February 6, 2023, Early Evening, Two and a half hours before the Lantern Festival begins
"Inverted cross. The number six behind it."
Hongli Fu, a goat shengxiao, a man with a military-style short haircut, loosened the tie on his collar.
"He's quite eye-catching. Didn't he infiltrate as one of the tournament participants?"
Glancing at the two severely injured girls behind him. Hongli Fu raised both hands upon hearing heavy footsteps running towards him.
That was something he hadn't expected. With a giant body and a height of almost three meters, the bald, angry-faced burly man's movements were unreasonably fast. An uppercut immediately struck Hongli Fu's raised hands.
BOOM!
The sound of the impact was like a cannonball hitting a wall. Hongli Fu was thrown into the sky, feeling both bones in his hands crack. He gritted his jaw very hard after soaring twenty meters high and landing a hundred meters behind on two feet.
"I didn't have time to cast a body-hardening spell."
The giant burly man chasing him, didn't give Hongli Fu a chance to cast a spell.
In one leap forward, the giant burly man had closed the hundred-meter distance and stood before Hongli Fu, who kept both hands at his waist. The giant burly man raised one tightly clenched hand high to deliver the next blow.
Boom!
Hongli Fu tilted his body to the side, the giant burly man's punch only grazed past his face. The sound of rushing wind was heard from the speed and power of the giant burly man's punch.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Hongli Fu remained focused, moving his body to avoid the rapid and dangerous barrage of punches. If he were a tournament participant, one punch at the beginning would surely have pierced his chest. Destroying the heart and lungs within.
But he was a five-star Hunter, a goat shengxiao, from Chengdu city. He had experienced various more dangerous and life-threatening situations compared to fighting the giant burly man in front of him.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
"ROOOAAAARR!!!"
The giant burly man roared wildly while continuously punching forward so rapidly that human eyes couldn't catch the speed of his attacks. One second passed, dozens of punches were thrown. But Hongli Fu's movements were just as agile even without any magic, purely physical strength and reflexes. Avoiding every barrage of punches aimed at him by only moving his upper body.
"RRROOOOARRR!!!"
Shouting. The giant burly man seemed to grow angrier. But at that moment, Hongli Fu, with wide-open eyes, saw an opening. Just as one punch almost hit his chest, he dodged, first delivering a punch forward.
THUD!
The sound of the punch echoed. Even the wind split as the punch landed squarely in the center of the giant burly man's chest.
But strangely, the giant burly man didn't flinch at all. He seemed to feel no pain. Even though the jab almost pierce his chest.
Before Hongli Fu could pull his hand back, the giant burly man first caught Hongli Fu's leg and slammed him to the ground, cracking it.
BOOM!
"UgGH?!—"
Hongli Fu's body was once again lifted high, but before his body was slammed, someone first darted and struck the giant burly man's wrist, which was about to slam Hongli Fu.
BOOM! CRAT!
Until the giant burly man's wrist was severed by a straight punch technique. That person immediately pulled Hongli Fu away from the giant burly man.
"You look a mess, buddy." Jun Taipei, an cow shengxiao, a bald military man skilled in unarmed combat. His head was bleeding and some parts of his body appeared bruised. No worse than Hongli Fu, who now stood and tried to get into a stance.
"He's a mid-level Arch Witch. We can't fight him with limited, half-hearted strength like this."
"How about the tournament?"
"Just throw those five coins, we have to fight."
Hongli Fu threw his five coins to the ground just like Jun Taipei did, thus eliminating them from the tournament.
"You girls can take them. After that, quickly leave this place. We have more important matters to do." Hongli Fu exclaimed, stretching his arms and twisting his body left and right, feeling sore from being thrown so hard just now.
Akane Mononobe and Imara Nzinga and her cat watched from afar. The arrival of the unknown giant muscular man was truly not their level. If the two of them hadn't been saved by Jun Taipei while exploring the class in the school building, they both wouldn't have survived with just a few bruises.
The two girls left after Nyanko, Imara's big cat, picked up the coins.
Seeing the two girls about to leave, the giant burly man immediately lunged forward, ignoring Hongli Fu and Jun Taipei.
He immediately threw a one-handed punch aimed at the two girls in a line.
THUD!
