After the individual battles ended, next came the team collaboration event.
All the teams gathered in the center of the arena while the examiner loudly read out the team collaboration rules. Xuan Xi noted the sizes of the surrounding teams—most had three or four members.
She and Sigrdrífa stood at the very edge of the formation. Just the two of them. They looked utterly isolated.
“Is that the Grand Lady of Edelstein and her partner?”
“Just two people? Are they crazy?”
“The team event is a five-team mixed-fight flag capture. How can two people defend and capture flags?”
“I heard that partner doesn’t even have a rank. She beat Derek in the individual event—probably just luck. There’s no luck in a team fight.”
“No matter how strong Edelstein is, she’s only one dragon. What can two people do?”
The examiner finished reading the rules and began checking the team rosters. When he read out “Hildegarda von Edelstein, Xuanxi Hellas,” he looked up at the two of them.
“Are you sure you want to participate as a two-person team?” His tone carried a subtle question. “The team collaboration is a five-team free-for-all. Each team has three to four members. A two-person team will be at a clear numerical disadvantage. Are you sure?”
“We’re sure,” Sigrdrífa said.
Once those words were spoken, there was no room for reconsideration. Xuan Xi glanced at her sideways. Sigrdrífa’s face was as expressionless as ever, but Xuan Xi noticed that her right hand was in her pocket, her fingers curling slightly.
The rules of the mixed-fight flag capture were simple: five teams were deployed into the same simulated battlefield. Each team had its own base and flag. Capturing flags earned points, defending flags earned points too. The team with the highest score within the time limit won.
The simulated battlefield was a complex terrain—an open central area surrounded by forests, hills, and rivers. The five teams’ bases were scattered along the edge of the battlefield in a five-pointed star layout.
Xuan Xi and Sigrdrífa’s base was on a small hill in the northeast corner.
The teleportation light faded. Xuan Xi opened her eyes and found herself standing on a wooden platform. In the center of the platform stood a flagpole, with a deep blue flag flapping loudly in the wind. Thick woods surrounded them, and in the distance, light pillars could be seen rising from the direction of the other bases.
Sigrdrífa stood beside her, scanning the terrain.
“I’ll go capture flags,” she said. “You just guard the base.”
“You’re going alone?”
“Your footwork is suited for defense, and my attributes are suited for offense.” Sigrdrífa’s words came a little faster than usual, showing that her mind was working at high speed. “In a five-team free-for-all, if someone attacks, you hold them off. I’ll capture the flags and be right back.”
Xuan Xi thought for a moment, then nodded. “How long will you be?”
“Ten minutes is enough.” With that, Sigrdrífa turned and vanished into the woods.
Xuan Xi stood beside the flagpole and took a deep breath. From a distance came the roar of battle—flames, frost, thunderbolts, all kinds of elements intertwined. Some were attacking, some defending, some chasing.
And she stood here alone, guarding a single flag.
It wasn’t long before the first wave of attack came.
It was a full team—a four-person squad that burst out of the western woods all at once. The leader was an earth-element male, followed by a wind-element, an ice-element, and a fire-element.
Four against one. There was almost no chance of winning.
“Just one person?” The leader saw Xuan Xi and curled his lips into a disdainful smirk. “Where’s Edelstein? Did she ditch you and run off on her own?”
Xuan Xi didn’t answer. She lowered her center of gravity slightly, letting her hands hang naturally at her sides.
“Let’s make this quick.” The leader waved his hand. “Grab the flag.”
All four moved at once. The earth-element male slammed his palms against the ground, and an earthen wall rose up before Xuan Xi, blocking her view. The wind-element circled around from the side, fast as a shadow. The ice-element and fire-element pressed in from the front, weaving flames and ice spikes into a deadly net.
Xuan Xi didn’t retreat. She couldn’t.
She leaped, vaulting over the top of the stone wall. By the time she landed, she was already between the ice-element and fire-element. Her footwork reached its peak in that cramped space—supple as a serpent, impossibly agile.
But four against one—the gap in strength was still too great.
She drove back the ice-element, and fire swept in from the side. She dodged the flames, only for the wind-element’s attack to be right in her face. She blocked the wind-element, and the earth-element’s stone walls rose up behind her, cutting off her escape.
In less than two minutes, she had been forced to the edge of the base. The flagpole was less than five meters behind her.
