Chapter 151 - Why Don’t We Become Friends?
Duan Lian was shocked awake by the phone. He felt his head pound, and his limbs were weak. He could even smell a sweet scent in the air. It was as if half of his mind was awake, but the other half was still tormented by a nightmare.
He was located in a luxurious, single dorm room, where the spirit energy density was incredibly high. If he slept deeply for an hour or two, he should have recovered his strength.
This was a strange thing which had never happened before.
He thought about it carefully and figured that it must be because his nerves were stretched too tightly as he trained madly over the past six weeks. He had also fought fiercely during the tournament between courses, which made him use up too much of his stamina and spirit energy.
But the tournament had come to an end, and he had already obtained the right to head to the northern battlefield, so his mind relaxed. It was only natural then that it would send warning signs to him.
Duan Lian grabbed his handphone and checked the time.
It was 00:35. Who would call him so late at night?
“Hello?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “Big Brother Duan, Qiu Jie was knocked out in the toilet!” a martial arts course coursemate who was quite friendly with him said anxiously.
“He went to bathe just now, and he didn’t come back even after more than half an hour passed. I thought that something was weird, so I knocked on the door loudly, but he didn’t react. Then, I kicked it, and I saw him unconscious on the floor while foaming at the mouth. There’s a deep bruise on his neck, and it looks like he was choked by someone until he fell unconscious!”
“What?” Duan Lian was shocked. “You’re in a four-man dorm, right? Was Qiu Jie alone in the dorm when he went to bathe?”
“Little Tao and I were here all the time. He didn’t come out, and the bathroom was locked on the inside. No one could have possibly gone in,” he said, “unless they jumped in from outside through the transom in the bathroom. But we’re staying on the ninth floor, and the transom is tiny. Even a girl who is 160cm tall would have a hard time crawling in. Who could have crawled in silently to attack Qiu Jie?”
Duan Lian frowned. “What happened then? Why did you call me?”
“While we were preparing to send Qiu Jie to the medical office, we ran into the people from Dorm 608. They were carrying their friend Zhou in a flurry of motion. They were also sending him to the medical office,” he said.
“I heard that Zhou was training with two of his dormmates. After they ended their training session, while they were on their way back, the two dormmates walked slightly ahead, and around twenty seconds later, they notice Zhou having vanished without a trace. They searched for more than an hour and finally found him in a shrub very far away. He was beaten black and blue and lay unconscious!”
“That’s…” Duan Lian’s pupils shrank. “Wait. Qiu Jie and Zhou are both people who challenged Meng Chao with me during the day!”
“That’s right. That’s why I decided to call you,” the coursemate said.
“Bastard. Could it be that Meng Chao doesn’t dare to face the ten of us head-on so he decided to sneakily follow us and attack us after the match has ended and we’re alone?” Duan Lian was furious. “Hurry up and call the others!”
He also made some calls. Three challengers did not pick up. The other two had their dormmates pick up their phones.
Three people were missing. From witnesses, they learned that before ten o’clock at night, they were seen in cultivation rooms or the library. Then, they vanished.
The other two were discovered under their beds. They were unconscious and had been beaten really badly.
Two of the students had stayed in dorms with multiple people in one room. They had dormmates sleeping soundly in their rooms, but even when they were shocked awake by the phone call, the muddle-headed dormmates did not know that there had been a fight in their rooms. Or rather, they did not know that their dormmate had gone through a one-sided fight.
Yet they were all martial artists with incredibly sharp senses!
Duan Lian could not help but cuss.
When he made his final call, the person himself picked it up.
“Zhang Nuo, you have to be careful of Meng Chao. That despicable guy is ambushing us!” Duan Lian said quickly. “You’re staying in a single dorm room too, right? Hurry up and go to a place with a lot of people or come to my place! We’ll go and look for a lecturer together!”
“Big Brother Duan…” The voice on the other side of the phone was very weak. “My… My head is really dizzy. My limbs are weak. I think I’m poisoned.”
“What?” Duan Lian was shocked. “Hurry up and open the door. Call for someone!”
“Ah!” A pained scream came from the other end of the phone.
“What’s going on!” Duan Lian almost went mad.
“Someone… Someone stuck a semi-transparent layer of monster spikes on my door handle. I think it’s coated in poison as well. I wanted to open the door, but when I held it, my skin was pierced, and it’s numb now.”
Zhang Nuo’s voice became weaker. “He also… used monster glue to seal my door shut. I… can’t go out.”
His words were followed by a loud thud of him falling on the floor. Then, it was as if great darkness had swallowed up whatever was on the other side of the phone. Not a single sound came through.
Duan Lian quickly got up. He did not care about his dizziness and immediately put on combat boots he had spent two thousand monster coins to make. The bottom of the boots was inlaid with steel, and he even had sharp blades hidden in them.
“Ah!”
Right when his right foot entered his combat boot, he cried out. When he pulled his foot out, his big toe was covered in blood.
He untied the laces and turned the boot upside down. A dark purple bindii fell out.
Its thorns shone with a dark green light, and they were covered by a few drops of blood.
When he looked at his toe again, the blood flowing out was dark green.
Duan Lian’s eyes went wide, and he wanted to call for help, but his world spun. It was as if the air had been instantly sucked out. He did not even have the strength to grab his phone.
Duan Lian moved to the door.
Right after he threw himself forward, he stopped himself and staggered to the window.
