The moment Teacher Fielding swung his hand down, the arena immediately turned into chaos.
"Go!"
Lin Zhan Long sent out an order, and his four other teammates spread out on either side of him. Two on his right, and two on his left. One of them darted ahead in front, charging toward me.
Pushing up my glasses, I smirked as I watched him approach. Just as I expected, they planned to take me out as soon as the match began, to ensure I didn't summon anything dangerous.
"Cody Crosby," the guy introduced himself with a smile as he readied his twin daggers. "I would like to challenge your representative from the Assassin Clan!"
"..."
The five members of my team just exchanged puzzled glances. What was this guy babbling about? And who the hell went and introduced himself in the middle of a fight?
"…what Assassin clan?" Dong Fang Yue Chu asked with a frown.
Cody almost braked. "Eh? Where's Amelia? Isn't she from the Assassin Clan? The whole reason why I participated was to get a chance to fight against her."
"WHO THE HELL IS AMELIA?!" I yelled. "Are you sure you're in the right place and the right story?! You do realize we're not having a series of one-against-one battles, right? This is a bloody free for all!"
"He probably read too much Battle Frenzy before the match," Wang Fei muttered from the sidelines.
"What the fuck are you doing, Cody!?" Lin Zhan Long roared from behind. "Stick to the plan! Take out their trash vice-president before he summons anything!"
"Oh…right." Blinking, Cody nodded, and then he charged toward me, his figure disappearing into a blur.
Before the match, we had already taken note of who our opponents were, having done our research and strategized accordingly. Cody Crosby was the number one assassin of Jing Tian Academy. That might sound impressive, and it was…if you only restricted it to our school. Nonetheless, his speed was formidable, and his skills were topnotch. Even if he lacked firepower, he could easily take down his target with a single strike to a weak point.
That was why assassins were so terrifying.
Cody surged through the spaces between us and reappeared behind me, swinging his dagger down to stab the back of my neck. With the boundary field active, it wouldn't kill me, but it would definitely incapacitate me.
Bang!
Before Cody could deliver the killing blow and effectively decapitate me or the team, a bullet whizzed through the space where his head was. Cody clicked his tongue and pulled back, jumping to safety as a barrage of magical bullets streaked after him.
"You're mine!" Stan Lee growled as he continued bombarding the assassin with his twin pistols. The muzzles barked and flashes of silver light sped from the barrels, blasting toward the evading Cody like twin meteors.
"We'll leave him to you, Stan," I said, and my junior nodded.
"I'll do my best to distract him for as long as possible." Then he grinned. "And you don't mind if I take him out, right?"
"If you can, do it," I told him with a smile. Stan grinned and broke off from the group to pursue the fleet-footed Cody. Despite his fearsome speed and attack, Cody was basically a paper cannon. His defenses were thin – most assassins eschewed armor and defensive enchantments because they would weigh them down and slow their movements. They preferred to rely on their speed and lightning reflexes to avoid attacks.
On the other hand, this meant they couldn't afford to get hit.
Now…the main threat. While the high-speed battle between assassin and marksman (too bad Stan wasn't a sniper, or that would be cool) was going on, the main force of Holy Saints had closed in our positions.
Heavy Knights. The next group composed entirely of heavy knights. Equipped with shields, swords or armor, they were pretty…well, heavy. Only Terence Taylor wasn't equipped with anything, instead trusting in his defensive enchantment to protect him. No, he was not the Black Bear, I have no idea where you got that from. He was known as…the Tank, because of the amount of punishment he could take. Very few people could break through his insane defenses. He didn't need armor or weapons because he was that sturdy.
He was pretty much a lite version of Chang Cheng from Crowley's Academy.
The other three, Adam Freeman, was clad in full body armor and armed with a broadsword. Lily Liam was known as the White Valkyrie, what with her long, golden flowing hair and elegant fighting style. Unlike the others, she was armed with a lance instead of a sword, but also sported a shield for defense. If I recalled correctly, she could summon a horse eventually – she had taken the same summoning class as I did, so I knew her relatively well. Unlike me, however, summoning was her tertiary, or secondary magic at best. Something to supplement her already formidable fighting skills, rather than her specialization. Just like Cody, she was part of the core lineup of Holy Saints, and the two of them usually fought under President Harrison Reed instead of Vice-President Lin Zhan Long.
The only reason why they were fighting today was because they saw a chance to test their skills. More likely they were more interested in testing the skills of the Black Roses members in our lineup, but already that wasn't going according to plan, not with Stan distracting Cody.
And now…
"I'll take care of the White Valkyrie."
Stepping forward Dong Fang Yue Chu raised a hand, and a curtain of fire blazed through the ranks of the approaching Holy Saints. They were forced to split up and dodge the wall of flames, only to realize that Lily had been split off from the rest. Dong Fang Yue Chu approached her, spreading out his blazing hands.
"It seems that you've upgraded your magic," Lily commented as she watched him with narrowed eyes. "I don't remember your fire spells being this powerful."
Dong Fang Yue Chu shrugged. "It's all thanks to Richard's Dad giving me special training." He then smiled and extended a hand toward her. "Shall we dance?"
