BUTTERFLIES (Arc 2&3; The Undefeatable Class 192)

Chapter 100: A Short Prayer For Blackie

  "Why would he let her beat him...?"

  There was this sort of disbelief in his voice that almost sounded like he'd seen something impossible. I snickered. "Let her beat him", he says? Someone who was obviously helpless. Who wants to take a free beating, to begin with?

  Unless, of course, if Zhaohu was a masochist — someone who enjoys self-pain. That — that was so unlikely, since he actually gave the fight his all. He was obviously not seated and receiving the blows with spread arms. He just couldn't deal with the outraged version of Lingxi.

  At this moment, my heart was already beating. Something was telling me I'd be next. Suddenly, as if sensing my thoughts, Teacher Haggz raised his head up and looked at me with a smirk. I don't know why, but I suddenly felt my stomach erupt with pain. It was a bad feeling, but it wasn't supernatural.

  "Blackie!"

  'Huh? If I wasn't next, then could it be that Teacher Haggz was planning something special for me?'

  Blackie jumped down from one of the trees and landed on his feet as if he had just jumped down a distance of three steps in a staircase. I gulped in my saliva, simultaneously. I hope he wasn't going to be my opponent, though.

  He walked to one side of the field with a very calm expression. This blacksmith was a Transcendent Mortal realm pinnacle stage cultivator. Few amongst us even had the courage to challenge Blackie. His body was as hard as steel. He had a big stomach, but one shouldn't judge him by that, he once told me that it was due to his Gift that his stomach was thus. The Cannonball ability made him somewhat round, yet the way he moved about limply, one could only help but wonder how light he was. In reality, a normal human being or just a Gifted person without cultivation wouldn't be able to push him back when he stood on a spot.

  "Read your lot!"

  Blackie looked at Teacher Haggz, then nodded, curtly.

  He unwrapped his paper slowly.

  Currently, other than me, the people yet to go down on the field were Toby who had the Earth Tide ability, Xianxian with the Dragon Wings, and —

  "Zhangkong?! That's suicide! I forfeit! I forfeit this match!"

  Blackie was shouting at the top of his voice as his wide eye sockets looked like they could no longer afford his eyes.

  Zhangkong who had been the only one to be at the base of the trees without hanging onto something, stepped out from his corner with his arms crossed. His teenage muscles were bulging under his Class 192 uniform.

  "And... and, he's a Meditation realm cultivator! Teacher Haggz, please!"

  He was hopping from one leg to the other as if he was suppressing the urge to pee on the spot.

  Teacher Haggz's cold eyes stared emptily at him, and his lips were glued shut as he stood mummed.

  Zhangkong had already taken his part on the other part of the field. He looked at Blackie and said, "I heard your clansmen are immune to fire."

  "Yeah, but we're not immune to steel!" Blackie blurted back, too impulsively.

  "I believe some of them would interject if they heard that." Zhangkong smirked as if he'd just won a jackpot.

  Blackie stared dumbstruck for a moment, as if frozen.

  Teacher Haggz said, "Begin! And you'll lose all your marks and be expelled from the school if you don't give your all."

  When Blackie heard this, he shut his eyes and clenched his fists. Zhangkong's charming smile got more wider, but that's not what really caught my attention. My Eyes of Insight caught a progression in his folded arms. It was like they were metarmophesising. The veins were growing bigger, the heart was pumping blood much quicker, and his skin, they had this layer of gold underneath the surface of skin, unseeable to the naked eyes.

  "Don't break your neck," I muttered silently; a short prayer for Blackie.

  Blackie gritted his teeth and began to dash with a shocking speed that, in truth, was only second to Mingming.

  "Caaaaaa-non baaaaaal!" he roared, pushing himself to the sky.

  To me, Blackie was the first person to go all-out, so far, in the class battle.

  The force he used to levitate himself was times two of that which he had used when he wanted to smash those Blazing Overlord Lions.

  His body was blazing hot like a rocket about to leave the ozone layer, but surprisingly his Class 192 uniform wasn't burning. He made this arc that was accompanied by something that felt to me like a hidden ability within his Cannonball. It seemed to have locked Zhangkong in place.

  Shocker. Zhangkong wasn't even planning to dodge the account. I don't know what he was playing at, but if he got struck by that human cannonball, then he would be literally... eh... pulverised.

  Zhangkong also felt the lock placed on him. He shook his head with a weird smirk on his face. I don't know why, but the stealth part of my body suddenly started blaring. It seemed that Blackie was playing according to the tunes of Zhangkong.

  Too bad for Blackie, he couldn't see any of this as he was already in his cannonball form.

  Blackie was getting closer and closer. The fall momentum... it wasn't even something to think about. The earth underneath Zhangkong was already cracking, to show just how crazy this smash would be.

  100 metres. 50 metres. 20 metres. 10 metres.

  I immediately shut my eyes, though my Meditation realm cultivation instinctively took in the scene by processing everything that was happening.

  There was a deafening silence. Breaths were seized. The air was unnaturally still. Trees weren't waving their branches. There was only one line I could make of it: absence of everything.