Zhizhu Aulonia watched as hot-blooded disciples roared and charged the stages. Challenge after challenge was fought on every stage but the first three. Roughly half the qualifying disciples here had completely given up trying to win a rank and had turned into spectators. The other half were queuing up or taking turns.
Slowly, picking her target at leisure, Aulonia went for the most highly contested stage; number 10, where roughly a dozen guys felt that the stone-skin boy on it was less capable and less deserving of a rank than themselves.
This would be it. This would be the first stage where she would prove herself upon the field of battle. Her grandparents, her parents, her siblings – all of them would see that she was a capable warrior in her own right! She didn't need everybody jumping around trying to protect her! She was a proper daughter of the Zhizhu, highly trained and ready for combat.
"I challenge everybody!" Aulonia roared as her feet touched the stage. Without waiting for acknowledgment, without giving anyone a chance to protest, she charged straight at where the two current contestants were trading blows, one covered with stone skin, the other under a shimmering bronze bell projection.
Instantly, they exchanged glances and an unspoken agreement passed between them. Disciples of the same master defending the ranking stage of their turf, they immediately turned to fend off the foreign invader together.
Aulonia didn't skip a beat. It suited her just fine.
Eight Point Stinging Palm! Aulonia's hands lashed out as quick as a thought, her very breath halted and all her energy pouring into speed, striking in a blindingly fast pattern, all eight hits occurring nearly simultaneously. Three were blocked. Two were dodged. One missed entirely.
The other two struck home, and both stone-boy and bronze-boy staggered backward, clutching a shoulder and a face respectively. Aulonia dropped; her foot whipped around, sweeping both of them off theirs. She pounced, like a spider upon its prey, and smacked them lightly on the necks at the same time.
"Both out!" she ordered. Knowing they were beaten, they grimaced and turned to go.
In the meantime, the other guys were spreading out around the stage, exchanging uncertain looks.
"All at once, I said!" Aulonia barked. "Don't waste my time!"
Their eyes narrowed, and then they charged, five Stage 1 and Stage 2 Adepts each roughly twice her size or more, all of whom thought she wasn't going to last very long.
Aulonia leapt, legs kicking. Two of them went flying backward; she landed on the third one's shoulder, her weight shoving him back, costing him his balance. He tried to grab at her ankles, to shove her off; she simply stepped from him to the next guy as if walking on a highway, and then kicked her heel backwards into his face.
The movement was small; the amount of power she put into it was not. To be honest, she had put in a lot more than she intended to. The poor fellow went flipping over backwards for two whole rotations, landing painfully below the stage.
"Sorry…" Aulonia winced. That truly had been overkill. These poor guys were just Stage 1 and Stage 2 Adepts. To be honest, even a dozen of them couldn't pose a threat to her.
Of the remaining two, one threw a straight punch, with his full weight behind it. Aulonia slipped around him easily, then helped him on his way with a shove from behind. He went careening off the stage as she easily blocked the flurry of blows from the last contestant. Then she countered, a single straight jab to the neck.
She went easy on him, of course. No need to kill the guy in a friendly contest. She wanted fame, not a kill count.
"Any more?" Aulonia stood tall, the sole challenger remaining on Stage 10, and everybody else backed away a step or two. The stage was hers.
She grinned, then cast her gaze and ambitions to the higher rank stages.
The Ji cousins had gone out in force. Orchid was fending off a challenger on Stage 4. Thyme was fighting Zhong Bounty for Stage 5. Basil was hammering away at a guy under a golden bell projection on Stage 7. Even Iris was tangling with some burning palms fellow for Stage 8.
Stage 6 held a fight between a girl using shadows, and a guy who used water jets. Stage 9 had a heavy hitter trying to nail a guy who jumped around like a cat and kept avoiding his punches.
"This could take a while…" Aulonia reflected. "Or…"
She leapt from her stage directly to Stage 9. "Both of you! I challenge you both at once!"
They paused, conferred silently, then in agreement, they spread out and attacked her from two sides.
Then she whacked them. That was really all there was to it. She caught the faster one who arrived first, showed him a hint of her true strength when she literally swung him around in the air by the wrist, using him as a human flail and slammed him into the slower fellow. Both of them went flying off stage.
"Anyone else?" Aulonia asked.
Again, nobody challenged her for Stage 9. That one glimpse of her real strength had told them a secret.
This girl was strong. Very, very strong.
