Chapter 177 - 178: A Rigged Mountain

Chapter 177: Chapter 178: A Rigged Mountain

The Registry opened at dawn, and the line was short.

That was because only three people were in it, and one of them was currently trying to sign her name with her tail.

"Fluffy," said Fluffy.

"Surname?" said the clerk.

Fluffy considered this. "Fluffy?"

"Your surname is Fluffy."

"Fluffy Fluffy."

"You cannot be Fluffy Fluffy."

"Why not?"

The clerk, a thin man with a thin mustache and a very small stamp, glanced up at the three of them with the expression of a man who had been handed a bad piece of fish. He was named Wu, according to the plaque on his desk, and he had clearly not slept well.

"Former slaves," he said, "often take the name of their first master or their first employer. It is traditional."

"Fluffy does not have a first master," Fluffy said. "Fluffy has a Master."

"That is not the same."

"It is a *lot* the same!"

"Fluffy," Daniel said gently, "put Fluffy."

"Just Fluffy?"

"Just Fluffy."

"Okay!" She beamed, and the clerk wrote it down with the air of a man signing a death warrant for common sense.

Cheeky went next. She gave her name, her race, and her class, Iron Maiden, Unique, in a flat, steady voice, and stood very straight while the clerk’s pen scratched across the page. Mittens went last. She was shaking so hard that her paw print came out as a smudge, and the clerk sighed and made her do it again.

"Late entrants," Clerk Wu said, stamping three badges with a heavy thump. "Please remember that the third test is conducted without assistance. If you fail to clear the cutoff on your own, you will be eliminated." He paused. "Ex-slaves rarely do."

Daniel, who had been leaning against the wall, straightened.

"What did you say?"

"I said it is statistically—"

"You said ’ex-slaves.’"

"I am simply stating—"

"Clerk Wu."

The voice came from the doorway. It was dry and mild and carried a faint ring of iron. The grey-robed examiner with the silver star stood there with his hands folded in his sleeves, and he did not look tired anymore.

"Examiner Qin," said the clerk, going white.

"All registered participants are to be addressed with equal courtesy. It is in the guild charter. Page four." Examiner Qin’s smile was thin. "I trust you remember page four."

"I... yes, sir."

"I will be sending a note to your supervisor."

"Sir, I only—"

"Good morning, ladies." Examiner Qin bowed to Fluffy, Cheeky and Mittens, a small precise bow. "Welcome to Heaven’s Domain. I look forward to your clear."

Clerk Wu swallowed.

Fluffy bowed back, a big wobbly bow, tail whipping. "Fluffy looks forward too!"

Daniel did not say anything. He just looked at the clerk, long and pleasant, until the man started shuffling papers with trembling hands.

"Come on," said Daniel, and steered his family out the door.

---

The arena was called the Colossus Ring.

It was a sunken stone amphitheater on the north side of the gorge, big enough to hold a small city, with a hundred and three circular platforms laid out in a perfect spiral across the sand. Each platform held a tall, still shape under a grey tarp. Above them, in rising tiers, sat several thousand spectators: guild members, merchants, nobles, and a very large number of people eating from paper bags.

Daniel found Yun Xi in the third row, sitting cross-legged with a bag of dumplings in her lap. She did not look at him. She lifted one hand, waved two fingers, and went back to eating.

"She’s very friendly," Lyra muttered.

"She waved."

"Two fingers."

"That’s a lot, for her."

Lyra said nothing. But Daniel noticed she walked a little faster.

Elder Jian stood at the center of the ring on a raised stone dais. Beside him stood the council, five old figures in robes of different colors. At the far end, in robes of gold and crimson, sat Elder Long Wei. His arms were folded. His expression was perfectly, terribly calm.

Daniel did not like it.

"Participants," said Elder Jian. His voice rolled out over the amphitheater, deep and slow. "The third test is a test of strength. Before each of you stands a Stone Colossus, a guardian of the old guild, bound to a platform. You will each face yours. To pass, you must break its core. Any means are permitted. Time limit: ten minutes."

A murmur ran through the crowd.

"Your colossus is rated by stage. A Stage-Three participant will face a Stage-Four colossus, one realm higher. This is by design." He raised a hand. "The assignment of platforms and colossi was done by council lot, drawn last night in the presence of five witnesses."

Daniel glanced at Elder Long. The old man smiled slightly.

"Participants, take your places."

Daniel walked to the platform marked with a gold numeral on the sand. It said *1*.

Of course it did.

