to shoulder. I hope you all drew your own conclusions."
He let his gaze linger for a moment on Zhou Shengyang, who was still stubbornly standing off to one side on shaking legs.
"We learned that we're completely incapable of fighting as a team," Zhou Shengyang answered grimly, still standing stubbornly on his trembling legs a little apart from the others.
"Oh, finally, someone said it out loud," Hu Cheng chuckled with evident satisfaction. "Now that's progress."
Hao Ming, who had watched the whole thing in silence this entire time, only occasionally sweeping his gaze over the battlefield and the people lying on it — said nothing at all.