In the VIP trial control booth, thirty feet above the arena floor, the air smelled of ozone, burning velvet, and pure panic.
Chief Arbiter Han was sweating through his gold-stitched silk robes. His hands were trembling so wildly he could barely hold his jade signal magic charm. On the scrying mirrors arranged along the dark wood console, he watched the five students of Class 404 standing calmly in front of Section 4. Their yellow hard hats shone under the dimming sky.
Ten thousand spectators were chanting their names. Half a million more across the upper tiers were beginning to join in, stamping their boots and screaming defiance against the royal court!
“Traitorous peasants! Rebellious scum!” Han hissed, his knuckles white against the control lever. “They defused the Prince’s strike! They turned a royal execution into a town public works test!”
Arbiter Zong rushed up behind him, clutching a bundle of glowing crimson array keys. “Arbiter Han, Prince Yan Wuji’s demand for zhenqi is limitless! The four-hundred-foot avatar is burning through the coliseum’s backup reserves at three thousand spirit units per second! If we don’t stabilize his supply, the blood core will collapse and eat the entire royal sector!”
Han’s eyes flashed with a poisonous, desperate light.