Lyra’s platform was twelve places down. Paul’s was twenty. Su Wan’s was thirty-one. Long Tian’s, he noted, was nowhere near his, on the far side of the spiral, and the golden-armored man was already standing on it with his arms folded, watching Daniel across the sand with a faint, cold smile.

That smile, Daniel thought, was not the smile of a man who had been handicapped.

It was the smile of a man who knew something.

---

"Remove the tarps," said Elder Jian.

A hundred and three tarps fell away at once.

A gasp rolled through the crowd, as sharp and shocked as a slap.

The colossi were huge. Most of them were about eight meters tall, built of grey stone and iron, with fists like wagon wheels and faces carved into expressionless masks. They stood on their platforms with their arms at their sides, waiting.

Platform One was different.

The thing standing before Daniel was twelve meters tall. It was black, not grey, a deep, glossy volcanic black, and its chest was wrapped in thick bands of red-veined iron. Its fists were the size of carts. Faint runes glowed along its arms like embers. When it breathed, the sand around its feet shifted, and the earth under Daniel’s boots vibrated.

A plaque beside it read, in gold letters:

**COLOSSUS ONE. THE MOUNTAIN BREAKER. STAGE FIVE.**

Silence fell over the amphitheater.

Then the whispers began, hushed and horrified and thrilled.

"Stage *five*?"

"He’s Stage Three! That’s two realms!"

"The Mountain Breaker hasn’t been used in a hundred years!"

"It killed three examiners in the last trial!"

"It’s *rigged*," Lyra hissed from the next platform. "Daniel, it’s rigged!"

"I noticed."

"You can’t fight that!"

"I can fight a lot of things."

"It’s *two realms* above you!"

"Probably," said Daniel, "I’ll punch it."

He glanced up at the dais. Elder Jian’s face was blank and still as stone, but one hand had gripped the arm of his chair so tightly that the knuckles were white. Elder Long was leaning back in his seat with an expression of tranquil, satisfied calm. He lifted a teacup and sipped.

Daniel looked at the old man for a long, quiet moment.

Then he winked.

Elder Long’s cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

"BEGIN," said Elder Jian.

---

The Mountain Breaker moved.

It was slow, but slow at that size was still terrifying. A fist the size of a farm cart swung down from the sky like a falling roof. Daniel did not dodge. He watched it come, and thought about the Door of Might, and the way iron had bent when he hit it just right.

"Blink," he said.

The fist smashed the platform where he had been standing. The sand erupted. The crowd screamed.

Daniel appeared behind the colossus’s left knee.

*Strength: 131.*

He wound up, planted his boots, and drove his fist into the joint behind the colossus’s leg. It was a weak point. Every big thing had one.

CRACK.

The sound was deafening. The black stone around the knee spiderwebbed with white lines, and the colossus staggered. A shudder ran through its whole body. It crashed down on one knee with a boom that shook the stands.

"That’s one," Daniel said.

The giant turned. Its arm swept sideways. He ducked, rolled, felt the wind of it tear his hair. He came up inside its reach, right under the great torso, and looked straight up at the thick red bands of iron wrapped around its chest. Behind them, a faint, deep gleam pulsed, like a heartbeat.

The core.

"Shadow Step."

The world went grey.

[Skill activated: Shadow Step. Duration: 10 seconds. Cost: 5 MP.]

The colossus lost him. Its head swung left, then right, searching, and its great hands clawed at the air where he had been. Daniel ran straight up the thing’s leg like a man climbing a staircase, across the hip, along the flat black slab of its side, and stopped on its shoulder with a dozen of his ten seconds still left.

The crowd was not screaming anymore. It was silent.

Daniel looked down at the colossus’s chest from above. The iron bands were thick, but they had been fitted with something odd at the center, a small round plate stamped with a pattern of interlocking dragons.

*Huh,* he thought.

"Blink," said Daniel.

He dropped through the air with a pop and appeared directly in front of the plate, one boot braced on the iron band, the other on a crack in the stone. His right fist was already cocked back.

"This," he said, "is for the arch."

He hit it.

---

There is a sound that comes from the very heart of a mountain when it splits.

The whole amphitheater heard it.

The iron bands burst. The golden plate flew away like a coin. And behind it, the red-lit crystal that powered the colossus cracked down the middle and shattered in a spray of glittering fragments, each one flaring with light before it went out.

The Mountain Breaker froze.

It stood for one long, still second, a twelve-meter black giant with an enormous hole in its chest. Then the glow died in its eyes, and the whole huge body leaned, slowly and majestically, to one side.

