570 Chapter 570: No Hope Lef

"Trying to flank me on both sides?" he sneered. "How naïve. Did you think ice magic was the only spells I could use?"

"Huh?"

"What?"

Perspiration ran down the both of their faces as they stepped back. Before they could do anything, their soul beasts were destroyed by earth spells, the rock coming to life and clamping down on them. Earth spikes impaled the poor summoned beasts, dispersing them into mana.

"I warned them…" I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief.

"And here's a little extra treatment, to cool you guys off!" Xing Er Song added before enveloping the entire place in fog. A few minutes later, the final two summoning students were entombed in ice, their bodies frozen solid.

"Out you go," Zhang said with a sigh, using his telekinesis spells to levitate their frozen forms out. Yi Ya buried her face in her palm before she began her healing spells. Frostbite was a thing, after all.

Watching above, the spectators began murmuring in awe, their eyes rivted on Xing Er Song's chubby figure.

"This guy is amazing! He wiped out all the summoning students?"

"Huh? Wait, isn't there one more?"

"Are you an idiot? Of course there's no way the last summoning student will stand a chance against that fatty! He's trash!"

What was with all these morons insisting on calling me trash? Was there something wrong with them? Were they…blind? I really didn't understand it.

Shaking my head, I stood up and proceeded toward the edge of the arena. Below, Xing Er Song glanced up and stared at me, making eye contact. I paused for a moment and met his gaze evenly, wondering if he was demanding for a rematch.

If that was the case, then I would be more than happy to oblige him.

However, to my utter surprise, Xing Er Song turned and walked out of the battle cage. Astonished, Zhang watched him.

"Hey, are you leaving the stage?" he asked, baffled. "You do know that you can't come back and fight if you leave, right?"

"I already defeated three summoning students," Xing Er Song replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I need to give other people a chance to fight. It'll be boring if the earth element department hogs all the glory, right?"

Seeing this, the next group eagerly rushed down. One of them was scoffing.

"Hey, let's go!" he ordered. "I'm sure we'll be able to defeat the last summoner!"

"What?" one of his friends was looking at him, perplexed. "Do you not know who that guy is?"

"No."

"He's Richard Huang! Didn't you see his display in the national tournament last year?"

While I proceeded down to the battle cage, Simmons approached me with a warning.

"I don't quite understand what Xing Er Song is doing. He clearly has the strength and ability, but he doesn't want to fight you. I think he's trying to get you into trouble, Richard."

"Yeah, he wants me to fight the remaining fifty plus people by myself rather than allowing me to go out in a blaze of glory." I sighed and shook my head. "He wants to drag out my torment rather than give me an easy way out."

"Will you be able to handle it, though?"

"Do I have a choice?" I asked dryly.

While I was conversing with Simmons, the rest of my classmates were falling into despair. I peeked at the holographic screen and understood why.

Zheng Ying Shou had taken the first place by defeating 25 students, followed by Hai Da Pang with his tally of fifteen students. Then Wang Chui Niu was third, but only with seven under his belt.

Consequently, the total tally for us summoning students so far was forty-seven.

Realizing how dire our situation was, Hai Da Pang was smashing his fist against the ground.

"Damn it!" he howled, pummeling the poor floor, who didn't do anything to him. "Damn it! This sucks! Our resources are all going to the earth element students!"

And the earth element student used ice magic instead of earth magic, which was the funniest irony if I had ever seen one.

"Will you be all right, Richard?" Zheng Ying Shou asked. I shrugged.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"That doesn't instill any confidence in us," he murmured, perspiring. I shrugged again.

"I'm not going to lie. If you guys think I can defeat over fifty students by myself, I can only say you have unrealistic expectations."

"Uh, that's true. Even the best of us couldn't defeat more than twenty-five…"

Kanon Fodder was approaching Professor Simmons, already fearing for the worst.

"Can't we negotiate with the university?" Tears were pouring from his eyes. "If we don't get the resources to train with, then we won't be able to progress much with our summoning magic."

"I'm sorry, but negotiation is out of the question." Simmons raised a hand. "Other than yourselves, no one else can help you get those resources that you want. You have to work for them."

Even if he said that, this seven versus a hundred thing seemed suspiciously rigged to me from the start. Not that I cared. We were given an advantage and we blew it.

"Don't worry. Based on your performance, Zheng Ying Shou will get the elixir. So there's that. As for the rest…yeah, I do feel a bit bad that you got outdone by a genius from the earth element department. But you can't complain, given that you're summoners."

"I will do my best," I muttered with a sigh.

"Okay." Simmons nodded. "Get down there and fight, Richard. If you perform well enough, the second bottle of spirit enhancement elixir will be yours."

"Nah, I don't really need that." I waved my hand and got down to the cage. The spectators were chattering excitedly as they watched me stroll into the arena. I placed my hands on my hips and looked up at them.

"Vermillion Phoenix, it's your turn to put on a show!"

