Chapter 51: Doubt

The short-haired boy’s punch missed. His heavy glove gouged a faint mark into the ground, and he lifted his head to watch Angela spring backward before charging after her with another raised fist.

At that moment, energy began to gather in Angela’s right hand, condensing into a blue arrow that she nocked onto the full moon of her bow. Then her lips parted softly.

“Go.”

With a sharp hiss, the blue arrow shot out like a streak of aurora, vanishing in an instant and appearing at once before the boy, who had no defense at all.

“So fast!”

He was stunned. He could not even see the arrow clearly, only felt a fierce gust striking at his head. Then a flash of blue light skimmed past his ear, and from behind him came a thunderous explosion.

“This... this power...” The boy turned stiffly and looked back. Ten yards behind him, the trees and grass were in complete ruin. One trunk, thick as a bucket, had been pierced straight through, leaving a hole the size of a thumb.

“This time I was only testing the bow’s power. Next time, it might be your head.”

Angela smiled with her lips pressed together, like a spring breeze incarnate, with no trace of the arrow’s devastating force about her at all.

The boy said nothing. His face pale, he stared at her from a distance, already wondering whether it would be wiser to retreat. He still had another mech weapon in hand, but he had already realized it could not possibly threaten the girl before him.

But then he thought again: with his strength-based physique, could he even run from a speed-type opponent?

“Since no one truly dies here, I’ll gamble everything for the elite-student spot!”

Having made up his mind, the boy’s face turned rather ashen. He had not expected that just after entering the Illusory Island, before he could properly feel the power of a tier-one awakened, he would already face the danger of elimination.

With no other choice, his right-hand time-space ring flashed, and a square white shield appeared before him. This was his second mech weapon. Holding the shield in his left hand and the red gauntlet in his right, he gritted his teeth and charged at Angela again.

“Ready to get serious?” Angela leaped once more, landing on a branch behind her and giving the boy no chance to close in. In her hand, she formed another arrow, drew her bow, and moved with such fluid grace that there was not the slightest trace of awkwardness. The bow bent to a full moon, her fingers loosened, and a pale blue arrow once again burst toward the boy, who had come within five yards.

Bang.

The boy lifted his left arm and hid his entire body behind the shield. When the arrow struck, he only felt a sudden jolt, as though the shield had taken a heavy blow. Then, to his relief, he saw that the arrow capable of piercing a tree trunk had been completely absorbed by the shield.

At the sight, the boy was overjoyed and hurried forward again with the shield raised.

Hiss, hiss.

Angela kept shifting positions, never allowing her bow to rest. One blue arrow after another, like falling meteors, kept attacking and firing at the boy. Yet each one was perfectly neutralized by the shield.

Ha. At this point, your arrows are completely useless, aren’t they?

The boy’s confidence swelled higher and higher. This was his first time handling a mech weapon, and he had never imagined that the shield he had chosen at random would prove so useful. Watching the girl keep leaping back and forth among the branches, he felt anger rise in him. Energy gathered in his right hand, and he smashed at the tree trunk where Angela landed.

Crack, crack.

A tier-one strength already reached four hundred and fifty kilograms. The tree trunk, only thick enough to be encircled by a leg, was struck cleanly in two by the boy’s powerful right fist.

Angela quickly flipped and dropped away. Her slender waist, narrow enough to be grasped in one hand, twisted into an astonishing arc in midair as she fell sideways toward the ground with a full three-hundred-sixty-degree turn.

Just as she was about to hit the ground, another blue arrow burst forth, but this time it skimmed along the earth, aimed at the boy’s lower leg as he pursued her.

The boy had long been on guard against Angela’s bow. The instant she loosened her fingers, he kicked off the ground and sprang upward, hammering down with his fist at Angela, who had just landed and had no time to move.

Bang.

Angela’s eyes twitched. She had not expected her moment of carelessness to give her opponent such an opening. With no time to dodge now, she could only raise her right arm to receive the iron fist.

“One punch and you’re done for!”

Seeing that his strike had landed, the boy’s lips finally curled into a victorious smile. But the instant the attack connected, his smile stiffened, because he felt an invisible resistance blocking his strength.

Tap, tap.

Angela’s delicate face did not change at all. She stepped back several paces, dissipating the force, and murmured, “This annoying surveillance really ties my hands. If I don’t show a little strength, I won’t be able to settle this anytime soon.”

Without paying any attention to the boy, who was still in shock, she leaped directly into the air. Her bow flashed with a pale blue light, and three arrows appeared upon it. She drew it to full moon and silently intoned, “Go. Ice Soul Triple Execution.”

As her voice fell, she suddenly loosed an arrow into the air. The three shafts, like pale blue meteors with lives of their own, shot toward the boy from three different directions.

“What? How can this be...”

The short-haired boy stared in震惊 at the three meteors on different trajectories blazing toward him. One came from the front, one from behind, and one from above—there was no way to defend against them.

Boom...

Angela put away her bow and watched as the blue light faded. Seeing the boy’s figure begin to dissipate, she murmured, “This level should be fine, right?”

After that, she shook her head and headed toward the destroyed urban district.

Outside.

Loan Square had fallen into silence. This time, the shock it brought was even greater than that caused by Nangong Yuchen earlier. One by one, the spectators stood with mouths agape, staring at the image within the fifth enormous crystal, unable to calm themselves for a long time.

A bow could be used like that? Was it a mech skill? Or something else?

As they were still in shock and confusion, a teacher brought the recently eliminated boy down from the round platform, and a homeroom teacher from the second year could no longer hold back.

“Principal Yang, isn’t this... against the rules? Weren’t the skills of mech weapons supposed to be disabled inside the Illusory Island? How can that girl...”

He was the first to speak because the boy was one of his students.

“Did the principal’s program encounter an error? Could some mech skills have failed to be disabled?” Guan Jingyun said shortly after.

In truth, she knew very well that a program error was impossible, since the Illusory Island had undergone rigorous testing. But the jealousy she felt toward Shangguan Luohua still compelled her to speak.

After all, she still remembered Angela and Nangong Yuchen vividly. Wasn’t her own punishment a direct result of those two students? Otherwise, Shangguan Luohua should have been dismissed by the school at the beginning of the month.

“That’s right. Principal Yang, this issue must be handled immediately, or this elite-student assessment will lose all meaning!” Zhang Bowen, the homeroom teacher of Class Three in the first year, also could not help speaking. He would never pass up any chance to strike at Shangguan Luohua. “Why not remove that girl’s bow first and inspect it again?”

How could Shangguan Luohua possibly agree? Leaving aside whether Angela’s final move was really a skill, what if an enemy appeared during the removal process? So, in irritation, she retorted, “Impossible! The Illusory Island school system has undergone repeated testing. There is absolutely no chance of a mech still retaining its skills!”

“Impossible? Then tell me how you explain what we just saw. Don’t tell me your student can actually defy heaven and control arrows by sheer will?” Guan Jingyun sneered.

“That...” Shangguan Luohua began.

“All right. The competition will continue. There can be no accident with the mech.” Yang Long furrowed his brows slightly and raised a hand for silence. Then he looked at Shangguan Luohua and smiled with rare warmth. “Luohua, your two students are both far from ordinary.”

He spoke to Shangguan Luohua in that tone because he knew her true identity and strength, and thus treated her differently from the other teachers.

Hearing Yang Long’s tone, Guan Jingyun and Zhang Bowen both looked rather unpleasant. They did not know that Yang Long’s attitude toward Shangguan Luohua had nothing to do with Nangong Yuchen and Angela.