The air reeked of cordite and synthetic blood. Lin Hao’s tongue registered the phantom metallic tang of spent casings as his augmented vision tracked the Blackscale Arachnid’s movements—eight armored legs screeching against illusionary stone. Fourth Meridian’s energy thrummed in his bones, synchronizing with the simulation’s pulse like a predator aligning with prey.
Brrrrt.
The Gatling’s rotating barrels spewed fire that painted the arena in stroboscopic flashes. Each 7.62mm round sparked against the arachnid’s carapace, the smell of scorched chitin blending with Lin Hao’s adrenaline-sweat. Four Treabytes’ absent weight on his shoulder left an unnatural lightness—a vulnerability his enemies exploited with coordinated strikes.
“Adaptation threshold exceeded,” the mechanical parrot’s voice echoed from the real world, its absence in the simulation a gaping hole in Lin Hao’s sensory net. Azurewind Wolves blurred through Gatling fire, their fangs dripping neurotoxin that sizzled where it struck stone. Lin Hao’s boot soles melted from residual venom pools, phantom pain receptors screaming.
Yan Fengjun’s laughter vibrated through the simulation’s code—a glitch in the matrix or royal arrogance made manifest? “Even dragons break beneath the swarm!”
Lin Hao materialized a crate of pineapple grenades. The pin-pull sensation between his teeth carried childhood memories of biting into frozen lychees—sweetness undercut by impending destruction. Five simultaneous explosions painted the arena white, the concussive force peeling back his lips in a rictus grin.
Reality fractured.
External Observation Chamber
The ranking monolith trembled as crimson streaks eclipsed Yan Chen’s centuries-held record. Spectators covered their ears against the Gatling’s ghostly roar—a soundwave so potent it crystallized exhaled breath into diamond dust.
“Impossible!” A third-year student’s ocular implant shattered from data overload. “He’s weaponizing pre-Collapse artifacts!”
Gu Yunle grinned through teeth stained by smuggled dreamleaf. “Rules never specified which tactile memories count.” His fingers danced, projecting holographic blueprints of 21st-century armories that made the crowd recoil. “The blind see truths others ignore.”
Simulation Layer 7
Lin Hao’s dragon-scale arm gleamed under artificial moonlight, each emerald plate humming with stolen void energy. The final wave materialized—twelve Azurewind Wolves interleaved with eight Blackscale Arachnids, their formations mimicking ancient siege tactics.
“Come.” The word tasted of lithium batteries and wintergreen.
His last grenade arced skyward. Twin detonations—real and imagined—collapsed the simulation’s core protocols. Wolves dissolved mid-leap, arachnid legs raining down like broken clockwork. Lin Hao’s retinal HUD flatlined as the Gatling’s ghostly weight vanished, leaving only the sour aftertaste of temporary sight.
Reintegration Sequence
Lin Hao’s nostrils flared at the sudden stench of unwashed bodies and ionized fear. Four Treabytes’ talons dug into his shoulder, their familiar pinch anchoring him to reality. The ranking monolith’s energy signature spiked—a sound like glaciers calving into acid seas.
Yan Fengjun’s gold card combusted spontaneously, its ashes forming the character for “usurper” before scattering. The crowd’s murmurs died as the monolith’s apex flared—blood-red glyphs dissolving Yan Chen’s name like sugar in boiling oil.
New Champion: Lin Hao
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A child in the front row vomited rainbows—side effect of primal awe meeting unstable meridian resonance. Gu Yunle whooped, tossing dreamleaf pellets that bloomed into celebratory fireworks smelling of burnt marshmallows and rebellion.
Yan Fengjun approached through the chaos, his royal silks now gray with psychic residue. “Name your price.” The words cost him dearly—each syllable a shard of broken pride. “Land? Titles? My sister’s hand in—”
“The blade and the gold suffice.” Lin Hao’s smile carried winter’s bite. “But tell your brother something.”
He leaned close, Fourth Meridian’s energy whispering secrets that made the prince’s ancestral tattoos blister. “Dragons eat spiders whole.”
