If I Beat the Shit Out of You, I Lose

The atmosphere in the Divine Battle Hall had shifted from its initial frenzy to a suffocating silence.

Everyone stared fixedly at the holographic screen, watching an absurd and bloody farce unfold across the ten-square-kilometer wasteland.

More than half of Gu Chengfeng's ten thousand berserkers had fallen.

The remaining few thousand hacked wildly at one another in the black fog, like a swarm of headless flies.

Sitting in his interface pod, Su Bai had even produced a bag of chips from somewhere and was munching away as he offered his commentary.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. There's no strength in that axe swing. Didn't you eat enough this morning?"

"Oh, come on, that footwork is awful. Dodge, will you?"

"Young Master Gu, did your berserkers put all their intelligence points into muscle? How did he even miss that swing?"

Su Bai's voice carried throughout the hall over the loudspeakers. It did little damage, but was devastatingly insulting.

In the interface pod on the left, Gu Chengfeng trembled with rage, his nails digging deep into his flesh.

"Su Bai! Don't get too cocky!"

Gu Chengfeng's eyes were bloodshot, like a beast driven into a corner.

He was the dignified eldest young master of the Gu Family, a heaven's chosen with an S-rank talent, yet a piece of trash ranked near the bottom of the whole school had pushed him this far!

If he really lost today, how could he show his face in Linhai City again? What would become of the Gu Family's reputation?

"You forced me to do this!"

Gu Chengfeng bit the tip of his tongue and spat a mouthful of essence blood onto the control panel of his divine kingdom's core.

"Berserk Blood Boiling! Activate!"

Boom!

A surge of violent, dark red divine power rushed through the spatial passage and instantly poured into every surviving berserker.

This was the berserker race's ultimate trump card, as well as the divine ability Gu Chengfeng possessed by virtue of his S-rank talent.

Once Berserk Blood Boiling was activated, the berserkers would lose their reason completely, feel no pain, and double their strength and speed.

Most importantly, they would fall into a state of absolute madness, immune to all fear and mental control!

"Roar-!!!"

On the wasteland, the remaining three thousand-plus berserkers threw back their heads and roared in unison.

Their swelling muscles split their heavy armor, and their eyes turned a bloodthirsty scarlet.

With their reason stripped away entirely, their fear naturally ceased to exist as well.

Whoosh!

As their fear levels dropped to zero, the bodies of the berserkers Hongdou had possessed jolted. Wisps of red mist were forcibly expelled from their seven orifices, gathering in midair to form Hongdou's figure once more.

"Hahaha! Su Bai, your sorcery has stopped working!"

Gu Chengfeng burst into a mad laugh as he watched the female ghost in red forced out into the open.

"Now that you've lost your mental control, what can that pitiful bit of territory of yours do to stop my berserk army?"

"Attack! Tear that ghost in red to pieces! Smash that building to the ground!"

The berserkers who had lost their reason were now like a herd of rampaging rhinos.

They stopped attacking one another and instead locked onto Hongdou in midair and the abandoned school building behind her, charging without regard for their lives.

The spectators in the stands grew tense once again.

"Young Master Gu is going all out! He's even used Berserk Blood Boiling!"

"Su Bai's in trouble now. Berserkers in their berserk state aren't afraid of death at all. Can that female ghost in red's rule still work?"

Shen Yueli sat among the crowd, a trace of worry flashing through her cool eyes.

She knew how terrifying the berserk skill was. It crushed opponents with sheer, unreasonable stats.

"Su Bai, how will you deal with this?" Shen Yueli murmured softly.

Inside the interface pod, Su Bai put down his chips and brushed the crumbs from his hands.

Watching the berserk army charge at him like wolves and tigers on the screen, he showed no sign of panic. Instead, an exceedingly strange smile appeared on his face.

"Going berserk? Losing their reason? Immune to fear?"

"Gu Chengfeng, oh, Gu Chengfeng, is there a hole in your brain?"

Su Bai sighed, his tone full of frustration that iron could not become steel.

"What normal person have you ever seen go head-to-head with a pack of brainless beasts?"

With a thought, Su Bai gave Hongdou an order.

"Hongdou, don't fight those mad dogs. Kite them."

"Take them on a tour of the building."

In midair, a flicker of remarkably human mockery seemed to cross Hongdou's deathly pale face.

