I was stunned. Those tamer skills looked pretty powerful. Was the fourth-promotion tamer about to mount an epic comeback?

After being whipped by their master, the Snowy Plains Wolves became a hundred times more motivated than before. Puffing up their fur and growling menacingly at Chengfeng, they pounced toward his left and right side without warning and swung their menacing claws!

"Hmph!"

Li Chengfeng snorted coldly before swinging his sword at the Snowy Plains Wolves. He chose to counterattack instead of defending himself!!

Bang bang!

The two enemy pets reeled in pain, but Li Chengfeng also lost two chunks of HP—

1895!

1987!

As expected, not even Li Chengfeng’s Defense was enough to mitigate the Snowy Plain Wolves’ buffed Attack. However...

"Die!"

Li Chengfeng growled as he used Dragonbone Flurry on Soul Of The Wild. In that instant, Li Chengfeng had gotten close enough to Lasting and executed his killer move.

"Ah?"

Caught off-guard, Soul Of The Wild retreated and whipped Li Chengfeng right across the face at the same time, shouting, "Wild Sacrifice!"

Thud thud thud!

Li Chengfeng’s skill was as quick as lightning, and Soul Of The Wild was nowhere fast enough to dodge the sudden attack. Three damage numbers appeared above her head—

3975!

3694!

3872!

It wasn’t the kind of damage a leather-armor class could survive at all, but the fact was the Soul Of The Wild was still alive! At the same time, one of her Snowy Plain Wolves groaned and died as if it was the one who took the blow!

Fuck, a sacrificial skill that uses one’s own pet as a meatshield? Tsk tsk, Soul Of The Wild is an interesting class for sure.

Li Chengfeng looked surprised as well. He didn’t think that his perfect attack would fail to kill his target.

Suddenly, the archer Scentless Water let out a painful groan and collapsed at the edge of the platform. When I glanced at her, I saw four or five arrows sticking out of her leather armor, still shaking, and blood pouring profusely from her wounds. Somehow, Beiming Xue had sniped the target before anyone else!

My lull in concentration bought Stranger Of Three Lifetimes some time, however. Retreating a few steps away from me, she raised her scepter and growled menacingly. "Ice Blade!"

Thud thud thud!

Seven or eight icicles burst out of the ground and plunged into my war boots and thighs. It hurts! Both Li Chengfeng and I were caught in the narrow AoE spell!

1984!

1973!

……

The spell did continuous damage. Stranger Of Three Lifetimes really was as powerful as she looked. I hurriedly maneuvered to a good position and counterattacked with a Thousand Ice Slash of my own!

Bang!

The AoE skill tore the enemy’s Magic Shield to pieces. Before she could react, I followed up immediately with a Dragon Slaying Slash!

Boom!

4102!

One hit was all it took to one-shot Stranger Of Three Lifetimes. The mage stared at me with her mouth open right until the moment she died. It seemed like she never expected me to have a trump card like this.

On the other side of the battlefield, the second enemy archer called Nono had died as well. Standing in front of her corpse was none other than He Yi and a bloodied Soul Stealing Spear. Obviously, a normal archer couldn’t defeat a magic knight with almost 2000 Defense, no matter how hard she tried.

The situation turned into a one-sided slaughter in no time. The Soul Of The Wild was no match for Li Chengfeng without the assistance of her teammates, especially since he took his time to murder every last one of her pets first before moving on to her. A tamer without their pets was completely useless, so the Soul Of The Wild had no choice but to raise her arms in surrender.

The enemy warrior, Eyes Like Water, was chasing after Murong Mingyue all this time. In fact, she was very close to killing our priest. Murong Mingyue was forced to run all over the place and heal herself whenever an opportunity presented itself.

Whip!

The Soul Of The Wild hit the ground once with her whip to catch Eyes Like Water’s attention. Then, she smiled helplessly at her friend. "Time to go, Water. We already lost."

Eyes Like Water stopped, but her eyes were full of determination. She forfeited and vanished in a flash of white light.

The Soul Of The Wild vanished after her. Well, it was wise of them to give up a lost battle early and save their strength for the next round.

1-0!

So far, things were looking very good for us. Our opponents were no slouches, but we were still able to beat them with ease. It was proof of how far we had come.

A few minutes later, both sides were teleported back into the arena again.

……

Stranger Of Three Lifetimes asked her teammates, "Can someone tell me why we lost so quickly just now?"

Lasting rotated the whip in her hands slowly while smiling. Smoothening the cape behind her back and bending her waist a little into an incredibly enticing posture, she answered, "It’s my fault, I didn’t control my pets well enough, and I gave Legendary Brave the opening to shatter my control. Anyway, I imagine you’ll want to whip me for the mistake? C’mon then, I’m all ready for you…"

Me: "..."

Li Chengfeng: "..."

This team sure is a sunny bunch, eh??

The girls finally stopped fooling around and whispered to each other in low voices that we couldn’t hear. The way they pointed at us from time to time made us—especially He Yi, Li Chengfeng, and I—feel extremely uncomfortable.

He Yi looked at me and asked, "Why do I feel like something’s about to happen to me?"

"What a coincidence, I feel the same way as well," Li Chengfeng echoed in agreement.

I said, "Fuck, me too…"

It was at this moment the countdown began—

3!

2!

1!

Second round, go!

The Soul Of The Wild resummoned her Snowy Plain Wolves almost at the same time the barrier separating our teams disappeared. Stranger Of Three Lifetimes was chanting a spell, the two archers were drawing their bows, and the warrior Eyes Like Water locked onto our dragon warrior, Legendary Brave and activated Charge!

