Chapter 79: Victory Without Fighting, Meeting Familiar Faces Again
After the battle ended, Lin Yun's trio left the assessment zone directly.
Watching their retreating figures, the other four teams fell into deep thought.
Lin Yun had obliterated Wang Chunpeng with a single punch.
Xiao Xiao had fought two opponents at once, leaving them unable to even resist.
Even the seemingly useless support had cheered with such rhythm and energy it felt like part of the fight.
But none of that was the main point…
The key issue was that the schedule for the first two days of the freshmen assessment—two matches each morning and afternoon—still kept them all in the same group. That meant the four remaining teams would each have to face Lin Yun's group once more!
"I say, why don't we just surrender when our turn comes?" Huang Chutian looked helplessly at the twin sisters behind him. "It might've been better to face them first. After seeing their fight, the pressure feels even heavier now!"
"Surrender… but don't we still have our secret weapon?" Lan Luoluo hesitated, curling a strand of her blue hair around her finger.
Their martial soul fusion skill…
Lan Susu lowered her head in thought, then shook it. "It won't work. How long do you think we can hold him with it? Even if we managed to take out his two teammates, he alone could defeat all three of us."
A martial soul fusion skill between two Soul Grandmasters should, under normal circumstances, restrain even a Soul Elder for more than ten seconds. But against someone like him? It was impossible.
"Susu is right. Our goal is to do well in the later ranking battles. There's no need to fight a meaningless match here," Huang Chutian concluded.
In the end, Lan Luoluo was convinced.
Using their trump card offered little chance of victory, and even if they won, the benefits weren't worth the risk. Why waste it?
If Huang Chutian's team thought this way, then the other three teams certainly had no reason to challenge Lin Yun either.
The next day, in all four of their matches against Lin Yun's team, each opposing squad only exchanged one or two symbolic moves before surrendering outright.
After all, this was just the freshmen assessment. Rather than getting beaten bloody by Lin Yun, it was smarter to save their strength for other matches. They had four battles in a single day, and soul power recovery was not instant.
The cautious approach of the four teams left Wang Chunpeng's group feeling like complete fools, since they alone had been thoroughly crushed the day before.
In the end, among the six teams of Zone Twenty-Seven, Lin Yun's team advanced with a flawless record of five wins, while Huang Chutian's team took second place with four wins and one loss.
This ranking was not meaningless.
After two days and five matches, all teams would be regrouped on the third day. The teams with five consecutive wins would not face other five-win teams from different zones.
On the third day—
"It was supposed to be the freshmen assessment, but in yesterday's four matches I barely got to fight at all. They surrendered before I could even warm up." Xiao Xiao muttered in dissatisfaction.
Clearly, she was still upset about how anticlimactic the battles had been.
"Don't worry, you'll get your fight today!" Lin Yun smiled faintly.
Unlike the first two days, the regrouped format on this day required every team to fight five matches. With the new draws, twelve teams gathered in Zone Twenty-Seven, double the number from before.
Matchups were randomized, and each team would face five of the eleven others.
Among those eleven, Lin Yun spotted two familiar faces.
'How did they end up together again?' Lin Yun muttered inwardly, gazing at the pair in the distance—one a small, thin figure with short black hair and bright eyes, the other with shoulder-length pink-blue hair, as beautiful as a girl.
Huo Yuhao, and Wang Dong.
Beside the two of them stood a girl with a faintly proud look on her face. Her appearance was decent—though still slightly inferior to Wu Feng.
Just from the scene, Lin Yun could tell the pair had once again been placed in the same team. As for the other girl, she was clearly just another fool charmed by Wang Dong's disguise as a boy.
It was far too obvious.
Her gaze toward Huo Yuhao carried clear disdain, but when looking at Wang Dong, her eyes nearly sparkled.
Truly worthy of being called the Child of Destiny—despite having little connection, they still ended up together, letting Huo Yuhao once again enjoy the feeling of being carried.
But this time Lin Yun had wrongly blamed a certain Buddha. It wasn't his interference—he had no such ability. This grouping was actually Princess Tang's own idea.
After experiencing Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection sharing, she was deeply intoxicated by the feeling of fighting without needing to think. His ability suited her perfectly.
Brains -1.
Happiness +999.
On the other side, Huo Yuhao, with his sharp eyes, immediately spotted Lin Yun's outstanding presence among the crowd. The pressure on him spiked instantly.
He still couldn't forget the last round against Xie Huanyue, where a certain fat opponent's massive body had left him shaken. Wang Dong's limited penetration power hadn't been enough, costing them that match.
And now, in the second round, they faced a Soul Elder team?
Worse yet, it was the most dangerous of the four Soul Elders among the freshmen?
Huo Yuhao fell into deep thought.
A one-in-eleven chance… could he really be this unlucky?
As fate would have it, yes.
After Lin Yun's team demolished four squads in quick succession, the fifth draw—with odds now at one in seven—landed perfectly on Huo Yuhao's team.
"Zone Twenty-Seven, next battle: Class Eight, Team Lin Yun versus Class Four, Team Wang Dong!" The referee's voice rang across the arena. The six teams that weren't chosen simultaneously let out sighs of relief.
Meanwhile, Huo Yuhao's face went pale, and Wang Dong's expression turned ashen.
"Uh… do we even fight?" Huo Yuhao asked cautiously.
He and Wang Dong had both witnessed Lin Yun blast Zhou Yi flying with one punch. That terrifying golden dragon claw would strike fear into anyone.
"Fight… fight! Of course we fight!" Princess Tang shrank her neck but immediately grew furious at her own cowardice. "Don't you always say I only bully those weaker than me? Today I'll show you—even if he's stronger, I still dare to face him!"
Wang Dong lifted his chin and strode onto the stage, but had Huo Yuhao seen his face from the front, he would have realized his expression looked less like someone heading to battle and more like a man walking to the execution grounds.
Still, those words stirred something in Huo Yuhao's heart.
'That's right. If I cower before Lin Yun, then what right do I have to seek revenge on the White Tiger Duke's Mansion?'
(End of this chapter)
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