Lin Yi looked at him.
"That’s the rule," Han Yue said, and there was sothing in the way he said it that was not entirely genuine.
The crowd was watching. Several people had their datapads out. The extraction zone had beco a very public stage.
Lin Yi reached out. His hand closed around Han Yue’s left arm at the elbow, and he applied precise force to the specific joint point.
Han Yue’s breath changed.
Lin Yi increased the pressure increntally.
The sound Han Yue made was controlled, because he was genuinely trained, but it was present. His left arm bent at an angle that arms were not designed to sustain under external force.
With further pressure from Lin Yi, Han Yue couldn’t sustain it, and he gave in.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"I’m the sect leader," Han Yue said. It ca out through his teeth. "I’m the sect leader of the Dragon King Sect."
Lin Yi released the arm.
Han Yue grabbed his left arm with his right hand and held it against his chest. His breathing was elevated but controlled. He looked at Lin Yi with an expression that was no longer complicated. It was clear. The clarity of soone who had run the options and found only one path forward.
"Transfer everything," Lin Yi said.
The mont stretched. Around the extraction zone, forty-plus students watched in complete silence. The three sect mbers who had participated in the encirclent were in various states of non-participation. The one Lin Yi had told not to move had not moved. The first one, face-first on the stone, had gotten to a sitting position but was not standing. The second one was on his knees and had not straightened.
Han Yue opened his datapad with his right hand. His left arm he kept held against his chest. He navigated to the sect managent portal, found the score transfer function, and entered the destination sect.
Celestial Legion.
He confird the transfer amount. Total score. All of it.
He pressed submit.
Then, Lin Yi’s Datapad quickly notified:
[Score Transfer — Dragon King Sect to Celestial Legion]
Transfer Confird
Amount: [Dragon King Sect Full Score]
Celestial Legion — Score Updated
Sect Distribution: Applied to all mbers
The notifications appeared on every Celestial Legion mber’s datapad simultaneously. Shen Rou looked at the updated total. She looked at the number. She looked at Lin Yi. She looked at the number again.
Wang Hao received the sa notification. He read it. He looked at the extraction zone ceiling, which in this context was the sky above Celestial City. He exhaled slowly. "Right," he said.
The crowd around the extraction zone had absorbed everything. The silence had held for the duration of the exchange, but it was not the silence of people who had nothing to say. It was the silence of people who were collectively processing sothing they needed to say and hadn’t yet found the order to say it in.
Then it broke.
"He took Dragon King Sect’s entire score," soone said.
"Han Yue gave it to him," soone else said.
"He didn’t give it. He transferred it under—"
"He transferred it. That’s the sa thing at the academy scoring level."
"Did Lin Yi just break Han Yue’s arm?"
"He controlled the joint. It’s not broken. It’s a pressure technique."
"Han Yue fired the first shot. The arrow is right there in the crater."
"That’s a two-ter crater in the stone."
"Soone call the dical team."
"Han Yue’s team is calling them."
"How is Lin Yi not even breathing hard?"
Lin Yi looked at the crowd for a mont. Then he looked at Han Yue, who was sitting on the stone now, his left arm still held against his chest, the datapad in his right hand showing the completed transfer confirmation.
"The conversation you had with before you attacked," Lin Yi said. "Was any of it real?"
Han Yue looked up at him. He was quiet for a mont.
"All of it," he said. "I ant every word." He looked at the stone surface. "And I still did what I did."
Lin Yi looked at him for a mont longer. Then he turned away.
Wang Hao fell in beside him as he moved toward the transit vehicles. Shen Rou ca from the other direction, joining the formation, her datapad still in her hand. The crowd parted as they moved through it, not dramatically, just with the natural adjustnt of people who have seen sothing and are giving the involved parties space.
"Brother Lin," Wang Hao said, quietly, once they were past the crowd’s edge.
"Yes."
"The score we just received from Dragon King Sect." Wang Hao looked at his datapad one more ti. "Combined with the dungeon output." He paused. "The ranking update tomorrow is going to be sothing."
"Yes," Lin Yi said.
"How high?" Wang Hao said.
Shen Rou looked up from her datapad. She had been running the projection since the transfer notification appeared.
"If the weighting calculations apply as expected," she said, "Celestial Legion will rank eight or sixth among all sects in the academy." She paused. "Possibly higher."
Wang Hao absorbed this. "From unranked to sixth or eighth," he said. "In one dungeon event."
"And one transfer," Shen Rou said.
"From an ambush," Wang Hao said. "That he started." He shook his head. "Brother Lin, I need you to understand that what just happened is going to be the only thing anyone in this academy talks about for the next week."
Behind them, the dical team had reached the extraction zone. The crowd remained, most of them not moving toward the transit vehicles yet, the conversation running in every direction at once. Han Yue sat where he was while the dic assessed his arm, his expression carrying the specific quality of soone who had made a choice that produced a result they had intellectually understood was possible but had not emotionally prepared for.
The transit vehicle doors opened ahead. Lin Yi boarded. Wang Hao boarded behind him. Shen Rou took the seat across the aisle.
The vehicle pulled away from the extraction zone.
Tomorrow, the ranking would update.
And Celestial Legion, three mbers, founded four days ago, currently ranked sixth or eighth in the academy on a score total that had been unranked seventy-two hours ago, would continue to be a starting point.
Lin Yi looked at the Celestial City skyline through the vehicle window.
He was not done.
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