Thud!

Li Chengfeng countered with his own Charge and slammed into her, sending her stumbling backward a couple of steps. Eyes Like Water’s Strength was clearly inferior to Li Chengfeng’s, but at least neither side had managed to stun each other yet. It was a failure for both warriors.

However, Eyes Like Water was just buying time for her mage. Stranger Of Three Lifetimes abruptly raised her scepter and cried out, "Profound Ice Break!"

Boom!

Several ice blades suddenly fell from the sky and froze Li Chengfeng in ice, catching all of us off-guard. None of us knew that she had a skill like this!

"Attack!"

Not waiting for the enemy to pull off their killer combo, I charged the enemy archer Nono and swung my sword. She only managed to hit me with two Freezing Arrows before collapsing to the ground, dead. Then, I turned around and launched a Thousand Ice Slash!

Boom!

4193!

The second archer failed to dodge out of the way and died as well. But while I was murdering Blazing Hot Lips’ backline, Eyes Like Water and the two Snowy Plains Wolves had also reached Li Chengfeng and hit him with everything they had!

3874!

2984!

2758!

……

Not even Murong Mingyue was able to outheal the damage Li Chengfeng had taken. The dragon warrior shouted in despair, "Fuck, I don’t want to die…"

Well, he died anyway. Moping couldn’t change reality.

But while they were murdering Li Chengfeng, I also got close enough to the Soul Of The Wild to launch an Ice Ray at her!

Rrroom!

The Soul Of The Wild reacted quickly and dodged out of the way, but before she could do anything else, a spearhead suddenly burst out of her chest and killed her where she stood. A beautiful figure appeared behind her as she slowly collapsed to the floor, and it was none other than He Yi. The magic knight had landed a lucky critical hit on the Soul Of The Wild and one-shot her. He Yi was a super noob in her past, but she had shed that title a long time ago through hard work and an amazing amount of talent. Today, she was so good that even I was a little surprised by her progress.

Pu!

Stranger Of Three Lifetimes wasn’t doing nothing while all this was going on. An icicle pierced through Beiming Xue’s chest and dealt an incredible amount of damage, but instead of running away she launched an Evil Spirit Volley at her attacker. Since Beiming Xue had become a fourth-promotion archer, her HP had exceeded 5000. It would take more than one icicle to make her flee in fear!

The purple arrows looked like they were fired at random, but in reality they sealed off almost every possible retreat path Stranger Of Three Lifetimes could take. The high-level mage glared at Beiming Xue as she muttered, "I may die here, but I’m taking you with me!"

Beiming Xue simply smiled. "It’s fine. Big bro will take care of the rest of you!"

The two girls started throwing everything they had at each other. Stranger Of Three Lifetimes unleashed her final Ice Dragon Howl at the same time as Beiming Xue loosed her last Explosive Arrow!

Pu pu...

Both girls died taking the other person with them...

Meanwhile, Eyes Like Water was backing away hastily from me after eating a Pardon before zigzagging abruptly toward He Yi!

Crack!

1178!

Sparks flew everywhere as metal clashed against metal. However, the damage Eyes Like Water did was shockingly low. Eyes Like Water’s mouth fell open when He Yi’s invisible Ice Soul Barrier finally revealed itself as a high-grade shield. "OMG, what even is this Defense…"

He Yi smiled and retaliated with a stab to the torso. It was bad manners not to return a gesture after all!

Clang!

2743!

It was clear who was the victor. There was no way Eyes Like Water would be able to kill He Yi before she died.

Eyes Like Water lowered her sword helplessly before smiling. "Sigh, it’s still not enough, huh? No wonder you guys are the first seed of Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls. We concede. It’s been an honor to be your opponent, and… see you in Vanished God City next time!"

He Yi stared at her for a moment before smiling back. "See you."

Swhoosh!

Eyes Like Water forfeited again, and the journey of Blazing Hot Lips’ first seed in the Who Will Rise tournament officially ended here!

2-0!

Unfortunately, the second round victory wasn’t as pretty as the first. Li Chengfeng took the full brunt of the enemy’s surprise attack, so his death was no wonder. Beiming Xue successfully took out the enemy’s mage at the cost of her life, and considering that Stranger Of Three Lifetimes was one of the famous experts of Vanished God City, it was an incredible achievement. After all, under normal circumstances a mage with a Magic Shield should always destroy an archer of the same level ten out of ten times!

……

We were teleported back to the orchard once more. Victory belonged to us again!

Li Chengfeng looked at the floor and complained sadly, "Fuck, that was such an embarrassing way to die.."

I consoled him. "It’s okay. Had you not played the cannon fodder and baited out most of the enemy’s firepower for us, we wouldn’t have been able to delete the rest of them quite as easily. Stranger Of Three Lifetimes is definitely a powerful mage, and I wouldn’t want to run into that Soul Of The Wild outside the city. We were lucky to fight them in an arena."

Li Chengfeng nodded in agreement. If this was outside where everyone could summon two or even three pets depending on their class, it would be a pain in the ass to fight Blazing Hot Lips. Soul Of The Wild’s powerful buffs could easily turn all their pets into powerhouses and overwhelm us through sheer brute force.

It was at this moment I received a message from Lin Yixin. "I’m sorry, Lu Chen. I did something very bad to you…"

My heart sank at the ominous message. "What is it, Yiyi?"