The Killing Begins

Hundreds of drones silently circled overhead, transmitting every frame in real time back to the Examination Centers of sixteen cities.

Once everyone was in position, the Nanjiang Province Martial Arts College Entrance Exam's practical assessment officially began.

The rules were simple.

The Evergreen City examination site was divided into three areas: the outer zone, the middle zone, and the Core Zone.

The outer zone's exotic beasts were restrained by iron chains, with limited range of movement. They would attack only when examinees approached, making it the safest area.

The chains in the middle zone were longer, giving the exotic beasts a wider range of movement. They often appeared in groups of three or five, requiring examinees to face several at once.

There were no chains in the Core Zone. The exotic beasts roamed freely, and the danger level was equivalent to the Wilderness.

The time limit was eight hours. Scores updated in real time, while province-wide rankings were broadcast live simultaneously.

This was the most important day of the year in Nanjiang Province.

The eyes of all twelve Base Cities in the province were focused on these ruins.

At the Anning City Examination Center, more than twenty thousand names were densely packed across a massive circular screen.

"Fifteen minutes into the exam, Zhou Jin already has sixty-eight points."

"Zhao Lingxi has sixty-one, Zhou Wenyuan has fifty-five... The top three are biting at each other's heels."

"Chen Mo has caught up too. Fifty-three points."

The Examination Center was packed.

There were officials from the Education Bureaus of various cities, recruitment representatives from major universities, martial hall coaches, and countless parents.

Their gazes swept across the screen, sometimes filled with amazement, sometimes falling silent.

Meanwhile, Song Chen's name was still outside the top fifty.

Outer zone of Evergreen City, Sector Seven.

Song Chen stood amid a cluster of collapsed buildings. Three Mutated Wild Dogs were chained up in front of him.

Thick iron chains locked around their necks, their other ends deeply embedded in the ground.

The wild dogs bared their fangs and snarled, lunging and snapping madly. Their chains stretched taut, rattling loudly.

He gave them a glance, then turned and left.

Lower First Rank. Three points.

A waste of time.

His current goal was to enter the Core Zone as quickly as possible.

The true battlefield was there, and so were the real points.

He quickened his pace, passing one chained area after another. Every now and then, he stopped to casually slash once, and his score slowly ticked upward.

Three points, six points, nine points... His movements were so fast that before the surrounding examinees could react, he had already vanished from sight.

"That guy... why does he keep heading inward?"

An examinee wrestling with a First Rank wild boar raised his head. Watching Song Chen's back disappear into the depths of the ruins, he looked utterly baffled.

His teammate panted heavily and hacked his blade into the wild boar. "Who cares? Kill ours."

Anning City Examination Center.

"That Song Chen has started killing." Someone noticed the change in the corner of the screen.

"One point, three points, five points... His speed is decent, but not especially outstanding."

"He's heading inward. He didn't stay in the outer zone."

A middle-aged man in a Martial Arts Association uniform frowned slightly. "Inward? The middle zone?"

"Only twenty minutes into the exam, and he's entering the middle zone? That's too reckless. The exotic beasts there appear in groups. One person can't handle them."

The person beside him nodded. "Young people tend to overestimate themselves."

Their tones were calm, carrying the caution of those who had been there before.

Having sat in these positions for so long, they had seen too many geniuses break their halberds in real combat.

High Vitality Value did not necessarily mean one could fight. Good martial skills did not necessarily mean one could survive.

The variables on a battlefield were not something data could reflect.

On the screen, Song Chen's name continued to rise slowly.

Ninety-third, eighty-seventh, seventy-ninth. Not fast, but steady.

In the viewing area of Anning City Third Martial Arts High School, Li Guohua clenched his fists, his palms drenched in sweat.

A teacher beside him said quietly, "Teacher Li, isn't your student being too hasty?"

"The middle zone is no joke. What if..."

Li Guohua shook his head without speaking.

He remembered Song Chen's performance during practical training, and that battle at Divine Dragon Martial Hall...

By the time Song Chen stepped into the middle zone, half an hour had passed.

The scene here was utterly different from the outer zone.

The chained exotic beasts were no longer alone, but gathered in groups of three or five.

Upper First Rank Mutated Wolves, Peak First Rank Mutated Leopards, and even Lower Second Rank exotic beasts could be seen.

The chains were longer, the beasts had a greater range of movement, and their aggression was fiercer.

Three Mutated Wolves lunged at him simultaneously.

