The Round of 16 was uneventful and went by quickly. Li Yu was able to win his match with the use of his two beast companions. The quarter finals were now starting.

The quarter-finals of the Grand Competition began under a sky of brilliant cloudless blue but the atmosphere in the arena was as tense as a drawn bowstring. Only eight disciples remained. Each one was a celebrated genius, a future pillar of the sect. And among them the dark horse was Li Yu.

He had reached this stage not through a display of overwhelming personal power but through a series of victories where his powerful beasts had carried him. No one thought he didn’t deserve to be here, having strong companion beasts was his own source of strength. There was nothing wrong with that and the disciples of the Beast Hall within the sect were cheering him on frantically. He was showcasing their strengths.

He sat alone in the private section of the waiting area for the quarter-finals with his friends. Brother Kai, Hu Jian and Lin Tao were in the stands waiting for him to come out to cheer him on.

“Your next opponent is… difficult,” Brother Kai had warned him that morning. “His name is Chen Mo, from the Formation Hall. He is at the Sixth Stage of Qi Condensation. He is not a powerful fighter in the traditional sense but he is a genius of strategy and control. He uses battle formations, arrays, and traps. He will be prepared for your beasts. You have never fought against someone like him before so this will be extremely difficult.”

When Li Yu’s name was called, he walked onto the central platform, his expression was one of nervousness. He truly had never fought against someone that used arrays before. He barely had much information on arrays or how they worked outside of the general understanding of arrays. He didn’t have the time to learn them and had always hired an expert when they needed any array work done.

Li Yu looked across from him and there stood Chen Mo. He was a thin scholarly-looking young man with sharp, intelligent eyes that darted around the platform. It seemed like they were constantly calculating angles and distances. His martial spirit, a rare Thousand-Armed Artificer floated behind him. It was a complex ethereal being of spinning gears and glowing phantom limbs.

“Junior Brother Li Yu,” Chen Mo said, his voice polite but with an undercurrent of supreme confidence. “Your prowess in beast taming is admirable. However, a battlefield is not just a contest of strength but of intellect. Let us see if your beasts can solve the puzzles I have prepared for them today.”

The match began. Chen Mo did not attack. He simply clapped his hands together and with a series of intricate hand seals he began to lay his trap. From seemingly nowhere several disks materialized behind him setting up numerous arrays that Li Yu did not understand. Glowing runes spread out from his feet, covering the entire stone platform in a complex shimmering web of light.

Li Yu was just about to summon his companion beasts to begin the battle when he heard Chen Mo speak further.

“First, your mist,” he said calmly. “This is a Wind-Dispersing Formation. Your concealment arts are useless here.” A gentle but persistent wind began to blow across the platform, making it impossible for any fog to form.

“Second, your speed.” He clapped his hands again and the runes shifted. “This is a Gravity-Well Formation. The spiritual gravity on this platform is now ten times that of the outside world. Your evasive movements will be sluggish and predictable.”

Li Yu felt a heavy, invisible weight settle upon him. His «Rippling Shadow Step», which relied on light, fluid movements, was instantly rendered more difficult to perform.

“And finally,” Chen Mo said, a triumphant smile on his face, “your beasts. This is a Beast-Suppressing Earth-Prison Formation. It will not harm your companions but it will hamper their movements and suppress their spiritual energy. Now, Junior Brother Li, with your tricks neutralized, what will you do?”

The crowd murmured in appreciation. It was a masterful opening move. Chen Mo had analyzed his opponent and right at the beginning had created a battlefield perfectly tailored to counter all of Li Yu’s known abilities.

He was confident enough to let Li Yu know of his formations or else Li Yu wouldn’t have known they did or were called. A thoughtful move by Chen Mo who had considered this match all but won. He had done this in his other fights as well, always letting his opponent know which formations they were up against.

Li Yu looked at the complex web of formations. Then he looked at the confident, intelligent man who believed he had already won. A feeling of helplessness washed over him. He had no strategy for this. His mind was a blank slate when it came to formation arts. He had no idea how to dismantle this intricate prison. Thinking about it endlessly wasn’t going to give him the answer, he simply lacked the knowledge but he didn’t lack the strength. He only knew one thing to do when faced with a wall that you couldn’t think your way out of: hit it as hard as possible.

