The morning of the Astra League did not arrive with a sunrise; it arrived with a spatial hemorrhage. Above the stadium in xxxxxxxxxxx, India, the sky tore itself open like a wet paper bag, revealing the jagged, neon-lit seams of the higher realms. The Heavenly Demon Cult's carriages, carved from the bones of abyss-dragons and pulled by nightmare-steeds with burning hooves, parked themselves on invisible clouds. Disciples from the Plum Blossom Sect followed, descending on shimmering trails of falling pink petals that smelled faintly of ozone and ancient arrogance.
Down on the cracked asphalt of the loading docks, a dented white delivery truck with a missing hubcap groaned to a halt. Harish hopped out of the passenger seat, his grey "Astra Staff" jumpsuit slightly too big for his frame, making him look like a malnourished janitor. He was lugging a heavy crate labeled "Industrial Lubricant—Non-Flammable," his face a mask of profound, soul-deep boredom.
"Move it, intern! You're blocking the aura-path!" a Knight of the Rose barked, her silver hair shimmering under her open visor. She stood six feet tall, draped in enchanted porcelain plate, radiating a pressure that made the nearby air shimmer. "The Immortals are walking here! One step from a Sect Elder could turn your marrow into lead!"
"Right, sorry," Harish muttered, wiping a streak of grease onto his thigh. "Just trying to get the 'Steel Logic' set up for the arena floor. Don't mind me. I'm just a guy with a crate."
He shuffled into the maintenance tunnels, the darkness swallowing the sight of his worn-down sneakers. Inside the crate, there was no masterpiece of alien technology visible to the naked eye—just a bubbling, viscous pool of matte-gold liquid. These were the nanobots Harish had "borrowed" from the Floor 25 junkyard. They didn't need a spray can; they needed a directive.
In the soaring VIP stands of Arena 12, a group of high-level analysts and seasoned mercenaries leaned over the railing, their eyes darting between the holographic feeds of the twenty different arenas.
"Did you see the entry list for Arena 7?" whispered Silas, a scarred veteran whose left arm had been replaced by a steam-hissing brass prosthetic. "It's a graveyard. We've got the Young Master of the Heavenly Demon Cult, Gwan-mo. The kid has a 'Black-Sun' physique. Last year, he accidentally melted a training hall because he was frustrated with his breakfast."
"Forget Gwan-mo," replied Jaxon, a data-broker with greasy hair and a hoodie that clung to his sweat-drenched frame. Jaxon avoided mirrors because they reminded him of his own "negligible" mana rating, so he lived vicariously through the betting pools. "Look at the 'Elemental Spirit' manifestation in the third seed. That's a sentient Gale-Fire. It doesn't have a heartbeat, just a combustion cycle. How is anyone supposed to fight a literal forest fire with a sword?"
"And then there's the 'Gold Knight' from Astra Industries," Silas laughed, a raspy sound like sandpaper on stone. "I heard a rumor from a guy in the logistics wing. He said the Astra representative arrived in a delivery truck. A truck! No dragon-steeds, no petal-paths. Just a four-cylinder diesel engine. The wild theories are already starting. Some people think Astra Industries is a front for a dead God who got reincarnated as a venture capitalist. Others say the 'Gold Knight' is a puppet controlled by a Zero-Logic virus that eats mana for breakfast."
"If that tin-can survives thirty seconds against Gwan-mo, I'll eat my brass hand," Silas scoffed. "Look at the Heavenly Demon's movement. He's not even touching the ground. He's hovering on a layer of 'Sinister Intent.' To him, physical armor is just a fancy coffin."
"Wait," Jaxon leaned in, his eyes bulging as he checked his tablet. "The GSC just activated the 'Void-Curtain' dampening field for Arena 7. They say it's to prevent the contestants from accidentally leveling the city, but it cuts mana-efficiency by 90%. It's a literal dead-zone. It's essentially a fist-fight now."
"A fist-fight with a Demon?" Silas whistled. "That's not an audit. That's an execution."
The buzzer screamed—a piercing, metallic wail that signaled the start of the "Great Sieve."
In Arena 7, the environment was a scorched stone platform surrounded by a shimmering blue mana-dampening field. Young Master Gwan-mo stood in the center, his black robes billowing in an invisible wind. He looked at the Gold Knight, who had just stepped onto the sand.
To the audience, the Knight looked like a solid piece of gold-plated steel. In reality, the "armor" was a swarm of billions of nanobots, each one a microscopic worker maintaining a "Zero-Logic" barrier.
"A knight?" Gwan-mo's voice dripped with aristocratic disdain. "Astra Industries sent a museum piece to fight a Demon? Does your pilot know that my 'Demonic Sovereignty' can rot steel with a glance?"
Harish, inside the suit, didn't answer. He didn't use a flashy "Origin Stance" or ignite a Phoenix aura. He simply dropped his center of gravity, sinking into a wide, rock-solid Kiba-dachi (Horse Stance). His feet ground into the stone, his weight distributed with the cold precision of a structural engineer.
