But she wasn’t alone. She was tethered to a dozen exhausted, terrified teenagers, half of whom were injured.

She couldn’t unleash her wide-area-of-effect attacks without risking burning her own teammates.

She couldn’t dodge freely, because every spirit she sidestepped would instantly fall upon the weaker disciples behind her.

She was a high-mobility fighter forced to play the role of a stationary tank. It was the worst possible tactical scenario.

"Remember the protocol," Ji’an commanded, pointing to the green jade Lifeline Tokens hanging from their belts. "If the line breaks. If you feel your mind slipping. You crush the plaque. There is no shame in surviving. Do not let your pride turn you into a ghost."

Before anyone could respond, the fire in the center of the hut suddenly flared up.

But it wasn’t orange anymore. The flames turned a sickly, luminescent spectral green. The temperature in the room plummeted to freezing in the span of a single heartbeat.

The crushed garlic at the door began to hiss and smoke, rapidly turning black as it was overwhelmed by a massive surge of corrupted energy.

Scratch... Scratch... Scratch...

The sound of hundreds of jagged fingernails clawing against the outside of the wooden walls echoed through the hut.

Then came the weeping.

It started as a low, mournful sob, echoing from the foggy streets outside.

Within seconds, it multiplied into a cacophony of shrieks, wails, and agonizing cries of sorrow that pierced directly into the disciples’ eardrums, causing several of them to drop to their knees, clutching the sides of their heads in pain.

"They’re here," Ji’an gritted her teeth, her spatula igniting with a faint, golden glow of Yang energy. "Circle up! Backs to the center! Protect the Princess!"

The heavy wooden beam securing the front doors didn’t splinter or break. It simply rotted away into black ash in an instant.

The doors blew open, letting the thick, swirling yellow fog pour into the room.

Floating in the fog were the villagers.

They were grotesque. Their bodies were translucent, glowing with a sickly pale light, their faces twisted in eternal agony.

Some were missing limbs; others had hollow, black voids where their eyes should be. They drifted above the floorboards, their jawbones unhinged as they let out ear-piercing shrieks, diving straight toward the warmth of the living disciples.

"Hold the line!" Ji’an roared.

.

.

.

Outside the realm, in the Assembly Plaza of the Celestial Sword Sect, the viewing audience had descended into absolute pandemonium.

The massive floating screens, which had previously been broadcasting the amusing domestic antics of Class 9, were now showcasing a literal nightmare.

Up on the jade terrace, the Head Elder of the Discipline Hall surged to his feet, knocking his expensive tea set to the floor.

The porcelain shattered, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were wide with shock, staring at the screen displaying the ruined village.

"Impossible!" the Head Elder bellowed, his voice trembling. "What is the meaning of this?! There are no human settlements in the Myriad Illusions Realm! That dimension was sealed a thousand years ago, specifically because it was a pure wilderness zone!"

The other Peak Masters were equally frantic, pulling out ancient maps and consulting scrying arrays.

"The spatial coordinates match the deepest sector of the realm," an array master reported, his face pale. "It must be a localized temporal distortion. An ancient ruin that was buried under the spiritual leylines, pushed to the surface by the recent shifts in Qi! Those are ancient grievances... Grade 4 Yin Spirits!"

"Grade 4?!" Gu Zhiwei gasped, stepping forward to the railing. The Holy Son’s face was stricken with horror. "But... but Outer Disciples can barely handle Class 1 spirits! This is a massacre! We have to stop the tournament! Open the portal!"

"We cannot!" the Head Elder shouted, his face grim. "The realm is locked by the ancient formations. If we force the portal open before the three-day timer expires, the spatial backlash will collapse the entire pocket dimension, crushing everyone inside!"

"Then what do we do?!" Lu Jianheng demanded, his hand gripping his sword so hard his knuckles bled.

For all his arrogance, the Sword Lord could not stomach the idea of fellow disciples being slaughtered unfairly.

"We do nothing," Wen Shiru said quietly, his golden fan closed tight in his fist, his usual composed smile absent. "They have their Lifeline Tokens. If they value their lives, they will shatter them and forfeit them. The system was designed for this exact contingency."

But standing at the edge of the terrace, completely ignoring the frantic shouts of the Elders, was Xie Wangchen.

The Ice Genius was perfectly still. To the untrained eye, he looked calm. But the jade tiles beneath his boots had completely crystallized, the frost spreading outward in a ten-foot radius. The air around him was so cold it burned the lungs of anyone who stepped too close.

His eyes were locked onto the screen showing Lin Ji’an.

He watched Ji’an stand at the forefront of the terrified squad, wielding her spatula like a divine weapon, throwing herself between the ghosts and her weaker classmates.

’The Young Master is bleeding,’ Wangchen’s mind cataloged with terrifying, detached precision. He saw a spectral claw graze Ji’an’s shoulder, tearing through the gray fabric and drawing a thin line of red.

The Frost-Soul Barrier bracelet on Ji’an’s wrist flared blue, mitigating the worst of the damage, but it wasn’t designed to hold off a continuous horde of Grade 4 spirits.

Wangchen’s hand moved to the hilt of Winter’s Sigh. He didn’t draw it. He just gripped it, his knuckles turning white.

’If he just shatters the token... he will appear here, on the plaza,’ Wangchen reasoned, his breathing shallow. ’He will be safe. Even if he failed the tournament, he will be safe.’

But Wangchen knew Lin Ji’an. He knew the cook’s stubbornness. Ji’an wouldn’t shatter the token as long as people were standing behind him who needed protection.

"Shatter it, Ji’an," Wangchen whispered to the screen, his voice raw, pleading, and entirely stripped of his usual cold indifference.