It was as if half of his brain had woken up, but the other half was still stuck in a nightmare.
The spirit energy density in his single, luxurious dorm was incredibly high. Logically speaking, he should be able to recover his energy after sleeping for one or two hours.
This was something strange that had never happened before.
Now that he thought about it carefully, he realized that he had been training madly for the past one and a half months, and he had been too tense. He had also fought too madly during the tournament between courses yesterday, so he had used up too much of his stamina and spirit energy.
Now that the tournament had come to an end and he had obtained the right to head to the northern frontlines, he relaxed, and his body naturally let out an alarm.
Duan Lian grabbed his phone and looked at the time.
It was 12: 35 am. Who would call him so late at night?
"Hello?" he asked darkly.
"Big Brother Duan, Qiu Jie was knocked unconscious in the toilet!" A martial arts course student who was usually pretty good at playing said anxiously. "He went to shower just now, and he didn't come out even after more than half an hour. I thought that something was off, so I knocked on the door, but he didn't respond. I kicked the door open, and I saw him foaming at the mouth. He fainted on the floor, and there was a deep bruise on his neck. It looked like he was strangled!"
"What?"
Duan Lian was shocked. "You live in a four-person dorm, right? When Qiu Jie showered, there was someone in the room?"
"Young Tao and I were there, but he didn't come out. The toilet door was locked, so it's impossible for anyone to sneak in," the student said.
"Unless someone climbed in from the outside through the toilet's transom, but we live on the ninth floor, and the transom is really small. Even a girl who is 1.6 meters tall would have a hard time crawling in. Who could sneak in quietly and attack Qiu Jie?"
Duan Lian frowned. "Then? Why did you think of calling me?"
"Because we were prepared to send Qiu Jie to the university hospital, but we ran into the students from Dorm 608 on the way. They were carrying the Zhou brothers, and they were prepared to send them to the university hospital," the student said.
"I heard that the Zhou brothers were training with two of their roommates at night. After they finished, on their way back to the dorm, the two students walked a little faster. At most, they didn't hear any sound for around twenty seconds before they disappeared. They searched for them for more than an hour before they were found in a bush far away. The two brothers were beaten black and blue, and they were unconscious!"
"That's …"
Duan Lian's pupils shrank swiftly. "Wait, Qiu Jie and the Zhou brothers challenged Meng Chao with me during the day!"
"Yes, that's why I called you right away," the classmate said.
"Bastard, could it be that Meng Chao is a coward who doesn't dare to fight against the ten of us in person, so he decided to follow us and kill us one by one after the end of the competition while we're all alone?"
Duan Lian was livid. "Hurry up and call the others!"
Three of the challengers did not pick up the phone, and the other two were picked up by their classmates.
In the end, the three of them disappeared. Before ten o 'clock in the evening, some people saw them in the cultivation room or the library, and then they disappeared from the face of the earth.
As for the other two, they were found under their beds, unconscious. They had been beaten up quite badly.
It should be noted that these two students lived in dorms with multiple people. When the lights went out, there were other students sleeping soundly in the room, but until they were woken up by the phone call, these muddle-headed students didn't know that there had been a fight in the room or a one-sided ravage.
One had to know that they were all martial artists with extremely acute five senses!
Duan Lian could not help but curse.
The final call was finally picked up by the person himself.
"Zhang Nuo, you have to be careful of Meng Chao! That despicable and shameless bastard is attacking us one by one!"
Duan Lian said quickly. "You're staying in a single dorm as well, right? Hurry up and go to a place with a lot of people, or come to my place. We'll look for the lecturer together!"
"Big Brother Duan …"
The voice on the other end of the phone was very weak. "I-I feel really dizzy, and my limbs are limp. I think I'm poisoned."
"What?" Duan Lian was shocked. "Hurry up and open the door! Call for help!"
"Ah!" A pained scream came from the other end of the phone.
"What's going on?!" Duan Lian was about to go mad.
"Someone … Someone stuck a ring of semi-transparent monster spikes on my door handle. I think it's poisoned too. I wanted to open the door, but when I clenched it, my entire hand was stabbed. It's numb now."
Zhang Nuo's voice grew softer on the other end of the phone. "He also used monster glue to seal my door. I-I can't get out …"
As she fell to the ground with a thud, the person on the other end of the phone seemed to have been devoured by a huge darkness. Not a single sound could be heard.
Duan Lian quickly jumped up and ignored his dizziness. The first thing he did was put on the combat boots he had ordered with two thousand monster coins. The bottom layer was inlaid with steel plates, and there were sharp blades hidden inside.
"Ah!"
Right when the tip of his foot stabbed into the combat boots, he screamed and pulled his foot out. His big toe was already drenched in blood.
Duan Lian pulled off his shoelace and flung it. A dark purple caltrop came out of his shoe.
The spike shone with a dark green light, and it was stained with a few drops of his blood.
When he looked at his toe, the blood that flowed out had also turned dark green.
Duan Lian widened his eyes. He wanted to call for help.
But he felt as if the entire world was spinning, and the air was instantly sucked dry. He did not even have the strength to pick up the phone.
Duan Lian pounced on the door.
After taking two steps, he came to a halt and staggered to the window.
But he only took two steps before he tripped over something and fell to the ground.
