571 Chapter 571: Reaching a Hundred

"Hah! An arrogant trash like him should be taught his place!"

I honestly didn't understand why people insisted on calling me trash despite seeing the reality. They were so deluded that they honestly couldn't be real people. Nobody was this thick. I was pretty sure of that.

"Let's go!"

The group of morons didn't realize that they were being delusional and haughtily strode toward the cage in preparation for a match. Zhang stared at them indifferently, lighting his cigarette and puffing out a ring of smoke.

"You five are next?" he asked dryly, and then jabbed a finger toward the cage. "Go ahead."

I watched as the five students stroll into the cage, their arms folded or hands in their pockets. They seemed pretty confident of themselves.

"That's just a big bird, isn't it?" one of them sneered. "All it can do is shoot fire. I wonder what else it can do."

Vermillion Phoenix looked at him in disdain, veins popping in his head from annoyance. I shrugged nonchalantly and looked at him helplessly.

"That's what he said."

Pushing my glasses up my nose, I sighed and shook my head.

"Utterly deluded. I feel like I'm a protagonist in the standard, cliché Chinese webnovels where I suffer from main character syndrome. You know, where everyone insists on calling me trash no matter what I do, have no idea of what I have accomplished despite social media being so prevalent, and trying to kill me over the most absurd of reasons."

Vermillion Phoenix rolled his eyes and I shrugged again.

"Well, let's just get on with it. We still have about forty-eight more opponents to defeat. Might as well start as soon as possible."

The five mages began casting their spells, but Vermillion Phoenix incinerated them with his flames before they could pull anything major off. Before they knew it, they were all burned to cinders, and Zhang had to use telekinesis to levitate them out of the cage.

"That was…anticlimactic. So they talked big, but they can't walk the talk. They're just bags of hot air."

I couldn't help but be disappointed. Adjusting my glasses, I glanced up at the gigantic holographic screen to check our tally. So far I had defeated 10 people, and the total number of students defeated by summoning students had reached 57. So far so good. 43 to go.

The spectators were up in an uproar, roaring and railing at what they thought was unfairness. What? And ganging up on me wasn't unfair? Where was the logic in that?

"Never give other people a chance."

"Attacking from the first second…how despicable!"

"Where is your honor?!"

"Fight fairly, you bastard!"

This was getting to Chinese levels of absurdity.

"Let's form a group of seven!" a girl called out, rallying her classmates to her cause. "If we overwhelm him with sheer numbers, even he will get worn out! We will be able to defeat him eventually!"

"All right, go in and fight then," Zhang told them, smirking. Like him, I suppressed a chuckle.

How naïve. To think they thought having more numbers would help them. Speaking of which, if we were talking about numbers.

"White Tiger."

My second Celestial Guardian appeared beside me.

"What the hell?!"

"Impossible!"

"He has more than one Soul Beast?!"

"I never heard about this!"

As expected, the spectators were in an uproar when they saw White Tiger prowling below Vermillion Phoenix. The seven students who stepped into the cage turned extremely pale. As for me, I was shaking my head at their comments.

None of them bothered to do their research. I didn't get it. I was pretty sure I became famous after my exploits in the national tournament last year, yet for some reason nobody knew about me or what my true capabilities were.

This was totally baffling. Their blindness and ignorance was just unnatural. Or was this the famous Great Firewall, where reports of my matches and battles were censored for no reason? That still didn't make any sense. The national tournament was broadcasted live throughout the Global Federation. I knew that my team didn't make it to the finals, but we at least made it to the semifinals. So how was it that nobody knew what I was capable of?

In any event, the combination of fire and lightning from Vermillion Phoenix and White Tiger fried the seven students and sent them straight to the infirmary, where an exasperated Yi Ya began to work tirelessly to revive them from near death. Once again, only the boundary field kept them alive.

Glancing up at the holographic screen, I was heartened to see that I had defeated seventeen people, and the tally for summoning students had gone up to sixty-four. Good. Thirty-six left before we reached our target. We were slowly gtting there.

Furthermore, I had surpassed Hai Da Pang's score and was now ranked second among the summoning students. Yay!

"Next group," Zhang called out almost lazily from the bottom.

It didn't matter. They sent another nine people, but my two Celestial Guardians knocked them out with devastating spells, taking the tally up to seventy-three. The next group of six showed up to challenge me, having developed a working plan to counter my Vermillion Phoenix and White Tiger, but they didn't expect me to summon Black Tortoise from nowhere.

"A third soul beast?!"

"Just how many does he have?!"

"Who the hell is he?!"

Seventy-nine now. I watched as the frozen figures of my opponents clattered against the ground before Zhang levitated them out of the cage.

"What's with this guy?"

"Isn't he too strong? This is unfair!"

"Just how many more soul beasts is he going to summon?! At this rate, there's no way we will be able to compete against him, especially if he has more of those things!"

"Damn it…I don't dare to fight him…"

"Leave it to us!"

One of the more talented students stepped up, cupping his hands respectfully. He was accompanied by his friends, a girl with pigtails, a burly guy with muscles and an average-looking fella who looked sneaky. The handsome leader bowed his head slightly.

"I am Zhuang Feng Li, from the Zhuang family!"

"…who?" I had never heard of the Zhuang family before.

"Hey, you maniac!" Zhuang Feng Li pointed a finger at me rudely. "After I defeat your soul beasts, I'm going to teach you a lesson!"

"Go ahead and teach me the lesson now," I replied as I pushed my glasses up my nose. "I'm always open to learning new things."

"You…! You should be more humble!"

