268 Chapter 268: United Fron

"Where the fuck are you?!" Ji Xuan bellowed into the forest. Even though there was obviously no reply, he continued ranting and railing. "Cowards! Come out here and face me! I took the trouble of presenting myself in the open! The least you could do is fight me!"

The idiot thought he was entitled to a "fair" fight just because he exposed himself in the open? Never mind that he still had about fifteen dudes under his command, and they outnumbered the two of us by almost eight to one. Did he really think we would accept him having a numerical advantage and confront him on his terms?

While Lilith and I could simply summon our Soul Beasts before we walked right into the trap, I was sure the enemy would have prepared countermeasures for our summoned creatures too. They probably had spirit arrays or formations cast over their area of choosing, and the moment we stepped into the range of the array or formation, a large-scale spell – not too dissimilar to my so-called strategic-level spells – would be cast immediately and wipe both the summoners and their summoned beasts in one shot.

What? You think the protagonists would be the only ones allowed to prepare? As a side note, this was exactly why tournaments banned the use of spells or summons before the match began. If summoners were allowed to summoned their Soul Beasts outside the match and bring them into the arena, then why weren't other mages allowed to finish casting their large-scale or strategic-scale spells? Why wouldn't other mages be allowed to bring in their completed spirit arrays and formations? The matches would end in one second, with both large-scale spells clashing and obliterating everyone within the vicinity. It would be mutual destruction. It was the same logic as why students were not allowed to bring their textbooks and notes into an examination. If you could already prepare and finish casting your best spells right before the match began, and unleashed them immediately from the first second (and your opponent too), then what was the point of having the match in the first place? To see whose best spell was more powerful?

Not to mention, you weren't always going to be prepared when you go into the battlefield. The enemy could attack you while you were still in the convoy, moving from one place to another, while you haven't cast any spells. It was impractical to expect summoners to maintain the existence of their Soul Beasts 24/7 in the material world because it would be far too draining for them, and consumed more mana than they could afford. Similarly, you couldn't just complete the casting of a spell and hold it indefinitely. There was an expiry date, sort of, and if you didn't just cast the spell after a few hours, the casting would be reset. Same with summoning.

Too many readers just jumped into the comments, complaining about why people didn't abuse the system. It wasn't because the characters and I were stupid. It was because we couldn't abuse the system, there were already rules established in place. But they didn't care. So many readers only wanted to read about how the overpowered Mary Sue protagonist exploited the system and started cursing him as stupid when he didn't do as they directed. They weren't the ones living in this world and had no idea how it worked, yet they had the gall to think they were smarter than the protagonist and could tell him what to do.

Ji Xuan was similar in that way, I supposed. Always looking for ways to exploit the system, and then raging when nothing went his way. Like now.

"COME OUT AND FIGHT ME, YOU COWARDS!"

That amused me. I honestly didn't care if he thought I was a coward and labeled me as such. The hypocrisy was just too delicious to savor. Can you imagine? He called us cowards for not facing him in the open, yet this was the very same guy who chose to hide for so long until now, who relied on sheer numbers to gang up and bully other people – he literally sent thirty dudes after two people – and the very same guy who continued to hide behind his lackeys, even now. Even if we showed up to fight, we would have to get through the fifteen ninja dudes who were ordered by contract to protect him before we could actually engage him in combat. No doubt he didn't expect to dirty his hands and believed we would fall to his hired assassins before we could reach him.

And this guy called us cowards? Wow. The hypocrisy was just amusing.

Anyway, Lilith and I left him raging where he was, and continued to survive in the forest. By now, there weren't many other students left in the Spiritual Road, so I wasn't able to record much of their fights. Furthermore, they seemed less interested in fighting against each other than they were in eliminating the single biggest threat that remained.

"Over here!" Someone called out to us with a wave. Apparently, there was a gathering among the majority of the survivors, and they were meeting in a clearing that was pretty far from the place that Ji Xuan and his Assassins selected for their final battleground.

"What's going on?" I wondered out loud. Lilith shrugged.

"I say we go check it out."

