282 Chapter 282: Training against Hell Beasts

Even though we wanted revenge on Diego for hurting Theodore, we couldn't just beat him up. That would make us no better than us. And stop calling us spineless or weak-willed or stupid. This is being mature. Once some of you readers grow up and realize that violence is not the solution to everything, and that you have to be a responsible adult in society, you will understand that you do not go around attacking people for revenge over hurting your friends or you.

If you really want justice (which is very different from revenge), contact the authorities. Which was what we did, so Diego got punished. I didn't know the details of his punishment, but needless to say he never provoked Jing Tian Academy or any of the other schools during the rest of the exchange session again.

Returning to the present, as promised, we showed in the gymnasium the next day because of Lilith's invitation for us to run a practice match against her Hell Beast team. Everyone was fired up and excited over the match, especially since we knew what kind of reputation the Hell Beast team possessed. They were known as the strongest team in the northern provinces of the Federation for a very good reason, and their team captain belonged to one of the ten Great Families.

Having both fought with and against Lilith, I was also keenly aware of her power. I would put us at one win and one defeat apiece. She was definitely not someone we could afford to underestimate. The only chance for us to win was to prevent her from summoning Kagutsuchi, otherwise it would be extremely difficult.

As of now, I doubted Draco could defeat Kagutsuchi. There was always the nuclear option, but I would end up nuking myself along with her and resulting in mutual defeat. Seriously, would you detonate a nuke while you were still in the vicinity? Not to mention, my strategic-scale spell was so powerful it would obliterate the boundary field and render its enchantments ineffective, which would kill not just me and Lilith but probably everyone in the audience as well. Half of the city would be blown into oblivion, never mind the whole school.

Even so, Harrison seemed to have a plan, and after listening to him, all of us had some measure of confidence. Besides, it was just a practice match. It was all right to lose, but obviously we intended to go all out and do our best to win.

"Hello, Jing Tian! Everyone's so early!"

Lilith was astonished to see our team already waiting inside the arena. She arrived with her own team, which comprised of five people, including herself. The two who stood beside her, in particular, were very familiar.

"I'm sure you all already know Riley and Brutus." Lilith smiled as she introduced her teammates. I nodded, having exchanged a few words with them over the past few days, and they also showed up to talk to us yesterday night, at the restaurant. Riley waved in a friendly manner and Brutus nodded politely. Lilith then gestured toward her other teammates. "So let me introduce our other teammates in the Hell Beasts team's main lineup. We have the Assassin, Victor, and Kassim, who provides long-ranged support."

"Hello, everyone!"

Both of them greeted us. Victor, in particular, resembled a Frenzor Assassin, what with those muscles and burly figure. So he was more into shock assaults, terror tactics and overwhelming strength to kill rather than stealthy subterfuge. The dark-skinned Kassim, on the other hand, had a lean figure and was wearing a turban of some sort, probably indicating his Sikh or Muslim origins. He was a lot more reserved, clasping his hands and lowering his head as he greeted us. His white teeth sparkled against his olive flesh.

"All of them are pretty strong, you know?"

"I don't doubt that." Craig grinned in anticipation. "I'm itching to test my skills against them."

"All right, that's enough for introductions!" Lilith was also rubbing her hands in glee. Evidently Hell Beasts team was just as enthusiastic as we were. "Let's get started!"

"Yeah!"

After everyone cheered, we began the match.

Harrison had elected to put Craig, Sheila, Theodore and me in the team, and he personally led us against Lilith and her team. There were quite a few students watching the match eagerly, wondering who would win. It was only natural. A team with the reputation of the Hell Beasts' would definitely draw a lot of attention from the other schools.

"Wait, we aren't skipping the fight scene and going straight to our after-match discussion?" Lilith asked, confused. "Where Richard starts analyzing my Hellfire Bear and giving me advice on how to improve my use of it?"