"That's very rude. Are you ignoring us to kill these girls?" Hongli Fu, who had just finished casting earth magic, directly blocked the giant muscular man's left hand punch with both of his hands, which were now covered in stone gauntlets.
"Hadouken!"
With a bare-handed technique, Jun Taipei used both open palms to strike the giant muscular man's solar plexus, sending him flying dozens of meters backward.
Even so, the giant burly man felt no pain at all. His severed right hand slowly grew back to its original state. Like a plant growing very quickly. The giant burly man snorted his hot breath upwards.
"We've got a pretty troublesome opponent." Jun Taipei took a martial arts stance. Beside him, Hongli Fu took a similar stance.
"Yea."
"ROOOAAAARR!!!"
Beside the half-destroyed, burning school building. The sound of cannon-like punches echoed all the way to the Hunter headquarters.
***
"M-Miss Luxia, why am I assigned to a mountaintop like this? W-what if many participants are seriously injured? Th-they will need me." Qu Guanglao was sitting with trembling hands and feet before Luxia, who smiled faintly while enjoying a warm cup of tea.
"We would die if we were there. Treachery is happening. The magic academy and Hunter headquarters are becoming battlefield now."
The sound of a waterfall roared beside them. The two girls were sitting enjoying tea in a small pavilion floating above a clear lotus pond. On the other side was a view of the forest from the top of a not-too-steep cliff, with several peach trees perched at the edge of the cliff. Not far from the waterfall was a small cabin, which was the residence of the Chinese emperor.
"Is that why Miss Luxia evacuated all the citizens, Hunters, and students throughout Qincheng? So the reason for celebrating the lantern festival early for the Hunters, students, and people of the small town was to evacuate them from enemy attack?"
Luxia just smiled. She placed her teacup on a small plate on the round teak wood table.
"This place used to be Emperor Qin Shi Huang's private retreat when he wanted peace. The scent of the peach trees here provides a soothing atmosphere. The view beside us refreshes the eyes. The sound of the waterfall near the cliff sings comfort."
Qu Guanglao nodded slightly, feeling the comfort and tranquility of their location. However, hearing that the Hunter headquarters was under attack and that only five-star Hunters and tournament participants remained there made her very worried that many people would die because there were no healing units on duty there.
She looked at Luxia with admiration and fear. She didn't dare to ask how the leader of the Chinese Hunter division knew about tonight's attack.
"You must be wondering, how do I know someone will attack the Hunter headquarters tonight?" Luxia looked into Qu Guanglao's eyes, the rabbit shengxiao, with a strange smile.
Qu nodded hesitantly.
"That's because I've calculated it. The traitors among us will launch their attack tonight. But they will still fail to get what they are looking for."
Luxia raised her cup again. Then she calmly sipped the warm tea.
"Ara~ No need to be so tense, Qu Guanglao. Soon everything will be over. Just in time when we are about to see lanterns flying into the sky."
While that conversation was happening, at the Hunter headquarters, Kai Zen met Gui Wuxing.
The cow shengxiao, Jun Taipei, and the goat shengxiao, Hongli Fu, were fighting against a giant muscular man with an inverted cross number six.
The pig shengxiao, Yuze Tao, along with Jason and Baldur, met the monkey shengxiao, Liu Xingsheng, who looked unfriendly, in the middle of a small town street.
Akane Mononobe and Imara Nzinga with her cat also met the monkey shengxiao, Liu Xingsheng, just as they entered the academy arena building.
The dog shengxiao, Zhang Fei, along with Reza and Amon, also met the monkey shengxiao, Liu Xingsheng, who was not just one, but surrounded them from all directions in the forest.
No different from Sizhu, Mei Mei, and Elizabeth. They met the same man, the monkey shengxiao, Liu Xingsheng. In front of the main pagoda building of the Hunter headquarters.
The rat shengxiao, Bing Ruyue. The rooster shengxiao, Jie Lin. The tiger shengxiao, Laohu Xin, who were scattered in various places, also met the same man, the monkey shengxiao, Liu Xingsheng.
Lang Zen, who was hunting participants, met the snake shengxiao, An Haocun, in the underground of the Hunter headquarters.
The dragon shengxiao Jianying Ren, faced a cloaked doctor with a wide grin in the ceremonial field, an inverted cross rune with a name visible on his neck.
Nathaniel.
***