Lily snorted. "I'm surprised. I thought you would run away and jump out of bounds by yourself when facing me, with the excuse that a man can't go all out against a woman."
"…uh, what?" Dong Fang Yue Chu stared at her blankly. "You and Cody aren't confusing Ultimate Outcast with Prodigy Society or something, right?"
Lily didn't even bother to waste her breath arguing with him. She was already charging at him with her lance, ready to run him through. Ranked among the top three in Jing Tian Academy, Lily fought aggressively, yet somehow retained an impression of grace and elegance, melding strength and beauty. She was the main warrior that all girls in the academy looked up to. Even the goddess Alicia Violet couldn't compare against her in terms of brute strength and combat skill, but then again Alicia was a ranged mage, not a frontline soldier.
Nonetheless, Dong Fang Yue Chu remained calm. Stretching out his hand, he knocked her lance aside and delivered a crushing palm strike that exploded with flames. Instinctively recognizing the danger, Lily immediately raised her shield and parried the blow. The flames washed over her, weakened slightly by the defensive aura emanated by her shield, but she was forced to retreat.
"This is…?!" She scowled and lowered her singed shield slightly. "Seems like Richard Huang isn't the only one who rose meteorically through the ranks this year."
Dong Fang Yue Chu smiled and shrugged again. "Thank you for the compliment."
On the other side of the flames, the heavily armored Adam was tromping toward us, only for Elliot to hammer his axe against him. Despite the heavy armor protecting him from being cleaved into pieces, Adam was still sent staggering backward. He raised his broadsword and hacked at Elliot, but the axe-wielder had ducked. Spinning to the side, he smashed his axe against the armored joint of Adam's knee, causing the armored knight to drop to a knee.
"Ugh!"
Elliot didn't relent and swung his axe again, this time at Adam's helm. But the heavily armored knight held up his broadsword to parry the blow. Even so, he was sent skidding a few centimeters backward.
"Kuh!"
"Wow…as expected of a Heavy Knight. Your armor is pretty tough to crack." Elliot shook his head. "This is going to take some time."
"Take as long as you need to!" I called out from the side, but we had already discussed our strategy beforehand. However, circumstances on the battlefield were always evolving and changing.
I wondered how we would be able to adapt, but I guess we would see. There definitely would occur some events that we wouldn't be able to foresee.
Nicholas had already surged forward and smashed a kick into Terence's belly. The Tank staggered with a grimace, and then threw out both his arms to wrap Nicholas in a bear hug, but Nicholas quickly evaded. Appearing behind Terence, he kicked him in the back, but Terence didn't fall over. Spinning around, he threw out a hand and smacked Nicholas in the face.
"Guh!"
Nicholas landed on the ground, but he quickly rose to his feet. Shaking his head, he adopted a stance, placing one hand in front of the other. Terence slowly lumbered toward him, but Nicholas stood his ground.
"What are you trying to do? Copy Ip Man? You think you're the grand master of Wing Chun, is it?" Terence scoffed.
Nicholas didn't say anything. Instead, he merely waited for Terence to approach. When the huge guy struck him, he smacked his fist away, deflecting it aside. Deflecting Terence's heavy punches, he then twisted around and hammered a barrage of short punches into Terence's face and chest. Despite his impervious defenses, Terence staggered backward, stunned by the sudden vicious blow. With a growl, he swung his arm out, but Nicholas parried it and was sent skidding backward. Ducking under another punch, his leg snaked out and hooked around Terence's, and shoved it from under him. Terence toppled over, and then Nicholas quickly stepped in and hammered another series of short punches into his face. Grunting as his head snapped back, Terence retaliated with a hook, but Nicholas calmly slapped his arm away and countered with another strike to his throat.
Even so, there was no way Terence was going down that easily. Not with that sort of formidable defense. And I had matters of my own to worry about.
"Hah! With all your teammates tied up, there's no one left to protect you!" Lin Zhan Long sneered as he charged at me. It was obvious that he fully intended to lay me flat and finish me off right here and right now, and eliminate the greatest threat to his team. The moment I summoned one of my Celestial Guardians, it would be very difficult for his team to prevail.
However, much to his surprise, I ran straight at him too.
"You…!" he growled. The vice-president of Holy Saints clearly did not expect me to fight a head-on battle right from the beginning. He had assumed that I would try to hide behind my comrades and rely on them to buy me enough time to summon my big guns.
That would be the wise thing to do, and probably the most optimal strategy. Unfortunately, it also made them very predictable.
Lin Zhan Long didn't care about all of that, however. He began laughing when he thought I was recklessly running toward my death. He was aware of my other summoning spells but he was confident that his melee skills were better than mine. So even if I…
"Gemini!"
…fought him with my Constellation weapons, he was confident that he would still be able to overpower me.
Lin Zhan Long swung his sword at my head, but I dropped to my knees and skidded underneath his swinging blade while slashing at his legs with my Gemini twin swords. Lin Zhan Long wasn't able to lower his shield in time, and blood spurted from twin wounds.
"Ugh!"
He staggered and glared at me in shock.
"How?!"
I merely stood back up and smiled. Twirling my twin swords, I then readied myself for another attack.
"What are you still standing there for?" I asked as I charged at him again. "The match has already started long ago."