"What? But I am humble. I didn't brag or boast or anything. Why exactly do you think I'm not humble?" I was gaping at him. Zhuang Feng Li spluttered.

"Oh, shut up! You will definitely lose this time!"

He sent a few wind blades at my Soul Beasts, but Black Tortoise conjured a water sphere to protect his comrades. Vermillion Phoenix retaliated with several fiery feathers, but Zhuang Feng Li used his wind spells to dodge, and then he flew into the air and kicked at the Celestial Guardian. Vermillion Phoenix blocked his foot with his wing and tried to incinerate him, but Zhuang Feng Li made good use of his wind spells to evade, weaving through the tremendous torrent of flames.

"Impressive." I nodded in approval. "Your wind spells are excellent."

"Excellent work, Feng Li!" the girl with pigtails shouted as she conjured a spell of her own. "Keep using Wind Step! I'll suppress the Soul Beasts!"

Crimson flames appeared in her hands and she launched it at White Tiger, who was prowling about at the edge of the cage while trying to swipe at the fleeing Zhuang Feng Li. As expected of someone of Vermillion Phoenix, the magnitude of her fire spell was not to be underestimated.

"Volcanic Strike!"

The entire arena was bathed in flames, an inferno raging across the space. However, Black Tortoise lumbered forward and extinguished the flames with his water spells. White Tiger then emerged from the scorched earth, bellowing in rage.

"What the hell?! The Vermillion Phoenix is one thing, but neither of the other two Soul Beasts are hurt?!" the girl cried out, turning very pale.

"White Tiger and Black Tortoise, you take out the other members. Vermillion Phoenix, keep the wind mage distracted."

"Not happening," Zhuang Feng Li growled as he dodged the fiery feathers from Vermillion Phoenix. Even as White Tiger bounded toward his teammates – particularly the girl who had launched a fire spell at him, the blond wind mage cast another spell.

"Restraining Vines!"

Vines burst out of the ground and coiled around White Tiger's legs, immobilizing him for a short moment.

"A wood spell, huh?" I mused. Zhuang Feng Li smirked.

"Did you think I was only capable of wind magic?"

"Well, uh…you do know that the wood element is weak to the metal element, right?"

"…huh?"

Lightning exploded out of White Tiger's claws, charring the vines to black and freeing himself. Zhuang Feng Li was able to evade the thunderbolts that seared through the air, but despite his large teammate trying to conjure an earth wall to protect them, he was too late. The lightning bolts slammed into the three fellas and sent them flying against the cage. Their bodies convulsed and went into spasms as deadly electricity surged through them.

"!!"

Zhuang Feng Li could only watch helplessly when he saw his teammates subdued. Realizing that he was left alone, he slowly turned to stare at my three Celestial Guardians.

"Damn it!"

I watched him, and then nodded to my Celestial Guardians, who launched a concerted attack. However, Zhuang Feng Li merely smirked and disappeared.

"Did anyone say I could only attack your soul beasts?"

His Wind Step activated and he weaved through my three Celestial Guardians before they could react, dashing straight for me. For a moment, he vanished from sight before reappearing behind me. Wind blades circled his hand as he chopped toward my neck.

"As long as I can defeat the summoner himself, his summoned beasts will naturally go down with him too!"

"That has to be against the rules!" Hai Da Pang hollered from his seat, getting all flustered. "He's cheating! He can't attack the summoner directly!"

"You kidding me?" Simmons was burying his face from exasperation. "Of course it's not against the rules. In real combat, most summoners are defeated like this. Is this your first time learning summoning magic or something?"

"Eh?!" Hai Da Pang shouted, astonished. He held his head and moaned. "Damn it! We only took down seventy-nine people!"

"Eighty-two," Zheng Ying Shou corrected. He glanced up at the holographic screen, a bead of perspiration rolling down his face. "And Richard hasn't lost yet, so why are you assuming that he has already been defeated?"

"But…" Hai Da Pang protested, only to trail off in despair.

Meanwhile, below, Zhuang Feng Li was dancing around me with his weird Wind Steps, and leaving me bewildered. Like…what the fuck was he doing? Why didn't he just attack me directly and try to finish me off already?

Not that he could, but…in any case, he finally struck, his wind blades swirling around his hand as he slashed at me.

"I'll teach you a lesson for acting so arrogantly!" he roared confidently, sure that this was his victory.

What a moron.

I summoned Gemini in a flash. The reason why I hadn't done anything was because I had been waiting for him to get close. At this distance, there was no way he could avoid my attacks.

"What?!" sweat began pouring down Zhuang Li Feng's face profusely when he caught sight of my paired Constellation weapons. "Swords…? How…?"

I smiled and slashed him wordlessly, the black blade of Castor slicing his neck open while the white blade of Pollux eviscerated his abdomen. Blood spurted from his wounds as he crashed down behind me as I dropped to a crouch and flicked the crimson fluids off my blades before dismissing my Constellation weapons.

"Fuck…"

That was the last thing Zhuang Li Feng said before he toppled over. I slowly rose to my feet and glanced up at the holographic screen with a smile.

I had defeated thirty-six students so far, which brought the tally of people defeated by summoning students to a total of eighty-three. That meant seventeen people left. We were getting there, slowly but surely.

"Next group," Zhang called out, waving his hand impatiently, but by now everyone was getting apprehensive.

"Damn it! That guy is good!"

"He knows close combat magic too?! What exactly is his weakness!?"

Well…a lot of things, to be honest, but obviously I had no intention of letting them know that. Putting on a brave front, I waited for my next opponent to show up.