A hush fell over the arena as the Senior Prefect gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod. High above the sand, a magical timer materialized, its numbers glowing a brilliant, mocking gold: 5:00.
The Mark III Guardian's multifaceted eye flashed from a passive red to a burning orange. With a sound of whirring gears and pressurised pneumatics, it launched itself forward. It didn't run; it flowed, covering the distance between it and Kael with a speed that made several of the younger disciples gasp.
Its first attack was a sweeping blow from its right arm, a piston of white steel moving fast enough to create a blur in the air. The crowd expected to witness a mortal body torn asunder.
They were disappointed.
Kael didn't try to block. He didn't try to outrun it. He simply took one precise step back and to the left, his body sinking into a low stance. The automaton's arm scythed through the space where his chest had been a fraction of a second before, the wind from its passage whipping his grey tunic.
The automaton immediately followed up, its torso swiveling with mechanical perfection for a back-handed strike. Kael was already moving, flowing in the opposite direction, his feet barely seeming to touch the sand.
To the onlookers, it was an impossible dance. The hulking, ten-foot machine was the lead, its movements all power and aggression. Kael was its shadow, a fluid, untouchable echo. He moved with a preternatural calm, an economy of motion that was baffling. No wasted steps, no panicked scrambles. He was always just outside the machine's reach, a phantom weaving through a storm of steel.
Lyren leaned forward, his arrogant smirk gone, replaced by a frown of intense concentration. This wasn't luck. The cleaner's timing was too perfect. His ability to anticipate the machine's next move was inhuman.
Lyren was right. Kael wasn't watching the automaton's limbs. He was watching its heart. His Qi-sight, a secret no one could possibly guess, allowed him to see the bright flashes of energy that flooded the machine's systems nanoseconds before it executed a command. A surge of light to its leg actuator was the true beginning of a kick. A concentration of power in its shoulder preceded a punch. He was reacting not to the attack, but to the decision to attack. It gave him an advantage that was immeasurable.
Two minutes passed. The timer glowed 3:00. The crowd was utterly silent. The initial scorn had evaporated, replaced by a growing, grudging disbelief.
The automaton, its programming unable to compute so many consecutive misses, adapted. Its attack patterns became faster, more erratic. It ceased trying for single, powerful blows and switched to a flurry of overlapping strikes, designed to saturate an area and make dodging impossible.
Now, Kael couldn't evade everything. A steel forearm caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder. The crowd winced, expecting the sound of shattering bone. Instead, there was a dull, meaty thud. Kael stumbled, his feet digging into the sand, but he righted himself instantly. A dark, angry bruise was already forming on his shoulder, but the arm was not broken. It wasn't even fractured.
How is he so durable? The question echoed in the minds of everyone watching. They saw a mortal, but his flesh behaved like hardened leather, his bones like stone.
The Senior Prefect's face was a thundercloud. This spectacle was not the humiliating lesson he had intended. It was becoming an embarrassment to the Lyceum. "Increase output!" he snarled at the technician controlling the automaton. "Override safety limiters! Full combat velocity!"
The Mark III's eye glowed a furious red. Its movements, already swift, became a terrifying blur. It abandoned all finesse and launched its ultimate attack sequence—a lunging piston-punch, its primary weapon, designed to shatter a cultivator's defensive Qi barrier.
The machine lunged, its fist rocketing forward.
This was the moment Kael had been waiting for. He had endured. He had observed. He had learned the machine's rhythm. And in its overdrive state, it was at its most powerful, and its most predictable.
Instead of retreating from the deadly attack, Kael did the unthinkable. He surged forward, stepping inside the punch's arc. Time seemed to slow. He saw the energy flare in the automaton's arm, saw the precise angle of its trajectory.
His own body coiled like a spring. He didn't look at the fist aimed at his head. He looked at the elbow joint. With a guttural roar that seemed to come from the very center of the earth, he struck. It wasn't a sword art. It wasn't a spell. It was a single, perfect blow, born from the memory of a Valerian pit-fighter and powered by a body forged in agony. All his mass, all his will, focused on one point.
There was a sickening CRACK of tortured metal and shearing gears.
The automaton's arm, its forward momentum irresistible, seized at a horrifyingly unnatural angle. The powerful construct, its balance utterly compromised by the destruction of its main joint, stumbled forward and crashed to its knees, its head plowing into the sand. Its eye flickered from red to orange, then to a diagnostic yellow before fizzling out completely.
High above, the timer showed 0:00.
Silence.
Absolute, stunned silence gripped the hundreds of cultivators. They had come to see a mortal swatted like a fly. Instead, they had watched him out-dance, out-think, and in the final, unbelievable moment, cripple a Mark III Guardian.
Kael stood in the center of the arena, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He had a few bruises, a tear in his tunic. He looked at the kneeling, broken machine. He looked up at the Senior Prefect, his face a mask of cold fury. And then he looked at the pedestal where the Resonance Stone waited.
The first trial was over.