As mentioned earlier, it was a tough decision for Gunther. They had lost three of their main fighters while Jing Tian Academy still had ours. He knew it was a poor excuse, but he could only blame the faulty intelligence. Even so, the fact remained that both he and Cain had vastly underestimated us. The captain of Jing Tian Academy, Harrison Reed, had turned out to be much more tactically astute that either of them had imagined.

"How terrifying," he murmured, a bead of perspiration dripping down his face as he bit his lip in frustration. Taking a deep breath, he finalized his choice and gestured for his team to follow him onto the stage.

"Okay, everyone," Harrison reminded our team. "Stick to the plan and we should be able to win. Don't stress yourself out unnecessarily and believe in each other. This time, we are fighting not for personal glory, but for our team!"

"Yes, captain!" everyone responded enthusiastically.

"We won't let you down," Yue Chu promised.

"This will be a piece of cake," Craig chuckled confidently. Sheila nudged him.

"Hey, don't underestimate our opponents. Give them a bit more respect."

"That's right," Theodore agreed, his deep voice a rumble. "We don't want to make the same mistakes as them and let our guard down."

"d.a.m.n it." one of the subst.i.tutes, a burly guy named Bert, growled furiously. Gunther spared the guy he had chosen for the tank role a glance, but remained silent. Bert continued, his frustration visible. "Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, acting as if they've already won! Team battles and individual matches are completely different."

"Get ready!" The commentator bellowed from his haven above. "Team battle, start!"

At the buzz, both teams charged at each other.

Five minutes later…

"HEY!" I yelled angrily. "Don't you dare do a time skip! Are you seriously going to gloss over the team battle?! I know the comic adaptation skipped it because…I don't know, the artist was too lazy to draw it or something, or was behind schedule. But at least the web novel covered the whole team match! This isn't padding the word count, and we are not going to spend three to four chapters on the whole thing, praising w.a.n.g…I mean Harrison's strategic genius ro whatever! So just cover the d.a.m.ned fight scene!"

Everyone stared at me. I glared back at them defiantly.

"What?! Are you seriously going to accept a time skip where we took out almost the entire Adorno Team off screen, leaving them with nothing but their captain being cornered by all five of our members?! Don't be ridiculous. Besides, Cain is knocked out and in the infirmary, so even if we want to copy Battle Frenzy, we can't do that any longer!"

"Dude, just shut up." Bu Fan looked irritated.

"No." Taking a deep breath, I proceeded toward a clock, poked the settings and reversed the time to five minutes ago. Right before my eyes, everyone began moving backward as time did a hundred and eighty degrees and flowed in the other direction. In just a second, everything was reseted to just when both teams were about to charge at each other.

Gunther Schalke provided cover fire for his advancing teammates, attempting to suppress our own advance. However, Sheila sprang forward and intercepted his shots with her s.h.i.+eld. The mana bullets dissipated harmlessly against her s.h.i.+mmering s.h.i.+eld, which was further buffed by Harrison's holy magic.

I whistled in approval when I saw that. Given how powerful Gunther's shots were, under normal circ.u.mstances Sheila would be sent staggering backward from each of the tremendous impacts. Yet Harrison's spell had boosted her durability to incredible heights. Standing her ground in front of the rest of her teammates, Sheila continued to endure the relentless onslaught from Gunther's long-range cannon in an almost effortless manner.

"Good job, Sheila!" Harrison encouraged her, having extended a hand to maintain the defensive buff. I could see golden strands of mana linking him to her, allowing Sheila to siphon off some of Harrison's might to augment her defenses.

"Don't celebrate too soon!" Bert roared as he charged forward, his s.h.i.+eld up front to deflect the lightning bolts from Theodore's thunder hammer. Lowering his posture, he went straight for Sheila. It was clear that he intended to s.h.i.+eld-bash her, knocking her off her feet and destroying our defense in one stroke.

"Like I'll let you." Craig emerged from behind Sheila, his demonic spear glowing an ominous red that reminded me of blood. Bert's eyes narrowed, but he kicked off the ground and continued charging anyway, confident in blocking whatever technique Craig threw at him.

