569 Chapter 569: Skeletal Vulture

Even from this distance, just seeing the fearsome carrion bird sent chills down my spine, a cold that was as deep as the grave itself. With a flap of its massive wings, it soared above Wang Chui Niu, who stood arrogantly in the center of the stage, waiting for his opponents.

Glancing at the holographic screen, I saw that we had defeated a total of 40 students so far. Still less than half of the intended target. To prevent that number from shrinking a group of seven mages had strode forward to challenge Wang Chui Niu and his Skeletal Vulture.

While they fought, the spectators murmured amongst themselves.

"Don't the summoning students have to defeat 100 students from the other departments, or their resources will get divided up between the students from the best performing departments?"

"Yeah, I heard something like that."

"It's true. I heard this firsthand from Professor Di."

"Then we have to do something! There's no way we'll pass up such a chance!"

"…nah. No deal." One of the spectators gestured lazily toward the arena, where the seven mages were ripped to shreds by the Skeletal Vulture, their lives preserved only by the boundary field. "Just look at that! That Skeletal Vulture is going to get them to a hundred all by itself. It's literally steamrolling over the seven-man team."

"Yeah…they never stood a chance."

The Skeletal Vulture swooped down, raking its talons across a fire mage who was desperately casting fireballs at it, tearing him from shoulder to hip. He went down, blood spurting from his torso in a grisly display.

Xing Er Song suddenly broke into their conversation, placing a hand on one of the speakers' shoulder.

"Wait, what did you say?" he demanded. "Are you telling me that the summoning students are given a target to meet? And if we prevent them from reaching their target, their resources will be allocated to us students from the earth magic department instead?"

"Yeah!" the guy confirmed, glancing back at the chubby fella.

"Heh." Xing Er Song chuckled and straightened up, adjusting his jacket. "You don't have to thank me later."

"Huh?" the group of earth magic students watched as the chubby earth mage walk down the aisle and toward the bottom of the stadium. "Thank you? Why would we want to thank you?"

Their conversation did not go unheard by the professors. His uncle Li shook his head in disapproval.

He turned to Dean Xiao, looking a bit anxious.

"Uh, Dean Xiao, is this okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" the bald dean grinned. "He's considered a new student too. Let him in."

"But his abilities…"

"So what if he's stronger than the other new students? The rules never prohibited intermediate mages from participating."

"I see…" Uncle Li felt a drop of sweat run down his face, but he seemed pleased. Perhaps this was a good chance for Xing Er Song to display his abilities and show off to everyone.

"Next group!" Zhang ordered impatiently, but the group of mages outside the battle cage were hesitating. They seemed apprehensive of entering the arena, especially after what they saw the Skeletal Vulture do to the last few opponents.

"You want to try?"

"No way!"

"Then who's going to fight?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Hah!" Xing Er Song scoffed when he recognized one of the students among the group. "The Song family's dog, eh? Get out of my way!"

"You!" the Song family's subordinate growled when he caught sight of the chubby Xing Er Song. His friend held up a hand to stop him.

"Forget it. Let him go instead."

"But he…!"

"So what? You want to fight the Skeletal Vulture?"

That shut him up. While the Song family's subordinate stepped back, allowing his friends to pull him away, Xing Er Song haughtily stepped into the cage.

"Oh?" the equally arrogant Wang Chui Niu sneered when he caught sight of his new opponent, his Skeletal Vulture hovering above him. His lips curled in a condescending manner. "Another fresh meat for the grinder, eh?"

"Ha ha ha!" Xing Er Song chuckled. "Please allow me to apologize to you in advance."

I glanced up at the holographic screen, keeping track of the score. Currently, Wang Chui Niu had defeated seven people, which brought our tally up to forty-seven. Still less than half. Shaking my head, I sighed in exasperation.

"So that's it then. Wang Chui Niu is going to lose here."

"Huh?! What are you talking about?!" Wang Chui Niu's two flunkies turned on me, fury in their eyes. "Don't talk nonsense!"

"Just watch," I muttered. At the same time, Xing Er Song was grinning.

"The summoning students' resources will belong to the earth magic students!"

"Quit your bragging," Wang Chui Niu scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. He then smirked. "My Skeletal Vulture enjoys eating fat people like you!"

"You may laugh at us…but fat people are best at throwing their weight around!" Xing Er Song raised a hand. "And your poor beast will only bite off more than it can chew."

"Huh?" Wang Chui Niu looked perplexed, then he snorted. "Whatever! Skeletal Vulture! Crush that fatty!"

With a deafening caw, the Skeletal Vulture swooped down on the stationary Xing Er Song, who didn't seem to panic. He stood his ground and gathered azure mana into his fingers. From my seat, I shook my head and sighed again.

"It's over."

"Your poor beast is going to die, you know?" Xing Er Song said as he threw up a hand and finished casting his spell.

"!!"

While the Skeletal Vulture dove toward him, ice chains appeared all around the earth and ice mage. The frozen chains whipped out and surged toward the air, snaking toward the huge flying beast, which tried to skid to a stop with a desperate flap of its wings.

There were gasps from the spectators as they watched the battle in amazement.

"Awesome! That's quite the cool spell!"

"We might be able to win after all!"