A Barbarian Warrior from the Frozen North, a man seven feet tall with a chest like a beer keg and an axe the size of a tavern door, saw the "slow" knight as an easy mark. He lunged, his axe whistling through the air in a horizontal cleave meant to part the Knight from his waist.
Harish didn't dodge. He didn't use a spatial blink. He stepped into the strike, his left arm rising in a perfect Jodan-Age-Uke (Rising Block).
CLANG.
The sound was deafening. Because of the dampening field, the Barbarian's "Primal Will" flickered and died. The impact was pure physics. Harish's arm didn't buckle; the nanobots in his gauntlet instantly rearranged their molecular lattice into a diamond-hard structure at the point of impact.
Harish shoved upward, the leverage of his stance snapping the Barbarian's wrists back. Before the giant could recover, Harish's right fist shot forward in a textbook Oi-Zuki (Straight Punch).
The gauntlet hit the Barbarian's solar plexus. There was no explosion of fire—just the sickening crunch of displaced air and breaking ribs. The seven-foot warrior was launched backward, skidding sixty feet across the arena like a skipped stone, leaving a trail of shattered stone in his wake.
"Efficiency," Harish's voice echoed hollowly inside the helmet. "You're swinging from the shoulder. You've lost your center."
The Gale-Fire Spirit shrieked, transforming into a lance of white-hot flame. It shot toward the Knight. Harish simply exhaled. He performed a sharp, downward Gedan-Barai (Downward Block). The nanobots on the surface of his arm vibrated at a frequency that canceled the thermal energy of the flame, snuffing the spirit's leading edge like a candle in a gale.
While Harish was performing high-school karate on immortals, his acquaintances were drowning in their own chaos.
In Arena 12, Takeo—the "Sultan of the Shop"—was facing a Murim Poison Master. Takeo was sweating, his oversized hoodie damp and clinging to his back.
"You think poison works on a guy who survived Harish's expired milk?" Takeo muttered. He dodged a spray of purple needles by a hair's breadth.
"Master told me," Takeo whispered, "that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and a punch is just a line with an attitude."
Takeo lunged, a desperate haymaker. Because he was "Zero-Logic" like Harish, the Poison Master's "Ethereal Shift" failed to register him as a threat. Takeo's fist connected with the Master's jaw with a loud thwack.
"I did it!" Takeo screamed, tripping over his own feet. "Master! I'm doing the thing!"
In Arena 3, Kaelen stood behind her Porcelain Mask. She was a violet-gold blur, her Phoenix bloodline singing. She was facing three "Barbarian Tribesmen" at once.
'Harish said... flare your elbow... no, tuck it,' Kaelen thought. She parried an axe. 'He said a tool is only as good as its alignment. If I am the tool... then I am the sun.'
She struck out, her palm carrying the "Sun-Breaker" weight Harish had corrected. The air didn't just blast; it cracked. The three barbarians were blown back by a shockwave so sharp it cut their leather armor.
Back in Arena 7, the final buzzer sounded. Out of 150 elite warriors, only five remained standing. In the center stood the Gold Knight. His nanobot armor was shimmering, shedding heat like a cooling engine.
He reached up, the grinding sound of microscopic gears echoing through the stadium's microphones. He tapped the external speaker on his neck.
"The audit of the first round is complete," the Knight announced. The voice was the calm, slightly irritated tone of a man who has just found an error in a tax return. "To the GSC, the High Clans, and the Sects... you are all profoundly inefficient. You rely on the atmosphere to carry your strength because you lack the discipline to carry it in your bones."
The crowd gasped. Gwan-mo, the Heavenly Demon Young Master, climbed to his feet. "Who are you to judge us, puppet?"
Harish stepped forward. Every step of his heavy boots cracked the reinforced stone floor.
"My name is dollar," Harish announced. "And Astra Industries is now officially open for business. If you want to learn how to fight without wasting the world's mana, my office hours are 9 to 5. We're currently offering a 10% discount on 'Basic Reality' lessons."
In the VIP booth, Vikas Agnihotri dropped his wine glass. "Dollar?! The one from the Tower?!"
Beside him, Vikramaditya Agnihotri hid a smile. "It appears so, my son. It seems your 'peasant' tech-boy has very powerful friends."
In the back-alley betting dens, the rumors exploded.
"It's the 'Steel Path'!" a gambler shouted. "He has found a way to bridge the gap between Modern Logic and Ancient Will. He didn't use mana because he is the mana. Every atom of that armor is a separate soul he's enslaved!"
Harish, meanwhile, was walking back to the maintenance tunnel. He needed to check if the refrigerator compressor had arrived yet.
"Master!" Takeo's voice screamed through the comms. "I won! I punched a guy!"
"That's nice, Takeo," Harish sighed. "But did you remember to lock the back door of the shop? I don't want someone stealing the dented biscuits while we're out. Those are for the Sunday sale."