The light throughout the gymnasium suddenly dimmed, as though day had turned to night in an instant.
"What's going on? A power outage?"
"No! Look up!"
Amid the panicked cries, three figures radiating intense dark-red auras pierced the ink-black darkness and slowly descended from midair.
They hovered inside the gymnasium, looking down on everyone from above. The bloody stench swirling around them made the air thick and nauseating.
And behind them-
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
A series of sounds tore through the air.
Over a hundred figures in matching black combat uniforms descended like dark clouds bearing down on a city.
Each bore a savage, blood-red wolf's head emblem on their chest.
Their movements were perfectly synchronized and well trained. The instant they landed, they scattered, sealing off the entire platform and the surrounding spectator stands.
An air of deadly menace instantly enveloped the venue.
"Who are you? How dare you trespass in Jiangcheng No. 1 High School!"
The principal's expression changed drastically. He abruptly stepped forward and shouted.
As the head of the school, he had to step up now.
Among the three powerful figures leading the group, the bald man in the middle grinned, revealing stark white teeth, his smile utterly unrestrained.
"Who are we?"
He made no attempt to conceal it. Instead, he seemed to enjoy the process of creating fear.
"The Blood Wolf Association."
The bald man unleashed his aura without restraint. That terrifying pressure was even more chilling than that of the Hell Demon General Lu Fang had encountered earlier.
"The Blood Wolf Association?!"
At that name, the principal and the teachers present instantly turned deathly pale.
Standing among the students, Lu Fang's pupils contracted slightly as well.
A memory swiftly flashed through his mind.
It was a conversation his parents had brought up in passing while chatting at home.
"That Blood Wolf Association has been getting more and more brazen lately. Their methods are extremely brutal, and they'll stop at nothing for profit. They're an S-rank illegal organization wanted by the Alliance..."
"Those lunatics are capable of anything."
Lu Fang's heart instantly sank.
The principal's lips had gone somewhat pale as he asked again.
"What do you want?"
At that moment, the three powerful Blood Wolf Association members hovering in midair slowly swept their hawk-sharp gazes across the venue.
Their eyes were utterly cold, devoid of any human feeling, as though they were selecting livestock for slaughter in a slaughterhouse.
Finally, those three suffocating gazes locked precisely onto two spots in the crowd: Lu Fang and Wang Yixing.
The bald leader laughed, his voice grating and harsh like rusty sheets of metal scraping together.
"We came here to kill, of course."
"Lu Fang, son of Lu Tianxiong and Su Qingyu. Wang Yixing, son of Wang Zhen."
The bald man recited their names in an icy tone.
"Back then, your parents joined forces to destroy our South Province branch and killed countless brothers of mine. Today, you two will repay that blood debt!"
His words sent the entire venue into an uproar.
Wang Yixing's already pale face lost every trace of color, and his body began trembling involuntarily.
Though Lu Fang's expression remained calm, his hand hidden in his sleeve had already clenched around the Ring of Money Barrier he had just obtained.
The principal drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressed his shock and fury, and stepped forward, shouting sternly.
"How dare you! This is Jiang City!"
"Aren't you afraid the Three Pillars will notice and tear you to pieces?!"
Faced with the title of Jiang City's strongest fighters, the three men in midair showed no fear whatsoever. Instead, as though they had heard some incredible joke, they exchanged glances and burst into wild laughter.
"Hahahaha! The Three Pillars?"
The bald man doubled over with laughter, then abruptly stopped and looked at the principal with a face full of mockery.
"You old fool, do you think we're brainless idiots?"
"Since we dared to come, naturally, we've made every preparation. As far as I know, Jiang City's Three Pillars all received emergency orders from the front lines and headed to the Abyssal Rift to suppress an uprising, didn't they?"
The principal's pupils contracted sharply.
That was top secret. No one outside Jiang City's upper ranks knew about it. How could these people...
The bald man spread his hands smugly.
"By the time they get the news and rush back, this place will have long since become a pile of ruins."
The principal's heart sank, but he did not give up. He continued coldly.
"Even if they're absent, Jiang City still has its guards! And countless high-level class holders! With this much commotion, the guards will surround this place any moment!"
"The guards? You mean those blind fools outside?"
The bald man disdainfully raised a finger and pointed at the ink-black canopy overhead.
"Open those worthless eyes of yours and take a good look at what this is."
"This is the Dark Night Canopy Barrier set up by our Blood Wolf Association!"
The bald man's gaze turned sinister.
"Inside this barrier, even if we kill every last one of you and raze this gymnasium to the ground, the people outside won't hear a thing. They won't even sense any energy fluctuations!"
"This place is already an isolated island!"
Fine beads of cold sweat appeared on the principal's forehead.
He refused to believe it.
A wide-area, high-level barrier of this caliber was extremely difficult to set up. How could it have formed instantly?
He immediately pulled a specially made emergency communicator from inside his clothes and frantically pressed the distress button.
However, the screen was filled with static, and the signal indicator displayed a glaring red cross.
There was no response.
The principal turned toward the vice principal beside him, and the two exchanged grave looks.
"Do it! Break it open!"
Without another word, the principal and vice principal roared simultaneously.
Boom!
Boom!
Two tremendous auras surged skyward.
The principal was a level 120 Holy Light Priest. Though it was a support class, his level spoke for itself. As he unleashed his full power, the faint silhouette of a giant of light appeared behind him.
The vice principal, meanwhile, was a level 110 Berserk Battleaxe. An enormous axe appeared out of thin air in his hands, carrying the momentum to split mountains and shatter stone.
"Break!!!"
The giant of light's heavy fist and the flaming greataxe slammed into the black canopy overhead with all the strength the two men possessed.
Thud!!!
An incredibly dull, thunderous impact erupted.
But the seemingly thin black curtain of light merely rippled ever so slightly before a terrifying force of recoil erupted from it.
"Pfft!"
"Pfft!"
The principal and vice principal both spat out blood. Their bodies were sent flying, crashing heavily onto the platform as their faces instantly turned ashen.
The vice principal clutched his chest, his eyes filled with despair.
A barrier of this caliber could not possibly be broken by force from within unless someone above level 200 intervened.
In midair, the bald man watched the scene. The mockery in his eyes vanished, replaced by boundless coldness.
"It's time this farce ended."
He slowly raised his right hand and made a throat-cutting gesture toward the crowd of teachers and students below.
"Do it."
"Aside from those two targets, whose heads we're taking, everyone else... kill them all."