Her figure flashed, turning into a red afterimage that drifted straight toward the abandoned school building.

When the berserkers saw their target fleeing, they immediately roared and gave chase with long strides.

Rumble!

Like bulldozers, the three thousand-plus berserk berserkers crashed straight through the school building's dilapidated entrance and charged into its pitch-black corridors.

"Demolish it! Tear it to pieces!"

Gu Chengfeng shouted madly from inside his interface pod.

Before long, however, he noticed something was wrong.

The interior of the abandoned school building, which looked ready to collapse, was absurdly vast!

From outside, it clearly had only five floors, but once the berserkers charged in, it was as if they had entered a bottomless pit. No matter how far they ran, they could not reach the end.

Even stranger, the corridors were littered with broken glass, rusty desks and chairs, and mutant rat corpses that had appeared from who knew where.

Though the berserkers felt no pain in their berserk state, they had no reason and did not know to avoid obstacles.

Like a swarm of headless flies, they charged recklessly through the maze of corridors.

Bang!

A berserker crashed headfirst into a load-bearing wall, splitting his head and drawing blood. He paid it no mind, got back up, and continued charging forward.

Crack!

Another berserker stepped on a pile of rat corpses, slipped, and tumbled straight down the stairs from the third floor, knocking over seven or eight of his comrades along the way.

Sitting in his interface pod and watching the "surveillance footage" from inside the school building, Su Bai laughed until his stomach hurt.

"Oh, wow, Young Master Gu, how are those berserkers? They're obviously a demolition crew crossed with a pack of huskies!"

"Look at that one. Yeah, yeah, the bald one. He's been hacking at a fire hydrant for ages. Does he think it looks like me?"

As the spectators listened to Su Bai's commentary, their faces turned red from holding back their laughter.

Su Bai had somehow turned what was supposed to be a serious, brutal divine battle into a comedy obstacle-course game.

"Su Bai! Don't get carried away!"

Gu Chengfeng was so angry he nearly spat blood. "Once they level your building, let's see where you hide!"

"Level it? Are you sure?" Su Bai raised an eyebrow.

He had not lured the berserkers into the school building to play hide-and-seek with them.

The "hanged ghost's obsession" he had devoured at Red Star Middle School had not formed a complete rule, but Su Bai had fused it with the school building to create a small illusion maze.

And on top of that was the heavy dark matter contamination given off by the hundred-plus rat corpses.

The school building was now an all-natural "gas chamber" and "ghost wall" in one!

For every extra second the berserkers spent inside, they would inhale a large amount of dark matter contamination.

Their berserk state might make them immune to fear, but it could never protect them from physical toxins or the erosion of contamination!

Sure enough.

Ten minutes later.

Gu Chengfeng's divine power began to run dangerously low, and his face turned as pale as paper.

Meanwhile, the berserkers in the school building began to move sluggishly.

Their heavy armor had been corroded by dark matter until it was covered in rust, and black patches of poison appeared across their exposed skin.

"Roar... cough, cough, cough!"

A berserker commander suddenly stopped, clutched his chest, and violently spat out a great mouthful of black blood.

The dark matter had forcibly interrupted his berserk state!

As the first man fell, it was as though he had set off a domino effect.

More and more berserkers emerged from their berserk state, collapsing weakly to the ground and howling in pain.

Fear surged back into their hearts like a tide.

This time, it was even fiercer than before.

For they had discovered that not only were they lost, but they were also being swallowed by the darkness bit by bit.

"Ding-"

Just then.

The battered bronze bell atop the school building let out another long, resonant peal.

At the end of a dark corridor.

That streak of glaring crimson slowly emerged.

Hongdou tilted her head as she looked at the utterly weakened berserkers on the floor, the corners of her mouth stretching into an exaggerated curve.

"The sky is dark... the rain will fall..."

The familiar song rang out once more.

This time, without the protection of their berserk state, the berserkers fell apart completely.

"No! Stay away!"

"Help! God, save us!"

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The sound of breaking bones rose and fell in every corner of the school building.

It was a one-sided slaughter.

Su Bai looked at the number on the screen as it dropped to zero and gave a long stretch.

"Young Master Gu, you've lost."

"I told you long ago: if I beat the shit out of you, I lose."