Chapter 168: Counterattack

In the woods, two Golden Gleam squads were retreating in a hurry.

"Let's go quickly. The situation is already in chaos. Who knows what method Li Luo used, but he's made illusions everywhere; it's impossible to catch him."

"Once we're out of the mountains, leave here immediately to avoid Li Luo's retaliation."

The members of the two Golden Gleam squads exchanged these words, then retreated at full speed with panic on their faces.

It was at this moment that they suddenly saw three figures appear ahead: it was Li Luo, Xin Fu, and Bai Mengmeng.

However, upon seeing these three figures, the two Golden Gleam squads did not feel any terror; instead, their faces showed some impatience.

"This Li Luo is so annoying. We've already encountered this kind of illusion four or five times."

"Yeah, the worst part is that we actually stood in a standoff with these illusions for several minutes, only to watch them dissipate in the end."

"I feel like we're a bunch of idiots."

The captain of one Golden Gleam squad said helplessly, "Ignore them. Just charge through and get out of this mountain forest first."

The others all nodded, then increased their speed, a wave of people preparing to walk right past Li Luo and his companions.

This scene left Li Luo and his two companions a bit stunned. No way, are the Golden Gleam squads this arrogant now? They're just going to swagger away right in front of us?

At this moment, Li Luo felt as if the other side was insulting him.

So, when they reached him, he let out a loud roar: "Take them down!"

Before the roar had even faded, Li Luo struck first, vibrant green Resonance Power erupting from his palms: "Green Jade Binding Hands!"

A giant green wood python formed from Resonance Power roared out, immediately enveloping the captains of the two Golden Gleam squads and binding their limbs completely.

At the same time, the green wood rolled, sweeping the nearby Golden Gleam students away as they flew backward.

Bound by the green wood, the captains of the two Golden Gleam squads finally snapped out of their shock. They stared at the Li Luo in front of them in disbelief, then shrieked, "Holy shit, they're real?!"

Before they could continue screaming, green wood was stuffed directly into their mouths, and their voices immediately turned into muffled wails.

As Li Luo moved to deal with the two captains, Xin Fu also struck suddenly. Shadow Resonance Power swept across, jumping between the figures of several people in the field as fast as lightning. As his short blades flashed, a series of screams rang out; they all clutched their legs and fell to the ground, having lost all combat effectiveness.

Bai Mengmeng unleashed her own Resonance Power. As a fluorescent light swept past, the three Golden Gleam students seemed to see some kind of hallucination, their faces filled with terror as they slashed wildly at the air in front of them.

Soon, as Xin Fu swept past, these three Golden Gleam students also fell to the ground.

In just under two minutes, the two Golden Gleam squads were completely wiped out.

Li Luo watched this scene with a smile, then the green wood dragged the two captains before him, and he reached out to rip the golden badges from their chests.

"Two hundred academy points in the bag," he grinned.

"Congratulations, you've been eliminated." Li Luo released them casually. Without their golden badges, they would be prohibited from moving and could not interfere with the progress of the competition.

The two captains' faces were livid, and they shouted angrily, "Li Luo, you're too despicable!"

"How is it despicable? You walked past me in such a swaggering manner, acting like I didn't exist. I should be the one saying you're discriminating against me!" Li Luo said.

The two captains were on the verge of tears. You damn bastard, you kept confusing us with illusions before; who knew this time would actually be real?

Li Luo smiled, put away the golden badges, and without paying any more attention to these two devastated Golden Gleam squads, he quickly moved on with Xin Fu and Bai Mengmeng.

After all, there were other Golden Gleam squads waiting for them, and he couldn't let them run away easily; otherwise, it would be a disservice to all their fleeing.

For the next period of time, Li Luo and his two companions took advantage of the chaos among the Golden Gleam squads and began to strike like lightning.

And once these Golden Gleam squads lost their absolute numerical advantage, they finally began to experience the formidable strength of a Purple Gleam squad. As long as they didn't have three squads gathered together, the battle almost always resulted in a crushing defeat when facing Li Luo and his companions.

Almost no Golden Gleam squad could escape unscathed after being intercepted by the three.

Thus, in just under twenty minutes, nine of the dozen or so Golden Gleam squads that had come to besiege Li Luo and his companions had been eliminated.

Nine hundred academy points were now in his pocket.

"Li Luo and his team have started their counterattack."

Somewhere in the woods, Ye Hua listened to the occasional ripples of Resonance Power coming from the forest and sighed with a complex expression. Originally, he had calculated everything well; as long as they maintained their formation and didn't give Li Luo a chance to pick them off one by one, once the encirclement was formed, Li Luo and his team would have no choice but to face their dozen-plus Golden Gleam squads head-on.

Even if the opponent could take down most of their squads, the final win rate would most likely belong to them.

But he hadn't expected Li Luo to be so cunning, using illusions to directly disrupt his formation deployment and causing the other squads to panic and lose their rhythm.

The current situation was beyond his ability to maintain, no matter how hard he tried.

This long-planned scheme could be considered a failure.

He looked around; now only his squad remained here. The other Golden Gleam squads had either been dealt with by Li Luo and his team or had taken the opportunity to flee.

The temporary alliance had fallen apart.

"Forget it, let's go. Leave this place."

Ye Hua shook his head and turned to head out of the forest. They were already at the edge of the woods and should be able to leave this place immediately.

Ye Hua accelerated, and sunlight was already pouring down at the entrance of the forest ahead.

However, just as the exit drew closer, the footsteps of Ye Hua's Golden Gleam squad suddenly slowed to a stop. They looked ahead with some fear, only to see Li Luo leaning against a tree trunk, smiling at them.

"Leaving already?" he asked with a smile.

Behind Li Luo was Bai Mengmeng, while Xin Fu was nowhere to be seen, presumably already lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike at any moment.

"Stone Kid, I really underestimated you. I almost got tricked by you this time."

Veins popped on Ye Hua's forehead as he said, "Stop giving people random nicknames! My name is Ye Hua, not Stone Kid!"

Li Luo waved his hand dismissively and said, "What do you plan to do next?"

Ye Hua snorted and said, "A loss is a loss, there's nothing to say. But even if you're strong, don't expect us to hand over our badges easily."

He took a step forward, and Resonance Power rose from his body, his skin rapidly turning gray and white, like a layer of stone.

Although his teammates were also filled with despair, they had no intention of surrendering and prepared to fight with everything they had.

Li Luo looked at the four people exuding a tragic aura and smiled helplessly, saying, "It's just grabbing a badge, no need to act like it's a matter of life and death."

His eyes flickered for a few seconds, and he suddenly said, "Stone Kid, do you want to avoid being eliminated?"

Ye Hua was startled. He didn't even care about the "Stone Kid" nickname anymore and asked suspiciously, "What do you mean?"

"I can let you go this time, and even give you two golden badges, but I have a task for you afterward that you need to handle properly."

"How about it?" Li Luo asked with a smile.

Ye Hua and his teammates looked at each other, not quite understanding what Li Luo was up to, but if they could avoid being eliminated, that would naturally be for the best.

"Can we know what the task is?" Ye Hua asked cautiously.

"No. But at worst, you'd just be eliminated anyway. It's not like I'm going to take your lives, right?" Li Luo shook his head.

Ye Hua paused. That was true, but...

He thought for a moment and said, "Can you give us four golden badges?"

Li Luo smiled and drew the twin blades from his waist.

"Stone Kid, if your head is harder than my blades, I'll give you four badges. How about that?"