But she couldn’t get to it. The four worked in perfect sync, clearly having rehearsed tactics for defending a flag. Earth sealed off her movement, ice and fire suppressed the front, while wind waited for an opening to snatch the flag.
Xuan Xi’s breathing grew ragged. Her stamina drained rapidly. Blisters rose on her arm from the flames. A cut opened on her calf from an ice spike, and blood dripped down her ankle to the ground.
But she couldn’t let anyone near the flagpole. Alone, she held off their relentless attacks.
Seven minutes. Sig would be back soon. But her body could no longer endure—her leg was slammed hard by the earth-element’s stone wall, and she collapsed onto her knees beneath the flagpole.
The fire-element’s flames flared in front of her. The ice-element’s spikes had locked onto her. The wind-element had circled behind her and reached out for the flagpole.
Xuan Xi had already closed her eyes. Just as she was about to give up, she felt something. A warm current inside her—the river course she had been clearing every day with the Breathing Method—suddenly surged. Not a gentle flow, but like a dam breaking, it burst from her Dantian and rushed through her meridians to every limb and joint.
She heard the sound of water. Water inside her body. In her blood, in her bones, in every cell.
Water. Water was everywhere between heaven and earth.
The moisture in the air, the dew in the woods, the underground streams, the roar of the distant river—everything rushed toward her.
She opened her eyes. In her amber-gold pupils, a blue light swirled.
She raised her hand. Not to attack, but to call upon the water. A Water Wall rose before her.
Xuan Xi condensed the Water Wall from the water element in the air. In an instant, the vapor turned to liquid, drawn by her will to form a three-meter-high curved barrier that blocked the flames and ice spikes.
The fire-element’s flames struck the Water Wall with a hiss, sending steam billowing. The ice-element’s spikes plunged into the wall and vanished as if swallowed.
The entire arena went silent. The wind-element dragon who had circled behind the flagpole had already touched it. But the appearance of the Water Wall made him freeze. Stiffly, he turned his head to look at Xuan Xi.
Xuan Xi stood up. A faint blue aura enveloped her like a thin film of water. The moisture in the air condensed into fine droplets around her, floating in midair, refracting rainbow-colored light in the sun.
“Water…” someone in the stands blurted out. “She’s water-element!”
“A water-element dragon? The water attribute has been extinct among the Western Dragon Race for over a hundred years!”
“Impossible! Doesn’t she have no Bloodline Rating?”
“Who dares to say she has no bloodline now? She’s water-element! A genuine water-element!”
Xuan Xi didn’t hear those voices. She only heard one sound—the sound of silver-white thunder light cutting through the air from afar.
Sigrdrífa was back. She burst out of the woods, silver-white hair streaming in the wind. In her left hand, she carried a dark red flag, and tucked under her arm were two more.
Three flags. In just ten minutes, she had captured flags from three different teams.
But the moment she saw Xuan Xi, her expression changed.
It was a shock that Sig had rarely shown. Her lips parted slightly, and in her amethyst eyes was reflected the faint blue aura around Xuan Xi.
Water. Xuan Xi was a water-element dragon.
Xuan Xi looked at Sigrdrífa and curved her lips. “You’re back.”
Sigrdrífa didn’t answer. She thrust the three flags in next to the blue flag, then turned to face the four-person team.
Silver-white thunder light flickered around her.
“Just watch from the sidelines,” she said. “I’ll handle the rest.”
The four-person team had already paled at the sight of the three flags. Then, when they saw the thunder light flaring all over Sigrdrífa, their faces went completely white.
The earth-element leader opened his mouth as if to say something.
Sigrdrífa didn’t give him the chance. The thunder light exploded.
Silver-white arcs shot from her palms, splitting into more than a dozen small Thunder Serpents that accurately bypassed Xuan Xi and the flagpole to strike the ground at each of their feet. It was a warning—thunder bloomed at their soles, leaving scorched black marks.
“You can keep going.” Sigrdrífa’s voice wasn’t loud, but every word was as cold as ice. “But think about the consequences. I won’t hold back.”
The four exchanged glances. “We surrender!”
Then they turned and fled without a moment’s hesitation.
Xuan Xi watched their backs disappear into the woods and suddenly let out a laugh.
“You scared them off.”
“I don’t think so.” Sigrdrífa dismissed the thunder light and turned to face her.
Those amethyst eyes stared at the faint blue aura around Xuan Xi for a long, long time.