There were still a few fine details Belo hadn't told Ayrin about yet.
In the hottest thing in the entire kingdom, this Cup of Academy Braves that made countless students go crazy, the order of appearance was decided before the game started and handed to the referee. It couldn't be changed midway.
Chris was originally meant to be the last one to go out. The teammate listed before her could only throw in the towel if he wanted to abstain.
This way, the score would become four – nil, and she would be the last team member left for Holy Dawn Academy.
The teammate beside her lowered his head. He didn't express any objection.
He'd already lost his entire confidence after seeing Zola's previous performances, and he knew Chris spoke the truth. Even if he had the courage to put his life on the line, he still wouldn't be able to force Zola to dig too deep into his reserves with his current level.
"Forfeit?"
Everyone was waiting for the fourth Holy Dawn Academy contestant to come out, but they saw Chris step up instead. Many people realized what happened, after a moment of surprise. A clamor once again shook through the whole stands.
"Four-nil!"
"There's only Chris left!"
"Don't tell me she'll handle the five on our side just by herself!"
Zola's three quick and decisive victories in succession had already sent the Southern Monsoon students into a craze of excitement. Now seeing the score directly become four – nil, they became even more frenzied. Some people even yelled at the top of their lungs, "Four-nil already! Clean sweep! Clean sweep!" "Five-nil!"
"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! ..."
Ayrin was so angry he also yelled, desperately shouting his encouragement for Chris when he saw her step forward, but his voice was thoroughly drowned in Southern Monsoon's cacophony. He thought that the Southern Monsoon students were really too arrogant.
At this moment, Ferdinand, the captain for team Southern Monsoon, gestured toward the stands.
The extraordinarily noisy stands suddenly quieted down.
"Chris, just give up. There's no way you can defeat all five of us in succession."
Ferdinand cleared his throat as Chris walked to the center of the field, then earnestly told her such a caring sentence.
Then, before anyone could come back to their senses, before Chris could say anything, he suddenly pulled out a red rose from behind his clothes, just like a magic trick. He said to Chris in a loud voice, "Chris, I've admired you for a long time already. Whether it's your beauty or your strength, they both make me infatuated. Transfer to our Southern Monsoon Academy, and come fight at my side!"
"...!"
Countless people in the stands almost fell down face first.
"Is this guy a moron?" Ayrin stared dumbstruck at Ferdinand's face filled with deep love. The thing that made him most speechless was, Ferdinand even posed and showed off his muscles at his time, flexed his pecs a couple times.
Belo offered this pertinent evaluation: "He's about at the same level as you."
"..." Chris never thought Ferdinand would say such a thing. She was thoroughly speechless.
"It's forbidden to declare your flame in public once the competition is underway, otherwise your right to participation will be revoked." A referee appeared in front of Ferdinand.
"Ah? There's even a rule for this?" Ferdinand was very depressed.
Chris threw a ferocious stare at Ferdinand, walked in front of Zola, made a beckoning gesture with her hand. "Come."
Her action was very casual, but Zola felt an inexplicable pressure.
The whole stands quieted down once again, because even people from Southern Monsoon academy knew very clearly in their inner selves that the Amazingly Crazy Girl's reputation wasn't for show. In a one versus one, Ferdinand and the others probably weren't her match.
Zola nodded. He didn't make a sound.
His body suddenly leaned down, his hands pressing on the ground. It seemed he was about to grab hard clay like earlier and send them flying at Chris, then use his four-limbed run to approach her.
But the moment his hands were about to touch the ground, they became enveloped in dazzling purple arcane particles. Two transparent spinning blades suddenly fired out, piercing toward Chris from both the left and the right.
"So treacherous!" Ayrin couldn't help but shout out.
Many Holy Dawn students couldn't help utter a cry of alarm either, up in the stands.
Chris made a strange movement at this time.
She merely turned around, stood still, pulling herself as if she were a door. From her posture facing Zola, she became a line facing Zola from the side.
This movement seemed simple and stiff, but just by happy chance, the two Formless Spinning Blades grazed past her, not touching her body.
"Worthy of the Amazingly Crazy Girl, such a keen judgment," Belo mumbled to himself.
"An opportunity!" Zola silently screamed inside his mind at this moment. His originally faintly red eyes became crimson.
"Rip!" Along with the sound of tearing, his pair of shoes tore open, and his body leaped from the formidable propulsion of his legs. He threw a punch in Chris' direction.
His body flew in the air, parallel to the ground, painting a weird picture together with Chris who stood with her side facing to him.
"What?"
