Chapter 709: The Antithesis in the Free Joint Exam Hunt

“Those demons are so disgusting…”

“These guys aren't just disgusting, they're annoying too. It was the same during the Joint Exam last semester; they suddenly invaded our exam venue and messed everything up!”

“Speaking of which, are we just going to let one demon academy disrupt the final hunt organized by so many of our Transcendent Academies? That's too unreasonable, isn't it?”

“Exactly! I was planning to hunt some large Mutated Beasts in the last two days to earn some extra money… Say… can the materials from the demons be sold for money?”

“Not sure, but most likely not. What if those disgusting demons were once human?”

“Stop! Stop talking about it! Ugh so gross. Why does a tumor like the Demon Academy even exist?”

As the morning sun climbed high into the sky, what should have been a beautiful day brought an unpleasant experience to all the examinees in the Expansion Realm.

However, the hunt was still ongoing.

The only difference was that during the hunt, there was an extremely high probability of encountering Dream State creatures and disruptive demons.

Not much else had changed.

Hunting groups eager to score points had already started to shift their targets.

Since Mutated Beast populations were hard to come by, after all this disruption, demons could be found everywhere, and these were all points!

The only downside was that they couldn't earn extra money.

But soon, the examinees learned how troublesome the demons were; first, the demons' vitality was extremely tenacious, and commonly assumed physical weaknesses were almost inapplicable.

Arrows piercing the heart, or even an arrow straight through the head—they could still cling stubbornly to life.

These characteristics were even more pronounced in the Necromancer, Undead, and other types.

But… this level of difficulty was quickly rendered negligible under the overwhelming advantage of sheer numbers.

Moreover, compared to the demon tides encountered last semester, the “intensity” of these demons was somewhat incomparable.

After all, the demon tides encountered last semester were all from the “indigenous races” of the Abyssal World.

Their deaths would turn into flesh and blood and continue to quickly incubate brand new demons in a short period.

Demons were simply an immortal tumor that fully utilized flesh and blood resources to the extreme.

And these “demon students” who were “localized” in the Main World, even though they had lost their original rights as humans, they still retained human cognition, making it impossible for them to achieve such complete instinctual cultivation.

Therefore, as the daytime hours slowly passed, the peak of the demons was quickly overturned.

The regrouped hunting groups beat the “students” of the Abyssal Demon Academy into a continuous retreat.

All of this happened like a joke; the situation reversed far too quickly.

Even some examinees who were prepared to hide in the city and wait for the Joint Exam to end had not truly clashed with the Demon Academy once before news of the demons' defeat began spreading on the Plant Network.

It left many people stunned.

Until…

The news of hunting groups and the Teaching Assistant collective joining forces to encircle and annihilate the Abyssal Demons spread on the Plant Network.

“This is simply a miracle!”

Liffia, watching the news spread crazily across the Plant Network, exclaimed this.

“Did the sun rise in the wrong direction in the Expansion Realm today? That group of Teaching Assistants would actually take the initiative to encircle and annihilate the Abyssal Demons? And cooperate with the hunting groups among the examinees?”

“It is indeed a strange combination,” I agreed from the side.

“This is too weird, isn’t it? Why would they do that?”

“The popularity is a bit strange; it feels like they are stirring up trouble, or maybe they are building momentum?”

I speculated.

“Building momentum? Like how you distributed points before to form a consensus, and then ambush someone at a critical moment?”

Liffia asked with a frown.

“Not necessarily, and I genuinely wanted to find someone to fight; building momentum wasn't my goal.”

I shook my head and said.

However, this matter was indeed very strange.

Why did the Abyssal Demons suddenly become so incompetent?

What was the purpose of their invasion of the Expansion Realm!

Was it just to be served up as easy targets?

This was the part I couldn’t figure out.

I couldn’t think of any way to describe it other than being thankless labor.

But soon after, that group of Teaching Assistants exhibited another series of absurd maneuvers on the Plant Network.

First, they expressed their willingness to respond to the emergency notice of this Joint Exam Hunt and jointly deal with the culprits who undermined the Joint Exam.

The Abyssal Demons.

To minimize the impact they brought and restore a harmonious competitive atmosphere to the Joint Exam.

Furthermore, this group of Teaching Assistants also represented the stances of the various Transcendent Academies, reaching a special agreement with the large hunting groups organized by the different Transcendent Academies.

