The scene at Fen’s Arena was in many ways familiar, yet entirely new. While the assembly of first-year disciples was a common sight, never before was the tension quite as high. Cultivators talked in hushed tones to their teammates, throwing cautious glances over their shoulders at their competition.
Among that nervous bunch, Boneroot and Guang stood alone. Not by choice, but because the rest of their team had yet to show up. They half-expected that from Iris, for whom punctuality was more of a metaphysical concept, but the absence of Zhi Zhen and Hana Kasumi was surprising. Boneroot had thought they were all on the same page, at least as far as not embarrassing themselves in the upcoming battle was concerned.
So, while many of the Brightmoon Sect’s newest attendees craned their necks to size up the other teams, Boneroot and Guang did so to see if they would actually have a team. While they waited, Boneroot also kept an eye on Jota Guling and his team, who were milling about nearby. Of all the people on the stone platform where they were waiting, Jota looked the least concerned with the events to come.
The boy clutched the same nondescript book that he always had in his hand as he surveyed the others without a hint of interest in his eyes. His relaxed posture and expression seemed to even be unnerving his own team. Boneroot doubted they were one of the groups who felt the need to set up an alliance with any of the others.
“Is the commoner girl really not here yet?” Zhi Zhen announced her presence about as pleasantly as usual. Hana Kasumi arrived with her.
“You know her name. Also, you’re hardly one to talk,” Boneroot commented with a frown.
“Obviously, we took the time to speak with the other teams. We needed to make some last minute arrangement.”
“You did?” Guang asked.
“Of course,” Zhi added with a sly grin. “Nothing you need concern yourself with.”
Boneroot looked skeptically at both the girls before him. Even if Song hadn’t warned him, even if he had never met Zhi before, that would have been suspicious. He sighed. It was bad enough their team was likely the least coordinated in the sect, now he was positive he’d have to deal with whatever scheme Zhi had cooked up.
Grand Master Yan appeared in the air over all the cultivators, forcing them to look straight up to see her.
“I see the last disciple in the distance, so we can begin soon. Make sure you are entirely within the confines of the arena, please. When it comes time to transport you to today’s battleground, you’ll want to arrive in one piece.”
A new bout of anxiety swept over the disciples and Iris finally arrived. She hurriedly strode over to her team, an embarrassed look on her face and sweat on her brow.
“You really need to work on that, Iris.”
Guang shook his head and Zhi rolled her eyes.
“Sorry, Guang, Boneroot,” She said, slightly out of breath. “I had a good reason this time, I swear.”
Her four teammates looked at Iris expectantly.
“I was tired.”
Guang was the only to laugh. Before any of the others could properly scold Iris for the awful joke, Grand Master Yan clapped her hands, retaking the crowd’s attention. She had moved to hover above them in a different spot, distant peaks of the Wei Mountains serving as her backdrop.
“Excellent, we’re all here! First, you’ll all be transported to the battleground and then each team will be sent to their designated starting point. Exciting, isn’t it?”
Grand Master Yan let her rhetorical question hang in the air for a moment and then they were elsewhere.
The sensation was disorienting, like tumbling head-over-heels in a strong gale. It was not nearly as smooth as Felindei’s ability to do the same, but that experience allowed Boneroot to take the location change in stride. Most of the other disciples, however, did not have such an easy time with the move. Cries of alarm went up, a handful of people fell over, and a couple even vomited.
While his teammates recovered from the abrupt change in scenery, Boneroot had a look around. At their feet, the raised, stone platform of Fen’s Arena was gone, replaced by a soft field of grass. On all sides, the open landscape of the Outer Sect was replaced by a vibrant forest. Towering above the trees, however, Boneroot could see the peaks of the Wei Mountains extending into the sky. It was fairly easy to surmise they’d been transported to an impressively large basin contained entirely within the mountains.
“Welcome to the Vale of the Xiatian,” Grand Master Yan announced. If she was responsible for the mass teleportation, she certainly didn’t show any signs of exhaustion for it. Boneroot suspected it may have been the arena they were standing on that performed the actual technique, though.
“This is, in fact, the very same place where Fen Xiatian was brutally usurped from his position as the very first Grand Master of the Brightmoon Sect. Here, you will fight a dangerous, ever-shifting landscape, deadly spirit beasts, and, worst of all, your peers! Please take a moment to adjust and coordinate amongst yourselves and then we will start moving you to your starting points.”
“OK, so maybe Kuroki, Biku, and I were in over our heads trying to find this place,” Iris said.
Guang responded with a breathy ‘glerg’ as he fought to not join the ranks of the vomiters. Zhi looked on with disdain, but she couldn’t quite hide her own uneasiness. Her ability to keep the nausea out of her voice was admirable, however.
“I told you there was no chance of—”
Despite her best attempts to maintain composure, Zhi had to stop to suppress her gagging.
With a snort, Iris ignored her and asked, “How you holding up, Guang?”