"…lady, you really have to stop confusing this story with Battle Frenzy. And I'm not Wang Zhong. How the fuck would I know how to improve the way you use your Hellfire Bear? And besides, don't you have Kagutsuchi? Your Hellfire Bear is already quite the formidable foe. If it's not enough, then just nuke everyone with Kagutsuchi!"

"I'm surprised you even know what she's talking about," Harrison remarked dryly. "I have enough of people breaking the fourth wall."

"Better get used to it," Theodore told him kindly, placing a hand gently on our team captain's shoulder. "As long as you hang out with Richard, you'll get used to it eventually."

"…seriously?"

"Whatever! Let's just begin the match!"

Blushing furiously from embarrassment, Lilith cast a fire spell. At her signal, her teammates immediately lunged forward, coordinating their attacks. Most of them, anyway – Kassim stayed back and summoned his gigantic cannon, and then he began bombarding our position.

"Scutum Sobiescianum!" I shouted, summoning the Constellation shield to protect us from his attacks. Under cover of my hovering Constellation shield, my teammates lunged forward to meet the other team in combat.

Theodore swung his thunder hammer at Brutus, who raised his gauntlets to parry the strike. There was a clap of thunder and deadly electricity rippled from the two of them, even as a crater opened up beneath Brutus's feet. Grunting, the big guy shoved the thunder guy back, but Theodore regained his balance quickly and countered with his hammer once more. Lightning erupted from the collision of their armaments, almost blinding me and the others.

I saw Craig and Sheila moving to engage Kassim, but Victor was up to the task, sneaking upon them from the shadows before unleashing a powerful attack. However, Craig responded reflexively, spinning around to parry his power sword. Arcane energies crackled as demonic spear met the power field of the glowing sword, and the two of them sprang apart. Without a word, Sheila darted forward, intent on eliminating Kassim, who shifted his aim toward her when he realized the threat she posed. Fortunately, Sheila didn't need my Scutum Sobiescianum to protect her. Possessing a shield of her own, she shouldered the powerful bombardment aside and thrust her spear forward.

Kassim was not without close-range self-defense, however, and he nimbly flipped himself away, his lithe body twisting to avoid Sheila's spear by the narrowest of margins. Parying Sheila's next spear strike with his cannon, he then drew a pistol with his other hand and fired into her at close range. Fortunately, Sheila managed to lower her arm in time and deflect the mana burst with her small shield. Planting his cannon on the ground, Kassim nimbly flung himself around and retaliated with a kick that Sheila blocked with her foot.

"Richard! I leave Lilith to you!"

Harrison was now engaging Riley, who had rushed out to meet him in combat. The two of them began engaging in what looked like a martial arts contest, trading blows with incredible moves. Both of them were so fast that their punches and kicks were mere blurs, normal human eyes being completely unable to follow them. Sonic booms from the speed of their attacks and shockwaves from their exchanges rippled outward, but were countered by the immense kinetic force emanating from the collision of Theodore's thunder hammer against Brutus's gauntlets.

"So it's me versus you again. How many times has this been?"

"The third time." Not that I could bother to keep count, but it hadn't been that many times yet. Somehow I had a premonition that this wasn't going to be the last time either.

Lilith chuckled. "Well, I have some good news for you. I won't be able to summon Kagutsuchi, not unless I want to incinerate my own teammates along with you guys. Normally, in a battlefield, they would buy me enough time to summon Kagutsuchi to wipe out hordes of monsters, or maybe a single high-ranking monster such as the Behemoth class, but unfortunately we have restrictions placed upon us in tournaments. I'm sure it's the same for you."

