Kaya gasped. “Is that where we’ll be fighting?”

She turned to Dorian, eyes wide. “It’s huge!”

Dorian chuckled. It was the biggest thing in the Oasis: a great sandstone disc which squatted amid the market district, forcing the streets to curve uncomfortably around its girth. In an Oasis of gray girders and glinting steel, it stood out as a hunk of rough, gradient yellows. Centuries ago it had been an inconveniently placed lump of sandstone, too big to move. So the Azcan Lord gave the order to hollow it out bit by bit. Over the years cushions and seats, lighting fixtures and a fancy mechanized arena were squeezed in. Now it was a venue that seated thousands.

And by the looks of it, it would be filled to the brim.

The whole wide street was choked with people, people of all ages, sizes, sexes, united only by their pastel clothes, dolled-up hair and too-smooth skin. It seemed the whole Oasis had come out for the Tournament. The air buzzed with excited chatter, peals of laughter, the happy shrieking of children zipping in and out of the crowd, chasing one another. To Dorian’s left, two siblings were play-fighting.

“Hi-ya! I, Princess Eudora Azcan, use my Lash of the Sky!” cried a little blonde girl, whipping her scarf at a little blond boy. “I just turned your head to mush! You’re dead!”

The boy scrunched his nose. “No way. I, Young Master Ouyang, deflect it with my Demon Slash!”

“Too bad,” She stuck out her tongue at him. “I can’t hear you! Dead people don’t talk!"

People were cheery—too cheery. News of the Patriarch’s death hadn’t gotten around, apparently. Probably for good reason. If Dorian ran the Oasis, he wouldn’t want to add ‘mass panic and hysteria’ to his list of worries. The Ugoc were worry enough. Even now they were probably marching untold hordes up the desert, swallowing the other Oases whole…

Meh.

Kaya and Dorian ambled along the street, wrapped in shadowy cloaks. Dorian had quickly learned that wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without being gawked at, whispered about, or outright mobbed—by now there wasn’t a man, woman or child in the Oasis who hadn’t heard of him. As Dorian walked home yesterday, a woman fell to her knees and tried kissing his feet. Another tried to egg him.

By now Dorian was used to it. Even without his causing natural disasters—which happened a great deal more than you’d think—Dorian tended to inspire strong emotions. Not necessarily good ones, mind you—but certainly strong.

They were nearing the entrance now, a yawning archway streaming with people. It looked like the massive mouth of a cave. There was no ticketing, no fee, no reservations.

“Um, where are we ‘spose to go?” said Kaya. She looked about, scratching her head. There was no other entrance in sight. “Just… right on through? With the rest of ‘em? Uh. You’d think we’d get some kinda special treatment, being the fighters and all…”

“You lost, miss?” A scraggly, shirtless kid grinned at them through checkered teeth. “Can I help?”

Something told Dorian this was not an official usher.

“Yea, actually!” said Kaya brightly. “Which way to the fighter’s quarters?”

“Why? You a fighter or something?” said the street urchin with a grin. He turned to Dorian.“And who is this fine gentlemaaaaOhMyGoodSaints!”

Dorian’s cheek twitched. Yeah. Strong emotions.

“It’s the Hero!” cried the urchin, pointing a quivering finger straight at Dorian’s face. “He’s here!”

It was like throwing fresh meat to a pack of sandwolves.

“What? The Hero?!”

“Where, where?”

“The one in the blue smocks? No—too tall. Can’t be—oh! Look—that child—under the cowl—it really is him!”

Dorian sighed. The gig was up.

A shock of gasps. A whirlwind of voices. Suddenly men were shoving over each other to get a look at him. There was a fluttering of cloaks as hundreds whirled around at once.

Crap.

Then the crowd erupted in noise. It was like Dorian stood at the center of a whirlpool of human flesh. Shouting, screaming, tugging, shoving flesh. A confusion of voices deafened him.

“Rejoice, rejoice, the Hero’s here!”

“To hells with that Outsider! You believe that wyrmshit?”

“I can’t see him!”

“Hero! My son—he’s blind! Please, help us, help us!”

“Damn you! Your qi storm tore down my roof!”

All hot air and flapping gums. Grimacing, Dorian shrugged off a half-dozen grasping hands. Kaya clutched his arm tight to her. “This way!” She mouthed, but her voice was lost in the storm. She tried dragging him along but the crowd was too dense, pressing in on them at all sides, all angles, squeezing them, jostling them to and fro, rubbing all over him, a great stinking steaming swamp of mankind. There was barely space to turn his head! Would he really have to blast his way out of this mess?