With his legs back under him and the risk of vomiting drastically reduced, Guang fiddled with the axes at his belt. They were a new addition to his standard sect robes outfit, but he was quickly growing attached to them.
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“Not too bad. That really throws you for a loop, huh?”
The team’s conversation lapsed into idle chatter, rather than discussion of strategy, or tactics. Boneroot listened with one ear, while he surveyed the disciples around them, looking for any signs on their faces as to whatever disaster was about to befall his team.
Soon, Grand Master Yan began her final address before the opening to the day’s events.
“Each team will be approached by one of the Inner Sect disciples, who will lead you to your starting area. Once you arrive, please wait until you hear the gong that signals the beginning of the competition. If and when you are incapacitated, you will be retrieved by an Inner Sect disciple, or medical attendant. Best of luck, disciples!”
At that, she disappeared once more. Boneroot didn’t need to wait long to get in motion, as a young man in the sect robes with a plain face and shaved head approached his team almost immediately after Grand Master Yan stopped speaking.
“You’re with me. Try to keep pace.”
The Inner Sect disciple took off in the opposite direction from where they’d been facing. Just as he took his first few strides to keep up with their quick guide, Boneroot realized they had been put at a slight disadvantage. Any team who wanted to target them, which was several according to Song, would now have a better idea of where to find them.
The sly smile he saw on Zhi’s face in his peripheral vision suggested this was no accident.
The Inner Sect disciple led Boneroot’s team on a winding journey through dense shrubbery and unnatural, abrupt changes in landscape. Despite running through a forest the entire time, their surroundings frequently shifted between tropical and temperate, wet and dry. So confusing was their path, Boneroot was no longer sure any other team would know where they ended up. They finally came to a stop when their guide trotted up to the ruins of what looked to be an ancient bell tower. Rust covered every inch of the bronze contraption wedged into dilapidated stonework.
“You start here. You may not leave this area until the competition begins.”
The older disciple stood at the tree line. He kept a close eye on the team as they prepared for the battle to come.
“Alright, are we all clear on the plan?” Boneroot asked.
“Run around in circles, got it,” Iris gave a curt nod.
“She might as well be right,” Zhi added.
Guang was smiling, but came to Boneroot’s defense.
“It’s a good plan. Ignore them. Do you still think it’ll work?”
“Now that I’ve seen the battleground, absolutely,” Boneroot assured him. “I spent my whole life in a place just like this. I’d be surprised if anyone in the Outer Sect is more comfortable fighting in the forest than I am.”
Hana spoke up as she looked about.
“Which direction should we go first? I don’t have a sense of where any other teams might be.”
Iris was the first to make a suggestion, though the question wasn’t directed at her.
“What about the hill with the weird rocks we passed on the way here? It looked like it went up to the edge of the valley, so it should give us a decent vantage point at least.”
“How specific,” Zhi said with a roll of her eyes.
“That’ll work, Iris,” Boneroot cut off any additional jibes. “From there, we can loop around the outskirts of the forest and hopefully catch out some of the slower teams, or those already in battle.”
As they waited, Boneroot wondered from where Kuroki was watching the competition. He could sense him in the distance, but Venh had neglected to tell him where they’d actually be. In the remaining time, the team went over a few sloppy formations they had hastily thrown together over the last week, though each member was dubious of whether they would actually pan out at all.
Finally, Guang caught sight of something rising into the air in the distance, which he pointed out to his teammates. The five of them watched as a ball of fire exploded above the forest. Timed with the display, the crack of a monstrous gong resounded across the vale.
“That’s the signal,” the Inner Sect disciple called out from the ruins. “Obviously.”
The team hadn’t waited to hear him, though. They had already taken off into the forest. Boneroot ran ahead of his team, acting as a scout for any potential fights up ahead. His comfort with the terrain was a huge boon to their plan and it was one he was eager to put into motion.
That plan was simple, but it relied heavily on Boneroot’s abilities. Even though their team was likely far behind the others in regards to strategy and cooperation, there were only a few with a cultivator who could hold off Boneroot in single combat. If he got the drop on any but the strongest of disciples, he could even the playing field for his team before they even entered into the fight.
He, Iris, and Guang had agreed it was the best course of action even before they saw their arena. Now that they were in Boneroot’s element, it should be even more effective. Fortunately, Hana Kasumi was willing to go along with it. They hadn’t bothered mentioning it to Zhi. Surprisingly, it seemed like Hana hadn’t either.
It only took ten minutes of moving at a brisk pace to reach their destination. Ahead of his team, Boneroot climbed the forest next to the hill Iris was talking about, not willing to risk moving in the open yet. A number of bizarrely-shaped stones, alternating between unnaturally smooth and unnaturally jagged, dotted the incline. At the top, he waited for a few minutes, trying to find any sign of others in the area. Confident there was no enemy team around, Boneroot stepped out onto the top of the hill to survey their battlefield.