At my call, the Vermillion Bird burst into existence with a majestic cry, raining fiery feathers onto the stage.

"You've got to be kidding me?!"

"A phoenix!?"

"The Vermillion Bird?!"

The group of students who had stepped onto the stage were staring at my Celestial Guardian in fear.

"No one told us about this!"

"Don't falter!" the arrogant guy who was calling me trash earlier snapped. "It might look terrifying, but it's not a Skeletal Vulture! It definitely isn't that strong!"

"So he says," I said and looked up at Vermillion Phoenix, who was flapping his wings and sending embers crashing onto the ground. "Show him just how wrong he is."

Vermillion Phoenix nodded.

With a flap of his wings, he engulfed the entire arena in flames. The five students tried to dodge, with one of them casting a wind spell to fly away, but he ended up being incinerated. The poor guy crashed onto the ground, his body smoldering.

"Earth Spikes!" the leader shouted, slamming his hands against the ground and throwing up rocky projectiles at Vermillion Phoenix. My Celestial Guardian dodged the barrage, but before he could retaliate, another of the mages had conjured lightning.

"Lightning Bolt!"

Vermillion Phoenix cocked his head and glanced at the bolt before veering off to the side and dodging it.

"What the…how agile is it!? It could actually dodge that spell?!"

Vermillion Phoenix then blasted two of the other guys with his flames, roasting them. The leader and the last remaining member of the group – a girl who used water spells – hurried to the back, but her water spells boiled into steam immediately when she hurled it at my Vermillion Phoenix.

"Its flames are too hot! None of my water spells are working!" she shrieked.

"Shui Bian! Get behind me!" the leader ordered. Vermillion Phoenix didn't wait for him to finish and sent another torrent of fire at him, but he quickly used his defensive equipment.

"Vine Shield!"

A tangle of oversized vines materialized around him, forming a thick and impenetrable overgrowth that protected the two of them. I stared at the wood-type defensive armament in amusement, wondering if the guy was all right in the head.

"Are you seriously using a wood spell to defend against a fire type attack?"

"Hah! This is no ordinary wood-type defensive armament! It doesn't matter how hot your flames are, you will never be able to…!"

He never got to finish his sentence. His vine shield was incinerated into ash instantly and both he and the girl were burned to cinders. Once again, it was only the boundary field that allowed them to survive, or they would have died.

"And you were calling me trash earlier." My words were literally dripping with venom. "How does it feel, to lose to someone you called trash?"

The guy's blackened lips moved, but he was in too much pain to form a retort. In any event, he didn't have the chance to answer. Zhang was already moving them out of the arena with his telekinesis spells.

"Whoa, go easy on the fire, would you?" he told me, scratching his head in exasperation and puffing on his cigarette. "I know the boundary field will keep these kids alive, but it's still a pain to heal them, you know?"

"You're not the one who has to heal them!" Yi Ya snapped irritably, hurrying over to the poor casualties. She then glanced at me. "All the same, please try to hold back."

"If I do, I will be the one who needs your healing magic," I pointed out.

"Yeah, well…it's far better for me to heal just one person than to heal a hundred people." She then realized that what she had just said would constitute as biasness, and she lowered her head apologetically. "But don't mind me. Continue to do your best. I didn't mean to suggest that you surrender and give up your resources just to make my job easier."

"Yeah, yeah. He knows." Zhang waved her away. "I don't think he cares about you."

"That's mean!"

Above, among the spectators, Theodore Hammond chortled. His girlfriend was turning to him, stupefied.

"Theodore, this is your junior, right? Was he always this…strong?"

"Hah! Of course! I don't know why so many people insist on underestimating him. Maybe it's main character syndrome or something, but it tickles me whenever those ignorant fools call him trash without ever looking into the mirror."

He tried to control himself but failed to hold back a chuckle.

"This reminds me of what happened two years ago."

"What happened two years ago?" his girlfriend asked curiously.

"He team-wiped five members from Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy all by himself. With that summoned beast he has right now. Well, he used a second one against Cecilia Stuart to defeat her, but…"

"Wait, what!?" she cut him off. "Did you say Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy?! That Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy?! That guy did?!"

"Yup." Theodore continued to snicker. "This is on par for the course for him. Too bad the rest of the students here haven't realized that."

While watching the group of five being healed by Yi Ya, who was desperately trying to infuse them with mana, the other spectators were shaken.

"Isn't that Vermillion Bird way too strong!? It's on a completely different level from the other soul beasts from earlier!"

"Damn it!" Xing Er Song was gritting his teeth, frustration welling up within him. "He never summoned that against me that last time! How many different soul beasts does this bastard have?! Just what is he hiding?!"

"All right, who's next?" I called out, while counting the tally up in my head. Five down, that meant we had defeated a total of fifty-two students. Forty-eight more to go. Even though I wasn't looking forward to it, I decided to take things one at a time. One group at a time, and hopefully we would slowly add up until we reached the target of one hundred.