Ming Hao darted to the outside of the encirclement around Lin Yong and the others. Before their opponents noticed him, he used Ethereal Steps to slip behind two disciples.
A sweeping kick sent both of them flying in an instant, opening a small gap.
"Follow me! Break through to the dormitory area! There are too many of them. If we don't leave now, it'll be too late!"
Ming Hao roared, but his hands never stopped moving. His right hand clenched into a fist and drove straight toward a disciple trying to plug the gap.
Hearing him, Lin Yong and the other two did not hesitate. They unleashed their strength to knock their opponents back and fought their way toward the opening. With Ming Hao attacking from the other side, they quickly broke free.
"Go!" Ming Hao shouted as he watched Luo Junhang and the others rapidly approach. He charged at the head of the group, ready to slay any god or Buddha who stood in his way.
Lin Yong and Lin Hao followed close behind on his left and right, while Lin Zihan supported them from the middle.
No matter how many disciples stood on the perimeter, none could last two exchanges against Ming Hao. He usually put an Inner Disciple out of action with a single move as they raced toward the dormitory area.
Behind them, Wang Baishun and Hao Wu led a crowd of Inner Disciples in relentless pursuit. Off to one side, Luo Junhang led several disciples with particularly outstanding movement techniques, trying to take a shortcut and intercept Ming Hao's group.
After more than ten minutes, they were about to break out of the brawling area. The dormitory area lay just a little farther ahead, and they would be safe once they reached it.
By then, Luo Junhang had already blocked the way ahead with three disciples, and their pursuers were closing in behind them.
Ming Hao and the others exchanged glances. "Finish this quickly."
Ming Hao went straight for Luo Junhang, while Lin Yong and the others each targeted one disciple.
Ming Hao growled, "Ice!" An icy sheen instantly covered his hands and feet, and his fist blasted forward trailing wisps of freezing air.
Luo Junhang could only meet it head-on. If he so much as dodged, Ming Hao and the others could easily rush past him.
Luo Junhang's aura surged as he shouted, "Immovable as a Mountain!" Several layers of protective barriers instantly formed around him like a turtle's shell.
Ming Hao's eyes turned cold. Several more layers of icy sheen covered his right hand, and he gathered his strength before swinging.
With a bang, Ming Hao emerged unscathed, while Luo Junhang's hands shattered. He spat blood and lost consciousness.
That was despite Ming Hao withdrawing most of his strength in time. He had never expected someone who shouted loud enough to shake the heavens to be all show and no substance!
On the other side, Lin Yong took a blow head-on, seized his opponent's arm, and said with a savage grin, "My turn to give you a punch."
He gathered his strength and punched, blasting his opponent dozens of meters away. The disciple hit the ground and did not get up.
Watching his opponent move rapidly and refuse to engage at close quarters, Lin Hao took a deep breath. His aura erupted, and he began moving at tremendous speed.
Before long, he appeared behind the disciple and ended the fight with a chopping strike.
Finally, over by Lin Zihan, her legs moved like deadly scissors, suppressing her opponent so thoroughly that he could barely breathe.
She finished with a charged kick that broke both his hands, sending him to the ground howling in pain.
"Grab their Monthly Stipend Pouches quickly, then get out of here."
Ming Hao spoke with a storage pouch in his hand, which he had just taken from Luo Junhang.
Lin Yong and the others quickly looted their opponents as well, then darted to Ming Hao's side.
"Fall back to the edge of the formation first. We'll wait for them there."
They quickly retreated to the edge of the formation, where a single step backward would take them out of the Brawl Arena.
Outside, people could no longer attack so recklessly. There were plenty of restrictions, making this position relatively safe.
Seven or eight seconds later, Wang Baishun, Hao Wu, and nearly a hundred others came charging over in a mighty procession.
Seeing where Ming Hao and the others stood, they knew their carefully calculated bait-and-trap scheme had still failed. Then they saw Luo Junhang's miserable condition, and their mouths could not help twitching.
Ming Hao looked at Wang Baishun and the others opposite him and spoke in a low voice.
"So you're allowed to rob others, but no one is allowed to rob you?!"
"I, Ming Hao, will remember what happened today."
"On this day next month, I'll be waiting for you in the Brawl Arena again. Bring all the friends you want. If you don't come, I'll go looking for you."