Final Results
The air thickened with ozone and anticipation as students swarmed the training grounds. Lin Hao's boots crunched frost-rimed gravel, each step releasing faint citrus notes from crushed resilience moss beneath the stones. Four Treabytes' talons left smoking indentations on the ranking monolith's base, its photoreceptors analyzing the surge of encrypted data pulsing through ancient stone.
Yan Fengjun's cologne of fermented ambition clashed with the metallic tang of overclocked neural implants. "Watch closely," the prince murmured, fingers twitching toward the concealed poison vial in his sleeve. "The blind beggar's about to learn true humiliation."
The monolith shuddered with a sound like grinding teeth. At its base, the name "Chen Dachui" dissolved into phosphorescent dust, replaced by jagged characters bleeding crimson light—Lin Hao. Gasps rippled through the crowd as the new entry began its ascent, climbing past the 788th rank with violent jerks that scattered ice crystals from the monolith's surface.
"Impossible..." A fourth-year's voice cracked as Lin Hao's name shredded through Yan Fengjun's position at 422nd rank. The characters left smoking fissures in their wake, their edges glowing white-hot.
Four Treabytes' beak clacked in binary approval. Target acquired: Rank 1. Probability of success: 97.3%.
The crowd's collective breath crystallized into a momentary fog bank when Lin Hao's name collided with Yan Chen's at the apex. For three heartbeats, the monolith's summit bled indigo light—then erupted in a geyser of prismatic sparks. When the glare faded, Lin Hao pulsed in arterial crimson, its strokes wider than the surrounding text as though swollen with stolen glory.
"Fabrication!" A royalist scholar's data slate exploded from information overload. "No blind cripple could—"
Reality warped as Lin Hao stepped off the arena platform. The stench of burnt hair from overclocked neural implants mixed with pine resin and the coppery tang of envy. Yan Fengjun's smile stretched taut enough to snap, his pupils contracting to pinholes as he intercepted Lin Hao's path.
"Astonishing performance!" The prince's breath smelled of mint leaves and arsenic. "My brother hosts the Winter Solstice Revelry at Minister Wang's estate. You'll attend as our guest of honor."
Four Treabytes' plumage bristled at the ultrasonic command frequencies woven into Yan Fengjun's invitation. The mechanical parrot's left wing extruded a vibro-blade smelling of machine oil and imminent violence.
"Your generosity overwhelms." Lin Hao's tongue found the suicide capsule embedded in his molar—bitter almond notes confirming its potency. "But blind beggars prefer simple fare."
Gu Yunle materialized through the crowd reeking of sulfur and black market pheromones. "The victor's spoils," he announced, slapping the obsidian-edged Black Obsidian Blade against Lin Hao's palm. Its hilt emitted subsonic vibrations that made nearby students clutch their temples.
The weapon's cold seeped through Lin Hao's gloves, carrying memories of meteor impacts and extinct civilizations. He traced the fuller's edge where captive starlight still shimmered—a constellation map older than the current dynasty.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" Yan Fengjun's whisper carried the sizzle of flesh on hot iron. "That blade once beheaded three rebel princes during the Sundering. May it serve you better than them."
As the prince retreated, his boot heels left smoking imprints in the frost. Lin Hao's augmented hearing caught the 44.7Hz tremor in Yan Fengjun's pulse—the exact frequency of a cornered viper's heartbeat.
Gu Yunle snorted, his breath forming temporary frost runes that read DANGER in Old Imperial script. "The Winter Revelry's main course is always betrayal garnished with poison. You'll need better cutlery than that antique."
Four Treabytes' ocular lenses telescoped, revealing microscopic stress fractures in the Black Obsidian Blade's structure. Recommendation: Immediate disposal. Probability of embedded tracking nanites: 89.9%.
Lin Hao smiled, tasting the metallic aftertaste of the monolith's energy field. "Let them watch." He sheathed the blade with a sound like tearing silk, its resonance activating dormant runes in the training ground's foundation stones.
As the crowd dispersed, their whispers left condensation patterns spelling out challenges and death threats. Lin Hao's name continued to pulse atop the ranking monolith, its crimson glow outshining the rising moon. Somewhere in the royal archives, a century-old prediction carved in dragon bone began to smolder—The blind star will eclipse the sun.