As this Joint Exam Hunt entered its later stage, the Mutated Beast populations in the Ninglan Land Boundary also became scarce due to the large-scale hunting, and the remaining Mutated Beasts were forced to leave the Ninglan Land Boundary and move to areas outside the Ninglan Land Boundary due to survival pressure.

And for the examinees, venturing outside the Ninglan Land Boundary was actually not worth it.

The first reason was the long journey.

During the Joint Exam, convenient tools could not be used, so traveling back and forth would take a long time.

Moreover, the Joint Exam was nearing its end now, and there wasn't much time left.

And… the Mutated Beasts outside were also hard to hunt by relying on the Power Network, and encountering a large Mutated Beast population could lead to death without even knowing how.

Therefore, the Teaching Assistant collective, represented by various Transcendent Academy hunting group representatives, prepared to conduct cooperative drills.

Yes, during an open-ended hunting assessment, the two parties, who were hunting and being hunted respectively, actually joined forces to plan a ring-style antithesis!

And the reasons were very comprehensive.

This idea originated from the actions of “Teaching Assistant Yang Yuehan” a few days ago, pursuing a mutually beneficial combat condition, fully reflecting the good intentions of the academy towards the examinees in this Joint Exam, and making every examinee realize the importance of combat skills.

While free hunting could increase the chances of confrontation between both sides, the appearance of multi-person hunting groups for the sake of scoring violated the original intent of the Joint Exam, preventing every examinee from having a good environment to train their combat skills.

Therefore, under the large-scale invasion of the Abyssal Demons, they joined forces to expel these unstable factors, thus gaining the opportunity to communicate their mutual opinions.

This ultimately facilitated this special grand occasion of the Joint Exam!

And the group currently staunchly promoting this examinee vs. Teaching Assistant antithesis was also calling upon everyone to participate in this beneficial confrontation.

They also welcomed individuals or teams with true strength to actively participate in this antithesis.

After all, as long as one won against a Teaching Assistant in the arena match, they could immediately obtain the score for killing the opponent on the spot!

This was equivalent to providing an excellent platform for score acquisition at the difficult-to-score end stage!

Regarding this matter, the various academies did not express any opinions.

After all, the Joint Exam belonged to the examinees, and unless they collectively boycotted the exam, the academy would not interfere.

This truly tested the art of rhetoric.

Since the mentors did not stop them, they dared to say that the mentors also strongly supported it!

Anyway, for such a small matter, the mentors would not lower themselves to debunk the rumor, and moreover, the mentors not saying anything was the greatest support, wasn't it?

So they were not lying.

Under this kind of “Joint Statement,” they also went out of their way to single out “Teaching Assistant Yang Yuehan,” hoping that capable individuals would actively participate in this antithesis.

Since you like to challenge people everywhere, the stage has been set for you, so don't you dare not show up.

Otherwise, that would be tarnishing one’s own reputation and persona.

At least, that was the meaning conveyed by the information currently circulating.

And the release and fermentation of this overwhelming Plant Network information did not even take half a day.

By noon of this day, almost every examinee participating in the Joint Exam was aware of this news.

“No, what are they doing?”

Liffia, who was with me, looked at the overwhelming news on the Plant Network, and this was not the first time she had complained.

“Those guys really know how to make a fuss. There must be a trick here! Xiao Han, you have to be careful!”

“I know, I know, how many times have you reminded me?”

I shook my head and said to Liffia.

What's more, we were now heading towards the antithesis venue planned in that joint statement.

To facilitate the participation of more people, this antithesis organized by the students was set up at the Sixth Sanctuary, where the most Transcendent Academies were gathered.

Of course, the arena for the antithesis was outside the Sanctuary; inside the Sanctuary was a safe zone, and fighting was prohibited.

The combat venue was extremely simple; everything was kept basic, and time was of the essence—they simply drew the lines on the ground.

The rules of the antithesis were also very simple: life-and-death combat, wheel battle, with the fight only ending when a definitive outcome of life or death was reached.

This applied to the Teaching Assistants, and it was equally true for the examinees!

Of course, the necessity of a life-and-death battle was primarily a screening process for the examinee collective, ensuring that those afraid of death were not qualified to waste everyone's time on the antithesis stage, nor were they qualified to be allocated scores.

After all, the number of Teaching Assistants was limited, and furthermore, a Teaching Assistant had an hour of “safety period” after each death.

This destined it to be a confrontation where only the strong were qualified to take the stage!

“Aiya I'm just concerned about you.”

Liffia said.

