Fan Yumei sat cross-legged near the west deck of the training halls, her boots kicked off, a protein wrap half-eaten in her hand. Around her, the usual suspects—Zhou Qian, Qin Min, and Kai Shi—were sprawled out, half-tired, half-alert. The training screens in the sky above flickered with replays of earlier matches, roars and cheers leaking through the walls like heartbeat pulses.
Zhou was mid-rant. "I swear, that serpent smirked when it dodged my trap net. Like it knew. Like it remembered from the last time and just wanted to humiliate me."
Kai arched a brow. "Or maybe your trap net is trash."
"I would punch you if I wasn't still leaking qi," Zhou grumbled.
Fan Yumei didn't chime in. Her eyes were on the monitors—Arena 3's prep gates were lighting up. Something buzzed in her chest. Not nerves. Not dread. Something closer to anticipation… or alignment.
Then came the call:
🎙️ "Combatant Fan Yumei, Division Six. Report to Arena 3. Match begins in five minutes. Repeat—Fan Yumei, Arena 3."
Her head tilted. "Time to go."
Zhou tossed her a ration pack. "Go be something amazing."
Qin Min gave a thumbs up. "Tell Maxius to kick ass and give it his all."
Fan Yumei stood, brushing off her armor. "He's been itching for a chance—and here it is."
She gathered her satchel, checked her scrolls, and turned toward the corridor that led down to Arena Three. Her boots echoed softly with each step. The fluorescent blue lines on the wall lit her path, one by one.
Maxius phased in beside her without a sound—his golden feathers trailing in ghostlight, the shimmer of his phantom qi coiling like mist from his talons. He was larger than before, his aura tighter, sharper. His one visible wing gleamed like a blade of twilight; the other, invisible, left a distortion in the air like heat off stone.
"I know," she said aloud, glancing his way. "You want this one."
He cawed softly—low, controlled, not playful. Focused.
Runes flared to life as she stepped onto the entrance platform. Ahead, Arena 3 restructured in real time—stone and ice colliding to form a fractured battlefield. The terrain was harsh: half frozen slope, half jagged elevation with thin mist pockets swirling between them. It wasn't random.
This was Division Three territory. They were prepping Bao Maiji's side.
Across from her, he arrived: silver hair tied back, frost-marked spear on his back, and that confident posture Fan Yumei had come to expect from legacy-trained elite students.
Beside him stalked the Arctic Alpha Wolf—twice Maxius' size, white fur like storm-swept snow and eyes like glacial fire. Breath steamed from its nostrils. Its paws left frost prints where they touched the arena stone.
Bao Maiji smirked. "You're the one with the storm leviathan."
Fan Yumei returned the look. "Not today."
Bao scoffed, arms crossed. "You sure that thing can even fly right? Looks like a crippled bird with only one wing."
A few snickers echoed from the sidelines.
Some of the crowd murmured. Fan Yumei's expression didn't shift, but her silence was sharp. Maxius tensed, feathers flaring with phantom qi, but he didn't move—he waited.
Then, calmly, she replied, "Maybe instead of worrying about my beast and what he can or can't do, you should focus on your own strategy."
Bao's smirk faltered for just a second.
Bao kept going. "I expected more from Division Six. Thought you'd bring out that whale I keep hearing about. Guess she's too pretty to bruise."
Fan Yumei stepped forward, resting a hand lightly on Maxius's back. "He doesn't need both wings to break your beast's jaw."
"Crippled bird, huh?""Funny."
Fan Yumei took a long look, then smiled. "One wing is enough when it cuts deeper than two."
She placed her hand against Maxius' neck. "This match is yours."
Maxius let out a soft screech, wind swirling beneath his talons as he took to the air.
The crowd wasn't deafening, but it was alive—watchful.
Across the field, Bao Maiji stood tall and unblinking, his combat coat drawn close against the chill aura his beast emanated. The wolf padded beside him in silence, thick fur bristling with frost-tipped qi.
Fan Yumei reached into her mind—and Maxius surged forward first, eyes blazing, feathers crackling with phantom wind.
—
🎙️ "Sky-Class Beastmaster Team Match — Round One: Begin!"
—
A horn blared. Qi flared. The match began.
Maxius didn't move fast—he moved awkwardly.
He flapped once, like he was off balance, almost falling mid-air. His visible wing struggled against the wind currents.
The crowd murmured. Even Zhou, watching from the edge seats, looked uncertain.
"He's… off?"
But Fan Yumei didn't blink.
She could feel the way Maxius was re-routing his qi—masking it, muffling it, dulling the edges of his real power. Every awkward stumble, every lagging beat of flight was calculated. A performance.
Bao took the bait.
"Gotcha now!"
Maxius soared low, darting between broken ice columns as Bao Maiji's Alpha lunged—fast. Too fast for its size. The wolf was a blur of white rage, its frost aura condensing into ice spikes mid-charge.
Fan Yumei moved quickly along the slope edge, spell threads dancing from her gloves to mark runic zones. "He's using sync-fused mobility. Watch the delay in its right front paw."
The Arctic Alpha Wolf lunged first, qi trails peeling from its claws, breath frosting the air as it dashed in a spiral, creating overlapping pressure rings. Maxius flared both wings—one visible, one unseen—and dodged, using his phantom step to blink out and reappear above the battlefield.
