The Fifth Wave

He took a deep breath and swallowed the taunt on the tip of his tongue, but the thought in his mind grew firmer.

Once Su Mu came out of the hard dungeon, he would have plenty of chances.

Su Mu was trash who only dared challenge the hard dungeon in a team. Soon, in front of everyone, Wang Hao would make him pay back what had happened in the academic affairs office, with interest.

Wang Hao looked away, straightened his collar, and turned toward the trial entrance.

He selected nightmare difficulty on the panel without hesitation.

A dark red light flared and swallowed him whole.

"Wang Hao went into the nightmare dungeon too!"

"He just finished the hard dungeon and hasn't even fully recovered. He's going straight into nightmare?"

"He has an S-rank core card. I guess that gives him the confidence."

"But that's a nightmare dungeon..."

The teachers in the distance saw it too, but their reaction was completely different from the students'.

"He's rushing in too recklessly," the bespectacled teacher said with a frown. "Ye Qingxue entered the nightmare dungeon because she cleared the hard dungeon with almost no losses. Her core card and domain suffered no substantial impact.

"Wang Hao is different. Look at him. He just came out of the hard dungeon, and the color still hasn't returned to his face. That shows his Martial Soul Resonance system took a considerable toll in there. Entering the nightmare dungeon in that condition, he'll have a hard time performing at his best."

"If he stopped to properly digest that last battle using his Soul Power, then adjusted the resonance links between his cards, he could last at least one more wave." The female teacher shook her head as well.

"But you have to admit," the director of student affairs interjected, "there's no danger to his life in a trial dungeon anyway. Even if the nightmare dungeon kicks him out, he'll only exhaust more Soul Power at worst. He can recover with a day's rest. With Wang Hao's foundation, he should be able to withstand the first wave, at least. Just being able to enter a nightmare dungeon and experience it on the day of his awakening already puts him ahead of the vast majority of students."

Zhao Jianguo nodded. "That's true. Come on, let's go watch at the data console. Today, we'll focus on how Ye Qingxue and Wang Hao perform in the nightmare dungeon."

The group of school administrators walked toward the data observation area at the side of the trial grounds.

Meanwhile, Su Mu and Li Ming were already standing in front of the hard dungeon's light curtain.

"Brother Mu, let's get this straight first." Li Ming turned to him, his expression serious. "I'll handle the first three waves. Every extra wave I can hold off counts. You just watch from the back and take over when I can't hold on anymore."

Su Mu looked at him, his lips moving as though he wanted to say something.

"Don't try to talk me out of it," Li Ming said before he could speak.

Su Mu was silent for half a second, then nodded. "All right. You hold off the first few waves. I'll be ready to take over at any time. If the pressure from the fifth wave's elite monster is too much, don't force yourself to hold on."

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Li Ming grinned.

The two walked into the light curtain side by side.

After a flash of white light, they appeared in a separate party space.

Unlike the solo trial, the battlefield in party mode was a stitched-together space.

The two dungeons interlocked through a "temporary link," but they did not merge.

Each dungeon occupied one side, with an extremely narrow buffer zone between them.

When one person chose to "hold the line," his entire dungeon would move forward to the very front of the battlefield, while the other's moved to the rear to stand by.

Switching required a brief cooldown, during which the two dungeons would exchange positions and the enemies' aggro would be reassigned.

Textbooks called this mode "relay-style coordinated combat." It was flexible, but it tested coordination.

A fixed secret realm, on the other hand, was a different concept...

The two parties' dungeons would be completely fitted together, sharing space and rules. All creature cards and traps could be deployed across both, forming a combined dungeon in the truest sense.

The cost, however, was that once bound, they could not be separated. College entrance exam admissions also expressly forbade students with bound secret realms from taking the exam. The reason was that high school students' understanding of dungeons was not yet mature enough, and binding them rashly would limit their potential for growth.

All they needed to do now was the simplest form of relay-style coordinated combat.

"Here I go!" Li Ming shouted, and his mind stirred.

Hum...

The ground across the entire battlefield suddenly shook violently.

A stretch of gray-black steel spread out from the void, quickly covering half the battlefield.

Three enormous barracks rose from the ground, their metal shells covered in dense networks of pipes. Dark green biochemical fluid surged through transparent tubes.

At the very center, a massive Biochemical Mothership hovered in midair, countless cables extending from its underside to connect it to the three barracks.

Rows of figures stood on the mothership's deck, packed close together, more than a dozen in all.

They were humanoid creatures, but gray-green biochemical armor covered their bodies, and masks completely concealed their faces, leaving only pairs of dark red eyes visible. Their hands were empty; they had yet to equip weapons.

"Without equipment cards, my biochemical barracks' combat power is severely reduced." Li Ming cursed, but quickly recovered. "No weapons? Then use your fists, your teeth, your lives to block them!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a dark red fissure tore open at the other end of the battlefield.

The first wave of monsters charged out.

Ten level-one goblins.

Li Ming waved his hand. "First company, attack!"

Twelve biochemical soldiers leaped from the mothership's deck and charged across the steel ground toward the goblins.

They had no weapons, but possessed tremendous strength. A single punch could smash a level-one goblin's skull.

Even when struck by short blades, their biochemical armor blocked most of the damage. As the soldiers pressed forward one after another, the first wave of goblins was quickly overwhelmed.

The first wave was cleared with ease.

The second wave was just as easy.

By the third wave, the monsters began to increase in number and level.

Twenty level-three goblins, five of them throwers.

The biochemical soldiers began to suffer casualties.

Stones from the slings struck them. Though they could not kill in one hit, repeated impacts could still shatter their biochemical armor.

More troublesome still, the unarmed biochemical soldiers were highly inefficient when attacking shield-bearing goblins.

Several goblins with shields formed a defensive line and managed to hold back the biochemical soldiers' charge.

At that moment, the mothership's energy temporarily strengthened the two biochemical soldiers at the very front.

The two elite biochemical soldiers roared and charged, using brute force to smash through the shield wall. The soldiers behind them poured through the opening, and after a chaotic melee, they finally wiped out the third wave of monsters.

"Phew..." Li Ming wiped away his sweat. "Damn it, if level-three monsters are this strong, how are we supposed to fight the rest?"

Su Mu stood at the rear, never once making a move. His gaze remained fixed on the center of the battlefield, watching where the monsters spawned and the rhythm of Li Ming's defense.

Li Ming held off the fourth wave as well.

But it cost him half his biochemical soldiers, and the mothership's energy reserves fell below sixty percent.

The fifth wave arrived.

An elite goblin charged out of the fissure with eight level-four goblins.

Li Ming's expression changed slightly.