"!!"

Wang Chui Niu turned pale when he realized that he had underestimated his opponent. Meanwhile, Xing Er Song continued to stand his ground smugly, and he snapped his fingers. With a flick of his hand, he pointed and another ice chain, with an icicle spike at its tip, swerved around to pursue the jinking Skeletal Vulture. Wang Chui Niu glanced upward in panic when he saw that his soul beast wasn't going to evade the spell in time.

"Watch out, Skeletal Vulture!"

Despite ascending rapidly, the Skeletal Vulture wasn't going to make it in time. The icicle chain hurtled forward at incredible speeds, and before it could dodge, the chain snaked about and coiled around its talons, binding it tightly. Ice began spreading across it claws and toward its bulky body.

The Skeletal Vulture gave out a furious caw, but Xing Er Song conjured another few spells and hurled azure globes at it. The flying soul beast yanked and fought against its retraints, but it was jerked back to earth before the freezing mana struck it.

Right in front of everybody's eyes, the Skeletal Vulture was completely frozen solid, entombed within a coffin of ice.

"Oh dear," Xing Er Song remarked mockingly. "Seems like your beast has been stoppd cold."

"No…please…don't…" Wang Chui Niu stammered.

Xing Er Song merely smirked and pointed his index finger at the frozen Skeletal Vulture, almost as if he was pretending to shoot at it. Wang Chui Niu's eyes widened.

"No!!!"

The ice chains whipped about and dashed the frozen Skeletal Vulture against the ground with an impact so tremendous it left a crater on the ground. The ice shattered, along with a sickening crunch. Even though the Skeletal Vulture was finally free of its icy tomb and its body was still intact, it was motionless, its wings and neck bent at unnatural angles.

Black decaying feathers fluttered, still encrusted in frost, almost as if signifying the poor creature's demise.

"No…!" Wang Chui Niu was screaming as he sprinted toward his downed soul beast. "No! No!"

Even as the ice broke to reveal frozen patches of blood on the monster's corpse, Wang Chui Niu fell to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

"My Skeletal Vulture…"

Why was he acting so dramatically? Oh, because he was copying the actions of some dude from some other story. Honestly, there was no need to cry like that because he could summon his Skeletal Vulture after a while. Maybe in a week…there was no doubt the damned thing was dead.

The Skeletal Vulture than exploded, dissipating into black and gray mana that curled around the arena like a fog.

"How pathetic," Xing Er Song remarked, disgusted at the guy's sniveling. Even I found myself unable to pity him, especially after his arrogant attitude.

"Quit your whining and get out of here, kid," Zhang told Wang Chui Niu. "You've lost. Next."

"That's…"

"Oh, you're just wasting time now…" Zhang impatiently waved his hand and cast a telekinesis spell thatsnagged Wang Chui Niu by his collar and flung him out of the beast cage. He had no time to deal with crybabies. "Next!"

"Whoa…"

While Zhang was unmoved, all the specators in the stadium couldn't help but watch the whole thing in awe.

"The Skeletal Vulture has been defeated!"

"Amazing! That fatty is so strong!"

"We have a chance!"

"Whoa…you only defeated seven," I told Wang Chui Niu as he slumped down in his seat. "I told you that you will only defeat less than ten. What now? We haven't even reached half of our target."

"Shut up!" he shrieked at me. "Just…shut up!"

"Why should I?" I sneered. "You were acting so arrogantly and looking down on everybody before, and now you couldn't even defeat ten people. And now you don't want to hear the cold, harsh truth? It's your own fault for letting your ego swell your head."

"Dude, you shouldn't kick people when they are down," Zheng Ying Shou told me sternly. I narrowed my eyes and pointed at Wang Chui Niu.

"Shouldn't I? This guy kicked Kanon Fodder when he was down, called other people losers or trash or useless…but when he gets defeated after all those arrogant stunts of his, we should coddle him? What kind of logic is that?"

"You're better than him," Zheng Ying Shou told me. "You can be better than him. Don't sink to his level."

"Fine." I left the despondent Wang Chui Niu alone. His pride had been shattered. It was unlikely he would boast again. Or so I hoped.

Watching Wang Chui Niu smugly, his ice chains still wrapped protectively around him. He then turned to look at the summoning students condescendingly.

"You guys should all come up together," he taunted. "So that you won't waste everyone's time."

"His ice chains can only go after one target at a time!" the two remaining summoning students were discussing amongst themselves. "If the two of us work together, we'll definitely be able to defeat him!"

"I wouldn't underestimate him if I were you," I warned them. However, one of them rudely shoved me back.

"Shut up! You're just a fucking coward! You have no right to talk!"

"Excuse me? I fought against that guy before so I know…"

"Shut up! Stop lying! You're nothing but trash!"

"Trash should just behave like trash!"

What the fuck? What was wrong with these people? Why were they so obsessed with calling me trash? Was it because I was the protagonist? Did they seriously not know what I was capable of? Or was this main character syndrome? A…weird story disorder where everybody doesn't know the real powers of the main character and insist on calling him trash so that I could slap their faces later?

I shook my head and watched in dismay as the two of them continued down toward the cage, debating on their tactics.

This was so not going to end well for them.