The instant the order came down.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The hundred-plus black-clad underlings surrounding the spectator stands and the podium moved at once.
They were all battle-hardened desperadoes, mostly between level forty and fifty, with an exceptionally well-balanced mix of classes.
"Wind Blade Storm!"
"Explosive Fireball!"
"Shadow Arrow Rain!"
For a moment, multicolored skill effects lit up the dark gymnasium, blanketing the unarmed students below with an aura of destruction.
"Aah!!!"
"Help!"
Screams and sobs instantly filled the venue.
These newly awakened students, who had yet to master even casting their skills, had never faced anything like this. They immediately fell into chaos.
"Damn it! Let's fight them!"
"All teachers, heed my orders!"
Ignoring the blood and energy churning inside him, the principal forced himself up from the floor and slammed his staff against the ground, letting out a grim, furious roar.
"All teachers! Get up front! Engage the enemy!"
"Whatever the cost, we must protect the students!!"
At the principal's roar, the teachers, who had been somewhat panicked, snapped back to their senses.
Most of the teachers at Jiangcheng No. 1 High School were also professionals several dozen levels high. Although they lacked the desperadoes' combat experience, their eyes reddened as they fought to protect their students.
"Earth Wall Spell!"
"Water Curtain Heavenly Splendor!"
"Holy Light Shield!"
Dozens of teachers rushed in front of the students, unleashing defensive skills of every kind to try to block the attacks filling the air.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions rang out without pause as skills collided, and rolling shock waves instantly pulverized the desks and chairs in the front rows.
The principal glanced at the chaotic battle, then at the three leaders in midair who had yet to act.
He knew the real danger was overhead.
The moment those three leaders attacked, the defensive line below would collapse.
The principal turned toward the vice principal, a flash of resolve crossing his eyes.
"Old Li, help me hold off the one on the left."
Seeing the look in the principal's eyes, the vice principal instantly understood his intention and tightened his grip on his greataxe.
"All right. Let's give it everything we've got today, you and me."
The principal drew a deep breath, his gaze passing through the chaotic crowd to settle on Lu Fang.
The boy who had just worked a miracle.
The genius with an SSS-rank rating.
"He is the hope of our human race."
The principal's gaze grew utterly resolute.
"Lu Fang must not die here! Even if every last one of us dies, we have to keep him alive!"
The next second.
The holy light surrounding the principal suddenly blazed. It was not the glow of a skill-he was burning his own life essence!
"Blood Wolf Association scum! If you want to kill my students, you'll have to step over my corpse first!"
Boom!
The principal transformed into a streak of blinding light and charged straight at the strongest of the leaders in midair, the bald man, with unstoppable momentum!
Boom!
The battle overhead erupted in an instant, only to turn into a one-sided rout just as quickly.
The principal raised his staff high. Behind him, the phantom of a giant of light stood solemn and sacred as he attempted to unleash a level-one-hundred ultimate skill called Holy Light Judgment.
Yet the bald leader merely sneered, and a cloud of blood mist as thick as ink suddenly burst from his body.
"Before my Filthy Blood Domain, your holy light is a joke!"
The bald man's class was an exceptionally rare and evil hidden class: Bloodthirsty Asura.
This class possessed an innate filth attribute that could severely counter light-type and healing-type classes.
The blood mist filling the air instantly enveloped the giant of light. Its once-brilliant holy light hissed with corrosion as though doused in sulfuric acid, and the giant's body rapidly dimmed and disintegrated at a visible rate.
"Pfft!"
With his life-bound skill shattered, the principal suffered a severe backlash and spat out another mouthful of blood, his body swaying on the verge of falling.
"Old Zhang!"
The vice principal's eyes nearly split with fury. His greataxe blazed with roaring flames as he activated his class skill, Split Mountains and Rend the Earth, and swung at the bald man, trying to force him to defend himself and relieve the principal.
But the effeminate man standing to the bald man's left moved.
Holding two pitch-black daggers, he vanished like a phantom, reappearing behind the vice principal.
"Too slow."
The effeminate man murmured disdainfully, thrusting his dagger precisely toward the vice principal's heart from behind.
Although the vice principal barely avoided a fatal blow through his combat instincts, a wound deep enough to expose bone was still slashed across his back, sending blood spraying.
The last leader, a woman who had yet to act, was a curse shaman.
She formed eerie spell seals with her hands, placing gray weakening auras on the principal and vice principal one after another, making their movements increasingly sluggish and their strength ever weaker.
In just a single exchange.
The two pillars of Jiangcheng No. 1 High School were driven back again and again, danger closing in on every side, utterly powerless to fight back.
"The gap is too big..."
Below, a young teacher fighting desperately to hold the attackers off witnessed this, and a trace of despair flashed in his eyes.
If even the principal and vice principal could not hold out, how long could teachers like them, only several dozen levels high, last?
"Aah!!"
A scream broke through the defensive line.
A black-clad attacker charged up and shattered a defending earth mage teacher's earth wall with a single slash. The tremendous impact sent the teacher flying, his fate unknown.
The instant a gap opened in the defensive line, the ferocious members of the Blood Wolf Association flooded through.
"Wind Blade!"
"Shadow Slash!"
Deadly skills of every kind rained down on the terrified students behind the line.
"Run!"
"Don't kill me! I don't want to die!"
How could these newly awakened students ever have faced anything like this?
The once-orderly ranks instantly erupted into chaos. Students screamed and fled in every direction, some so frightened that their legs gave out and they collapsed to the floor, trembling.
"It's over... It's all over..."
Among the crowd, a bespectacled boy who usually earned excellent grades and was well-informed huddled in a corner, analyzing the situation through chattering teeth.
"Those people in black... judging by the fluctuations from their skills, they're all at least level forty!"
"And those three up there..."
The bespectacled boy glanced up and swallowed in despair.
"If they can keep a principal above level one hundred completely suppressed, they must be... powerhouses above level one hundred!"
"It hasn't even been three seconds since these bastards appeared, and we're already in this miserable state."
"With a gap in strength like this, we're just a bunch of ants. There's no way we can resist..."
His words reached the surrounding students, making the atmosphere, already on the verge of collapse, even more desperate.
Level suppression was this world's cruelest law.
A gap of one level was like a mountain between them; a gap of ten levels was like an unbridgeable chasm.
And now, the gap was dozens of levels, or even over a hundred!