Pop! Pop! Pop!
Flashes of white teleportation light began to erupt continuously across the jade colosseum like a violent, erratic strobe show.
Disciples were vanishing by the dozen.
"It’s the Iron Wok Demon!" a terrified senior disciple screamed, desperately clutching his token pouch to his chest. "He’s gone rogue! He’s mad! See how he is attacking his own sect! Run!"
"There is nowhere to run!" Ji’an laughed, vaulting over the back of a massive, heavily armored brute. She landed lightly behind him, plucked the token from his waist, snapped it, and watched him vaporize. "Your meat is overcooked! Your spiritual roots are bland! Back to the prep station!"
Across the arena, the major protagonists suddenly realized that the natural order of the tournament had been disrupted.
Gu Zhiwei, the Golden Retriever, had just finished healing a junior novice when a flash of Szechuan Red silk entered his peripheral vision.
"Brother Lin!" Zhiwei beamed, his face lighting up with absolute, innocent joy, missing the fact that Ji’an was currently leaving a trail of eliminated vapor clouds in her wake. "You made it to the center! I am so glad! Let us fight back-to-back and secure our spots in the top—"
SMACK!!!
Ji’an didn’t hesitate.
She blurred into Zhiwei’s personal space and ruthlessly brought the flat side of her heavy iron spatula down in a textbook, compressed overhead strike directly toward the Holy Son’s glowing blonde head.
Zhiwei’s supreme, protagonist-level survival instincts engaged purely on reflex.
A blazing shield of golden holy light erupted from his core, catching the spatula mere inches from his nose.
The kinetic impact was staggering.
Zhiwei’s boots dug deep trenches into the solid jade floor as he was pushed backward by the sheer, absurd physical weight of her blow.
"Brother Lin?!" Zhiwei gasped, his golden eyes wide with absolute, heartbroken, puppy-dog betrayal. "What are you doing?! It’s me! Zhiwei! We promised to eat hotpot together when the tournament is over!"
"Friendship ends where the kitchen begins, Golden Boy!" Ji’an sneered, completely abandoning all moral constraints, entering her full villain era. She unleashed a flurry of rapid-fire strikes against his holy shield, each blow echoing like a massive gong. "Your holy light is too bright! It’s over-proofing my dough! Give me your token already if you can’t hold back!"
"No! I will not fight my brother!" Zhiwei wept dramatically, purely playing defense, refusing to draw his broadsword against her, retreating step by step under her relentless assault.
But the bizarre, heavy, and invisible hand of the Web Novel World Will, the foundational, cosmic law that dictated the narrative flow of the BL universe, refused to let its ordained protagonist suffer alone.
Suddenly, from across the chaotic arena, the other male leads felt an undeniable, magnetic, instinctual pull toward the Golden Retriever.
"Step away from him, you damn cook!"
Wen Shiru, the Fox, hobbled onto the scene, his jade cane clicking rapidly. His glasses flashed with dangerous light as he tossed a handful of explosive golden coins toward Ji’an’s feet, forcing her to backflip away from Zhiwei to avoid the blast.
"Are you entirely devoid of logic, Martial Uncle Ji’an?!" Shiru demanded, his elegant green robes fluttering. He stepped protectively in front of the weeping Holy Son, though he kept a cautious distance from Ji’an’s spatula. "We are of the same sect! If we eliminate each other now, the foreign delegations will seize the victory! Have you succumbed to the abyssal madness?!"
Before Ji’an could reply, two more figures landed on the jade tiles, forming a protective, dramatic, contrived reverse-harem defensive line around Gu Zhiwei.
Hu Yanlie, the Beast Lord, roared, his massive bone cleaver, which he had apparently replaced after Wangchen shattered it, pointed directly at Ji’an. "I knew your mind was weak, cook! You’ve gone feral! Turn your spatula toward the enemy, or I will put you down myself!"
Mo Wuchen, the Shadow Assassin, materialized from the mist, his twin daggers drawn, his metallic mask hiding his expression, but his killing intent was fully locked onto the rogue chef in red.
Ji’an landed lightly on her feet, fifty paces away.
She lowered her spatula, looking at the scene before her.
She saw Gu Zhiwei, the crying, overwhelmed protagonist.
And she saw the Fox, the Beast Lord, and the Assassin all standing protectively in front of him, united by the cosmic, unbreakable power of the plot.
’It’s the harem assembly,’ Ji’an realized, a sudden amused grin splitting her face. ’The plot is actively trying to force them to protect Zhiwei from the big bad villain. This is a classic, textbook climax encounter!’
"You think you can stop me?" Ji’an laughed, rolling her shoulders, the heavy Szechuan Red silk slipping slightly to emphasize the deep, fitted cut of her waist. "You think your little boy-band formation is going to save you from being eighty-sixed? I am the Head Chef! And I say your reservations are cancelled!"
"In that case, you leave us with no choice!" Shiru declared, raising his hands to cast a massive, continent-spanning mercantile array. "Get ready, you all! Today, we must subdue him!"
The four protagonists tensed, preparing to unleash their ultimate techniques simultaneously against the rogue cook.
But the universe was not finished introducing apex predators to the arena.
***
The temperature in the colossal jade arena did not drop gradually. It plunged violently and instantly drove past absolute zero.
The air itself cracked.
The mist froze into jagged, hovering shards of diamond dust as the intense, explosive Qi being generated by the fighting disciples was instantly smothered by a heavy, suffocating blanket of pure, lethal frost.
Stepping through the grand entrance archway, looking like a god of winter descending upon a mortal battlefield, was none other than Xie Wangchen.
The Prodigy of the Eternal Cloud Peak had arrived.
His immaculate white robes trailed behind him. His long, silver hair caught the morning light, shimmering with divine radiance, and his ruby-red eyes swept across the arena, instantly locating the source of the commotion.
The entire colosseum fell silent.