Hold On

"The problem is, he's already gone in. It's too late to say anything now." The bespectacled teacher shook his head. "Su Mu's combat power really isn't low. With an A-grade Little Drill Wind, he can at least get through the first three waves. But the fifth wave..."

He didn't finish.

The fifth wave of the nightmare dungeon was on another level entirely.

Ordinary A-grade cards were no different from paper before that wave. Although Su Mu's Little Drill Wind was peak A-grade, he was still just one card. Against enemies of the fifth wave's numbers and quality, an advantage concentrated in a single unit would quickly be torn apart by superior numbers.

"Principal, should we intervene?" the female teacher asked, looking at Zhao Jianguo.

Zhao Jianguo was silent for a few seconds before slowly shaking his head.

"It wouldn't be appropriate for the school to interfere directly in a wager between Awakened," he said. "Besides, Su Mu isn't the sort of person you imagine, who loses his head the moment someone provokes him."

Everyone was taken aback.

"Principal, do you mean..."

Zhao Jianguo didn't answer. He simply watched the dark red curtain of light, his gaze deep.

Among the crowd, only Su Mu's homeroom teacher stood in the farthest corner without saying a word.

She watched the curtain of light, worry and anticipation mingling in her eyes.

She had taught this student for three years, and knew Su Mu's character better than anyone.

He never did anything he wasn't confident about.

But this time, even she wondered: wasn't he a little too confident?

Li Ming stood at the very front of the crowd, his fists clenching involuntarily.

He had only just seen Little Drill Wind in action in the difficult dungeon and knew how powerful that card was. But the nightmare and difficult dungeons were on entirely different levels. Even Wang Hao's S-grade core card had nearly fallen in the fifth wave.

Brother Mu, you have to be all right.

Li Ming repeated the words silently to himself, staring at the dark red curtain of light without blinking.

In front of the trial grounds entrance.

The dark red curtain of light was like a frozen curtain of blood, blocking every gaze from seeing inside.

An occasional ripple flickered across its surface, a wave of energy produced by the battle inside the dungeon. Every ripple set everyone outside on edge.

"What wave is he on?" someone asked quietly.

"No idea. The curtain doesn't show the waves inside. We can only wait for him to come out or watch for a change in his level."

"How long do you think Su Mu can last?"

"I bet three minutes."

"Three minutes? You're giving him too much credit. The monsters in the first wave of the nightmare dungeon are stronger than the fifth wave of the difficult dungeon. What's he going to hold out with? I reckon he'll be out in a minute and a half."

"Maybe not. He does have over ten thousand combat power, after all."

"More than half of those ten thousand-plus combat power points come from buildings and terrain. How much combat power can his actual creatures have? Do you really believe he has an A-grade card?"

Voices rose and fell, but Su Mu still didn't come out.

Instead, the ripples on the curtain of light grew more and more frequent, as though a fierce battle were taking place inside.

Wang Hao stood in the middle of the crowd with his arms folded, most of the color back in his face. But his gaze remained fixed on the dark red curtain of light, unblinking.

As the seconds and minutes ticked by, his brow gradually furrowed.

Why hasn't he come out yet?

That's not right.

He had experienced the first wave of the nightmare dungeon firsthand. Ten level-five goblins, each more troublesome than an elite monster in an ordinary difficult dungeon. Those weren't cannon-fodder mobs, but genuine nightmare-grade monsters, with high attack and thick health bars, working together seamlessly.

Even with his six F-grade combat creature cards and the Martial Soul Resonance of the Chaotic Hair Cloak Hammer, he had struggled to clear the first wave on his first attempt.

How can Su Mu possibly last this long?

Wang Hao calculated rapidly in his head. Nearly ten minutes had passed since Su Mu entered the curtain of light.

Ten minutes.

If it were only the first wave, there was no way he could have lasted this long.

Unless Su Mu had already cleared the first wave, perhaps even the second.

The moment the thought surfaced, Wang Hao shook his head forcefully and pushed it down.

Impossible. Absolutely impossible.

The second wave of the nightmare dungeon was more than twice as difficult as the first. Twenty level-five goblins and three throwers-faced with a siege of that intensity, even he had to deploy all his creature cards and use the chain bonuses from Martial Soul Resonance to barely cope.

How could Su Mu withstand that?

He needed Li Ming to carry him even in the difficult dungeon. In the nightmare dungeon, without Li Ming, what can he do with the little he has?

"He must be hiding in there." A thought suddenly occurred to Wang Hao.

The rules of the nightmare dungeon weren't like those of the difficult dungeon. The difficult dungeon required players to clear all the waves to pass, but the nightmare dungeon allowed players to stall using terrain and buildings; all they had to do was survive.

That kid Su Mu had 210 points of Soul Power and had sunk almost all of it into terrain and buildings. With those two mountains and the narrow valley entrance between them, he really could stall for quite a while if he only defended.

Right, that must be it. He must be fighting a guerrilla battle in there, using the terrain to stall the monsters because he doesn't dare face them head-on. Once he's stalled long enough for the monsters to multiply and his defenses collapse, he'll die and come out.

At that thought, Wang Hao relaxed a little, and a faint sneer returned to his lips.

"Just watch. It won't be much longer." He spoke to the air, his voice quiet but just loud enough for the people around him to hear. "That kind of low-down stalling tactic is useless in the nightmare dungeon. Once the monsters get over his mountains, all he'll have left is that lousy rock."

Li Ming stood not far away. When he heard Wang Hao's words, his fists clenched even tighter.

He wanted so badly to retort. He wanted to rush over, grab Wang Hao by the collar, and tell him how terrifying Su Mu's Little Drill Wind was.

But he couldn't get the words out.

Because even he wasn't sure whether that kind of strength was enough to measure up in the nightmare dungeon.

Brother Mu... you have to hold on, Li Ming silently repeated to himself, staring at the dark red curtain of light without blinking.

Inside the dungeon.

Su Mu's consciousness floated above Lion Camel Ridge, overlooking the entire battlefield.

The rift in the nightmare lair was completely different from those in the normal and difficult dungeons.

Dark red mist poured from the rift, spreading along the ground like a living thing and shrouding the already gloomy Lion Camel Ridge in deeper gloom.

A thick stench of blood and sulfur filled the air, as though the dungeon itself were warning intruders... this was not a place they should have come.

The number of monster waves in nightmare had also increased from ten in difficult to fifteen.

As he pondered this,

the first wave of monsters appeared.

Ten figures stepped out of the rift.

Each stood nearly two meters tall, comparable in size to the elite monsters from the fifth wave of the normal dungeon.

Their skin was dark gray, their muscles knotted, and their bodies covered in rust-speckled iron armor. They carried heavy weapons...

Battle-axes, war hammers, flails, and spiked clubs.

Every one of them breathed with a heavy, rasping sound, and their gray-green eyes gleamed with a ferocity far beyond that of ordinary goblins.

Su Mu glanced at one of their panels.