School Anniversary Assembly, Slaying the Iron-Winged Vultures

Li Qingshan vaulted over the podium railing, his soles slamming into the rubber ground as he sprinted toward the center of the training field.

"Everyone stay where you are! Security team, seal off the airspace above the campus! Medical team, count the injured!"

Several martial arts teachers split up and moved through the crowd, driving students near the corpses back into their class formations. The security teachers raised their terminals and connected to the defense system. Six combat drones rose above the rooftops, their cannons turning in unison toward the clouds.

Jiang Yuan remained where he was. The crimson glow on his broken sword faded section by section, and the missing portion of the blade vanished with it. Only a forty-centimeter fragment remained in his hand.

Four Iron-Winged Vulture corpses lay scattered around the training field. The cuts across their chests, abdomens, and wing roots had already been charred black. A thin layer of blood seeped out onto the rubber ground, raising wisps of white smoke.

Guo Hongtao shoved aside two students blocking his way and squeezed over to Jiang Yuan, reaching up to grab his shoulder.

"Brother Yuan, you hid it way too well. You said you'd only started practicing swordsmanship recently. You call this recent?"

Jiang Yuan placed the broken sword into its wooden box and closed the lid.

"I kept practicing, and naturally got the hang of it."

"Who are you trying to fool?"

Guo Hongtao raised an arm and pointed at the corpses more than ten meters away.

"Those three were still flying in the air, and you took them apart with three swings. Even if the school's swordsmanship teacher came over, he wouldn't have the nerve to say he got this good just by practicing."

"Saving you just now took quite a bit out of me."

Hearing that, Guo Hongtao hurriedly released his shoulder and circled Jiang Yuan to inspect him. His gaze moved from Jiang Yuan's chest to his arms, not even overlooking the tears in his school uniform.

"You're hurt? Where's the wound?"

"I'm hungry."

"My grilled meat got smashed all over the ground. Go ask those mutant beasts to compensate you for your meal."

While the two were still talking, the battle footage recorded earlier had already been sent into the class group chat. From Jiang Yuan drawing his sword to the three Iron-Winged Vultures falling, only a dozen or so seconds had passed, yet the forwarding count had already exceeded a hundred.

The dean of academic affairs pushed through the crowd, tapping rapidly on his terminal as he accessed the campus network's administrative backend.

"Shut down wireless transmission in the training field. Suspend all students' external sending privileges on their terminals. Seal all content already uploaded to internal campus platforms. No one is allowed to spread it privately."

Restriction notices popped up one after another on hundreds of terminals. Some people muttered complaints, while others hurriedly stuffed the videos into private storage. More eyes turned toward the center of the field, and the empty space around Jiang Yuan widened further and further.

Zhou Hu bent down to pick up his terminal. The recording page was still lit on the screen. He had just exited the video when the dean of academic affairs stopped in front of him.

"Hand over your terminal."

"Director, I didn't send the video outside."

"Hand over the terminal for inspection."

Zhou Hu glanced once toward Jiang Yuan, pressed his thumb against the identification area to unlock the permissions, and handed the terminal to the dean.

Jiang Yuan saw every bit of the commotion. The campus network could be cut off, but thousands of eyewitnesses could not possibly be made to keep their mouths shut.

His damage-reflection ability could still be attributed to a supernatural power, but swordsmanship at the Subtle Realm could not be separated from a complete inheritance and years of grueling practice.

Li Qingshan had already walked up and reached for the wooden box.

"Give me the sword."

Jiang Yuan gripped the handle and did not hand over the box.

"Teacher, I bought this sword in the old district. It's my personal property."

"I'm only inspecting it. I won't confiscate your things."

Li Qingshan stepped half a pace closer, lowering his voice until only the two of them could hear.

"The principal saw every one of those sword strikes. Are you still planning to stay here holding half a sword while everyone crowds around and guesses?"

Jiang Yuan released the handle and handed over the broken sword along with the wooden box.

The moment Li Qingshan took the hilt, the weight dragged his arm halfway down. He hurriedly supported the wooden box and switched to holding the sword with both hands.

His blood and qi flowed into his palm, but the crossguard gave no response. No crimson sword light emerged from the break either. The broken blade, its rust not yet fully faded, looked like nothing more than an absurdly heavy piece of scrap metal no matter how he examined it.

"Where did you learn your swordsmanship?"

"When I bought the sword, I found a damaged sword manual in a hidden compartment in the wooden box."

"Where is that sword manual?"

"After practicing it, I burned the manual."

Li Qingshan stared at him for a moment, the muscles in his cheek twitching twice in succession.

"If you're going to make up an excuse, could you discuss it with your teacher beforehand?"

"There was something wrong with the material of the manual. It began crumbling not long after I opened it. I could only memorize the contents first, then dispose of the damaged pages."

"You looked through it once, spent only a few days on it, and trained the swordsmanship to the Subtle Realm?"

Jiang Yuan did not answer.

Li Qingshan stuffed the broken sword back into the wooden box, pressed a hand onto Jiang Yuan's shoulder, and led him away from the surrounding students.

"When the principal asks later, don't mention a few days. Say you got the manual during winter break and had been practicing in private ever since."

"Teacher, does this count as helping me fabricate a story?"

"I'm helping the school protect one of its students."

Li Qingshan did not slow down, his palm still firmly gripping Jiang Yuan's shoulder.

"If word gets out that someone in his teens has mastered Subtle Realm swordsmanship, the first people to come knocking might not be carrying admissions forms."

An open space had already been cleared beneath the podium. The principal and the head of the security team stood beside the Iron-Winged Vulture corpses, while the dean of academic affairs had also returned. Staff members were using instruments to test the crystal cores and bloodline strength.

A scanning beam swept across the first corpse. The data on the screen flickered several times, yet no standard result was generated.

The security team leader adjusted the parameters twice more, but the value representing energy intensity remained pressed against the lowest mark.

"Strange. None of the four Iron-Winged Vultures' crystal cores are damaged, yet all fire-attributed energy has vanished."

Jiang Yuan's fingers tightened. The wooden box handle dug into his palm. The Blazing Sun Sword Intent's process of absorbing the intent of fire had ultimately left traces on the corpses.

The principal raised his head from the instrument screen. His gaze crossed the crowd and landed on the wooden box in Jiang Yuan's hand.

"Leave the broken sword here for now. Jiang Yuan, come with me to the conference room."

Guo Hongtao chased after them for two steps, his soles stepping through blood that had not yet dried.

"Principal, he just saved the entire school!"

The principal stopped and turned to look at Guo Hongtao.

"Precisely because he saved people, the school must protect him first. Today's news can no longer be contained. At least seven external addresses have received the footage."

The dean of academic affairs brought up the tracking results and projected them onto a floating light screen. The earliest leaked video was only eight seconds long. When the crimson sword light pierced the Iron-Winged Vulture, Jiang Yuan's face was clearly captured in the center of the image.

The forwarding count at the top of the page continued to rise.

The next moment, an encrypted communication bypassed the campus system's interception protocols and directly occupied the entire light screen.

Just as the dean of academic affairs was about to cut the connection, the sender's identification fully unfolded.

New Star Martial Arts Admissions Joint Center.

At the center of the light screen, only a single line of text remained.

[Jianghai No. 1 High School is to immediately transfer all records for student Jiang Yuan. The special investigation team will arrive in two hours.]