"Brothers, are we really willing to put up with these few guys bullying us forever? Are we going to back down just because Gelis is a Level 2 Battle Soldier? Is Gelis more dangerous than the beasts outside the city we'll face in a week? We're willing to risk our lives to meet that challenge, so why back down here and let these few guys trample our dignity underfoot? What are you afraid of?" The man standing on the table spoke with spit flying, and with his sweeping gestures, he stirred the beasts in the cafeteria into ever greater excitement. "Those of you these bastards have bullied before, are you brave enough to stand up? Those of you who don't want to be bullied by them, are you brave enough to stand up? They have four people, and we have at least four hundred. What have we got to fear? Why should we let them bully us? If we stand together, can they beat us? Can the four of them withstand a single charge from all of us? Let's use our fists to drive these unruly bastards, these people who trample our dignity every day, out of our cafeteria! From now until we graduate and leave this school, if they dare retaliate against any one of us, we'll all pay them back twice as hard! Are you willing to stand with me and drive these hateful bastards out of the cafeteria? Men of Seventh Middle School, show some courage! Teacher Daina is watching us..."
The beasts were stirred into a fever pitch. Those who had been bullied by Gelis in the past were especially swept up in old and new grudges, joining the uproar.
"Kill them..."
"Kill those bastards..."
"Kill them..."
"We've had enough..."
"Fuck 'em..."
Everyone in the graduating class cafeteria was worked up, closing in step by step on Gelis and his friends.
Zhang Tie and Barry exchanged a glance. Barry said softly, "Let's kill them with everyone else..." Zhang Tie thought it over, then nodded. The seven members of the Brotherhood looked at one another and nodded too.
Looking at the student standing on the table, rousing the crowd, Zhang Tie finally understood what that bastard Tang De had meant when he said, "A soft tongue can break hard bones."
But before he could think much more about it, Baghdad of the Airplane Brotherhood had already charged forward. He sprang into the air and kicked Sha Long, who was beside Gelis, to the ground. Baghdad's kick was like a fuse, setting off the beasts' already boiling emotions in an instant. As soon as they saw someone make the first move, hundreds of them roared and surged forward together, and a melee erupted...
As everyone charged at Gelis, Zhang Tie stole a glance at the boy standing on the table, who had previously been an inconspicuous nobody in their year. He happened to catch a fleeting, inscrutable smile on the boy's face. Combined with the way he'd used Teacher Daina to rally everyone, that smile left Zhang Tie feeling vaguely uneasy.
It turned out that a Level 2 Battle Soldier who held back and fought cautiously could quickly be swallowed up by a crowd of rookies who hadn't even qualified as Battle Soldiers yet. If Gelis had been able to let loose and fight them all, they might have paid a heavy price to take down his group of four. But Gelis wasn't stupid. He dared to ambush someone after school, but if he seriously injured or crippled a whole crowd of students in the middle of such a furious uprising, he'd be facing far more than a mere lashing. Even his old man wouldn't be able to smooth things over.
With a 290-kilogram bench press, a 380-kilogram squat, a maximum right-fist burst force of 510 kilograms, a maximum left-fist burst force of 340 kilograms, a maximum leg burst force of 780 kilograms, and endurance of 13, Gelis could only do his best to protect Sha Long, Zu Haier, and Jia Naier. But with more than ten hands and ten feet striking from every direction at any moment, Gelis and his friends were beaten black and blue. Aside from Gelis, his lackeys were all screaming in pain.
The other six members of the Brotherhood had only been a little slower than Baghdad. Once the melee erupted, they couldn't even squeeze their way through the crowd. They could only watch Gelis and his friends get beaten from behind a thick wall of people.
At last, after taking several blows to the face and stomach, Gelis couldn't take it anymore. With a furious roar, he charged defensively, knocking away the people behind him. He grabbed Sha Long, who was being pummeled by the crowd, then shielded his battered friends as they fled the cafeteria.
"We drove Gelis off! We won..." Seeing Gelis and his men flee in disgrace for the first time, no longer the fearsome figures they had once been, the beasts in the cafeteria cheered.
