Chapter 22 - 21: Grand Open Tournament 2
It wasn’t just the noise from the overflowing crowd that filled the grand coliseum, or the booming drums that echoed across the stone arena. No—there was something else. A deep, invisible pulse that spread through the soil and into every blade of grass, into every body standing or seated around the circular ring. Like the tension before a storm, the promise of something irreversible about to begin.
Jinmu stood near the outer perimeter of the massive arena floor, standing beside Eun Haria. Together, they were two of the hunded scattered around the massive open field—an enormous elevated ring where a hundred martial artists had gathered. Dust kicked up from shifting feet, and the occasional burst of uncontrolled ki created brief distortions in the air.
Across the ring, directly opposite them, stood giants of the generation.
And the crowd knew it too.
"This is it," Haria murmured, her voice calm, but her fingers twitching slightly as if in subtle excitement. Her long, lilac-silver robes fluttered faintly in the breeze, reflecting the sunlight in a soft shimmer.
Jinmu didn’t respond with words. He simply glanced upward to the sky for a breath longer, then returned his gaze to the ground ahead.
It begins now...
A massive voice rang out from the stands—one of the Pavilion announcers. "THE FIRST ROUND OF THE GRAND OPEN TOURNAMENT... BEGINS!"
With that, the signal was fired—a sharp, ear-rattling pop of compressed ki exploding midair—and the arena fell into chaos.
Blades clashed. Palms struck. Screams filled the coliseum. And with terrifying speed, nearly a third of the hundred participants charged toward one another without even gauging their surroundings. It was a field of madness, where movement itself was both weapon and shield.
But amid that chaos, five figures remained unnaturally composed.
The Five Young Masters of the Five Great Sects.