A Life-and-Death Simulation

Buzz.

The last tremors from the wall died away beyond the door, leaving behind a long silence. Inside the storage room, the bonfire flickered wildly, casting shifting shadows over the sixteen spear-wielding figures.

Needle-sharp gazes were fixed on the steel door whose lock had long since shattered. A sliver of darkness showed through the crack, empty and motionless.

Jiang Qiu said nothing. His spear shaft turned slightly in his palm, the tip touching the ground as he strolled toward the doorway.

Most demon-repelling powder was made from the spinal blood of mid-tier or higher demon beasts. Low-tier demon beasts would avoid it, while those with keen senses would take a wide detour.

High-tier demon beasts were too powerful and should have already been cleared out by the teachers. Whatever was outside could only be a mid-tier demon beast.

Dangerous, but killable.

Creak.

The spear tip pushed open the heavy steel door. The firelight from the storage room rushed out at once, stretching Jiang Qiu's shadow more than ten meters across the empty space.

Where was the demon beast?

Jiang Qiu's tense eyelids twitched. He stepped over the threshold, his bright eyes sweeping back and forth through the darkness on either side that the firelight could not reach.

He took another step, yet nothing emerged from the darkness. Still, his grip on the spear shaft tightened instinctively.

There was no way he had misheard that sound. Even the walls had trembled. That demon beast had to be more than twice the size of an Iron-Armored Lizard.

But why had the piercing sound of claws scraping cement suddenly stopped at the doorway?

Scrrrk.

The harsh scrape of claws against cement suddenly rang out, then dropped down. Jiang Qiu instinctively looked up, his pupils violently contracting as a blood-red maw filled his vision.

Two rows of sharp teeth snapped down and rapidly enlarged. From deep within the black throat, a crimson tongue lashed toward him as well.

In that instant, a chill sank from the crown of Jiang Qiu's head to his toes.

A Life-and-Death Simulation.

Bang—the demon beast landed.

Clatter.

The spear slipped from powerless fingers and struck the cement floor. It was like a hammer smashing into everyone's heads in the storage room, their eyes bulging wide.

The strongest among them, Jiang Qiu, had been bitten across the upper body by a crawling demon beast that had dropped from the ceiling!

Vertical pupils, crocodilian jaws, a body covered in crimson scales—it raised its head, about to swallow Jiang Qiu whole. It was a mid-tier demon beast, a Red-Armored Great Lizard!

According to the predator relationships mentioned in general studies, demon beasts preyed upon the weak under unrestricted conditions. Red-Armored Great Lizards fed on weaker low-tier demon beasts like Iron-Armored Lizards!

In past multi-school combat hunting cases, many Outstanding Students wearing light armor had been crippled by mid-tier demon beasts. There had even been Iron Flesh Realm geniuses who were carelessly bitten and severely injured!

No matter how skilled Jiang Qiu was with a spear, he was wearing no armor at all!

Unless he had truly trained his skin into copper and his flesh into iron—

Fuck, how could that be possible? It was just a figure of speech!

With that thought, Li Si's breathing quickened. He forcefully suppressed his heaving chest and searched for the window hanging on the wall. Just then, a woman's voice, sharp as a startled bird crying through an empty valley, tore through the silent night. "Get him!"

Liu Zili, Zhang Shan, and Wang Guanjia swept past his shoulders one after another. The breeze they stirred lifted the sleeve trapped beneath his shoulder armor, and in the blink of an eye, more than ten students charged through the door.

Gritting his teeth, Li Si stomped twice on the spot, then grabbed his spear and chased after them.

Kill—

The Red-Armored Great Lizard had ambushed Jiang Qiu only a breath ago. Before it could even raise its jaws to swallow the legs still hanging outside, a point of cold light flashed in its dark eyes. A slender human female thrust at it with a spear, her gaze cold as ice needles.

It instinctively shut its right eye. Though the spearhead only pierced the surface of its eyelid, pain shot through its pupil!

In the instant it closed its eye, countless attacks crashed onto its body. Itch and pain pelted its airtight scales like raindrops, infuriating it until its jaws clenched tight. Yet the human in its mouth was as hard as copper and stone. It had only pierced his skin and fur, unable to bite any deeper!

Unable to even bite through its food, its eyes turned cold with rage.

Smack—

The crimson tail swept out like a giant python's whip, drawing a half-moon red arc. With one ground-level sweep, it sent every human surrounding it flying, knocking them onto the cement floor like scattered stones. Some could barely push themselves back up.

Ignoring the ants, it slightly opened its blood-filled maw, preparing to gather strength and finish off the food in its mouth.

Then its body suddenly stiffened. A sharp crack sounded from within its mouth, and its black vertical pupils shrank to pinpoints.

"Roar—"

A mouthful of blood, along with Jiang Qiu, was flung from between its teeth and smashed into the wall with a boom, dust humming as it fell.

Everyone stared toward the wall in the darkness. Their pupils shook and their eyes flickered. Li Si's jaw hung open as if dislocated.

Tap.

Jiang Qiu fell from the wall and landed steadily on both feet. Half a crimson tongue lay beside his forward right foot, while the shredded black shirt over his upper body drifted gently with his steps.

Across his hard, ancient-bronze-like skin were faint, barely visible tooth marks. Blood energy flowed indistinctly beneath it, wreathed in yellow light.

His clear eyes shone like stars in the night, overflowing with killing intent!

He strode out of the darkness, each step wider than the last. In an instant, he broke into a mad sprint, then sprang up like a coiled spring. His right fist clenched the wind, his arm drawing back like a bow as he looked down upon the Red-Armored Great Lizard, as large as a giant crocodile.