It toppled.

It hit the sand with a thunderclap that sent dust boiling up across half the arena. Fragments of stone rolled across the ground. A cloud of grey rose over the amphitheater, and in the center of it, Daniel Black landed lightly on both feet, dusted off his sleeves, and looked up at the dais.

"Is thirteen seconds a good time?" he asked.

Nobody answered.

Nobody breathed.

A single dumpling bag rustled in the third row.

"THIRTEEN SECONDS," said a voice, and it was Elder Jian’s, and for the first time since Daniel had met him it was not quite steady. "COLOSSUS ONE IS BROKEN. PARTICIPANT DANIEL BLACK HAS CLEARED THE THIRD TEST."

The amphitheater exploded.

It was not cheering. It was something more like a collective roar of shocked, helpless, delighted noise, thousands of voices all shouting at once. Fluffy was screaming something incoherent from the sidelines, jumping up and down on one foot. Brick Head had both fists in the air. Lyra had gone dead white and then bright red. Even Su Wan was staring at him with her mouth slightly open.

And on the dais, Elder Long Wei’s teacup slipped out of his fingers and shattered on the stone.

---

"EXAMINER QIN," said Elder Jian.

The thin grey figure was already moving. He walked across the sand with unhurried steps, knelt beside the fallen colossus, and picked up the round gold plate that had flown from its chest. He turned it over in his fingers, studied the pattern of dragons, and then rose and walked to the foot of the dais.

"Elder," he said, in a voice that carried across the silent arena. "This plate is not a standard component of a Stone Colossus. The core of this colossus was reinforced with a formation seal."

"Whose?" said Elder Jian.

"A Golden Dragon formation, sir. The pattern is unmistakable. Two additional layers, designed to raise the colossus’s rating from Stage Four to Stage Five."

The silence was absolute.

Elder Jian rose slowly from his chair. His eyes, pale and thin and ancient, moved to the figure in gold and crimson.

"Elder Long Wei."

Elder Long did not stand.

"Elder Long Wei of the Golden Dragon Clan," said Elder Jian. "This colossus was assigned by lot. It was inspected by five witnesses. It was certified to be Stage Four." His voice did not rise. It dropped, if anything, and became colder than the rock under their feet. "Do you wish to explain how a Golden Dragon formation came to be inside it?"

"I... I have no knowledge..."

"You sit on the council."

"A rogue disciple, perhaps..."

"A rogue disciple," said Elder Jian, "who worked through the night to modify a colossus that you, personally, voted to assign to participant number one."

Elder Long’s face was purple. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.

"Modification of a trial colossus is a violation of the Heaven’s Domain charter. Article nine. Tampering with the assessment of a participant." Elder Jian turned to face the crowd, and his voice rang out across the amphitheater. "The Golden Dragon Clan is fined one hundred thousand gold, payable to the guild treasury within three days."

Someone in the crowd laughed, a small, sharp, startled laugh. Then several more. Then the whole tiered ring was rustling with it.

"One hundred thousand," Daniel murmured, to nobody. "That’s very familiar."

"Furthermore," said Elder Jian, "the Clan’s heir, Long Tian Zhao, who already carries a penalty for striking a freed Guardian, will have his handicap in the fourth test doubled."

A strangled sound came from the far side of the ring.

"And the injured participant," said Elder Jian, with a faint, dry smile, "is entitled to one-tenth of the fine as compensation. Ten thousand gold."

Daniel blinked.

"Me?"

"You."

"Ten thousand?"

"I believe you expressed an interest in gold."

The roar this time was deafening.

---

When the noise finally died, Daniel found Fluffy attached to his leg, Lyra punching him hard in the shoulder, and Brick Head sobbing happily into his cloak.

"You absolute idiot," Lyra was saying. "You *beautiful* idiot."

"I punched a mountain."

"You punched a *Stage Five mountain*!"

"I like the sound it made."

Paul had both hands in his hair. Cheeky was wiping her eyes again, muttering something about dust. And over by the edge of the sand, in the third row of the stands, a small girl in grey had put down her bag of dumplings and was clapping.

She clapped slowly. Once. Twice. Three times.

Then she looked directly at him and mouthed two words.

*Dumplings. Forever.*

Daniel laughed out loud.

"Participants will please return to their platforms," said Examiner Qin’s dry voice from the dais. "Standard colossi are being rolled out to replace the tampered units. The test will continue."