"Uh, okay." I doubted this would be a trap. Unlike Ji Xuan and his cronies, the other students in the Spiritual Road held no grudge against me. What, did you think I'm some cultivation or xianxia protagonist who somehow made an enemy of everybody I met just by the virtue of existing? That every single person in the world would look at me, somehow start frothing in the mouth and ranting about how I was trash, or for some inane reason get jealous of me either because I somehow have treasures, skills or maybe because I was simply being accompanied by beautiful women?

Nah, humans are not that superficial or one-dimensional. They didn't exist just to hate on the protagonist and give him justification to beat them up or kill them. The world didn't revolve around me. Most of the time, the other people in the world didn't even know I existed, or if they did, they couldn't care less. If I didn't offend them, then they had no reason to hate me or pick on me like every other antagonist in cultivation and xianxia novels.

Lilith, on the other hand, turned out to be very famous. A few of the students in the clearing gaped in shock and awe when she showed up in the clearing.

"The Hellfire Bear goddess!"

"The princess of the Porter clan!"

"The Holy Maiden of the Porter clan!"

That was quite a lot of titles. I wished people would decide on one. Okay, maybe the princess and Holy Maiden thing weren't titles, but more of a reference to her status. From what I knew, Lilith certainly was the next in line to inherit the leader position from her grandfather, so calling her a princess was not wholly inaccurate.

I didn't know about the Holy Maiden thing, and Lilith avoided answering when I asked her about it. The only thing she told me was that "Luo Li was considered the Holy Maiden of the Luo Clan, and since I'm based off her, the author randomly gave me that status for no reason other than because he wanted to rip off The Great Ruler."

I guess I should prepare for the inevitable event where I met the Nine Nether Sparrow and accidentally absorb her, and have her caged in my qi sea or mana sea or whatever. Nah…like hell I'm going to copy The Great Ruler.

"Who's the guy next to her?"

"Oh, I know him. Isn't he the guy with the strategic-scale spells and the one who defeated the Invincible Goddess of War?"

"Ah…now that you mention it…"

I resisted the temptation to mention that if Cecilia Stuart had been defeated, then she surely was no longer the "Invincible" Goddess of War. Not just me, but she lost to Shawn Franklin as well.

Speaking of which…

"It's been a while." Cecilia waved toward me. She was accompanied by a few familiar faces. I didn't see Hal Gunther, thankfully, but I recognized Chang Cheng and Doug Daniels. The latter waved at me, and I responded with a bow.

"Yeah. I hope you've been well."

"Oh? You know each other?" Kureha Franklin sounded surprised. For some reason, she was close to Cecilia. I remembered that she, Cecilia and Alicia were all friends or something, so I wasn't shocked that they were together even though they were from different academies.

"Yeah." Cecilia nodded, and then frowned. "I thought you already knew that."

"Oh, right. He's the first guy who defeated you." Kureha nodded. She then turned to Lilith with a raised eyebrow. "And you're…Lilith Porter?"

"Nice to meet you, Miss Kureha."

"Yes, indeed…this is the first time we've met."

While the girls conversed and socialized, I caught sight of familiar faces. Breaking into a grin, I strode over to their positions.

"Harrison! Theodore! You guys are here!"

"Of course." Harrison nodded, smiling briefly when he saw me approaching them. He and Theodore began making their way toward me.

"I knew you wouldn't go down so easily." Theodore grinned as he placed a hand on my shoulder. "It's great to see you."

"Where are Craig and Lily?" I asked, glancing around. I was astounded by their absence. I thought they would be with Harrison and Theodore. Come to think of it, I didn't see the dudes we rescued at the start of the Spiritual Road.

Harrison and Theodore shared a grim look before shaking their heads.

"They didn't make it. They were eliminated quite some time ago."

Harrison lowered his head. Theodore gritted his teeth as he raised an angry fist.

"Those ninja bastards…working under that Ji Xuan fucker. They systematically took us out one group at a time so that he can dominate the Spiritual Road and place the whole forest under his control. We barely escaped with our blood tokens."

"Damn…"

I sighed and shook my head. That Ji Xuan…he would pay for this. Actually, wasn't what he was doing against the rules? Since when could you infiltrate a bunch of Assassins on your payroll into a training camp and use them against the other competitors?

But the teachers and the people in charge of the Spiritual Road weren't taking any action against him, so they didn't regard this as a breach of the rules? How was this fair?