It seemed Chris had no time to dodge at all. What thoroughly choked the breath of many people was, Chris simply didn't use any arcane particle. At this juncture, she merely twisted her body, shouted out loud, and likewise threw a punch out.
"Bang!"
An explosive sound!
Two fists firmly clashed against each other.
Zola's body that was flying like the wind through the air seemed to freeze all of a sudden, stopping in the middle of the air.
Impossible...
Such a though suddenly emerged in his mind.
Suddenly, a fist wrapped in thick bandages appeared below him without the slightest warning, boring towards his face.
He only had time to lower his left arm and block.
Bang!
The punch smashed his arm away, jolting it into numbness.
Another punch came pounding, he blocked again!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!...
The rapid concussive sounds made everyone's heartbeat speed up something fierce.
Zola felt as if the fists appeared endlessly in front of him. He could only block them desperately. In the eyes of the spectators in the stands, Chris was so fast she seemed to have grown additional arms. She dashed forward even as she jabbed her fists and battered Zola with them. Zola's body twisted into weird postures in the middle of the air, dropping downward.
"Chris' physical strength is actually even higher than Zola's?"
"Wasn't she from an ordinary human bloodline, did she actually train her physical strength to such a tyrannical degree?"
Collective gasps rose in waves inside the stands.
Everyone could see that Chris wasn't using arcane particles at all. She was purely relying on her physical strength to attack.
Zola had been thinking of overwhelming her with physical strength. He didn't expect her to strike back at him instead, to punch him so fast he didn't even have the time to mobilize the arcane particles inside him.
"Boom!"
Just when Zola landed on the ground in an extremely awkward pose, simply unable to gain a firm footing, Chris sent her foot flying and struck Zola's stomach.
Zola shot out backward like a cannonball.
Chris's figure was even faster than him, however. She jumped once more and pounded her feet on his chest.
Zola's body flew out a full dozen meters before finally dropping fiercely on the ground in a heavy crash.
Chris stopped steadily, stood there.
In an instant, her charming, delicate figure became incomparably domineering!
"She became even stronger. I like!" Captain Ferdinand stared blankly at her, mumbling to himself. His voice was very loud.
A few black lines appeared on Chris' forehead. "Who's next!" she said, fuming with a little anger between gritted teeth.
"You think you can beat me just like this!" A voice rang from her side at this moment.
"You... you underestimate me..."
He'd been laying without moving a single finger after his heavy crash, but then he'd managed to slowly stand up at some point. He wiped the blood off his mouth, his body bent.
"Is this guy even human! He can stand up even after this?"
"Can he still fight?"
The stands went into an uproar. Even the team of medical arcane masters had entered into the field already. They also froze all of a sudden when they saw Zola stand up again.
A little stupefaction flashed in Chris' eyes that brimmed with a desire for battle.
"You think this is all I can do?"
Zola slowly lifted his head. His eyes were blood-red.
His body once again trailed into a bewildering blur, charging toward Chris.
Chris stood there quietly.
For her, the opponent was the entire Southern Monsoon team, not only Zola, even if his strength had already far exceeded her expectations.
The stronger Zola was, the more careful she needed to be. She had to preserve her stamina and the arcane particle reserve inside her body as much as possible.
"Swoosh!"
Zola's figure accelerated all of a sudden, circling behind her. A punch thrust in her direction.
Chris' body suddenly disappeared. Reappeared on Zola's right.
Resplendent and eye-dazzling purple arcane particles gushed out of her right arm. The sparkling particles dotted closely together seemed to be catch fire, transforming into a bright red python of flames twining around her arm.
"Wild Blazing Python!" someone cried out in surprise.
Zola seemed about to be swallowed by a fire python, but at this moment, countless black particles suddenly flew out from the shadows at his feet.
Zola's body shot out at frightening speed, like a bullet, jumping over a dozen meters in the air.
Meanwhile, those black particles pounded Chris' body. Countless tiny drops of blood sprinkled out from her, along with a stuffy groan.
"Shadow Dust!"
Belo stood up abruptly, his expression suddenly turning gloomy and unsightly.
"Chris is wounded?"
Ayrin also bounced up from his seat all of a sudden. He grabbed Belo and shouted his question. "What's Shadow Dust!"
"A secret skill from Southern Monsoon Academy very few people are able to learn." Belo's glasses seemed to flash continuously with a cold light. "This skill can allow you to hide your own power in advance inside your shadow. In other words, even after he uses the arcane skill, the particles are all black and hide inside the shadows, so it's very difficult to notice them. It's even very hard to tell when he even started using it."