Funnily enough, I was thinking along similar lines regarding my spells of mass destruction. So I wasn't the only one being limited by tournament rules. And before the whiners start complaining about how stupid it was, they had to understand that tournaments are by their very nature different from actual battles. Yes, they constitute as part of our training for real battles against monsters, and gave us vital experience, but they were also competitions among students. Even with the boundary fields, incidents could still happen, and they didn't want students to kill each other. Never mind the "survival of the fittest" bullshit where some delusional readers believed that in some nonsensical social Darwinism where the cohort of students should be trimmed down into a small core of the "strongest"– these elite students still weren't gods and they couldn't be everywhere all at once. What army were you going to use to protect your cities and nations if you allow most of your soldiers to kill each other during training? The boundary fields could only do so much – but like I said, the moment nuke spells or strategic-scale spells came into use, or Soul Beasts as powerful as Lilith's Kagutsuchi were summoned, they would end up destroying those boundary fields and causing deaths.

The Federation had to prevent that at all costs. And if there were readers who think this was retarded, they could screw off and read some other edgy story that celebrated killing and revenge. So easy to talk about "letting the 'weak' die" or eliminating the "useless", but one day, when it turned out that they were the very "weak" people that they themselves sought to get rid of, they would hypocritically do a 180 and started clamoring for human rights and protection from those stronger than themselves.

Admittedly, most of these readers were probably teenagers who still hadn't actually experienced just how cruel the world was, and how the only way to survive was not to become stronger, but to actually become smarter and cooperate with people you could trust. I'm not saying they should be naïve and believe everyone they met, but they certainly couldn't survive if they pull that edgy bullshit of "can't trust anyone in this world" and "the whole world should die" rhetoric. If that's the case, stop eating the food your parents buy for you, stop relying on farmers to produce the crops that constitute your meals, and stop going to the supermarket. Get off the damned Internet and live off the land, and plant your own food if you're so bloody paranoid.

"!!!"

I dodged Lilith's flaming sword, and then hopped back when she unleashed a torrent of flames at me.

"Don't you dare get distracted and start ranting at the existences beyond the fourth wall!" she reprimanded me.

"Hey! I'm trying to explain and justify why you can't just summon Kagutsuchi in the middle of a practice match or tournament so that they won't call you stupid or retarded!" I protested. "It was for you!"

Well, it was also to explain why I didn't simply nuke everyone in the arena…I didn't want to kill myself along with everyone else for something as trivial as a practice match…hell, it wasn't worth it to "win" a tournament either. A posthumous championship title was as useful to my pile of ashes as certain readers' insults.

"Not drawing your sword yet?" Lilith asked as she slashed at me. "Don't underestimate me!"

"I think you misunderstand," I assured her. "I'm not underestimating you. I'm waiting for your Hellfire Bear. There's no meaning if we summoners just fight a sword duel. Don't you think so as well?"

"Mu…" Lilith sulked, but she couldn't refute my point. Taking a deep breath, she raised her free hand and summoned her Hellfire Bear. It descended with a roar and slashed at me.

This time, I didn't bother to summon Ursa Major. I merely smiled and waited as the Hellfire Bear barreled toward me. Instead of summoning, I placed my hand on Hei Yue and dropped to a crouch.

"!!!"

With a single iai, I decapitated the charging Hellfire Bear. The poor Soul Beast bellowed before blood spurted from its severed neck like a fountain, and its disembodied head bounced off the ground several times like an abandoned soccer ball.

"I…impossible…" Lilith was so shocked that she fell to her knees, her mouth gaping. "How…?!"

"Did you forget who taught me swordsmanship?" I asked as I turned toward her, my hand still on the hilt of my black sword.

"You cheater!" she shouted shrilly. "All that talk about us being summoners and how it's meaningless to fight a sword duel! You tricked me, didn't you?!"

"Nah…" I shrugged helplessly. "I just didn't expect your Hellfire Bear to fall so easily. I meant to test my sword technique, and then summon Ursa Major if that didn't work out. But it seems that the iai Dad taught me has far exceeded my expectations. So this is the power of the Miyamoto School, huh?"

Lilith glared at me and charged at me, her flaming sword descending in a fiery arc. I merely smiled as I prepared to intercept her blazing blade, but before that, I raised an inquiring finger.

"Just one question…are any of your sword techniques more powerful than your Hellfire Bear?"