Lin Xuan eased his weight into Cloud Step.

Plain Steel held neutral at the ready. The face he showed the Arena was calm. Inside, a slow heat had begun to climb the line of his ribs.

Lei Yan recovered his stance across the polished stone. His shoulders had dropped a fraction since the last exchange. He had spent four exchanges believing one fight, and the fight he was now in was a different one. The adjustment showed in the way his weight rocked twice on the balls of his feet before it found its place.

Lin Xuan let him find it.

Then he opened.

Form One. Awakening Dragon.

Plain Steel traced the diagonal ascending arc that every Skyedge sword child learned to draw before they learned to write their own name. The cut went for Lei Yan’s elbow with the discipline of a form practiced ten thousand times across the borrowed memory and his own.

Lei Yan answered with the open-shouldered Lotus Surge, the straight blade rising to meet the rising Plain Steel, faint blue-white sparks crackling along the lightning-etched edge.

The two edges crossed at mid-height.

CLANG-ZZAP.

A small arc of lightning jumped at the contact and vanished in the air between them. The sound hit the third ring of the Arena and rolled back as the first real exchange of the morning.

Lei Yan used the bounce to rotate his weight and bring the straight blade down on a second arc. Lightning Qi gathered along the spine of the sword, dense and blue-white. The noon sun fractured against the polished steel as the cut descended, threads of electricity running along the engraved channels of the blade like water finding its course.

The strike was the standard opener of Thunder Lotus against an unknown rival. Diagonal descending. The full pressure of Stage Seven packed behind it.

Lin Xuan did not block.

Blocking a Stage Seven commitment with a Stage Four blade and a Yellow-low sword was a decision a young master made once and corrected for the rest of his career. He shifted instead.

Form Two. Coiling Dragon.

Plain Steel drew a tight inward spiral. The edge did not meet the Thunder cut head on. It found the angle of the descending blade and let it slide along the curve of the spiral, redirecting the force without absorbing it.

SHRRRK.

The Thunder cut slid past Lin Xuan’s right hip and continued down to the floor of the Arena, where the excess Qi met polished stone and discharged badly. A small fissure opened in the floor of the platform and a flash of blue-white light scattered outward in a circle of fine sparks.

CRACK.

Lei Yan stepped back two paces, mouth slightly open.

The technique that had won him two fights this tournament had passed through him without contact.

Lin Xuan did not give him the breath to recover.

Cloud Step carried him forward three paces along the diagonal. His footwork was a degree faster than what Lei Yan had measured during the first four exchanges, because there had been no Qi behind it then.

’Mira. His realm is Stage Seven but his repertoire is small.’

[ Confirmed. Thunder Lotus does not teach more than five forms before Foundation Establishment. You have variety. Use it. ]

Lin Xuan dropped into a tight contracted stance, the blade pulled back along his hip line, and committed.

Form Three. Piercing Dragon.

The blade fired forward in a straight thrust, the entire weight of his body riding the line of the strike, the Qi concentrated at the point and held there until the instant of contact.

Lei Yan brought the straight blade across in Storm Mirror, the technique that absorbed an attack along the length of the spine and threw the discharge back into the attacker. The steel of his sword rang as it received the Piercing Dragon, distributing the impact along the edge while a sharp ribbon of lightning ran the length of the blade and snapped outward toward Lin Xuan’s wrist.

TANG-CRACKLE.

The sound was higher than the first, and it traveled further. Lin Xuan turned his wrist a finger and the ribbon of lightning passed under his guard and dissipated into the air at his side.

Lei Yan used the rebound to swing into Thunderfan Cut, the wide horizontal strike Thunder Lotus favored against opponents at close range. The blade came across in a long arc toward Lin Xuan’s left flank, a fan of blue-white sparks spreading laterally from the edge as it traveled, with a second cut already chambered to come back from the opposite side.

Lin Xuan let the first cut pass.

Cloud Step took him under the horizontal sweep. The tip of the straight blade brushed three fingers from his shoulder. The fan of sparks went over his head and faded.

WHUFF.

The second cut was already on its way back.

Form Four. Twin Dragon Strike.

Plain Steel split the answer into two simultaneous cuts from opposite angles. One high, one low, both aimed at the trunk. The low cut intercepted the returning Thunderfan Cut at its midpoint. The high cut continued through clean air toward Lei Yan’s shoulder.

Lei Yan grunted as the contact arrived. His straight blade vibrated again, this time past comfort.

CLANG-TANG.

The double sound. The second strike weaker than the first.

The two of them broke apart with a small cloud of arena dust rising between them, faint sparks still drifting in the air where the lightning had not yet dissipated.

Three exchanges followed without contact. Both of them measuring distance.

The crowd had begun to applaud at a slow and steady rhythm. The applause of a public that had understood it was watching technique, not theater.

Lei Yan’s face hardened.

Lightning Qi began to gather around him in visible density. The electric mist that surrounded the body of a Thunder Lotus representative when they were about to commit their best technique. The noon light bent slightly inside it, the way air bent over hot stones, and threads of blue-white discharge crawled across his shoulders and down the length of his arms toward the hilt of the blade.

Lin Xuan watched the Qi gather and tilted his head a fraction.

"That is a lot of crackle, Lei Yan."

Lei Yan did not answer.

"I have heard about Lotus Shatter. My father told me about it once, after one of your seniors used it on one of ours, fourteen years ago, I think. He said the man who threw it cried for an hour after the fight because he could not lift his arms for three days. Is that the one you are about to throw."

Lei Yan’s jaw flexed. The electric mist around him wavered for a half breath as his concentration slipped, and then steadied again, the discharge along his arms intensifying.

"I will take the silence as a yes."

Plain Steel sank low and his weight loaded into the back leg. Knees flexed. Body coiled.

Lei Yan committed.

Lotus Shatter.

The straight blade traced an arc that distorted the air of the Arena as it traveled. The noon sun refracted in the edge and threw a blue-white shadow against the dust of the fighting floor. A spike of lightning lifted from the spine of the blade and ran a full length above it like a second edge made of pure discharge. The cut arrived on the strength of Stage Seven unleashed in a single movement, and the wave of Qi in front of it pushed the loose dust outward in a circle.

KKRRRZZT.

Lin Xuan answered with Form Five. Soaring Dragon.

The blade rose from the low position in an upward arc driven by the full extension of his legs, a small Qi-reinforced jump carrying him upward into the path of the descending Lotus Shatter. The point of Plain Steel found the underside of the straight blade at the apex of the arc and lifted into it, redirecting Lei Yan’s commitment toward the sky instead of toward the Arena floor.

CLAAAANG.

A circular wave of Qi released from the contact point, shot through with arcs of blue-white lightning that snapped outward in a ring of small thunderclaps. The dust on the fighting floor lifted into a perfect crown around the two cultivators. The first three rows of the public felt the air move against their robes and the hair at their temples lift on the static. Wei Tianming, two cushions to the right of Lin Xuan’s empty seat, leaned forward with his eyes wide open.

When Lin Xuan landed, Plain Steel was still pointing toward the sky. Lei Yan was three paces back, his straight blade angled high above his own shoulder, the line of his arm trembling under the redirected pressure of his own committed strike. Faint sparks dripped from the tip and faded before they reached the floor.

The crowd held its breath.

Lei Yan brought the blade down and moved his feet to recover.

He was at thirty percent of his cup.

Lin Xuan was at fifty.

’Mira. I’m finishing now.’