Whose Nirvana (10)
On the fourth day of the preliminary round, Thorn Flower Academy’s third game was against Fangbei Academy.
Linyin sat quietly in the audience, with the L-shaped ring hanging on her chest.
This ring seemed to never be able to keep warm again. She clearly remembered that it was warm when she put it on his hand that day.
Perhaps it was because, like her, it could no longer feel his body heat.
Sunlight slashed through the roof of the martial arts center, stretching her figure outwardly and thinly. In just a few days, she looked even thinner than before, her training jacket a bit loose.
The clamor of the field surged in like a tide, yet was blocked out by an invisible barrier. Her gaze remained quietly fixed on a distant place, unresponsive to anything happening around her.
Yuzhu looked at Linyin quietly.
After returning from the operation with the principal, she is in this state now.
The principal told them everything she knew, and they realized what kind of pressure Rinyin had been under before, and that Song Baiyue would never come back.
While Yuzhu was sad, she also felt a sense of mission to overcome the difficulties with her. "Even if the boss is no longer playing, we have to defeat the remaining teams in Group A."
"Yes! Beat them all! Don't give them a cent!" Crystal nodded. "If all else fails, let Snake and Stone return to their original form."
They knew that after exposing this fact, they would have to face all kinds of unknown covetousness lurking in the dark, but they really didn't want to continue standing behind Rin Yin, ignorantly letting Rin Yin bear everything alone.
Yuzhu measured her shoulders with her hands.
It’s so wide, you can tell it can handle things at a glance.
…
Fangbei Academy is located in Deyi Province, in the same city as Mithril Academy. However, Mithril is one of the top four, even fighting for second place and striving for first place, while Fangbei relies on its own hard work and diligence to break through the preliminaries.
They had previously been very unhappy with the Eighth Academy's "place-taking" by Thorn Flower. However, Thorn Flower's performance over the past two days had gradually helped them escape the perceived waste group.
What was giving Fang Bei a headache was that, because they had previously ignored Thorn Flower, the intelligence they had gathered at the last minute was fragmented, and even after studying it all night, they couldn't make sense of it. The other academies in Group A, ranked behind Fang Bei, were eagerly waiting for them to go first, so gathering more information was a good thing.
"Did Thorn Flower take the wrong medicine this year? Didn't it always come last before? How come it's suddenly so strong?" The captain of Fangbei Academy frowned.
"We didn't even record all of their main players' mythical beast skills. Their games were so disorganized that it was impossible to discern any tactical system."
"It's terrifying. Even if Song Baiyue, a heaven-level expert, leaves, every one of the remaining people is very troublesome."
"That's right. Miss Lan actually came to participate in the competition. Is her family bankrupt or something?"
The teacher in charge said sullenly, "What are you talking about? No matter how strange the Thorn Flower is, it's just the beginning. Their training of the mythical beasts is completely unprofessional. Once their skills are thoroughly studied, they will definitely not be able to hold up in the later stages."
"I hope so." One traitor voiced everyone's thoughts. Once they'd fully mastered their skills, they'd be done with the competition, okay?
——Well, if I can’t be a stepping stone for other colleges, I have to be a stepping stone for the younger generations in my own college.
...Half an hour later, they were chased and beaten by the stone that had returned to its original form in the 3v3 arena, and were directly knocked off the stage, which made them more certain of their thoughts.
"Captain, why do they have a new trick?"
"What the hell is this horrible stone? Isn't it a stone turtle? Why can a turtle stand up and hit people???"
"Shut up." The teacher in charge spoke again to calm the situation, "The game isn't over yet."
He then began to analyze the situation carefully for the next captain. "Generally speaking, in a 1v1 competition, the player with stronger individual skills should be placed first to try and get as many extra points as possible." He pointed at Yuzhu's profile on the terminal. "Before Song Baiyue withdrew, Lin Yuzhu played before him. How could a Xuan-level horned python be stronger than a Tian-level Yingyue Spirit Deer?"
"Indeed. Not only Song Baiyue, but also Lin Yin, who replaced Song Baiyue later, looked more powerful than Lin Yuzhu even without the mythical beast."
"This Lin Yuzhu must have some strong points, and they haven't been shown so far. You must be careful." He patted the captain's shoulder and said, "Go." He sent him to the stage.
The captain took a deep breath, walked onto the playing area, and put on his helmet.
Cautious, cautious—doesn't he know how to be cautious? The question is how to be cautious!
"The game begins!"
At the referee's command, the Jade Wind Fox at Captain Fangbei's feet transformed into a cyan light armor that wrapped around his body. This armor clearly focused on his legs. His agility was S-rank, and combined with the Wind Step skill granted by the Phantom Beast Armor, he became a fleeting afterimage.
His tactics were very clear. Yuzhu had previously demonstrated her melee combat abilities, so he would first use his S-level agility advantage to fight guerrilla warfare and gradually consume Yuzhu's physical strength.
He was indeed very fast, and he had already circled behind Yuzhu as soon as the referee finished speaking.