But right after he took two steps, he was tripped by something and crashed onto the floor.
The crash was very bad, and it knocked out his last remaining strength. He could only gasp for breath like a fish on a chopping board.
Duan Lian lowered his head with great difficulty and saw a nearly invisible, strengthened spider thread between the end of his bed and the foot of his cabinet.
While he was sleeping, someone had snuck in without his notice. They stuffed the poisonous Iron Bindii into his combat boots, tied a rope to the end of his bed to trip him, released anesthetic gas into the air, and might have even stuck monster spikes to the handles of the door and the window. Naturally, they would also be poisoned.
While all of that was being done, Duan Lian was going through a nightmare.
His skin crawled.
Compared to the fear he had yesterday when he faced monster controller Wu Wu, who was as crazy as a Ghost Leopard, he was even more frightened now.
They were both monster-level opponents, but the monster today was definitely even more capable of destroying his mind.
At that moment, a dissection blade that was as thin as a cicada’s wing landed gently on his neck.
A ghost materialized above him. His eyes shone with a teasing light, and he bent his body to whisper into his ear with a smile.
“Duan Lian, I won.”
Goosebumps broke out on Duan Lian’s skin.
“Th-this means nothing!” He used anger to mask his fear.
“If you’re talking about time and place, please think about what Ms. Li and I said this morning. First of all, the rules of the challenge are set by the challenged, but I didn’t specify how big the arena was nor how long the match could last. I only said that both sides have to do their best to completely defeat the other party.
“That’s why, this is a match that has no limits and will never end. I only love these sort of fights,” Meng Chao said faintly. “If you’re talking about me poisoning you or setting up traps, I remember that the norm in the martial arts course is that we can use any weapon and method of our choice. No one ever specified what sort of weapons we can use.
“We can choose sabers, swords, daggers, thickened steel, combat boots with blades hidden in them, or guns. Since martial artists practicing the Gun Fighting Style and Machine Armor Style can combine martial arts with guns and machines, why can’t I use my abilities to poison my opponents?”
“You…” Duan Lian hissed and used every ounce of his strength to say, “How can this be considered the secret of the Ultimate Style!”
“This IS the secret of the Ultimate Style,” Meng Chao said calmly. “You already know how the other challengers ended up, right? If I hadn’t cleared all 1024 branch meridians so that my senses would become much shaper and I could control every muscle fiber and nerve ending at will to deliver fatal moves in a small space, how would I have been able to quietly get rid of one person why four or more people slept in a dorm?
“And it would have been impossible for me to carry someone into a shrub in just a few seconds without anything noticing me. I even made sure that he couldn’t make a single sound. It also would have been impossible for me to climb up nine floors and crawl through a narrow transom to where a superhuman was bathing. Then, before he could even react to the situation, I managed to choke him until he fainted.”
Duan Lian had nothing to say. Even so, he remained stubborn, and his face was full of wildness.
“The war has changed,” Meng Chao said calmly. “In the past, we had the advantage of fighting on our home turf. We could rest and obtain supplies at any time we wanted. We could release all sorts of dazzling killing moves with electricity effects since we had the support of powerful firepower. I won’t talk about the effects of the attacks itself, but it’s worth it to spend some of the precious spirit energy just to increase morale.
“But in the future, we might end up as a lone army marching away from our home turf. We will be entering the world of monsters behind the fog and will probably have to face existences even more terrifying than monsters.
“If we only know how to stand around in stances like idiots waiting to execute our attacks, martial artists won’t be any different from large tanks. But creating an armored tank is much cheaper than cultivating a high-ranked martial artist.
“Ambushing, infiltrating, scouting, assassinating, surveying, and creating chaos is something tanks, cannons, and even nuclear weapons can’t do. This is the value of martial artists.
“And the real battlefield is in the depths of the fog. There won’t be rules, judgment, boundaries, or ends to fights. The enemy won’t care whether you’re sleeping, bathing, eating, or relieving yourself. Once you’re killed by a despicable method, you won’t have the chance to complain about it to your lecturer. Dying is the only judgment you will face.
“When you’re in that sort of battle, you have to pay attention to details. Even powerful people who have powerful killing moves might be set up and taken out by surprise by the enemy if they’re the slightest bit careless.
“The Ultimate Style mainly cultivates the 1024 branch meridians, so it’s the most suited for that sort of battle. This is the logic I wanted to tell all of you who challenged me.
“Duan Lian, I know that there has been a slight misunderstanding between us during the admission test, but please believe me when I say that I really don’t have any ill will. I really regret that you couldn’t choose an ace lecturer for yourself. As compensation, why don’t we become friends, and I’ll teach you the Ultimate Style?”
Meng Chao looked very sincere.
“Bah!” Duan Lian was still lying on the ground. His body was numb, and he was gradually unable to feel his limbs. He was so angry that he lost his mind and could not read Meng Chao’s good intentions. “Dream on! Go to hell with your Ultimate Style! I refuse to admit defeat! Meng Chao, I’m telling you, things haven’t ended between us!”
“How troublesome.” Meng Chao scratched his head with a troubled expression. He drew closer and said softly, “Then, I have no choice.”
Whoosh!
The dissection blade between his fingers turned into lightning, and he cut the artery in Duan Lian’s neck.
Duan Lian felt pain in his neck, then saw a stream of blood gush out. It rushed out like a sprinkler and dyed half of the room red!