The silence in the Unbroken's common room was heavier than any cheer could have been. Kiyomi's forfeit hung in the air, a gift that felt more like a curse. Two thousand spirit stones glowed in my account, a fortune that should have brought elation. Instead, it felt like blood money.
Gorv was the first to break the silence, his voice a low rumble. "She played you. Made you look like a pet project."
"She advanced him to the top 16," Lyra countered, though her usual confidence was tempered. "The world isn't just watching the fights; they're watching the story. And the story of the unbeaten Kiyomi forfeiting to an Obsolete Root is a better story than her winning another predictable match. She's clever. She's invested in your narrative because it makes her look magnanimous and mysterious."
Jax, oblivious to the tension, was ecstatic. "The narrative is irrelevant! The data is paramount! The spontaneous tri-element vortex is proof of concept! The harmony circulation is creating neural pathways that allow for instinctual synergy! We must codify this! We must—"
"We must prepare for the next match," I interrupted, my voice hollow. "Who is my opponent?"
Lyra brought up the tournament bracket. My next opponent was a man named Zephyr, from the Stormrider sect. Qi Refining 5, like Kiyomi, but with a completely different style. Where Kiyomi was control and flow, Zephyr was pure, unadulterated offense. A lightning specialist.
"Lightning," I whispered. The one element I hadn't yet confronted, the one that slept within me, volatile and unknown.
"His signature technique is 'Thousand Bolts,'" Lyra explained, pulling up a recording. The screen showed Zephyr in a previous match. He didn't move. He simply stood as a storm gathered around him, and then unleashed a barrage of lightning strikes so fast and numerous they looked like a single, continuous beam of destruction. His opponent was overwhelmed in seconds.
"He's a cannon," Gorv grunted. "All power, no subtlety. But when you have that much power, who needs subtlety?"
My fight with Kiyomi had been a battle of control that I'd lost until a fluke saved me. This fight would be a battle of sheer survival. I couldn't out-control lightning. I couldn't redirect it. I could only hope to endure it.
"The Arena terrain for your match is the 'Stormpeak Spire,'" Jax noted, pulling up the specifications. "A single, tall pillar of rock in the middle of a perpetual lightning storm. The environment will amplify his power significantly."
It was a worst-case scenario. I felt a cold dread settle in my stomach. This was where the Cinderella story ended. This was where the anomaly would be normalized, ground into dust by overwhelming force.
"Survival is not a strategy against Zephyr," Lyra said, her eyes meeting mine. "You must have a plan to counter-attack. One bolt, you might survive with your Stone Skin Shiver. A thousand? No."
The next forty-eight hours were a descent into a special kind of hell. My training became frantic, focused on one thing: finding a way to interact with lightning. The problem was, I had no lightning affinity. I couldn't practice with it. All we could do was theory.
We gathered in the strategy room, the hologram of the Stormpeak Spire rotating slowly.
"Lightning is fast, but it follows paths," Jax theorized, drawing potential electrical arcs in the air. "It seeks the path of least resistance to the ground."
"So, don't be the path of least resistance," Gorv said.
"Or," Lyra countered, "control what the path is."
An idea began to form, fragile and insane. It relied on everything I had, and on one thing I didn't.
"Lightning is attracted to the highest point," I said slowly, thinking aloud. "And it's attracted to metal."
"The spire is the highest point," Jax said. "And there is no metal on the peak."
"But I can make a higher point," I said. "And I can use earth to create a conductor."
They all looked at me. I explained my desperate plan. It involved using my earth affinity to raise a pillar of rock above me, making it the new highest point. Then, using a technique I'd only theorized, I would try to infuse the pillar with the conductive properties of metal by superheating the rock with my fire affinity—a crude form of creating glass or obsidian, which could potentially channel the energy. It was a long shot, based on fragmented memories of real-world physics from my neglected orphanage education.
"It's a gamble," Lyra said, her face grave.
"It's the only bet I have," I replied.
The training was agonizing. I practiced raising pillars of earth quickly and efficiently. I practiced focusing my fire affinity to an intense, pinpoint heat. The strain on my meridians was immense. I was trying to force a complex, multi-step technique with elements that were still learning to coexist.
Meridian Damage: 5% (from training strain)
The day of the match arrived. The walk to the Coliseum felt like a walk to the gallows. The crowd's roar was deafening, a mix of bloodlust and morbid curiosity. They wanted to see the anomaly get vaporized.