The forest stretched out for miles in front of his position. He was taken aback by the length of the valley they were in. He had known it was large in the first few moments after Grand Master Yan transported them here, but he now saw just how much he’d underestimated it. It spoke to the sheer size of the Wei Mountains that this area could be hidden within them.
Iris expressed similar awe with the arena when she caught up. In the distance, they could see small thunderstorms and a localized blizzard. A spire of rock rose up at the opposite end of the valley, whereupon a massive bird was perched. One corner seemed to emulate a desert, while another area was engulfed in an impossibly-stationary forest fire. On reflection, it seemed that their team had been placed in the most normal section of the basin, despite all the different forest biomes present.
“Do you see that?” Boneroot asked his team, pointing to a spot roughly a half-mile distant from them. The trees shook and a flock of birds took flight. Guang was the first to grunt his confirmation.
“You think we should go after it?”
“Not right away. Let’s circle around and try to catch a team retreating from the fight.”
After an exchange of nods, Boneroot took off ahead of his team once more. This time, he focused more on stealth than before. With confirmation of an enemy team nearby, Boneroot was eager to join the action. He leapt between underbrush and canopy, sticking to the shadows and never making a sound, just as he’d learned from the tsovars.
As he approached the general area of the commotion, Boneroot kept to the treetops, scouting for any sign of potential enemies. Fortunately, he wasn’t kept waiting for long. The sound of hard, ragged breaths broke through the background noise of the forest.
Boneroot crept closer to the sounds, one quick jump between trees after another. His targets were scattered, which presented him with a perfect opportunity. A disciple he didn’t recognize broke through a nearby bramble and slumped down behind a tree. His sweat-soaked robes rose and fell as he tried to catch his breath. The boy peeked around the cover of his tree. Whether he was looking for his teammates, or his pursuers, it didn’t matter.
His unconscious body keeled over into the dirt with a dull thud. He never even saw the punch streaking toward his jaw.
Boneroot sprung up into the tree the boy was leaning against, silently hoping the medical attendants would be quick in finding his victim. The crack of the impact did not sound healthy. He turned his attention toward finding the unfortunate disciple’s teammates. Following a trail of broken twigs and rustled leaves perpendicular to the direction from where his first target came yielded a hushed conversation.
Two disciples were taking cover behind a massive, overturned log. The forest around them was more mud than grass. Every other patch of ground looked to be hiding a root network for one of the swamp trees nearby.
“Damn! Where’s Wen? I thought he got away.”
“I don’t know. What was that thing?”
“Some kind of spirit beast, obviously. Maybe a copse worm? If it got Wei, though, it’s just us left. What do we do?”
Perhaps a more alert pair of cultivators would have talked while eyeing their surroundings, instead of looking at each other. This pair, however, didn’t see the ball of Light ki until it was a second away from landing at their feet. The mess of heavy tentacles that sprang out at them was enough to finish off the beleaguered duo. Satisfied with the minimal energy expenditure, Boneroot started to make his way back toward his own team.
He found them just as they arrived at the clearing where he’d taken out the first disciple. Boneroot was relieved to find out the boy was no longer there, presumably hauled off by one of the medical attendants.
“We’re in the clear,” Boneroot said, though his voice was still kept low. “It was one team, not two, and they ran into some sort of spirit beast. I cleaned up the ones who got away.”
Guang clapped him on the shoulder, grinning broadly.
“Well done!” He flushed when the others had to remind him to keep his voice down. “Any idea if the beast is nearby?”
“Haven’t looked yet. Do any of you know what a copse worm is?”
“How do you not?” Zhi seethed at him. “They have a number of heads and they stick them all out of the ground, pretending to be trees. Any buffoon with her wits about her can spot them from a mile away, though.”
“So, where is it, then?”
Iris was scanning the woods around them. At her side, Biku was trying to sense anything nearby.
Hana whispered to the group, “Zhi is correct. They’re not much of a threat if you’re prepared. I propose we hunt it down. They can be both mobile and stealthy and I’d rather not be caught off-guard. If any other teams are converging on this location, like we did, we don’t want to get caught between them and the copse worm.”
“Sounds good,” Iris nodded to her. “I don’t see anything nearby, though. Neither does Biku.”
“As if I’d trust your word,” Zhi said. “I’ll take a look.”
Boneroot, Iris, and Guang headed toward the area where the other two disciples were downed, hoping to skirt around the copse worm and maybe even leave Zhi behind. Hana dragged her friend onwards, though. Boneroot hurried ahead of his team to scout things out once more.
When he reached the fallen log that marked the retreat of the eliminated team, Boneroot was getting a strong sense that something was off. Before he had Kuroki with him at all times, he survived by paying attention to that instinct. Standing completely still, though, he still couldn’t see, or hear anything.
Then the copse worm attacked.
Then Wei Zhen’s team attacked.