The simulation opened around them like a living thing — damp air, sweet rot of dense plant life, cacophony of artificial animal sounds and distant waterfalls. Streamers of colored cloth glowed from treetop, cliff edge, and ruined spire half-reclaimed by creepers. The scenery looked beautiful. It smelled of danger.
Lian's heart thudded in his chest as the circle dissolved and the terrain stabilized. He had practiced for a fortnight until muscle and instinct appeared to be automatic instruments. Now all that practice would have to sustain him through a country where every tree might be hiding an enemy and every breeze might be carrying a sword.
He threaded through the crowd of enemies like a strand, hands damp but head clear. His plan was simple and, he hoped, simpler than clever: avoid the open battles, scoop up what was within reach without presenting a target, use height and speed to snatch flags, then flee. That required high ground, webs as silent ropes, and a constant awareness — his father's sense of danger humming like a second heartbeat.
The first flags were low-hanging ones, half-torn and fluttering on broken statues. Lian shot a slender thread, hooked it to a broken cornice, and swung. From there he could see the chaos unfolding across the valley: seniors — already looking like living hurricanes — moving towards likely flag groups, juniors falling into traps, and Rui cutting through a trio of first-years like they were paper.
"Be careful," Chen had whispered before the circles dropped. "If Rui sees you're collecting too many, he'll strike."
Lian didn't want conflict. He wanted to get seven flags without having to prove his reflexes on some senior's testicle-sized aggression. Still, caution wasn't the same as cowardice. He snapped into a rhythm: scout with Daiki's sonic pings when possible, swing when the path was clear, and above all, never be the obvious target.
The seniors were a different breed. On the second ridge he met the first of them — Gao Ming, whose name all had been whispering for weeks. A third-year with a granite jaw and an earthshaker's Qi, Gao moved with the slow certainty of tectonic plates. He struck a fist into the earth and the ground spasmed, tiny shocks trembling through the tree roots. Web anchors ripped with soil convulsion; Zhang Wei swore afterward about that loss of a web-bridge as he fought scrambling where he'd meant to—Gao's Qi was area denial. Lian felt the earth lurch underfoot and the sting of adrenaline spike. He had time to tuck his chin and shoot a web to a far limb before the earth opened where he'd been.
On the far slope a crown of fire appeared like a sunrise of savagery — Huo Tian. He stood shorter than Gao but moved like an forge that had taken on life, flames covering his fists in blazing whips. He drove a group of first-years toward a steep gully and then filled the chute with waves of heat that made it impassable without scorching. Mei Ling tried to grow a living armor of vines, but the fire scorched the leaves faster than her Qi could braid them; the vines recoiled, steaming where the flames kissed them. The seniors were not only stronger — their Qi was crafted to burn away the first years' assumptions.
Bai Xuan was worse, in a way Lian could not have imagined until he suffered it. She neither shrieked nor broke the earth; she made the world cry out for caution. Her Qi created invisible auroras of pressure — telekinetic force fields that repelled incoming projectiles and creased the environment like a fist wrinkling paper. A webline Lian fired to snatch a distant flag thudded and buckled in midair as Bai Xuan deflected the strand harmlessly into an awning. She smiled at the confusion in his eyes and went on, taking up the flag with such confidence that Lian could taste the bitterness of being outwitted.
And then there was Lin Shu — blade Qi so refined it made Rui look coarse by comparison. Lin Shu's cuts sliced thin, surgical paths through rope and rock; a chain parted where Luo Yan had planned to secure it, and Fei Min's leap was cut short by an invisible blade that sent him sprawling. The seniors weren't merely opponents — they were doom-lances that ripped apart the naive maps the first-years used.
Lian extemporized. Where Gao shook the earth, Lian was supple in the treetops and used webs to build eleventh-hour bridges. When Bai Xuan blocked the straightforward path, he took the scenic route and used a dead limb as a swing spar to approach from below. He learned to read the gaps between the seniors' breaths: when Huo Tian withdrew his flames to catch a breath, when Bai Xuan's field wavered after a tough telekinetic throw. That's where he struck.
He didn't take seven flags in one go. He scavenged them the way a cunning animal corners fruit: a flag behind a collapsed tower, one threaded on a stanchion above a river, another snagged on the lip of a cave entrance where Daiki's echo pinged differently because the cave housed a mechanical sentinel. Daiki's sonic mapping was invaluable — the echoes told him whether there were active systems, ambushes, or clear paths. But even that couldn't foresee Rui.
Rui sliced through the simulation like a knife through silk; where Lian had to weave, Rui slashed. He tore through the clearing by the spring with wind—smooth, cutting arcs that left a halo of ripped leaves. He took two flags in a streak, not even looking back. Lian watched him once, hidden under a tangle of vines, and understood hunger in Rui's eyes. That hunger was the same thing that had pressed him apart in the dorms. Rui relished the lawless nature of the qualifier: everyone for themselves, no alliances, no restraints.