A faint shuffle of feet, a creak of wheels. Fresh grey shapes were being pushed into the ring.

Daniel was about to turn toward the bleachers when he heard the footsteps.

They were slow, even, ringing against the stone. They crossed the sand from the far side of the ring, and the crowd noticed them one by one until the whole amphitheater was watching.

Long Tian Zhao came to a halt ten paces from Daniel.

His golden armor was spotless. His crest was perfectly straight. There was a faint yellow bruise on his left cheek where a handprint had once been. And his eyes, cold river water, were fixed on Daniel with a terrible, absolute stillness.

"Daniel Black," he said.

"Long Tian. Lovely morning."

"Under the charter of Heaven’s Domain, article twenty-two," said Long Tian, in a voice that carried to every corner of the amphitheater, "I formally challenge you to a Duel of Honor."

A hush fell.

"The duel will take place at dawn, the day after the third test concludes, in this ring, before the whole guild. Neither of us will hold back." His gaze slid sideways. "The stakes are my choice, as the challenger."

"Oh, goody," said Daniel. "Name them."

"If I win, you will withdraw from the exam." Long Tian’s voice dropped. "And you will release Su Wan Lin to the custody of the Golden Dragon Clan, as is her family’s right."

"I am *not* a prize!"

Su Wan had come up beside them without a sound. Her face was white, her hands clenched at her sides, her braid trembling. Every eye in the amphitheater turned to her.

"You do not speak," said Long Tian, without looking at her. "You are not a party to this."

"I am the party *you are discussing*!"

"Su Wan." Daniel did not look at her either. His voice was very quiet and perfectly level. "It’s okay."

"It is *not*."

"Let me handle it."

He took one step forward. He looked at Long Tian, the pleasant face, the cold eyes, the polished gold. And he smiled. It was the smile from the gorge, the one that went all the way up to his eyes.

"Accepted," said Daniel.

A gasp rolled over the stands.

"But I have my own terms," he said. "If I win, you will kneel. Right here. In front of the whole guild. And you will apologize to Su Wan, out loud, for every year of her life that you treated as a debt."

Long Tian’s smile finally faltered.

"And you will tear up every contract the Golden Dragon Clan holds over her. Every debt. Every oath. Every chain." Daniel’s voice was soft. "She walks away free. And nobody ever calls her a guard again unless she asks them to."

For a very long moment, nobody moved.

Su Wan stood motionless. Her mouth had come open, just a little. She was staring at Daniel as if he had spoken in a language she had never heard before, in a voice she hadn’t known existed.

"You... cannot..." she whispered.

"I can," said Daniel, "if I win."

Long Tian’s eyes had gone to slits.

"Very well," he said. "Dawn, three days from now. Bring your friends. Bring your guns. Bring anyone you like." He turned on his heel. "I will enjoy this."

"I’m sure you will!" Daniel called after him. "Wear something comfortable! You’ll be kneeling!"

The golden armor flashed, and Long Tian was gone, striding across the sand with his shoulders stiff.

The silence stretched out. Then it broke, all at once, in a wave of shouting and stamping and thunder from the stands.

Daniel turned.

Su Wan was still staring at him. Her eyes were very bright.

"Why?" she said.

"Why what?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Because he was being rude," Daniel said.

"That is not a reason."

"It’s a pretty good one."

She stared at him for a long time. Then, to his astonishment, she turned and walked away, quickly, shoulders straight, without another word.

[Affection Level: Su Wan: -1%]

Daniel stared at the screen.

"*Negative one*," he whispered. "She’s *so close*."

Behind him, Lyra said, in a very dry voice, "You are going to get yourself killed."

"I’ll be fine."

"You are going to get yourself killed *and* collect another woman while doing it."

"That’s two birds with one stone."

"I will shoot you."

"You’ll have to join the line."

Lyra opened her mouth to answer, but whatever she had planned was lost in the roar of the crowd. Because in the center of the ring, the fresh colossi had been rolled out, the horn had sounded again, and ninety-nine participants and three late entrants were stepping up to their platforms to begin.

Fluffy was bouncing so hard she was practically airborne.

"Fluffy will break a mountain!" she cried.

"Fluffy will break a *very small* mountain," said Cheeky.

"A *big* small mountain!"

Daniel watched them walk to their platforms: one tall woman in iron gauntlets, one very small bouncing girl, one tiny, trembling cat-eared figure with her hands clasped to her chest.

*Go,* he thought. *Go show them.*

Behind him, in the third row, a small girl in grey picked up another dumpling.