Shrek's withdrawal from the tournament undoubtedly caused an enormous uproar. The news rapidly spread from the Soul Fighting Arena throughout Radiant City, then across the entire continent.
For a time, public opinion of Shrek Academy across the continent became strangely distorted once more.
Although Shrek Academy had already earned widespread infamy because of the continuous release of Shrek Spring and Autumn by Lin Yun, that only affected its reputation, not its strength.
As the continent's number-one academy with a ten-thousand-year legacy, Shrek Academy's strength had never been questioned.
In the Soul Fighting Competition held every five years, Shrek did not win the championship every time, but its championship rate exceeded 95%. In the remaining tournaments where it had not claimed the title, either Shrek had "mercifully" gifted it to another team, or an accident had prevented it from attending.
And in those tournaments where it did not take first place, excluding the ones it had missed, Shrek had always remained within the top four. Its worst result was the semifinals, while runner-up finishes were far more common.
There had truly never been a tournament like this one, where it had been crippled during the Round Robin Tournament, chosen to withdraw, and had not even made it into the top sixty-four.
Shrek Academy's sudden collapse left many people deeply unaccustomed to it. Fortunately, the Sun Moon Empire had prohibited betting on this tournament, or those who had wagered that Shrek Academy would continue charging forward bravely would probably have taken a flying leap that very night.
But the principle that fortune and misfortune went hand in hand often inevitably came into play.
Just as countless people across the continent were denouncing Shrek and believed that the continent's number-one academy was about to decline into its twilight years, never to shine again,