"What about you? It seems like you've ended up allying with the Porter princess and surviving against Ji Xuan's attacks." Harrison sounded impressed when he glanced in her direction. Lilith was still speaking to the other girls at the moment.

"Yeah, I ran into her when she was being attacked by Ji Xuan's cronies, helped her out, and we had to band together to survive." I shrugged. "For some reason, he's really obsessed with capturing her, so I couldn't just leave her alone."

"Oh, yeah. I heard about it too." Theodore nodded. "We heard through the grapevine that Ji Xuan was focusing on the Holy Maiden of the Porter clan particularly. People were saying he was enthralled by her beauty and wants her to be his woman or something like that."

"Disgusting." Harrison's lip curled. "Good thing you were there, or Miss Lilith Porter would have suffered horribly."

"I'm sure she could have taken care of the enemies on her own, even if I wasn't present." I waved his words away. "And I'm sorry. If I didn't get lost and manage to meet up with you guys, maybe we wouldn't have lost Craig and Lily."

"Dude, don't talk as if they were dead. I'm sure they are fine. They just got teleported out of here when their blood tokens were taken."

We weren't given much time to catch up, for the person who organized the gathering finally spoke up.

"Thank you all for answering my call."

He was a good looking guy with blond hair and blue eyes. For some reason, he reminded me of a prince. He was dressed in similarly flamboyant fashion, in white and blue flowing knightly robes and shiny armor. A white tiger crest was emblazoned over the side of his silver breastplate, its claws raised even as it roared amidst a backdrop of a single gigantic lightning bolt.

"The prodigy of the Lacroix Clan," Harrison whispered. "Charles Lacroix. He's well known for his knightly qualities, superlative swordsmanship and lightning magic. He's also a very charismatic leader who has led his team to several victories in the national tournament. They were the ones who won last year."

"All of you have been through plenty of hardship in the Spiritual Road." Charles's voice was resonant and almost melodious, thoroughly capturing the attention of everyone in the clearing. His eyes sparkled with sincerity. The guy was an amazing speaker, and I understood why Harrison's mention of his charisma. I found myself inexplicably drawn to him, hanging onto his every word. "Many of you have been persecuted, hunted and attacked…particularly by a despicable person who practically cheated by hiring a group of Assassins and having them infiltrate the Spiritual Road for his selfish reasons. Regardless of whether what he has done is against the rules, the fact remains that his group is now in complete control of the Spiritual Road."

I wondered about that. I noticed that there were over a hundred students gathered in this clearing. In contrast, Ji Xuan had no more than fifteen Assassins under his command. Honestly, there was no way he could dominate the Spiritual Road now, what with his forces now completely outnumbered by the very people he hunted.

"And now…this man, Ji Xuan, has audaciously issued a challenge and invited one of our number to attack him openly. He has a force of about fifteen Assassins under his command, and awaits her to accept his challenge." Charles nodded in the direction of Lilith, who looked pretty unhappy. Not at Charles's revelation, but at Ji Xuan's stupidity. Charles smiled charmingly as he swept his eyes across the gathered students over a hundred strong. "I say we accept the challenge and attack Ji Xuan and his group together."

"YEAH!"

Everyone roared in approval.

"Everyone here has suffered in one way or another at the hands of Ji Xuan. I'm sure you've gathered here today because you hold a vendetta against him and rightly so. He has openly flouted the rules or exploited the Spiritual Road for his own gains and impudently assaulted us, against the spirit of this training camp, and against the code of chivalry. Not only that, he openly declared his lecherous intentions and attempted to abduct a lady to satiate his nefarious desires. He must be punished for his insolence."

"YEAH!"

"I'm glad you all agree with me." Charles smiled and bowed his head gratefully. "And with that, I would like to invite all of you to work together with me to crush this tyrant once and for all. No longer shall we cower in fear from his assassins! No longer shall ladies have to dread about his unsavory lust! Since he has revealed himself and openly issued a challenge, we shall accept it, and eliminate him once and for all!"

"Finally." Theodore sounded satisfied, even as the students gathered here shouted and cheered. "I'm going to help Craig and Lily get their revenge."

"I'm with you," I agreed as I glanced around at the applauding students. "But I think this is going to be overkill."