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Seeing that Chen Mo was waiting for him to act first, he summoned his two beasts. The moment he summoned his two beasts the Beast-Suppressing Formation flared into life. A heavy, earthy energy wrapped around Crimson, slowing its movements.

“Crimson,” he commanded through his link. “Smash it.”

Crimson was a creature of pure, draconic might. It let out a furious roar and it charged. It did not use a technique. It used its own, unadulterated, overwhelming physical strength. It slammed into the invisible barrier created by one of the black flags and with a sound like shattering glass the formation rune cracked and dimmed.

Chen Mo’s confident smile faltered, he wasn’t expecting that kind of power. His formation was designed to suppress, not to withstand a direct assault from a beast of such terrifying physical power.

“Lirael,” Li Yu’s second command. “Help him.”

Her instincts were not to smash but to find the weakness. She slithered across the platform, her form a blur, her golden eyes fixed on the glowing runes that made up the Gravity-Well Formation. An instinctual understanding of energy flow guiding her.

Li Yu was keeping his eyes on Chen Mo who was flickering from place to place on the platform. It was clear that there was another formation that he had set up that made it hard to find or detect where he was. They would have to break through several formations before they could get to him.

Crimson, with another furious roar charged from one black flag to the next, its every blow a thunderous crash that sent cracks spreading across the stone platform. It was a force of unstoppable destruction driven by its own draconic rage.

Lirael moved with an impossible grace, her every movement guided by her innate understanding of the elements. She would find a key nexus point in the Gravity-Well Formation’s runes and with a single, sharp tap of her silver horn, disrupt the flow of Qi. The heavy, oppressive gravity would flicker and die in one section of the platform only for her to move on to the next.

Chen Mo, his face now one of thought. He was a master of control, but his opponents were not playing his game. But he was indeed a true genius of strategy. Instead of trying to control the chaos, he adapted to it.

“You rely on brute force,” he said, his voice now calm and analytical. “But even the strongest beast has a weakness.” He ignored the graceful Lirael, who was dismantling his gravity field and focused his entire attention on the rampaging Crimson. He performed a new set of hand seals. “Formation Shift: Binding Chains of the Mountain!”

Li Yu tried to stop what he was doing by launching some ice blades at him but before they could reach him he was already in a different spot. He continued to chase after him but what he didn’t realize was that he was under an illusion array and he was chasing a ghost.

The Beast-Suppressing Formation, which Crimson had almost shattered, suddenly changed. Several new disks materialized in the air. The earthy yellow runes flared and thick and heavy chains of solidified earth energy erupted from the platform snaking around Crimson’s legs and body. The beast roared and thrashed, shattering several chains, but more and more appeared, wrapping around it, slowing it, binding it.

With Crimson bound, Chen Mo now focused his full attention on Lirael. He did not try to trap her. Instead, he created a new formation. A series of small explosive light arrays in her path. Lirael, with her serpentine grace, easily dodged them. However, she was being herded, forced away from the runes of the gravity field and away from Li Yu.

Chen Mo had successfully isolated all three of them.

He stood, his intricate battlefield now under his complete control, his face a mask of calm, intellectual superiority. He looked at Li Yu, who was standing on the platform launching ice blades at his illusions, his mind blank with no new strategy to offer.

After a while, Li Yu realized that he was making no progress and was never even able to come close to getting to Chen Mo. He looked over at his beast's companions, crimson bound and Lireal constantly retreating and realized that this battle was over. His lack of knowledge and experience with dealing with a formation expert was his ultimate downfall in this battle. He would have to learn from this and try to not let it happen again.

“I yield,” Li Yu said, the words a quiet admission of his complete and utter defeat. The fight was over. He had lost.

Li Yu recalled his two loyal beasts and gave a polite, respectful bow to his victorious opponent. Chen Mo returned his bow and gave him a smile. There was no bad blood between the two, only two disciples walking their paths.

As Li Yu walked off the platform, he met the gaze of Su Ling, who was watching him from the stands. She had expected a storm but nothing happened.

He had lost. He had been eliminated from the competition. But as he took his seat in the stands next to his worried friends, a strange sense of peace settled over him. The pressure to perform was gone. He was now back in his element, hidden in the shadows instead of the spotlight.

His journey in this competition was over but he was growing. He looked up at the central platform, where the semi-finals would take place, his eyes no longer those of a competitor but of a quiet, humble and very attentive student.