With neither sorrow nor joy on his face, Ming Hao laid down the challenge. He was furious. After all, he was only twelve years old. With his blood boiling, how could he possibly swallow this?!
Behind him, Lin Yong and the others exchanged glances at his words, then declared in unison, "One month from now, we'll fight you here again!"
Across from them, Wang Baishun's face alternated between green and white. Then he threw out a threat of his own.
"Whoever doesn't come in a month is a sniveling grandson! We'll beat you until you're crawling around looking for your teeth."
"You only escaped by luck today. You won't be so lucky next time."
Hao Wu also spoke with a dark expression.
The disciples behind him immediately began shouting taunts one after another.
Ming Hao could no longer be bothered with them. He simply turned and left.
At Ming Hao's residence, the four of them sat in the courtyard around a pile of spirit stones and pills, beaming as though the earlier incident had never happened.
Ming Hao began counting everything he had seized together with Lin Yong and the others during the latter part of the raid.
"...One hundred and eight... nine hundred and eighty-eight... one thousand three hundred and sixty... two thousand four hundred and fifty-six..."
In the end, he counted a total of two thousand six hundred and sixty-eight Monthly Stipend Pouches.
The final haul from Luo Junhang alone had contained more than a hundred. Truly, the rich drowned in riches while the poor died in poverty!
Ming Hao looked at the resources before him and said with a smile,
"Since all three of you were willing to take such risks and join me in robbing the other disciples of their monthly stipends, and you put in a great deal of effort,
each of you can take twenty percent of the Monthly Stipend Pouches here, and I'll keep the remaining forty percent. That's already pretty generous. What do you think?!"
After a moment of silence, Lin Zihan said softly,
"Junior Brother Ming Hao, you don't need to be so generous. We were the ones who asked to join you in robbing the other disciples in the first place.
Besides, it was only thanks to your powerful strength that we managed to seize so much so easily. If it had been just the three of us, we probably would've been the ones getting robbed.
So there's no need to give us so much. Thirty Monthly Stipend Pouches each will be enough. Even then, we're getting the better end of the deal."
"Zihan is right. We didn't contribute much. Thirty Monthly Stipend Pouches is already plenty. Junior Brother Ming Hao, don't insist."
"Same here."
Lin Hao and Lin Yong also spoke up.
Ming Hao was startled by their words. Well, now. Didn't they risk going out to rob other disciples of their monthly stipends precisely for the resources?
Now that the resources were here, were their appetites really that small? Were they that easily satisfied?
Ming Hao considered it for a moment. Since they were being so considerate, he could not be too stingy either, could he?
He promptly set to work dividing everything into four shares.
He packed four hundred Monthly Stipend Pouches into a storage pouch for each of Lin Yong's group and pushed them over. Naturally, the remainder belonged to him.
"These are yours. Take them. You contributed plenty, and you've also offended all these people alongside me. We've got another tough battle next month, and they're bound to gather a lot of disciples.
There are only four of us right now. Take these resources and work hard on your cultivation now that we're back, so you'll be ready for next month's fight."
Ming Hao was no fool. With resources on hand, he naturally had to use them to improve everyone's cultivation first. Every extra person meant another measure of strength; otherwise, next month he really might find himself a lone tree unable to hold up the sky.
Lin Yong and the others exchanged glances, thanked him, and accepted their shares.
They genuinely needed resources for cultivation. Previously, other disciples had constantly robbed them of their resources.
That had slowed their cultivation, and without spirit stones and pills to support them, they had long been unable to advance further in many cultivation methods and secret arts.
They had also remained unable to meet the requirements for breaking through to the out-of-body realm. This time, the resources they had received were more than enough to reach a higher realm.
However, for the sake of next month's agreed battle, they would certainly not break through so soon. First, they would hone their nascent soul realm cultivation to its utmost limit and practice the cultivation methods whose progress had suffered from their lack of resources.
They were already heaven's favored prodigies, so their talent needed no explanation. In next month's battle, they would give their opponents a tremendous surprise!
"Senior Sister Zihan, those long legs of yours were kicking so hard just now that your opponent couldn't even lift his head..."
Ming Hao teased with a grin.
"You flatter me, Junior Brother..."
Lin Zihan was a little shy, her face flushed red.
Then they began chatting back and forth about all sorts of things, and their laughter gradually spread throughout the residence.