After the spar, Yan asked the student who had stepped near the edge to walk through what he had been watching.
“I wanted to see whether Wei’s formation changed color before a strike,” the boy said. “I forgot the boundary.”
Yan nodded. “I was watching the shield and treated the audience area as empty. I should have seen you.”
The boy looked toward the strip of turf torn up by the redirected wave. “I could see the formation better from the edge. Is there another place to stand?”
A clinic worker suggested using the old sorting bench. It stood beside the wall, outside the ward line. If they raised it, observers could see over the crowd without stepping into the lane.
Wei moved the bench with Huo. The student climbed up and watched as Yan walked around the practice area. From the higher point, he could see both the shield line and the well lane.
“That’s better,” he said. “I can see the flag without standing by the targets.”
Yan asked everyone to reset the dummies so they faced the raised platform. He demonstrated Withering Torrent at low force. The expected bodily harm reversed into stronger channels for him, but the wave still moved through the ground and could damage anything in its path.