"Idiot!" Gunther howled when he realized what his teammate was doing. "Don't charge forward! Fall back, Bert! Don't take Craig Carlson's attack head on!"

"Don't worry, Vice-captain! There's no way he can pierce my defenses!"

The moron evidently didn't pay attention to the match between Craig and Adonis. He had a.s.sumed that Adoni's Barrier of the Wind King was not a true defensive spell, and therefore would crumble easily in the face of a real attack. Unlike Adonis, Bert saw himself as a true tank and therefore was confident of withstanding Craig's a.s.sault.

Craig's spear glowed hungrily as he thrust it forward at the onrus.h.i.+ng Bert. The burly guy smirked and raised his s.h.i.+eld, scoffing at what he perceived to be an ordinary strike.

"!!!"

The demonic spear shattered his s.h.i.+eld in one blow and embedded its tip deeply in Bert's heart. The huge guy bellowed in agony before cras.h.i.+ng to his knees. He stared up at a smug Craig in disbelief, then toppled facedown onto the floor.

One of Adorno Team's members had been eliminated.

"That idiot! I told him not to!"

Gunther would have slapped his forehead if he could, but he was currently using both hand to lay suppressing fire with his huge cannon.

"Now's not the time! We have to counterattack!"

Eleanor took the lead, directing her other two teammates, Schwartz and Piotr Jeske, to flank Craig and Cecilia while she practically disappeared into the shadows. Much like how Cody used shadow magic to vanish earlier, but slightly more skillful.

She then showed up behind both Craig and Sheila, her twin daggers shrieking toward their backs. She would have buried her weapons deeply in them too, if Craig hadn't spun around and twirled his spear to deflect both daggers away.

"!!"

Cursing at her failed attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate our two frontline attackers, Eleanor took a step back and tried to escape into the shadows, but at that moment Theodore slammed his hammer into the ground, lighting the entire place up with electricity. Blinded for a moment, and deprived of shadows to seek cover in, Eleanor backed away but found herself forced to engage Craig in close combat. She gritted her teeth and parried his spear with her daggers while continually retreating, keeping in mind that she had to maintain a safe distance away or risk getting hit by his curse.

"Hang in there, Sheila!"

Both Schwartz and Piotr swung in from opposite directions. Sheila whirled about to face Schwartz, her s.h.i.+eld and spear keeping him at bay, but Piotr was able to exploit the opening that she left when engaging his teammate, and struck with his sword.

Theodore was on hand to intercept the blade with his thunder hammer, and with a forceful swing he hurled Piotr back. He then sent a lightning bolt at Schwartz, forcing the swordsman to retreat as well. Sheila turned about, keeping her s.h.i.+eld out to face him in case of any threats, while still backing away, seeming to unintentionally close the gap between herself and Craig.

Craig himself appeared to have trouble handling Eleanor, with his opponent pus.h.i.+ng him back. It wasn't surprising – despite Craig's excellent skills, Eleanor was still known throughout the Federation as one of the elite a.s.sa.s.sins. While she didn't make it to the MO rankings…wait, what? What MO rankings? Never nind, the point was that Eleanor was still well respected among high school students, and she wasn't an opponent anyone could underestimate.

Furthermore, now that she knew about Craig's cursed spear techniques, she could better develop countermeasures against them. Otherwise she would have fallen to defeat long ago. In fact, it was only because she constantly withdrew to a safe distance that she was able to completely avoid it. Despite that, she was able to dart in here and there to deliver a strike. Craig could fend her off easily, and to be honest she was more of a nuisance than an actual threat, but he couldn't allow her to roam free in the arena forever.

Theodore's illumination spell was slowly dying out too…soon Eleanor would be able to slip back into the shadows and hide again.

Furthermore, Schwartz and Piotr were redoubling their efforts, only to be held off by Theodore and Harrison. With them all locked in close combat, Gunther was no longer able to provide long range fire for fear of accidentally hitting his own teammates.

"d.a.m.n it," he muttered and lowered his huge cannon, feeling frustrated.

"You won't be able to last forever!" Eleanor sneered as she darted past Craig's spear to stab him. The spearman managed to draw the shaft of his spear back to parry her twin daggers, but Eleanor flexibly spun one of her daggers about to slash at him while he was holding the other off.

