571 Chapter 571: Reaching a Hundred (1/2)
”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.