There is a specific kind of sound that a high-pressure gas burner makes when it runs out of fuel. It’s a rhythmic, pathetic 'whump-whump-click' that signals the end of the heat.

  As Han Wei drifted across the ceramic floor of Ring Twelve, that was exactly the sound the Golden Pavilion was making.

  Prince Zhan was no longer a towering pillar of solar fury. He was a man in very expensive silk robes that were beginning to smoke from his own internal heat, yet he couldn't project the fire more than an inch beyond his skin. The "Stillness" sphere—the perfect vacuum Wei was dragging behind him like a physical net—had stripped the air from the equation.

  "What is going on!" the Prince screamed, his voice cracking with a high-pitched, royal panic. "I am the Sun! I said BURN!"

  He thrust his hands forward, a gesture that usually released a wave of plasma capable of melting a car. Instead, he got a few pathetic, orange sparks that died the moment they hit the vacuum. The Prince looked at his hands, his eyes wide with a terror that surpassed Kaelen’s and Li Mei’s. He wasn't just losing a fight; he was losing his identity.

  "The Sun doesn't demand, Zhan," Wei said, his voice sounding weirdly flat and resonant in the airless pocket. "It just is. And right now... you aren't."

  Wei was standing directly in front of him now. Up close, the Prince looked less like an ancient deity and more like a pampered heir who had spent too much time in the gym and not enough time on the mat. He was a great blowtorch—a masterpiece of singular, destructive output—but he had never actually had to fight. He had always just incinerated the problem before it could touch him.

  "Stay... stay back!" Zhan lunged forward, throwing a punch that Sarah, watching from the observation deck, categorized as 'Grade-School Level.'

  It was a slow, clumsy, over-extended right hook. Wei didn't even move his head. He simply allowed the "Environmental Resonance" on his skin—the vibrating, amber-violet barrier of the Well—to stiffen for a microsecond.

  CRACK.

  The sound of the Prince's knuckles shattering against Wei’s cheekbone was louder than the fight's opening explosion. Zhan let out a girlish yelp of agony, clutching his mangled hand to his chest. He staggered back, his face turning a sickly shade of pale that matched the smoke coming off his robes.

  In the Golden Pavilion, the other Sovereigns were frozen. They weren't looking at a titan anymore. They were looking at a joke.

  "The internet," Jax whispered, his camera-eye struggling to focus through the heat-shimmer. "Boss... they're snickering. There are three million 'LOL' emojis on the feed in the last ten seconds. Someone just posted a video of a toddler throwing a tantrum side-by-side with the Prince's punch."

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  Zhan heard it. He might not have been able to see the tablets, but he could feel the shift in the valley. The boos had turned into something far worse: derision. The awe that had sustained the Golden Pavilion for centuries was evaporating into the Amazon humidity.

  "I will... I will KILL YOU!" Zhan screamed, his eyes bloodshot, his golden aura now a flickering, greasy-looking yellow.

  He tried a series of kicks—flailing, uncoordinated strikes that Wei avoided by simply stepping two inches to the left or right. Each missed kick left the Prince further off-balance, his expensive robes tangling around his legs. He tried an elbow strike that ended with him hitting his own funny bone on the vacuum-sphere’s edge, resulting in another howl of pain.

  "He's not a fighter, Sarah," Miller said, his voice flat with professional disgust. "He's a weapon system that's been jammed. Once you take away the trigger, there's nothing left but a very angry piece of furniture."

  Zhan was hyperventilating now, but there was no air to breathe. The lack of oxygen was making his brain loop, his logic-centers failing under the dual-pressure of the vacuum and the public humiliation.

  "I... AM... THE... SUN!"

  In a final, desperate act of royal idiocy, the Prince pulled his head back. He gathered every remaining spark of his solar Qi into his skull, his forehead glowing with a dim, sickly orange light. He lunged forward with a full-body headbutt, a move born of pure, unadulterated spice and zero technique.

  Wei didn't even raise his hands. He just stood there, his internal resonance set to 'Reflect.'

  THUD.

  The Prince's forehead met the center of the "Stillness" sphere. The impact wasn't a crack; it was a dull, hollow sound, like a melon hitting a sidewalk. Zhan’s eyes rolled back into his head instantly. The orange light in his forehead sputtered out once and for all.

  The "Inferno" collapsed.

  He didn't fall with a 'boom' like Kaelen. He didn't dissolve like Li Mei. He simply crumpled into a heap of expensive silk and broken ego, his nose bleeding a very human red onto the ceramic plates of Ring Twelve.

  The valley didn't cheer. They laughed.

  It started as a single snicker from the edge of the orchid-fields and spread like a wave through the millions of fans. It wasn't the laughter of malice; it was the laughter of relief. The monster under the bed hadn't just been defeated; it had been revealed as a child in a costume.

  Wei stood over the unconscious Prince, his 'I Heart NY' t-shirt still remarkably intact except for the small tear from Li Mei's thread. He looked up at the Golden Pavilion, which looked suddenly very small and very far away against the vast, blue sky of the Amazon.

  He reached up to his comm-unit, his blue eyes finally fading back to amber.

  "Sarah? Jax?" Wei asked, his voice steady. "I think the lights are out."

  Miller was already on the radio to the tournament council. "This is the Iron Blood Security Liaison. The Sovereign’s Gauntlet is concluded. The challenger is the only one standing in the ring. I believe that makes it a clean sweep."

  Wei looked back at the camera-eye, a small, tired smile on his face. He didn't do a victory lap. He didn't strike a pose. He just took his first real breath of Amazon air in twenty minutes—a long, deep lungful of oxygen and orchid-scent.

  "Aisle five is clear," Wei whispered, mostly to himself.

  Then he looked at Jax's lens and gave a small, casual thumbs-up.

  "NYC for the win."

  The Gauntlet was over. The Titans were down. And the Cultivator from Manhattan was just getting warmed up.

  *