⸻
🎙️ "ALL ELIMINATED COMBATANTS — VACATE SKY ARENAS IMMEDIATELY. STAGING INITIATED FOR NEXT ROUND."
The dome flickered with charged stormlight. Qi-grids stabilized. Residual cloud matrices cleared as Federation air-pressure scanners recalibrated the combat zone's density and altitude vectors.
🎙️ "NEXT MATCH: Fan Yumei versus Lin Xue — Sky-Class Aerial Elementalist. Combatants, initiate pre-launch protocols."
Fan Yumei's name blinked across the holoboard in crisp, Federation-blue. Wind lanes reformed above the elevated platform array, while positional runes locked in across both sides of the ring.
Opposite her, Lin Xue floated atop a sleek wind-armored falcon—its wings curved like honed monoblades, feathered with compressed qi alloy. Her stance was steady, hands resting near twin cyclone sabers affixed to her side rig.
Fan Yumei stood on her levitating storm disk, boots magnetized for stability. Her eyes remained still. Calm. Calculated.
Behind her, Mystic twirled through vapor loops—more smug than focused, tail fins kicking up tiny pressure eddies across the skyfields.
Yumei's jaw set tight.
She didn't know Lin Xue personally. But her name wasn't redacted.
That meant: Not a threat. Not a finalist. But still trained. Still respected.
A competent flyer… just not a contender.
Mystic rumbled across the soul-bond, teasing.
« Another one? Shall I twirl first or after? »
Yumei didn't respond.
She stepped forward onto her storm disk. Lin Xue nodded once, serious. The falcon tightened its flight rings, and then—
Initiation protocol engaged.
—
🌀 ROUND ONE — Master & Beast: Full Engagement
—
Fan Yumei raised her hand—no pause, no flourish.
"Mystic, cloud break. Sharp roll. Move."
Mystic dove, skimming low and fast. Her body carved through suspended vapor as Fan Yumei surged into a high arc, tracing a rotational wind glyph in her palm and launching it forward. A pulse of lightning-wrapped wind detonated midair, forcing Lin Xue to pivot.
"Drive left!"
Mystic slashed past from below. Yumei came down from above, their angles perfect. Lin Xue was caught between, momentarily blinded.
Her falcon retaliated, slicing the air with wind-forged feathers—but Mystic intercepted it with a lateral Pressure Coil, dispersing the blast. Yumei twisted a wrist and yanked a Qi Vector Pull, redirecting the falcon's second strike into open altitude.
"Rising slash!" she shouted, vaulting off Mystic's dorsal fins.
A soulblade formed—wind-forged, crackling with lightning. She twisted midair and brought it down hard—
CLANG!
Lin Xue's falcon veered off-course, armor dented. Mystic slammed the beast with a burst of compressed cloudforce from the opposite angle. The falcon shrieked, flight pattern destabilized.
Yumei landed, knees bent on her storm disk, hair lit with static.
"Final pattern. Reverse funnel."
Mystic spiraled wide, Yumei holding steady behind her. Together, they formed a cyclonic field of downward spirals—pressurized wind trapping Lin Xue and her beast within.
They struck as one.
Falcon shields collapsed.
—
🎙️ "ROUND ONE COMPLETE — Fan Yumei: 18/20 pts."
—
🌀 ROUND TWO — Beast‑Only Combat: Mystic vs. Zhai Yun
—
Fan Yumei remained at the skyfield's edge, one hand resting lightly on the support rail. She didn't move, didn't speak—just transmitted the tactical script through the bond.
Mystic had been drilled on it. Cloud feints. Upward burst. Reverse coil to destabilize the Windhorn Serpent's vertical axis.
But Mystic ignored all of it.
Instead, she charged directly—no stealth arcs, no veil deployment. Just raw momentum and mockery.
Her thunderlight flashed as she laughed mid-flight.
The Windhorn Serpent curled sideways midair, but Mystic struck anyway—once, twice, with unrefined shoulder bashes. Fast. Reckless.
"Mystic!" Fan Yumei snapped through the bond, calm but sharp. "You're off-script. Re-align. Now."
Mystic's voice purred across the quad-link:
« Master, relax. This thing can't hit me even if it tried. »
It did.
The Windhorn Serpent feigned retreat, then flicked its fins wide—a whip-lash burst of paralyzing venom. A concealed talon snapped out and struck Mystic's side.
Fan Yumei staggered—though the blow never touched her body.
But she had opened the pain bond.
She could've sealed it. Could've redirected the sensory bleed.
But she didn't.
Mystic needed to feel the cost of arrogance.
Yumei took the hit with locked jaw, blood streaking her lip as she dropped to one knee on the edge disk. She didn't cry out. She never cried out.
Then the second hit landed.
Mystic flinched, confused now—but still didn't understand what she'd done.
Then came the pushback.
Lufei's qi echoed first:
"She's hurting Yumei—Mystic, STOP!"
Then Maxius, enraged:
"You smug cloud guppy! SHE'S BLEEDING. You LISTEN or I will drag you out of the sky myself!"
Mystic froze mid-lunge. Her thunder dimmed.
She turned. Saw her master.
Fan Yumei—bleeding, steady, not shouting. Just kneeling against the wind, hands locked tight, as if holding her own ribs in place.
She hadn't once forced Mystic to submit.
She had let her choose.
And Mystic—had chosen wrong.
"Yumei…"
Guilt crashed harder than impact.
Mystic trembled in open sky. Even the Leviathan-class combatants across the ring paused, sensing the shift.
🌀 The Final Attack
Mystic lowered her fins. Focused. No more theatrics.
Low-cloud feint.
Spiral torque.
Pressure Coil. Stabilizer flip.
Final Arc Strike—top-down.
Fan Yumei, still breathless, whispered her last command:
"Now."
Mystic executed.
The sky cracked.
Golden stormlight shredded the upper dome as Mystic's strike cored through the Windhorn Serpent's flightline. The creature spiraled downward, stunned, until the field repulsors caught its falling body.
—
Silence. Then mist.
Mystic drifted down slowly, hovering just beside her master. Tail lowered. Fins still.
No arrogance now.
Just remorse.
Fan Yumei stood.
Blood crusted the corner of her mouth. Her voice was flat:
"Mystic… you broke us today."
"You mocked someone who trained to be here. You disregarded commands. You hurt me—not just physically. You made a choice… and I let you."
"If you ever dishonor our opponents like that again…"
"…I will ground you. Permanently. I will seal you in the Fallen World dimension, and you will train until you understand what it means to be bonded."
Mystic hovered, stunned.
« …Sorry. »
Fan Yumei didn't respond.
Not yet.
'Sorry' wasn't enough. Not when discipline meant survival.
She had let herself be too soft with Mystic—because she was intelligent, affectionate, gifted.
But Federation beasts were still weapons. Still students. Still soldiers.
No different than the cadets wearing nano-light armor.
And consequences… were real.
Mystic flinched.
A metallic feather had sliced her tail fin mid-dodge. Not deep—but enough to draw qi. Enough to humiliate her. Enough to show up on the observer panel.
🎙️ Command Execution Penalty: -6 pts
Fan Yumei's gaze turned cold.
Mystic stammered through the bond:
« I—I didn't see it coming, I thought— »
"You didn't follow orders," she said aloud.
Mystic stopped.
And from that moment on, she obeyed.
No showboating. No defiance.
The remaining matches were clean. Brutal. Emotionless.
They won—barely.
But the bond?
Still fractured.
And Fan Yumei knew—
She wouldn't let it happen again.
Not from Mystic.
Not from herself.