Five Hundred in a Free-for-All? Sorry, I'm Setting Up a Stall to Rob You

Breakfast was taken care of in the guesthouse cafeteria.

The food at the military district's First Fortress was indeed excellent: braised beef, steamed fish, four stir-fried dishes, and a basin of pork rib soup.

Li Zhengyang polished off six plates of food, three bowls of rice, and a whole basin of soup by himself.

Hu Dahai sat across from him without touching his chopsticks, simply watching him eat.

"Is your stomach made of iron?"

"I burn a lot. If I don't eat my fill, I can't fight."

Li Zhengyang gnawed the last rib clean, tossed the bone onto the plate, and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

The cafeteria loudspeaker crackled to life.

"All competing contestants, attention. The second stage of the competition will begin in one hour. All contestants who advanced through the preliminaries, please gather at Central Stadium, where the specific rules will be announced. Repeating: one hour from now..."

Hu Dahai's face turned green.

"So soon? The first round just ended, and they won't even give us time to catch our breath?"

"Would war give you time to catch your breath?" Li Zhengyang stood up and patted his belly. "Let's go."

Central Stadium.

Five hundred advancing contestants stood in the middle of the field in loose formations, clustered in their own groups.

The fifty arenas had already been removed, replaced by an enormous holographic projection screen.

The screen lit up, displaying a complex topographical map. Hills, dense forests, rivers, ruins—an area ten kilometers across, compressed into a miniature Mimetic Battlefield.

The broadcast sounded again.

"The rules for the second stage are as follows."

"The five hundred contestants will be randomly deployed into different areas of the Mimetic Battlefield. Each person will receive one Basic Points Token."

"Time limit: two hours."

"Defeat an opponent to seize their points token. The top ten in final points will advance to the finals."

"First place alone will receive a prize of two million Great Xia yuan."

Li Zhengyang's ears perked up.

Two million.

Twenty thousand points of Blood Qi.

"In addition, random supply crates will be placed throughout the battlefield. They contain Advanced Points Tokens, each equivalent to ten Basic Points Tokens."

A five-hundred-man free-for-all, snatching points, with the top ten advancing.

The rules were simple enough, and cruel enough.

The strong could wildly rob others of their points tokens, while the weak could only huddle together for warmth or try their luck searching for supply crates.

And the strongest person would become everyone's target.

Hu Dahai squeezed through the crowd, drenched in sweat as he grabbed Li Zhengyang's sleeve.

"Zhengyang, something's happened."

"What is it?"

"Qi Tian, captain of First Fortress's Second Squad, is a Half-step Martial Sect." Hu Dahai lowered his voice and spoke rapidly. "That guy has linked up with more than thirty seeded contestants from various fortresses and formed a temporary alliance. They have only one target: you."

"How many people?"

"More than thirty. The weakest are Fourth-Rank Martial Spirits, and there are several Ninth-Rank Martial Spirits. Qi Tian himself is a Half-step Martial Sect. He's been stationed in the northern district for six years, and he's killed more Magic Beasts than you've ever seen."

Hu Dahai took a breath.

"Listen to me," Hu Dahai said, dragging him toward a corner. "I've got an idea. Run as soon as it starts. The battlefield is ten kilometers wide, and you're fast enough. Hide for two hours, wait for those people to kill each other off, then come out and harvest the leftovers. Sneaking into the top ten counts as a win."

"Sneak into the top ten?"

"Right, top ten is enough. The prize money isn't important, the ranking is..."

"Two million in prize money isn't important?"

Li Zhengyang looked at Hu Dahai.

Hu Dahai opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Right. He had forgotten.

In this kid's world, money was life.

"Can the two million be tax-exempt?" Li Zhengyang suddenly asked.

"Huh?"

"Does the military deduct personal income tax from prize money? How much? If they deduct two hundred thousand from two million, it'll hurt me to death."

Hu Dahai slapped his thigh.

"I'm telling you more than thirty experts are coming to gang up on you, and you're calculating taxes with me?"

"Isn't that important?"

"Your life isn't important?"

Li Zhengyang patted Hu Dahai on the shoulder.

"Old Hu, you're a good man, but you don't understand one principle."

"What principle?"

"What poor people fear most isn't death. It's having no money."

The broadcast sounded again.

"All contestants, take your positions. Mimetic Battlefield activation countdown: sixty seconds."

The five hundred people were guided to the edge of the teleportation array.

A ring of light lit beneath each person's feet, marking the location from which they would be randomly sent to some point on the battlefield.

Standing in his ring of light, Li Zhengyang lowered his head and checked his equipment.

The Dragon-Gallbladder Golden Spear was there.

Then he pulled a piece of battered cardboard and a wooden stick from his ring.

He had scavenged the cardboard from a trash heap behind the guesthouse yesterday, while the stick had been snapped off a broom.