For some reason, Yuzhu didn't transform into armor immediately this time.
Could it be that she looked down on him?
In that case, he didn't hesitate. He thrust the short blade in his hand straight at Yuzhu's defenseless back.
However--
Sizzle!
A dark purple arc of electricity burst from the horn python's horn, shooting up along his cyan light armor. Captain Fangbei was instantly paralyzed and nearly fell to his knees.
"What is that?" He retreated in embarrassment and saw the horned python raised high, with a dangerous purple light flashing between its scales.
The audience in the stands were talking about it.
Thorn Flower has been in the news a lot recently, and the stands near their stadium are almost the fastest to fill up outside of the four major colleges.
"Horned pythons can discharge electricity? I've never heard of that."
"What kind of mutant is this..."
Captain Fangbei's forehead was covered in cold sweat. This horned python was probably not an ordinary Xuan-level fantasy beast! But it was too late to realize it now. Another arc of electricity appeared on the horn of the horned python.
boom!
A bolt of lightning, as thick as a bowl, struck the spot where the captain had been standing. He instinctively rolled to avoid it, only to see the lightning bounce off the arena floor, dispersing into dozens of tiny arcs.
"Holy crap! AoE!" The captain watched in despair as his vaunted S-rank agility proved useless against this indiscriminate attack. He barely dodged three arcs of lightning, but the fourth struck him squarely in the back, sending him plummeting to his knees.
What the hell!
He wants to be careful!
But the opponent is cheating!
Yuzhu, who won undisputedly, returned to the audience and sighed as he looked at Linyin, who still had no reaction to the outside world.
The kitten wagged its tail boredly, and after trying to act cute towards Linyin several times without success, it felt a little frustrated, a little self-blaming, and a little aggrieved.
If it weren't for it, Song Baiyue wouldn't have died, and Linyin wouldn't be so sad.
The only thing it could do for Rin was to try to score points in the second half. It knew that the final points would be ranked among all 32 schools, so if it only prevented the opponent from scoring points in a single game, the advantage would still not be big enough when the rankings were calculated.
To create an absolute advantage, it is definitely not enough to just cause trouble for other schools in Group A - all colleges must be dragged down together!
So at the beginning of the second half of the game, a cat's meow sounded in everyone's mind without warning.
"Eh? Where's the cat?"
"Did you hear the cat meow, too?"
"Yeah, it's like it's ringing directly in my head. It's so weird."
Just as the audience was about to ignore this somewhat strange cat meow in their heads, they found that the phantom beasts in the field were getting anxious.
Those who were waiting in the wings prostrated themselves on the ground.
The phantom beasts already on the ring first froze in place, then all ran towards the entrance of the arena.
"No...what are you doing? Get up!"
"Come back! Where are you going?"
"Damn it, I can't control it anymore—"
The entire arena was in chaos. No matter how the players tried to appease them, the phantom beasts refused to play and finish the game.
Among all the participating schools, only the fantasy beast of Thorn Flower stayed and continued to complete the competition leisurely.
Whispers gradually rose from the stands:
"Why are their phantom beasts the only ones who haven't left...?"
"I don't know... What kind of evil magic is Thorn Flower using again..."
"Could it be related to the cat's meow just now?"
"That's impossible. How can those big crocodiles and lions be scared like this by a cat's cry?"
The situation remained deadlocked for an hour, and the referee team had no choice but to award 0 points to all the colleges except Thorn Flower.
The players were naturally dissatisfied, believing there must be something wrong with the competition venue. The referees also argued plausibly: If it was the competition venue, why was Thorn Flower's mythical beast fine? When things go wrong, they should look for their own faults!
What no one expected was that in all the subsequent matches that day, no mythical beast was willing to play - in order to ensure that the first place in the preliminary round would be given to Rin, Kitty still stayed in the training ground after the game, striving to make the second half scores of all schools zero.
It stayed like this for three days.
Starting from the second day, the competition committee did not allow it to stay on the sidelines. However, except for the first game, it did not make any more sounds afterwards, so there was no evidence to prove that the phantom beast's refusal to enter the stadium was related to it.
On the third day, the competition team collapsed and began to search the whole venue for the kitten, but the kitten had a transparent invisible bubble. It spit out bubbles to wrap itself up, and no matter how advanced the detection equipment was, it could not find it.
On the fourth day, the new regulations were completed, stipulating that the phantom beasts that had finished the competition must immediately leave the venue under the supervision of the referee team, otherwise the entire school would be disqualified from the competition.
Of course, the kitten could still sneak back, but it asked Yuzhu to help calculate that it was impossible for other colleges to surpass Thorn Flower, so it let go of the last two days.
Even though Rinyin did not play at all, Thorn Flower maintained a perfect record in the first half. The full score in the first half was 50, and their average score reached a terrifying 48.57 points - only when they played against Kuronuma Academy did they lose the 1v1 bonus.
In this way, under the law that the army that is in a desperate situation will win, Thorn Flower took the lead in total points and won the first place in the preliminary round.
The entire Star Network was shocked by this dark horse.
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