As it turned out, he didn’t need to.

Someone else did it for him.

The cries, shrill and frightful, came at the edge of the crowd. At first the larger horde took no notice. Then a second wave—more, and in great pain—sliced through the noise. There was a piercing, screeching, high-pitched sound, like two jagged steels grating on each other. It was one of the worst sounds Dorian had heard in all his time here, and it pierced that most tender spot in every man’s brain.

Even Dorian sucked in a sharp breath. It felt like an invisible arrow went in one of Dorian’s ears and out the other.

The crowd’s voices turned to moans. There was a great thump as hundreds fell to their knees, cringing.

“Make way! Make way in the name of the army!”

Army? Dorian’s mind was still smarting. He blinked. Ah. Yes—

A troupe of men in Heilong’s black, scaly uniforms were cutting their way through the crowd. One of them held two giant silver cymbals, scribed all over with noise glyphs. That thing really ought to be a weapon.

The mustached man at their head, a captain of some sort, saluted Dorian.

“Sincerest apologies for our lateness, sir. We shall escort you to the competitors’ quarters presently. This way, if you please?”

Suffice it to say, they were happy to comply.

***

The troupe led them around to the back of the coliseum, where a hefty steel door was set into the wall, flanked by armed guardsmen. They went through, then down a dizzying maze of stairs and corridors which tunneled into the bowels of the building.

“We leave you here,” intoned the captain. He gave another salute. “You’ll find the fighter’s zone ahead. Fighting prior to matches is of course strictly forbidden, and monitoring arrays have been set up to ensure fairness. You will find your pairings on an Artifact on the walls. Your name shall be announced when your matches are up. Of the more than two hundred talents here… only sixteen shall remain by day’s end. You’ll receive further instructions at match time. Good day, sir.”

He took a deep breath. When he gazed at Dorian again, his soldier’s demeanor faded. Instead there was respect in his face—something nearing reverence. Hope.

“And, speaking as a member of the Heilong family... best of luck. We’re rooting for you.”

Dorian nodded, grinning. “Of course. Say, I didn’t catch your name. What is it?”

“My name?” The man blinked. “Ah—Goro, sir. Goro Heilong.”

“Well, friend Goro, I promise you I’ll do the family proud. Don’t you worry!”

It was the right thing to say. The man nodded, beaming, and withdrew.

Dorian and Kaya braved the final corridor alone. They emerged at a massive cavern bathed in a reddish glow.

It was already bustling when they arrived. Dorian heard Kaya suck in a breath.

These are my competition?

The competitors, all vigorous youths, were all draped in the uniforms of their noble families—tight-fitting battle-robes, flowy, showy and chic, as much form as function. Each family kept to its own loose huddle, chattering loudly, eyeing their with suspicion. In each huddle there was a clear leader: one fighter the rest all seemed to be looking at. Their ace.

Interesting. Dorian scratched his chin. I wonder how they’ll fare against my fancy new toy. A few of them wouldn’t be able to so much as scratch the hem of his robe, but some of these aces weren’t bad. Almost all of them must have their own high-grade Spirit Weapons. Some neared the peak of the Earth Realm, a full realm and a half above him. Even with his slick new Javelin, the gap was big enough to be threatening.

“Ooh, look!” Kaya pointed. It was the Tribesmen who’d qualified: the sharp-limbed Young Master Narong, the bearlike Young Master Yalta, the swift Young Master Zhaopai in his white silks. They looked like a herd of lost children next to the masses of top-tier Azcan talent. They were out of their depths, and they knew it. Then Kaya gasped. “Is that Pearl? I knew I saw those hoops somewhere before!”

Indeed it was. The wild-boy with the golden infinity branded on his head. He was almost certainly a servant of Nijo, but that mark looked very much like a soul brand—nothing as favorable as a Kaya’s soul contract. In whatever hierarchy Nijo belonged to, Dorian guessed Pearl was at best grunt-level. Something like a low-class servant, or slave. Gods often kept such cattle around. In Dorian’s past life as Yeshima, True Goddess of Light, she’d had millions scattered about.

In other words, the boy was a nobody. Not interesting.

“I think I should go talk to him…” mumbled Kaya, transfixed.

Meh. “Do as you like.” Dorian shrugged. “I’ll go check up on the pairings.”

She glanced at him, chewing nervously on her lip. “Meet up with me before the round starts, alright?”

Dorian shot her a reassuring smile. “Of course, sis.”

Then he frowned. Was it his imagination, or had it gotten kind of… quiet?

And then he turned back to the crowd. Everyone—all the competitors—were staring straight at them.

Or rather—at him.