Furthermore, this Sword Intent was not the same as any average attack. It felt as if it contained a huge, mountain-like sword aura hidden within, with a desire to slice through everything. It was already close to reaching the next level.

After a few dozen moves, Hailey was gradually being suppressed by Roland. But, she was also slowly getting accustomed to his fighting style. If she hadn’t guessed wrong, this man should be one of the leaders of the major Bandit gangs.

He had stepped into the Level 25 a few years ago, and his way of fighting was direct and daring. If it wasn’t for her own monstrous strength, she wouldn’t even have been able to withstand three of his moves.

During their battle, Hailey saw that her opponent was distracted. She took a quick glance and saw Igris, looking like a lone man standing on a cliff.

Although he was right in front of her eyes, he gave people the illusion of being far away in the sky, an untouchable sovereign of swords.

"This Junior of mine is quite insane," Hailey thought. "Is he actually hiding his main level from us and is secretly a powerhouse."

Roland started laughing maniacally. He withdrew his left hand, threw out a punch to knock Hailey back, and yelled, "You can be amazed as much as you want, but as a mere Level 8 Player, he’s completely helpless against me! [Mountain Shattering Punch]!"

Kacha!

The aura of Igris’s Sword Intent was destroyed first, then the sword light completely collapsed and vanished without a trace.

But, Roland himself also stiffened. He felt a few wisps of silk-like sword aura enter through his arm, ruthlessly intending to harm his arm.

He would only be able to neutralize the threat after using a chunk of his internal Energy to suppress it.

Hailey understood Igris’s intentions—he wanted her to escape. Realizing this, the Energy in her body was pushed to the absolute limit. Two concentric, magical golden rings formed behind her head, one big and one small, one completely inside the other.

"Low Rank Earth Grade Skill, [Golden Three Realm Art]!"

Igris only took a look and recognized the technique. It was the Low Rank Earth Grade Skill she had mastered! This technique was of unparalleled strength; the seventh stage was called the Shocking Realm, the eighth was the Extreme Realm, and the ninth was the Astral Realm. These three realms combined to conquer everything and were unstoppable.

Hailey clearly had trained it to the eighth stage, the Extreme Realm. With the seventh and eighth realm combined, her power suddenly skyrocketed! A single punch forced Roland to take four steps backwards, a thin stream of fresh blood appearing on the edge of his lips.

"Break!" Not interested in extending the battle any longer, Hailey carried on with her movements. The burning golden Energy instantly blew apart the bandits trying to block her path. Leaving the horses behind, she launched herself toward Caleb and the rest.

Over on Igris’s side, he was also unstoppable. He turned around and unleashed his sword techniques, each stroke extremely forceful and directed toward Roland, who was striding toward him. Igris drifted backwards at lightning speed, his feet barely touching the ground.

With the help of Hailey and Igris, Caleb and the girls were finally able to fight their way out.

They rode their horses and escaped from there as if they were escaping from hell, fading away into the distance in seconds.

"Damn it!"

Roland was extremely angry and annoyed. He stormed over to the place where he clashed with Igris’s sword skill and punched the ground. The people standing on the side almost felt the earth tremble, and even the nearby trees were uprooted from the shockwave.

"Brother, what do we do now?" the sole surviving vice-leader of the horse-mounted bandits asked seriously.

Roland tried to calm himself down. He suppressed his unstable emotions and asked, "How many of our brothers have we lost so far?"

"A total of twenty-three. Except for me, all the other vice-leaders were killed."

"Six Level 20 Players were killed... this really ticks me off!" Roland roared, his wide eyes bloodshot. Although the group of horse-mounted bandits only had fifty people, each of them was a veteran warrior. Especially the six vice-leaders, they had been following him for years. They were the core group he relied on the most. Seeing them die in this terrific battle made his heart bleed.