Before she could, a second spear streaked past Craig's face and above his shoulder to hammer into her head. Eleanor's vision exploded in blood and pain before she careened back, her face a ruined mess.

"What just happened?!" the commentator shouted, taken aback. I watched my team intently, resisting the urge to playback the scene because I didn't want to miss anything else. If I wasn't mistaken, while Eleanor was occupied with attacking Craig, Sheila struck her with her spear from behind her boyfriend. Unknown to the opposing team, this was the reason why Sheila was retreating back toward Craig's position in the first place.

That took a lot of guts and trust. Craig relied on Sheila to watch his back, and even paced his life in her hands totally, not even flinching when Sheila's spear zoomed past him within a hair's breadth. A slight miscalculation or even the tiniest mistake would have seen him impaled by her spear instead of Eleanor getting taken out, but Craig had complete faith in Sheila to not miss.

"Eleanor!"

Both Schwartz and Piotr reacted furiously, redoubling their efforts, but they found Theodore and Harrison an impa.s.sable wall that endured each and every of their strikes.

"Fall back!" Gunther ordered. He could see Craig and Sheila turning around to surround and cut off his remaining teammates' path of retreat. Soon they would be outnumbered two to one and taken out through sheer numbers. "We need to regroup! I'll cover you!"

At a nod from Harrison, Theodore didn't pursue. The two swordsmen didn't question their fortune and immediately pulled back under the protection of Gunther's suppressing fire. As they reached Gunther's position, Harrison glanced at Dong Fang Yue Chu, who had stayed out of the fight this entire time.

"Yue Chu, are you ready?"

"Yup." Yue Chu raised a hand and the entire arena turned crimson when a ma.s.sive fireball materialized above them, resembling a miniature sun. "Solar Emperor."

"You've got to be kidding me," Schwartz muttered as he gawked at the enormous fireball hovering above them. Yue Chu smiled before swinging his hand down and launching the ultimate fire spell down on them.

"Move!" Gunther shouted and swung his cannon up. Charging as much mana as he could, he fired a colossal, intense beam of mana at the descending fireball, but even his full burst failed to put a dent on the fiery projectile that rushed toward the trio of them like certain death.

Both Schwartz and Piotr scattered, the three of them spreading out as much as possible so as to force Yue Chu to choose between them.

It made no difference. The fireball was so large that it engulfed all three of them, despite their best efforts to spread out. They shrieked as their bodies were immolated by the superheated flames, their charred figures toppling over.

There was a short silence, and then the commentator burst to life, no longer surprised by the turn of events.

"What an incredible development! Adorno Team, the team that finished third in the regionals, and is considered by many to be stronger than the second, and also made it to the last sixteen in the national tournament last year, has been eliminated in the first knock-out round! By Jing Tian Team, who has displayed a remarkable improvement over their performance last year! They truly deserve their status as this year's dark horses!"

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

A roar surged out of the spectators, the contingent from Jing Tian Academy being the loudest and most boisterous.

Amidst the screams and yells of celebratory delight, the commentator had to shout himself hoa.r.s.e to be heard over the ruckus.

"The winner of this match is Team Jing Tian!"

His announcement was then swallowed up by the combined voices of over a hundred students who had traveled all the way from Jing Tian City to support us.

"WE WON!"

"I can't believe it! We won!"

"We did it!"

"Harrison, you son of a gun! I knew you had it in you!"

"Great job, everyone!"

It wasn't just the Jing Tian contingent. Other students were applauding, impressed by our display. Seemed like we had earned quite a few fans.

"Well done." For some reason, our academy director, Vincent Violet, was holding up a fist and praising us, tears of joy in his eyes. Wiping them, he raised his head to look heavenwards. "Are you watching this, Alicia? If you were here…you would have been so proud of what your school has achieved."

"Long live Jing Tian! Long live Jing Tian! Long live Jing Tian!"

Throwing their hands up into the air, our schoolmates chanted enthusiastically. No matter the outcome in the knock-out rounds, even if we lost the next round…we would already have earned their respect and brought pride to a "fallen" academy who had once been scorned and disdained by others.

We had won back our place among the elites.