All thoughts of life and death had vanished. Only boiling blood remained.

"You fucking dared to bite me?!"

With his most thunderous roar, armorless Jiang Qiu crashed toward the black-red Red-Armored Great Lizard like a small meteor, like Wu Song pouncing on a massive tiger, carrying overwhelming force.

As that fist tore through the air, the Red-Armored Great Lizard, its eyes red with hatred, bared its teeth and twisted. Borrowing the momentum, its python-like tail split the wind as it swept out!

At that moment, the hearts everyone had just relaxed suddenly leaped into their throats again. Their fingers clenched so hard they tore their palms, their eyes wide with terror.

Who in a combat hunt would fight a mid-tier demon beast barehanded? A full-force swing of that tail was enough to shatter a cement wall!

A somewhat weaker mid-tier demon beast could indeed be surrounded and attacked, but against a savage creature like an armored lizard, they should avoid its edge!

Bang—

Copper fist collided with iron tail. Sweeping force and Subtle Force roared together, while the howling blast sent dust and plastic bags flying. The clash between them radiated the purest aesthetics of power, branding itself deeply into the eyes of the onlookers!

Wasn't Brother Jiang practicing spearwork just like us?

His fist was that hard?!

Before their thoughts could settle, the cement floor beneath Jiang Qiu's right foot belatedly shattered and sank inward, cracks spreading like a spiderweb!

Life-and-death simulation—

Penetrating Force!

Buzz!

The iron-armored tail, thicker than both of Jiang Qiu's thighs together, violently sprang away from his fist. Though not a single scale had broken, the huge body trembled. "Hiss-roar—"

It spat out a mouthful of blood. The Red-Armored Great Lizard glared, turned, and scraped its way across the floor with crack-crack sounds. Like a snake swimming through grass, it vanished into the darkness with a twist.

Thud, thud, thud.

Jiang Qiu strode after it in pursuit. Moments later, another deafening boom rang out like an exploding bomb, making the entire supermarket floor tremble.

Everyone hurriedly grabbed their spears and ran over. They saw a wall smashed open with a hole as large as a car, murky moonlight spilling through and illuminating several three-to-four-meter-long claw marks, two centimeters deep, across the cement floor.

Outside the supermarket floor, under the dim moonlight, the outlines of buildings emerged.

In the middle of the main road, cracks branched like tree limbs. Jiang Qiu sat astride the neck of the Red-Armored Great Lizard, larger and sturdier than a Fierce Tiger. His left and right fists alternately hammered its head covered in dark-red scales, each boom ringing like a midnight alarm through the entire street.

"If I hadn't already reached the Iron Flesh Realm and gained Copper Transformation, I'd have died in your jaws today." Jiang Qiu curled his lips, his canine teeth gleaming coldly. "Heh heh. The scales of a Red-Armored Great Lizard are deep red and indestructible. They can be forged into armor and are worth over a hundred thousand.

"One bite from you nearly drained my blood energy. Your scales can pay me back."

His fists battered the Red-Armored Great Lizard's head like a storm. Fine, silken cracks gradually spread through the black-red scales, and its jaw sank deeper and deeper into the cement road, flesh and blood mangled.

Like a crazed cat being bitten to death by a mad dog, it desperately clawed at the road with all four limbs, its tail smacking Jiang Qiu's back again and again.

"Die."

Jiang Qiu suddenly drew a breath deep into his chest. Blood throughout his body surged like a river toward his right fist, all force converging at one point as it tore through the wind and descended.

The stench of death enveloped the night sky. The Red-Armored Great Lizard stared in horror. Its jaw had only just lifted a fraction before being forced back down, as though a towering mountain pressed against its neck!

Bang—

The dark-red scales atop its head shattered and sprayed outward with a crack, like an overloaded shell struck by a hammer. Jiang Qiu's awl-like fist pierced the outer armor and blasted apart its skull. The tail flailing wildly behind it abruptly dropped.

Perhaps the punch had been too heavy, squeezing two tears of regret from the corners of its eyes.

The frenzied sound of flesh fists pounding iron had long since alerted some Martial Inspection Department teachers hiding in the high-rises.

On the rooftop of a hospital in the distance, where wild winds howled, Wu Shan blinked his somewhat dry right eye and smiled faintly. "Fighting a mid-tier demon beast barehanded, and one known for its defense at that—the Red-Armored Great Lizard.

"Jiang Qiu is indeed exceptionally gifted. His talent surpasses that of ordinary people."

"But encountering a mid-tier demon beast on the first night means that no matter which venue it happens in, someone will be forced to withdraw. From that perspective, the students at my venue are quite unlucky."

Whoosh.

Suddenly, a brilliant beam flashed from the rooftop of another high-rise several kilometers away. Accompanied by the spiritual rhythm of a martial artist, it sniped a demon beast.

Wu Shan curled his lip with a chuckle. "Getting eliminated on the first night from so far away from the secret realm's center? Which venue is that weak?"

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Lights flashed in three more directions in succession. His smile gradually faded, his lone right eye turning like a black moon. "This year's Practical Training Hunt is a little intense."

Buzz.

He took a vibrating message receiver resembling a phone from his pocket. It displayed only one notification.

[Responsible Team Leader Li Ang: Students at all venues may encounter mid-tier demon beast attacks tonight. Casualties have already occurred. All units, ensure the safety of the students. Also, Director Zhao personally activated Bright Sight to investigate, but the missing Demon Plant's main body has still not been found.]