Song Chen shifted aside, avoiding the first wolf's bite, then swung his blade backhandedly into the second wolf's waist.

The blade bit deep, and blood sprayed out.

When the third wolf leaped before him, he raised his left hand. A bolt of purple lightning shot from his palm and struck the wolf squarely in the head.

The wolf stiffened all over and fell from midair. Song Chen finished it with another slash.

[You have killed a First Rank exotic beast, Mutated Wolf. Gained 9 Killing Value.]

[You have killed a First Rank exotic beast, Mutated Wolf. Gained 8 Killing Value.]

[You have killed a First Rank exotic beast, Mutated Wolf. Gained 9 Killing Value.]

Three wolves, five seconds.

He continued onward.

A Lower Second Rank Mutated Leopard pounced from the side, moving as fast as a shadow.

Song Chen did not even look at it. He swept his blade horizontally, the edge precisely cutting across the leopard's throat.

[You have killed a Second Rank Mutated Leopard. Gained 60 Killing Value.]

By the time the leopard hit the ground, it had already stopped breathing. Its body slid another two meters under its momentum, leaving behind a streak of blood.

He quickened his pace.

At the Examination Center, someone noticed Song Chen's score beginning to jump faster. "He's started killing in the middle zone."

It was not an explosive surge, but a steady, continuous increase.

Like a precision machine, every slash produced a fixed return. There was no waste and no pause.

The middle-aged man in the Martial Arts Association uniform looked back at the screen.

He watched for more than ten seconds, and his brows slowly drew together. "His blade... Look at his blade technique."

The people beside him leaned closer to watch the replay.

On the screen, Song Chen faced the encirclement of four Mutated Wolves. He neither retreated nor dodged. He simply kept walking forward.

A flash of blade light, and one wolf fell.

Another flash, and another wolf fell.

His steps did not stop, nor did his blade. It was as natural as walking.

Someone sucked in a sharp breath. "That blade technique... Is that the Grandmaster Realm?"

Another immediately refuted him. "Impossible. He's only eighteen."

"Look at his movements. There's no unnecessary force, no wasted angle."

"Every slash takes the shortest path, at the fastest speed, to the deadliest spot. This isn't something that can be trained through hard practice. This was forged through killing."

Silence fell for several seconds.

The middle-aged Martial Arts Association man slowly spoke. "Only forty minutes into the exam, he's killed his way from the outer zone to the middle zone."

"And have you noticed? Song Chen has not stopped at all. He doesn't look like he's farming points. He looks like he's hurrying somewhere. These points are merely something he picked up along the way."

Merely picked up? Killing dozens of exotic beasts was merely something he did along the way?

The atmosphere in the Examination Center subtly changed.

Those big shots who had initially watched with cautious eyes began to seriously scrutinize the moving dot on the screen.

Elsewhere, Song Chen had already reached the boundary between the middle zone and the Core Zone.

A low wall stood before him. Beyond it was the Core Zone.

No chains, no barbed wire. The true Wilderness.

On this side of the wall was the final batch of chained exotic beasts.

Five Lower Second Rank Mutated Wolves and one Mid-Second Rank alpha wolf.

He walked over, and all five wolves lunged at once.

Song Chen drew his blade. A flash of blade light sent two wolves' heads flying.

The remaining three pounced before him. He shifted aside to avoid one, then slashed backhandedly and severed the second wolf's spine.

Lightning shot from his left hand, and the third wolf fell to the ground, charred black all over.

The Mid-Second Rank alpha wolf had not moved. It crouched at the very back, coldly watching Song Chen, a low growl rumbling from its throat.

It was waiting for an opening.

Song Chen met its gaze for a second.

Then the alpha wolf moved. It was astonishingly fast, its claws tearing through the air as they went straight for his throat.

Song Chen did not dodge. He met it head-on. At the instant the claws were about to touch his throat, he lowered his body, slid forward, and flicked his blade upward from below.

This was a killing move he had comprehended after slaughtering more than a thousand exotic beasts in Vast Wild Mountain. There was no flourish to it, only one word: fast.

The blade light flashed.

The alpha wolf was split open from throat to abdomen, blood and entrails pouring out together.

It did not even have time to scream before crashing to the ground, dead.

Song Chen sheathed his blade and stepped over the low wall.

He did not look back.

Behind him, the chains swayed gently in the wind. Iron rings collided, producing faint, fragmented clinks.

Those sounds were soon drowned out by the roars of beasts from deep within the Core Zone.