Chapter 306: Two vs Two Hundred

"Need help?" Chloe asked Vlad, standing behind him and Noah.

"No, my identity will be revealed if you help," Vlad replied, drawing his sword.

"Okay," Chloe nodded, stepping back.

"Two against two hundred," Vlad murmured in a relaxed tone, his eyes behind the mask scanning the first wave of over twenty students coming from every direction. "What do you think?"

"You are the one who pulled me into this mess," Noah retorted, his eyebrows knitted in annoyance. He released a sigh as the ground beneath them began shaking from the numerous running footsteps. "It would have been easier if we could just kill them."

He turned around, facing the students behind them. "I will consider this the price for losing the spar."

He didn’t wait for Vlad’s answer, bolting straight towards the incoming attackers.

Vlad merely smiled behind the face mask before he dashed forward, leaving behind a trail of crimson lightning.

Loud noises of battle erupted from the two ends of the flower field as Noah and Vlad clashed with the students.

Sparks erupted from the clashes of multiple weapons being blocked by the duo’s blades. Energy rippled outward from the spells cast by the mages at the back.

Yet none of them managed to break through their defences. Noah blocked the spells with ice shields while his sword parried every strike.

No student could swing a weapon at him twice. The moment his sword clashed with theirs, frost bled into the point of collision and froze their weapons and bodies mid-motion. With every passing second, the number of half-frozen students across the field kept increasing.

The situation at the front was even worse. Unlike Noah, who was only freezing his opponents, the students here were being sent flying in every direction.

Vlad wasn’t using Sword Aura, but that didn’t stop him from teaching them the consequences of ganging up on him. He was using everything from the flat of the sword to punches and kicks that echoed through the field like heavy cannon fire.

The metallic noise of weapons clashing was soon overwhelmed by the screams of students hitting the ground and bushes.

As soon as the first wave of students was defeated, the second rushed forward with the same confidence and was destroyed in a similar manner.

The third, fourth and fifth waves met similar fates.

Several metres of bushes had been flattened at the end where Vlad was fighting, crushed beneath the defeated bodies of students piling up there.

"Wh-what in the world is going on?" The Sad Face gasped inwardly, unable to believe the situation before him. "Are these two really students?"

The reveal of Noah’s Sword Aura was just the beginning of the shock for the hunters.

They had already seen Noah’s combat skills the previous year. He was a genius swordsman, but now...the way he swung his sword and skillfully blocked, regardless of the number of attacks thrown at him, clearly showed that he was at a completely different level from a few months ago.

Wasn’t he spending all day lazing around in his room after being held back a year? Then how come his skills had only improved instead of diminishing?

The appearance of this mysterious joker was an even bigger shock to the hunters. They hadn’t seen any students with such skills among the second years of the Order of Blades.

There was only one second-year student who possessed such flawless sword skills: Felix Lancaster, Rank Two in the Arena Tournament and the second most powerful second-year student, below only Seraphina Cendral.

But his elemental affinity was Hydro, while the Joker was using the Electro element around his limbs to move with tremendous speed.

"Don’t you think it’s time for you hunters to step in?" Vlad’s voice pulled the hunters out of their thoughts. More than sixty survivors had attacked him and been defeated. The remaining ones were trembling in place, their lips quivering in fear from merely listening to the painful groans of their fallen comrades, whose faces were bruised.

The few dozen remaining survivors turned their hopeful gaze towards the hunters, realising they were no match for the Masked Maniac.

"Hmph, thinking you are some kind of bigshot when all you did was defeat a few first-year brats," The Angry Face retorted, stepping forward, pointing his sword at Vlad.

The other hunters also entered the battlefield, drawing their weapons.

Vlad arched his back, his hand moving to his face. All the hunters knew at that point what was about to follow.

"Bwahaha!" Vlad laughed out loud, repeatedly hitting the mask. "You are absolutely right. All I did was defeat a few survivors."

The crimson eyes behind the mask shifted to the hunters, his body still holding the ridiculous posture. His voice dropped, carrying a mocking tone as he continued, "The same survivors that made you all form an alliance and still defeated you."

His statement struck the very nerve he intended. Vlad didn’t need to see their faces to know what expressions they were making. He had popped the balloon of their fragile egos, after all.

A wild Aura of burning flames manifested around Angry Face’s sword as he shouted, "Let’s see you run that mouth once we are done with you! Everyone, attack!"

All the knights among the hunters charged at Vlad, coating their weapons in Aura while the mages at the back were already casting spells.

---

"He surely has S-Ranked talent for pissing people off," Noah muttered, shaking his head. He was standing only a few dozen metres from the edge of the flower field. Behind him, the students were scattered across the field, some fallen, some still standing, their limbs frozen in ice.

His blue eyes shifted to the front again. "Weren’t you all barking about defeating the villains?" Noah scoffed, pointing at the line of shocked survivors standing before him. "Come at me now," he ordered in a cold tone. "Let me show you how terrible a villain can really be—"

His words stopped mid-sentence as an arrow coated in dark aura came for him at blurring speed.

He immediately swung the blade in a vertical slash. It struck the head of the arrow, slicing it into two symmetrical halves, each one passing him, whistling past his ears.

His gaze narrowed at the black-haired girl with inner shades of white standing further back behind the line of survivors. She held a black, matte-finish bow, its white string stretched, the next arrow, coated in her aura, ready to be unleashed.