That Friday, with only the final week of the semester left for Zhang Tie and his classmates, an otherwise unknown student named Bulwick became the talk of the entire Seventh Middle School, completely overshadowing Gelis. During the afternoon physical fitness tests, Bulwick suddenly revealed the strength of a Level 1 Battle Soldier, having ignited his Divine Palace Bright Point. He became an overnight sensation, the second student in the whole graduating class—and the entire school—to possess Battle Soldier strength after Gelis. Although Gelis's physical and combat stats still surpassed Bulwick's by a level, everyone knew his glory days were over. On two days in a row, first he'd been knocked unconscious by Captain Colin for breaking school rules, losing face in front of the entire student body, and now all the beasts had banded together to beat him into a humiliating retreat. In the blink of an eye, Gelis had become the school's laughingstock, a rat everyone wanted to beat.
In the past, every Friday afternoon, everyone would watch Gelis's performance on the field with awe, seeing him break one record after another. Today, when his turn came, his physical and combat stats were still indisputably the best, but all he got was a chorus of boos and jeers. For the entire afternoon, Gelis sat in silence, his face dark as a pot, listening to everyone around him praise Bulwick. Every so often, he shot Zhang Tie a resentful glare.
Seeing Gelis's resentful looks, Zhang Tie stayed on guard and kept an even lower profile. He had a vague feeling that, for some inexplicable reason, his feud with Gelis was growing deeper and deeper.
Zhang Tie kept a low profile that afternoon, making every effort to look as though he was giving his all in each test, about the same as before, while actually keeping some strength in reserve. The improvement in his physical attributes after igniting his Divine Palace Bright Point became fully apparent that afternoon. It was especially noticeable in the 100-meter sprint. Before, no matter how hard Zhang Tie pushed himself, he'd always brought up the rear. This time, when the whistle blew, he pushed off and shot forward with a whoosh. Both his burst power and reaction speed had improved by a solid margin. Halfway through the race, his body felt light, nothing like the heavy feeling he'd had before. He was running among the leaders, but then he eased his pace slightly and finished sixth. He still didn't get a recorded time, but Zhang Tie was exceptionally pleased. He'd held something back, after all. If he'd gone all out, he figured he could have broken eleven seconds in the hundred-meter sprint. In the other events, he deliberately held back, and his results were as follows:
Bench press—140 kilograms.
Squat—180 kilograms.
Burst punch force—right fist: 260 kilograms, left fist: 200 kilograms.
Maximum leg-kick burst force—320 kilograms.
Maximum consecutive armor-piercing spear thrusts—52.
That was the strength Zhang Tie had shown that afternoon. There was nothing remarkable about it. No one cared about his numbers except him. Compared with the last test, they'd improved only slightly, attracting no one's attention.
This should make people feel safer, right? Zhang Tie thought with self-mockery. Everything that had happened at school that day had taught him a profound lesson: this was an age when everyone was fighting tooth and nail to survive. Wherever you were, you shouldn't become a target, because among the silent people around you, there might be more than one scheming about when to use some trick to trample you down or kill you. Gelis had failed because of his arrogance and contempt for everyone else. So what if he was a Level 2 Battle Soldier? In the last two weeks of the semester—the final two weeks of their school lives—the once-arrogant Gelis had fallen from his lofty perch and been branded a loser. The guy named Bulwick, whom no one had ever paid attention to before, had climbed over Gelis's head today and become the school's rising star...
"Compared with Bulwick, Gelis is an idiot with muscles instead of brains!" During an afternoon break, Barry found a shady tree, sat down, and said to Zhang Tie with a grave expression, "That guy used yesterday's incident with you and what happened to our Brotherhood this morning. He picked the perfect moment to go after Gelis and gave him no chance to turn things around. I suspect he's been waiting for this day, using everyone's hatred of Gelis and this special timing to bring him down, then using the threat Gelis posed to unite everyone around himself. That guy is terrifying. He's clearly a Level 1 Battle Soldier, but he deliberately hid his strength. My instincts tell me he's dangerous, not nearly as righteous and sunny as he seems. You'd better watch out for him!"
Zhang Tie nodded. The fleeting smile on Bulwick's face during the crowd's attack on Gelis at noon came back to mind...
A clamor of astonished shouts came from the distance. Zhang Tie knew without looking that they were coming from Bulwick. Surrounded by a crowd, Bulwick was showing off the physical gap between a Level 1 Battle Soldier and an ordinary Battle Worker, drawing a chorus of envious cries from the beasts. Baghdad's burly frame stood out among them!
That afternoon, Baghdad had also followed Bulwick and basked in the limelight...