Hu Dahai stood in the spectator stands outside the field, his binoculars trained on Li Zhengyang.

"He took a piece of cardboard? What's that for?"

An old soldier from Fortress No. 13 beside him leaned over for a look, then shook his head.

"No idea."

"Three, two, one, teleport!"

A flash of white light swept through the area, and all five hundred people vanished at once.

Inside the Mimetic Battlefield.

Li Zhengyang landed in a stony wasteland, open on all sides with an excellent field of view.

Which also meant there was nowhere to hide.

The moment he found his footing, dense footsteps and Blood Qi fluctuations came from three directions at once.

Far too fast.

This was not a random encounter. It was premeditated.

Qi Tian had used some method to lock onto his deployment coordinates before the teleportation.

All thirty-odd members of the "Hunting Alliance" had been arranged within five hundred meters of his landing point.

Within ten seconds, thirty-four people closed in from every direction, surrounding him so tightly not even water could pass through.

Farther away, scattered contestants also gathered around.

They were not here to help.

They were here to watch the show.

After all, everyone wanted to see with their own eyes whether this monster, who had cleared the preliminaries in six minutes, could withstand the combined siege of more than thirty elites.

At the center of the encirclement.

Qi Tian stood at the front. He was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a close-cropped haircut and military uniform sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing forearms covered in old scars.

A broad-bladed saber lay across his waist. The Blood Qi of a Half-step Martial Sect surged over his body, while Astral Qi had already condensed into a faint golden aura visible to the naked eye.

"Li Zhengyang." Qi Tian's voice was magnetic. "A rookie brat from Fortress No. 13. You beat Young Master Lin's people at the registration point and made a name for yourself in the preliminaries. Fine. You've got guts."

"But your road ends here."

The Blood Qi of more than thirty people erupted at once.

The Astral Qi of the Martial Spirits stacked together, forcing the gravel beneath their feet into the soil and making the air thick and viscous.

If an ordinary person stood here, that combined pressure alone would leave them unable even to stand straight.

Li Zhengyang did not draw his spear.

He squatted down.

Everyone thought he was gathering strength or preparing to unleash some trump card.

Qi Tian's hand settled on his saber hilt.

Then they saw Li Zhengyang pull out that battered cardboard and wooden stick from behind his back.

He planted the stick in the ground and hung the cardboard on it.

Two crooked lines were written on the cardboard.

[Robbery]

[Hand over your points token willingly and be spared a beating. Resist, and pay your own medical bills.]

The entire field fell silent for two seconds.

Qi Tian's expression shifted from murderous to confused, then from confused to utterly disbelieving.

He looked at the cardboard, then at Li Zhengyang, confirming that his eyes were not playing tricks on him.

"Are you messing with me?"

The hundreds of contestants watching from afar were dumbfounded as well.

A man being surrounded and hunted by more than thirty experts neither ran nor fought, but instead set up a "Robbery" sign right in front of them?

"Hahahahaha!"

No one knew who laughed first, but then the whole battlefield exploded.

"Is something wrong with this rookie's brain?"

"Did he get scared stupid? Surrounded like that, he's had a mental breakdown?"

"No, he looks perfectly normal to me. His brain's just genuinely broken."

Qi Tian did not laugh.

His face darkened.

As the captain of First Fortress's Second Squad, he had united more than thirty top soldiers from various fortresses and assembled such an overwhelming operation to surround and kill him, only for the other side to not only show no fear, but set up a stall to rob them?

This was a complete refusal to give Qi Tian any face.

This was a complete refusal to give anyone present any face.

"Get him!"

Qi Tian roared and drew his saber.

The Blood Qi of a Half-step Martial Sect instantly erupted to its peak. Three feet of Astral Qi saber light condensed along the broad blade, turning from pale gold to pure gold as the shrill hiss of cleaved air pierced the ears.

He charged first.

More than thirty high-rank Martial Spirits behind him moved at the same time. Long spears, Short Blades, fist Astral Qi, Sword Qi—dozens of attacks carrying earth-shattering force crashed toward where Li Zhengyang stood from every direction.

Gravel and dust billowed across the wasteland.

The explosions merged into one continuous roar.

In the stands.

Hu Dahai's binoculars slipped from his hand and crashed onto his seat.

On the main viewing platform.

Lin Zhenshan held a teacup, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.

But the person seated in the very center suddenly leaned halfway out of his chair.

The military district's commander-in-chief, Xiao Ding.

Martial King Realm.

In his fifties, with short graying hair, a face carved with knife-like wrinkles, an old ill-fitting military uniform, and four general's stars on his shoulders.

Both hands braced against the armrests, he leaned forward, staring fixedly at the enormous holographic screen.

The dust had not yet dispersed.

But Xiao Ding had already seen something within it.

The staff officer beside him was still waiting to see the outcome.

Xiao Ding casually remarked,

"Interesting."