Chapter 140: Chapter 140: The Sect Tournament [3]
The tournament start just like that.
Elder Alder’s voice cut across the arena like a blade.
"First match. Ariel Aquaria versus Dren Colt."
The crowd shifted.
Damon watched Ariel’s shoulders drop half an inch, the way they always did when she released tension she hadn’t realized she was holding, and then she was moving, walking toward the stage with her trident already in hand, its silver length catching the morning light.
Damon leaned back against the barrier wall.
’She doesn’t need anything from me right now.’
He watched anyway.
****
Dren Colt was twenty-two years old, Seventh Level Earth Spirit Realm, and wore the red-trimmed sash of a core disciple from the outer mountain branch.
He was broad across the shoulders, with a cultivation base that pressed outward like a wall when he stepped onto the stage, and he carried a short, wide blade at his hip that had clearly seen real use.
He looked at Ariel once, the way people looked at something they had already decided wasn’t a threat, and rolled his neck.
Someone in the stands laughed, low and brief.
Damon heard it.
He didn’t move.
Elder Alder raised his hand.
"Begin."
Dren moved first, which was the last correct decision he made in that fight.
He closed the distance fast, blade already drawn, Earth Qi compressing around his feet so each step hit the stone floor like a hammer, and he swung from the shoulder with the kind of force that expected to end things in one exchange.
Ariel sidestepped.
She stepped to the right, let the blade pass close enough to stir her dark blue hair, and drove the butt of the Trident into the stone floor.
The arena floor cracked.
Water erupted from the crack, a column of water that hit Dren in the chest mid-swing and sent him skidding back six meters across the stage, and his boots grinding against the stone until he found his footing.
The crowd went quiet.
The silence wasn’t the usual hush that fell before a bout, but a tense, breathless pause that seemed to press inward from all sides.
Dren looked down at his chest, his brow furrowing in dazed confusion.
His core disciple robes were torn open across the front, the dark fabric shredded by the sheer pressure of the water column alone.
The underlying cloth was damp and clinging, and a faint bruise was already blooming across his ribs.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
He looked up at Ariel, and this time, his gaze had changed.
The arrogant dismissal was gone, replaced by a sharp recognition.
She was already walking toward him, her steps unhurried and perfectly balanced.
The Trident in her hands hummed with a low energy, and her dark blue hair floated around her shoulders as if moved by an underwater current she alone commanded.
From the edge of the stage, Damon watched her activate the Tidal Sovereign Art properly for the first time in a real fight, and even he felt the unmistakable shift in the air around her.
It just changed the world around her.
The moisture in the air, the water in the stone beneath the stage, the humidity in every breath the crowd was taking, all of it pulled toward Ariel like she had become the center of something much larger than herself.
Her dark blue hair lifted slightly at the ends.
Her vivid blue eyes cleared, the way they did when she stopped thinking and started knowing.
The Trident’s silver length began to glow, faint and deep, the color of water at the bottom of something very old.
Dren charged again, this time with Earth Qi layered across his blade in a technique, the stone beneath his feet cracking upward to reinforce his footing as he swung in a wide arc meant to cut through whatever she was building.
Ariel raised one hand.
A wall of water appeared between them, rotating, a ring of water that caught the blade and held it, and Dren’s arm stopped moving like he had swung into solid rock.
He strained against it, veins rising along his forearm, Earth Qi flooding into his muscles.
Ariel pushed.
The wall contracted inward and Dren’s sword arm bent the wrong way at the elbow, a sharp crack echoing across the suddenly silent arena, and he screamed and dropped the blade.
She didn’t stop.
The Trident came forward in a single clean thrust, stopping two inches from Dren’s throat as a second column of water rose behind him and wrapped around his shoulders and chest, pinning both arms to his sides, lifting him six inches off the stage floor.
He hung there, suspended by the water column, his broken arm hanging limp at his side.
Ariel held the Trident steady, her chest barely rising with even breaths, her expression as calm as undisturbed water.
Dren’s feet dangled.
Nobody in the stands made a sound for a full three seconds.
Then someone exhaled loudly, and that broke it, and the noise came back all at once, dozens of voices talking over each other, disciples turning to the people beside them with wide eyes and open mouths.
Damon heard pieces of it from where he stood.
"Dren was Seventh Level Earth Spirit and she just a second level, How?"
"What technique was that, I’ve never seen that..."
"She’s a core disciple, isn’t she? She has to be—"
"That’s Ariel Aquaria. The noble girl from the outer disciple intake. The one who—"
"She’s not just a noble girl."
That last one came from directly behind Damon, a male voice, low and genuinely shaken.
He didn’t turn around.
Elder Alder raised his hand.
"Ariel Aquaria advances."
Ariel lowered the Trident.
The water released Dren, dropping him to the stage floor in a heap, clutching his broken arm, and she turned and walked back toward the steps without looking at him again.
When she reached Damon, her eyes were already back to their usual soft blue, warm and clear, and she tilted her head slightly.
"How was that?"
Damon looked at her for a moment.
"You did good." he said.
She smiled and turned to watch the next match.
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