From above, Maxius dove, talons cloaked in wind-cutting qi. He struck the wolf's flank, only to skim past hardened ice armor that shot up on reflex.
Bao Maiji drew a curved sigil in the air—Frost Fang Binding—launching a volley of chain-shaped ice qi to tangle Maxius mid-flight.
Fan Yumei countered. "Shift it, now!"
Maxius folded mid-air, letting the invisible wing pull against gravity. He corkscrewed through the chains, blasting them with a pulse of sonic wind before slamming his talons into the ground and sending up a burst of mist.
The wolf leapt through the haze, eyes locked on Maxius—but it was bait.
"Dive cut," Fan Yumei whispered.
The moment the wolf pounced, Maxius vanished.
Then reappeared—behind it.
Then came the slice.
Maxius shifted left just as the wolf struck—an icy claw slamming into fractured stone. A phantom afterimage of Maxius vanished into mist, reappearing behind the wolf. Wind qi surged like a sonic crack.
Clash.
Maxius slammed a wing down, knocking the Alpha sideways, but the beast recovered mid-roll, teeth bared. It answered with an ice breath laced with spears of frost qi. Maxius phased again—half-corporeal, drifting through the attack like smoke.
His wing lashed out like a guillotine, slamming the wolf into the sand with a blast of compressed air. The Arctic beast howled, teeth gnashing, but it rolled quickly, using the impact to push off and regain distance.
Bao Maiji shouted: "Cryzone Spiral!"
A ring of glacial qi expanded outward, threatening to freeze all phantom-type movements. Maxius flared—his outline flickering erratically. He screeched, forced to ground himself fully.
Fan Yumei's fingers flicked out a series of short sigils. "Maxius. Ground-mode. Use formation burst."
Maxius pounded his talons into the earth, drawing from a preset formation they'd prepared earlier. Phantom qi surged up through the arena's sand, creating a triangle trap under the wolf.
Title Unlocked: Maxius – The Eagle Who Cried Wolf
Assassin-Class: Phantom-type
Ability: Strategic deception and delayed burst precision
Only Fan Yumei felt the flicker in her soul. Her eyes widened. She backed away from her opponent dodging his spell
"A phantom learns to lie," she whispered. "To mimic weakness. To become a storm when least expected."
Bao stared, stunned at their In sync, coronation. "That damn crippled bird…"
Fan Yumei's eyes never left the fight following on the left flank. "Don't let him drive you too high. He wants an aerial freeze trap."
Maxius screeched in acknowledgment, spiraling back toward the ground. The wolf chased, weaving ice sigils beneath its paws.
Bao Maiji raised his spear and activated a soul-tag—suddenly the entire left half of the arena glowed cold blue. Maxius dropped—voluntarily—into a feint roll, dragging his wingtip across the ice to scatter phantom qi illusions.
Ten Maxius forms appeared. The wolf hesitated.
That was all he needed.
Bao Maiji cursed, too late to shift positioning.
The wolf's paws hit the sigil—SNAP.
A burst of phantom-wind exploded upward, not to damage—but to blind. The wolf recoiled, howling.
And in the chaos, Maxius dove again, beak-first this time—slamming straight into the Arctic Alpha's collarbone with a stunning crack that knocked frost qi wild.
Fan Yumei narrowed her eyes. In her clashing with bao.
"End it ."
Maxius did.
He landed a strike mid-spin, one talon extended, infused with raw sky-wind qi. It dragged a clean line across the battlefield, sending the wolf.
Then—Maxius dove.
A phantom burst erupted where he landed, launching the Arctic Wolf back, its paws scraping ice trails as it hit the barrier wall.
Fan Yumei shouted casting a feint rune blocking boa path.
"End it with Phantom Talon!"
But before it could recover
—Maxius vanished again.
Bao shouted, "Behind you—!"
But the crowd didn't see it.
A ripple of distortion—like the air itself screaming.
And then… bloodless gash.
A glowing, crackling line across the wolf's front paw—sliced not with talon, but with space itself.
The arena froze.
🎙️ "—What was that? Playback… frame 003, slow render…"
The overhead screen caught it barely: a phantom slice, delivered mid-air with the invisible wing—coated in compressed ghost-qi, fused with Maxius's hidden wind-based pressure strike.
A phantom wing attack—so fast, so quiet, no one saw it until after it landed.
The Arctic Wolf backed away, visibly shaking. Not injured—unbalanced. Its qi lines were disrupted, its center thrown off.
It got up—but slower this time. Bao Maiji's calm cracked more than just slightly.
Silence.
Then: a staggered breath from Bao.
"I yield."
Maxius hovered above, panting hard but glowing with pulse-energy, his phantom feathers flickering with triumph.
Fan Yumei crossed her arms and muttered under her breath.
"Told you I'd let you go first. Good job."
A pause. Then she smiled.
"But don't get cocky. You're still my second-loudest beast."
—
Round One Victory – beast and master battles -Fan Yumei & Maxius(Division 6)
—
The medics rushed in. Bao didn't say another word.
Maxius landed quietly beside Fan Yumei, one talon scraping a line in the ground like a closing signature.
The storm had passed.
But the message was loud and clear:
Even a phantom learns to lie.