By this time, Wu Ardent was back on his feet. After Zhong Bounty failed, Wu Ardent directly leapt up to challenge Ji Thyme for Stage 5.
Meanwhile, Basil and Iris had both lost their matches and were trying Stage 7 and 8 respectively. Losers were challenging winners and stages were changing hands every minute. Having already established her dominance, Aulonia settled back to wait a bit, pacing herself, saving her stamina and gathering her strength.
At that time, something most peculiar occurred. Somebody decided to bring an earth elemental to the show.
That was really what Aulonia thought when she first saw it. There was a figure covered in soil, a thick humanoid roughly five feet tall climbing up onto Stage Number 10. Even on the head, one could see only soil. The stone-skin boy earlier was trying to fight it off, but all his punches didn't seem to make much difference to the earthy figure. The earth-figure countered; a single, powerful punch, and stone-boy went flying.
Bronze-bell challenger tried next. He kicked; he punched, he even tried to tackle the figure.
BAM! There was a short groan, and then bronze-bell challenger slumped to the ground in a heap. He did not get up.
"Stage 10: Riku wins!" Master Huang announced. "Next!"
Riku? That earth-elemental figure was Huang Riku? Aulonia dimly remembered the boy from earlier, the one between the rude fatty and the handsome Shui. Short black hair, a high forehead, a quizzical look and hazel eyes. Odd, those eyes. That lighter brown was a color not commonly seen around here.
Aulonia noticed something else. When the Magistrate Disciples looked at Stage Number 10 and saw Riku standing there, all of them had an odd, hungry gleam in their eyes, as if they suddenly saw a juicy piece of meat served up on a silver platter.
Why was everyone looking at him like that? They were paying more attention to him than to her! Aulonia snorted. There was no reason for him to have more attention than herself. She was stronger than him, prettier than him, probably older than him, better than him in every way…
"I challenge Stage 8!" Aulonia announced, then leapt beautifully all the way over there.
By this time, Stage 8 was held by a stout, tanned lad with a square face. He covered himself with a shiny golden bell projection when she arrived.
BAM! Aulonia greeted him with a kick, but the golden bell projection shimmered; she felt like she'd sunk her leg into mud, then felt a sudden shocking sensation that numbed her leg. "Ack! What was that?"
Some sort of counter-attack. Aulonia narrowed her eyes, limped on one foot while the other slowly regained feeling, and prowled around her opponent warily.
She got the idea easily enough. Touching that bell projection was going to hurt. Therefore…
Three options came to mind. With a grimace, Aulonia picked the one that would cost her the least. Taking her time, seeing as her opponent wasn't going anywhere, she slowly gathered energy in her hands.
Meanwhile, somebody else had claimed Stage 9 behind her back. It was the quicker guy she'd fought from before. That walking pile of dirt from Stage 10 had stepped up to challenge him, and was currently getting pummeled by an opponent who kept darting about too quickly for him to counter.
Aulonia sniffed, dismissing every thought of Stage 9. It was fine. They could fight over her scraps. She would need it no longer. With a surge of intent, the energy in her hands took form. "Grandpa's Flying Spider Axe!"
She threw it from halfway across the stage, a long-ranged energy attack with no chance for his golden bell to counter. It went spinning in the air, a double-sided axe of power that slammed heavily into the bell… and exploded.
"Brace!" Master Huang warned everybody. The explosion rocked the stage; the golden bell boy was blasted clear off it; Aulonia herself was nearly blown back.
The results were clear. Master Huang announced it. "Stage 8, Aulonia wins!"
Scattered clapping resounded from a few girls, a polite smattering of hands. Those girls clapped for everybody. What were they doing here, looking for boyfriends? Wait if that were the case, what did it say now that they were clapping for her?
Aulonia dismissed distracting and strange thoughts, and stepped forward once more. Seeing her coming toward him, the golden bell fellow struggled to his feet. He gave her a short bow and a fist-salute. "Well fought, worthy opponent! I am Altan…"
She walked right past him without so much as a glance. He had wasted enough of her time.
Ji Iris came from the opposite direction. She had lost a fight for Stage 7, and was going to challenge for Stage 8. She blinked at Aulonia. "Err…"
"All yours." Aulonia shrugged, abandoning Stage 8 to Altan and Iris as she challenged Stage 7.
As she left, she heard Master Huang's voice ring out, "Stage 9, Riku wins!"