However, she didn’t say anything else, as the current situation was being live-streamed, and saying unfounded things would only cause trouble.

“Sigh Xiao Han, your response accepting the challenge, which you posted under their joint statement, has been pinned to the top by them.”

“That just means their target is clearly me.”

I wasn't too bothered by this.

Previously, so many of them had joined forces to encircle and annihilate me.

To be honest, that was indeed the most stressful battle I had ever faced, and one of the few times I was very sure I absolutely could not win.

After I tricked them and escaped in the end, they also learned to engage in a straightforward plot…

But I was still very curious about how they managed to persuade so many people… no, so many academies.

The herd mentality ensured that a leaderless group was easy to deal with, but the leaders representing the interests of a conglomerate were not to be trifled with.

And they moved too fast…

This forced me to recall what Fu Xinglan had told me back then.

Although she was talking about players at the time, she also mentioned that other Transcendent Academies wanted to target me.

Now I only needed to clarify one thing, and that was… my self-worth.

Was my value worth so many academies uniting just to destroy me utterly?

Then, thinking about it this way… was Teacher Lina's decision to have me participate in this Joint Exam really just so I could experience learning combat skills?

I already had the answer to the first question in my heart, and as for the second question… I would find out soon enough by trying.

When Liffia and I arrived at the vicinity of the Sixth Sanctuary, we could see a large crowd gathered from a distance.

When the people here saw my arrival, they were also stunned, and then a flash of pleasant surprise crossed their eyes, with even a group of people enthusiastically surrounding me.

After a brief conversation, I learned that they were members of the “Little Han Support Group.”

They eagerly asked if I was here to participate in this “destined to die” antithesis, and upon receiving an affirmative answer, they were overjoyed.

After all, they didn't want to support someone who would back down.

After learning that I wouldn't back down, they continuously explained the rules of this student-organized antithesis to me.

The two sides of this antithesis were the Teaching Assistants on one side and the examinees on the other.

Teaching Assistants could only enter the arena alone, while challenging examinees could enter alone or in a team.

If the challenging team won, they could only split the score for killing the Teaching Assistant.

This combat method was essentially an antithesis model set up with the default assumption that the Teaching Assistant was stronger than the examinee.

However… even a Teaching Assistant with not much combat experience could wear down many teams by relying on their Undying Nature.

And Teaching Assistants were not allowed to “surrender” before defeat.

This was clearly aimed at Teaching Assistants like me who did not possess the Undying Nature, or to be even more specific, it was targeting… me.

They bestowed a prominent halo upon the Teaching Assistants, which meant that the Teaching Assistants had to be radiant.

You could die, but if you lost in the first few rounds, you were not worthy of the Teaching Assistant honor.

This should have been Teacher Lina's mockery of those incompetent Teaching Assistants back then, but now… these Teaching Assistants were using it against me.

At this moment, as I approached the arena, I also heard a very high-pitched voice, similar to that of a commentator or host.

“Let’s see which heavyweight Teaching Assistant has arrived at our Teaching Assistant Antithesis!”

“Look! It’s the Little Han Teaching Assistant that all of you know about! The myth of not a single defeat throughout the entire Joint Exam Hunt!”

“I knew that the Little Han Teaching Assistant, who is dedicated to challenging geniuses and strong individuals, would not be afraid to face this life-and-death antithesis; let’s make our cheers more intense…”

As my figure arrived at this slightly crude antithesis venue, those examinees who were temporarily serving as commentators used passionate and inflammatory words to elevate me into the visual focal point of the entire arena.

But this fervent cheering, which seemed to be supporting me, was full of the intention to kill with praise.

Perhaps many people heard it, but they were happy to see it happen; after all, the protagonist was not them.

If the opponent fell from the altar, they would be happy to step forward and deliver the final kick.

If the opponent truly had the skill, they wouldn't mind letting the cheers become heartfelt!

“Come! Let’s clear the reserved number one antithesis venue for our Little Han Teaching Assistant!”

“Let’s use the highest cheers to welcome our protagonist… Teaching Assistant Yang Yuehan to the stage! And then greet… her opponents with enthusiastic applause!”

“Whoa oh oh oh——!”

“Go, Big Sis Xiao Han.”

“Kill! Kill! Kill! I want to see rivers of blood!”

Amidst the cheers of the crowd and the extremely embarrassing commentary, I silently walked onto the crude antithesis venue.

At this moment, I had only one thought to complain about… which was: was this still the multi-school joint hunting final assessment?