"Brother, I already told you not to go along with Eeon," the vice-leader muttered. "He is one of the most treasured disciples of the Myth Beast Academy, and is well taken care of. The academy indeed gives us a lot of gold and treasure to repay us, but we sacrifice our lives in their fights! In the end, they are the ones continuously increasing their fighting strength while we bury our brothers."

"I know that." Roland was indeed a worthy leader. Although he was furious, he still kept his rationality. "We have offended the Marlin Academy’s disciples; we cannot have conflicts with the Myth Beast Academy too. From now on, all of you decrease your contact with Eeon. For the moment, let’s retreat from the north-west plains. We shall rest well, recruit a lot of new members, and then make a comeback in the future."

"Yes, my leader!"

•••

After fighting their way out of the encirclement, Hailey and Igris rode hard in the same direction Caleb and the female students had headed.

Once they were a safe distance away, Hailey tossed him a small, glowing vial. "The rest of the journey can be dangerous. This is a [Energy Recovering Pill]. It will help you restore your Energy."

Igris caught it easily. He had already heard of the renowned High-Tier Mana pills—they cost 3,000 Crowns for a single vial! This pill could recover Energy ten times faster than normal regeneration. It was an absolute necessity for high-level Players. He didn’t hesitate; he uncorked it and swallowed it immediately.

He used his internal energy to circulate the medicine. The almost stagnant whirlpool of Energy in his core regained its furious rotation due to the potency of the pellet. Mana started to flow to every part of Igris’s body, infiltrating every small meridian and soothing his exhausted muscles.

Previously, Igris had first attacked with powerful punches, and then used his Sword Intent, which had consumed a massive amount of his stamina. Although his attack strength was absurdly powerful thanks to his Multiplier, his base Level 8 mana pool was still shallow compared to Level 25+ monsters. He couldn’t sustain a prolonged fight against higher-level warriors without burning out.

After a day of hard riding, the six people finally arrived at the towering fortress of the Marlin Academy.

After surviving the bandit ambush and the grueling ride back, the group finally breached the safety of Marlin Academy’s fortress walls.

While Igris and Caleb headed toward the main dorms to collapse, Icarus dragged himself to his mansion.

His servants prepared a massive feast, which Icarus inhaled like a vacuum cleaner before face-planting into his bed, dead to the world.

The next morning, the dawn bell rang like a hammer to the skull. Icarus shoved breakfast down his throat, gave his servants a lazy wave, and dragged his feet to the morning lecture.

Strategic Team Battle.

The professor was a cyborg-armed veteran who had seen enough death to fill a cemetery paced the stage, projecting holographic diagrams of dungeon formations into the air.

"Listen up fools!"

He pointed his mechanical arm at the back rows. "Mages and elemental attackers! You stay in the rear! You are the artillery—maximum damage, maximum distance! And Healers?" His eyes narrowed dangerously. "You are the center of the formation. The heart. If the heart stops, the body dies. Everyone protects the healer at all costs! Warriors and Rogues, you spread out along the flanks—harass the enemy, protect the squishies, and strike when the Aggro is locked!"

By the end of the lecture, the professor’s expression twisted into a sadistic smirk.

"Now, for your practical assignment. I have assigned each of you to a professional Dungeon Raider group from the Guild Association. Your mission? Record one full match of a dungeon clear. Join the vanguard, battle the monsters, and learn how the pros manage Aggro and clear a dungeon efficiently. Fail to submit your footage, and you’ll be scrubbing the academy latrines with your toothbrushes!"

A collective, agonized groan shook the auditorium.

"Another assignment?! This is the third one this week!"

"Are you kidding me?! The university is trying to kill us!"

"Bro, we aren’t even on Earth anymore! We’re in a literal System-generated fantasy world, and we’re still doing homework?!"

It was a universal truth: even in a post-Merge reality where they had magical powers, System stats, and the ability to shoot fire from their hands, students still absolutely despised assignments.

All they wanted to do was roam the wilds, adventure, clear dungeons for epic loot, complete quests, and grind their way to the top of the leaderboards, not write essays on Aggro management!