The rope sang a high, tight note. Stone grit pressed under Qin Ye's toes. For one frozen heartbeat—the last crystal shard left from the Timing Thread—he held the angle like a rock in a torrent and let the Blade Nudge slide along He Rulong's guard, lawful and light, redirecting without trespass.
The boundary breathed too close. The hum felt wrong—elasticity not quite true under layered weight. A hair of slack could turn victory into loss.
Qin Ye did not gamble.
He slipped the contact with a legal half-pivot and spoke into the storm, voice even. "Edge Beacon. Boundary re-measurement."
Silence fell so hard it made sound. The head clerk hurried with the measuring rod, hands careful in their urgency. Under the judge's stare and the Inner Gate scouts' still faces, he checked the western segment. A minuscule variance—no more than a breath of slack. The wrench clicked; the rope answered with a sharp, clean twang. The clerk logged the correction and raised his slate.
Restart. No stall. No speeches.
They returned to center. Momentum, severed, lay cooling at He Rulong's feet. For the first time, something like frustration flickered in the weight of his gaze.
He advanced.
The domain pressed again—lawful, immense, and closing. The crowd's roar surged, then thinned to a wire. Incense tasted like iron.
Qin Ye breathed.
Inhale—four. Anchor—four.
He counted the rope's fresh pitch into his lungs. He felt the tiny stagger in the cadence where broken momentum hasn't learned how to walk.
He waited for the door.
It came as weight made absolute: He Rulong's final step to seal the ring's idea around him. Pressure curled. Center tried to sign its name.
Qin Ye triggered Ghost Thread.
He didn't look faster. He arrived early.
A single step—half a beat stolen from expectation—threaded the narrow seam by He Rulong's shoulder before the pressure sealed. He slipped through like a shadow through a closing door and laid two fingers to the torso, just below the shoulder, clean and undeniable.
The bell cut the world.
[Ding! Main Quest completed: Outer Sect Ranking Trial — Champion.]
[Rewards: High-grade Artifact Sword "Silent River", Supreme Immortal Body (Fragment), +100,000,000 Spirit Stones.]
A sword of dark, fluid metal slid into his storage, its surface drinking light rather than throwing it. Warmth folded through his meridians—a promise of body made more—and the clean, cold weight of wealth stacked in the vault.
A Patrol Hall functionary, pushed by a glare from the shadows, stepped forward clutching a ledger. "The boundary interruption… the timing—"
"The Edge Beacon was logged," the judge said, voice flat and final. "The pre-confirmation defines scoring. Rope parity verified. The point is valid. The result stands."
Compliance had teeth.
He Rulong was very still. Then he inclined his head, a nod that did not know how to pretend. No anger, only steel that accepts the edge that cut it.
"Weight is a foundation," he said quietly, for Qin Ye alone. "Not a wall. You built on different ground."
On the equipment balcony, Liu Shan wrote his last line in small, square characters: Victory via sustained tempo manipulation and perfect procedural compliance. Champion. The slate shut with a clean snap.
The roar arrived like weather. Banners, which had cracked like whips, sank into a long, exhausted exhale. Dust rose and did not dare to settle on the chalk.
Qin Ye stood inside the bell's fading circle of silence and did not move until it faded completely.
Only then did he breathe again.