The Stormpeak Spire materialized around me. It was a terrifying environment. I stood on a small, flat summit, while a few hundred feet below, storm clouds churned, flashing with constant lightning. The air smelled of ozone and violence. Across the summit, Zephyr stood. He was tall and lean, crackling with visible energy. His eyes glowed with a faint blue light. He didn't speak. He simply smiled, a predator's smile.
The bell chimed.
Zephyr didn't move. He raised his hands to the sky, and the storm responded. The clouds darkened, and lightning began to arc downwards, not randomly, but towards him. He was gathering energy.
I didn't have a second to waste. I dropped into the Mountain Root stance, anchoring myself to the peak, and slammed my hands onto the rock. I poured my earth Qi into the spire, asking it to grow. A pillar of stone erupted from the ground in front of me, shooting ten feet into the air, then twenty, making it the new highest point on the peak.
Zephyr's smile widened. "A taller target? Foolish."
The first lightning bolt shot down from the sky. But it didn't aim for me. It aimed for my pillar. The plan was working! The bolt struck the top of the pillar with a deafening crack. The stone shattered, but the energy was channeled down into the peak, harmlessly dispersing.
A wave of relief washed over me. It worked!
But Zephyr just laughed. "One bolt? You think that's all I have?"
He clenched his fists. The sky above us exploded. Not one bolt, not ten, but dozens of lightning strikes rained down simultaneously. They hammered my pillar, shattering it to rubble in an instant. But they also struck all around me. The entire summit became a killing field of electrical energy.
I screamed as a bolt grazed my arm, the pain unlike anything I'd ever felt. It wasn't just heat; it was a violent, paralyzing shock that scrambled my nerves.
Health: 70%Qi Reserves: 80%
My plan was in ruins. He could overwhelm any single point I tried to make. I was surrounded, with nowhere to hide. I tried to use Mistral Step, but the electrical energy in the air disrupted the technique, making it sputter and fail.
Another bolt struck near my feet, sending me flying backwards. I landed hard, my body spasming.
Health: 55%
This was it. I was going to die in this virtual arena, and the synchronization was strong enough that my real heart might give out from the strain.
As I lay there, staring up at the raging storm, something shifted inside me. The pain, the terror, the proximity to raw lightning energy—it was a catalyst. The dormant lightning affinity in my spirit, the one that had been silent and still, suddenly awoke.
It wasn't a gentle awakening. It was a seizure.
A bolt of lightning shot from the sky directly towards my chest. But at the last second, my body acted on its own. My hand shot up, and instead of the bolt striking me, it connected with my palm. The energy didn't incinerate me. It flooded into me.
The pain was excruciating, a universe of agony compressed into a single moment. My vision went white. I felt my meridians, which had been slowly healing, tear open anew.
Lightning Affinity Awakened: 1%Meridian Damage: 20%
But I was alive.
I stumbled to my feet. Electricity crackled over my skin, uncontrollable. My hair stood on end. I could feel the storm's power raging inside me, a wild, untamable beast.
Zephyr stared, his confidence shattered. "Impossible! No one can absorb raw lightning!"
I didn't know how I was doing it. I just was. The lightning wanted a path to ground, and my body, with its newly awakened affinity, had become a temporary conduit. But I couldn't hold it. The energy was burning me up from the inside.
I had to release it. Now.
I looked at Zephyr. I didn't have a technique. I had only instinct. I focused all the chaotic, painful energy inside me—the water, the fire, the earth, the wind, and now the lightning—and I didn't try to harmonize them. I pointed a finger at Zephyr and let it all go.
It wasn't a bolt. It was a scream of pure, discordant elemental energy. A jagged, twisting beam of power that was part lightning, part fire, part condensed steam, and part flying debris. It was ugly, unstable, and horrifying.
It hit Zephyr.
There was no finesse. There was only overwhelming, chaotic force. He was thrown backwards off the summit of the spire, his body convulsing with conflicting energies, and he vanished into the storm clouds below.
The lightning storm ceased abruptly. The silence was absolute.
The judge's voice was hesitant, almost afraid. "Zephyr has been defeated. The winner... Sovas Rovaner."
I collapsed onto the rock, my body smoking, every nerve ending on fire. I had won. I had awakened my fifth element in the most violent way possible. And I had no idea what I had just become.