The fall was really bad, and the last of his strength was scattered. He could only gasp for breath and end up like a fish on a chopping board.
Duan Lian lowered his head with great difficulty and noticed that someone had tied a nearly transparent strengthened spider silk between the foot of his bed and the foot of the cabinet. It was in the direction of the window.
While he was asleep, someone had snuck in without his knowledge and stuffed poisoned caltrops into his combat boots. Then, they had tied a tripwire to the foot of his bed. They should have released anesthetic gas in the air as well. Perhaps even the handle of the door and window had monster spikes stuck to it. Of course, they had also been poisoned.
And when the person did all this, Duan Lian was in a nightmare on his bed.
Duan Lian's skin crawled.
He was even more terrified than when he faced Wu Wu, the monster controller who was as mad as a Ghost Leopard.
They were both monster-level opponents, but today, this monster had undoubtedly destroyed his mental defenses.
At that moment, a dissection blade that was as thin as a cicada's wing landed gently on his neck.
"Duan Lian, I won."
A ghost slowly crawled out of the darkness. Her eyes shone with a mocking light. She bent down and whispered into his ear with a smile.
All the goosebumps on Duan Lian's skin screamed.
"W-What is this?!" He used his embarrassment as anger to hide his fear.
"If you're talking about the time and place, please think about what Ms. Li told me this morning. First of all, the rules of the competition are set by the challenged. I didn't specify the size of the venue or the time. I only said that both sides must use their full strength to completely defeat the other party. That's why this is a fight with no limits and will never end until one side falls. And I only like this sort of fight," Meng Chao said faintly.
"If you're talking about poisoning or setting a trap, I remember that the rules of the martial arts course state that all weapons and methods are allowed to be used without any special instructions." Sabers, swords, daggers, thick steel plates, boots with blades hidden in them, and even guns are allowed. "Since the martial artists of the Gun Fighting Style and Machine Armor Style can fuse martial arts, guns, and machines together, why can't I use my own abilities to poison them?"
"You …"
Duan Lian hissed and used all his strength to say, "How is this the profound secret of the Ultimate Style?!"
"This is the profound secret of the Ultimate Style," Meng Chao said calmly.
"You already know what happened to the other challengers, right? If it weren't for the fact that I cleared all 1,024 branch meridians and my senses being incredibly sharp, allowing me to control each muscle fiber and nerve ending at will, allowing me to perform fatal actions in a small space, how could I have quietly killed one of them while they were sleeping in a dorm with four or six people snoring? How was it possible for him to drag two students into the bushes in just a few seconds without being discovered or making a sound? How could I have climbed nine floors and crawled into a narrow air window while a superhuman was bathing inside? Then, before he could react to the situation, I knocked him out? "
Duan Lian had nothing to say to that.
But he still straightened his neck with an unruly look on his face.
"The war has changed," Meng Chao said calmly.
"In the past, we had the home advantage. We could rest and get supplies at any time we wanted. With the support of fierce firepower, we could release dazzling killing moves with lightning effects without fear. Forget about the offensive effects, it was worth wasting some of our precious spirit energy just to increase our morale.
"But in the future, there's a high possibility that we'll have to fight alone. We'll enter the monster world behind the fog and face existences that are even more terrifying than monsters.
"If we only know how to stand still and attack like idiots, what's the difference between martial artists and tanks with cannons? The cost of creating an armored tank is much lower than the cost of cultivating a high-grade martial artist.
"Lurking, infiltrating, scouting, assassinating, surveying, creating chaos … These are things that tanks, cannons, and even nuclear weapons can't do. That's the value of a martial artist's existence.
"And in the depths of the fog and the real battlefield, there are no rules, no judges, no boundaries, and no end time. The enemy doesn't care whether you're sleeping, bathing, eating, or excreting. If you're killed by the enemy using despicable methods, you won't be able to complain to your teacher. Death is the only judgment.
"This sort of war will definitely pay more attention to the details. Even the powerful fighters who have super killing moves might be killed by the enemy in an unexpected way if they're the slightest bit careless. The Ultimate Style, which focuses on cultivating 1,024 branch meridians, is the most suitable for this sort of battlefield.
"This is the logic I wanted to tell all the challengers.
"Duan Lian, I know that we had some misunderstandings at the start of the semester, but please believe me, I really don't have any ill will. I'm sorry that you didn't manage to get an ace lecturer. As compensation, why don't we become friends? I'll teach you the Ultimate Style."
Meng Chao's face was sincere, and he offered his heart to Duan Lian.
"Bah!"
Duan Lian was still lying on the ground. His body was numb, and gradually, he could no longer feel his limbs. He was so angry that there was no way he could hear Meng Chao's good intentions. "Dream on! Go to hell with your Ultimate Style! I can't accept this! Meng Chao, I'm telling you, we're not done yet! "
"How troublesome."
Meng Chao scratched his head and looked rather troubled. He drew closer and whispered, "Then, there's nothing I can do about it."
Whoosh!
The dissection blade between his fingers turned into lightning and cut Duan Lian's carotid artery.
Duan Lian felt pain in his neck. He saw an arrow of blood shoot out, and it dyed half of the room red.
= = = =
"My dear brothers and sisters, I'm here for the fourth update. From today onwards, I'll be adding more updates. Please vote like crazy and squeeze me dry!
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