In the northeastern part of the City of Ruins, Guo Yu, after clearing a small wave of fierce beasts with his innate talent, Star Mist and Clouds, dusted off his clothes and leaped from a dilapidated building.
At that moment, Guo Yu looked up and suddenly noticed a deserted park before him.
Of course, whether it was a park or not wasn't the point.
The point was that inside the park lay a colossal creature.
A truly enormous turtle!
The oppressive aura emanating from the turtle made his body tremble slightly.
And around the turtle, numerous equally large pythons were slithering back and forth.
The sheer number of pythons, upon a brief glance, was estimated to be in the hundreds.
"Oh my god! This is definitely not something I can handle alone..."
Guo Yu felt a pang of discomfort.
If only Lin Ran were here.
He mused that beasts of this caliber must be guarding items with extremely high point values.
Then, with his Star Mist and Clouds' ability to temporarily become intangible and immune to physical attacks, might there be a chance to sneak in and steal the item without triggering combat?
However, what if this giant turtle possessed magical attack capabilities? Wouldn't he be done for?
"No, no, no need to take such risks..."
As Guo Yu pondered, he made his way towards the tallest building in the vicinity.
He would mark this spot on his map first. When he encountered Lin Ran again, he could have Lin Ran come here.
He would scout the terrain for him along the way, and get a bird's-eye view of the park from a high vantage point.
With his mind made up, Guo Yu quickly entered the building.
But as soon as he stepped onto the second floor, he froze.
Because the second floor was crammed with a dense crowd of people, numbering close to a hundred at first glance.
Guo Yu's mind went blank.
"What the hell is going on?"
"Each school is only supposed to send ten contestants, right?"
"There are so many of them here, and they haven't started fighting yet?"
"Are you guys having a tea party?!"
The nearly hundred people, upon seeing Guo Yu, especially his Yan University team uniform, their expressions darkened.
Then, a leader among them walked up to Guo Yu:
"You're from Yan University, aren't you?"
Guo Yu also sensed the coldness in the speaker's voice and took a step back, saying:
"So what if I'm from Yan University?"
Taking the opportunity, Guo Yu observed their team uniforms.
These uniforms were a motley assortment of colors, with no uniformity.
The only commonality was that none of them were from famous schools.
What were these guys gathered here for?
Guo Yu was puzzled.
The leader, seeing Guo Yu's intention to retreat, smiled slightly:
"Since you're from Yan University, you don't need to leave. Stay with us!"
"Brothers, attack! Let's take him down together!"
Guo Yu's face changed, and he instantly transformed into a cloud of mist, drifting backward, sneering:
"You think you can keep me? Dream on!"
But the next second, Guo Yu couldn't laugh anymore.
Because a large group of students had also rushed in from the first floor, and they were attacking him from all sides.
These people seemed to have studied him quite well; countless magical abilities intermingled, directly forcing him out of his elemental form.
"Damn it!"
Guo Yu cried out in despair.
There were too many opponents. Including the group that had surrounded them, there were over three hundred of them.
Facing these students from ordinary schools, even if he were fighting one-on-one, one-on-two, or even one-on-ten, he could still hold his own with ease.
But under the absolute numerical disadvantage, he was helpless.
"Activate the teleportation scroll and leave the City of Ruins..."
"Otherwise, we'll have to escort you back ourselves."
The leader said with a smile.
"Illegal teaming, and so arrogant!"
Guo Yu was frustrated.
He knew he had no way to deal with them now, so he could only comply.
Otherwise, he would just endure a beating and be forced to leave.
"Just you wait! My Brother Ran will tear you all to shreds sooner or later!"
Guo Yu muttered indignantly as he fumbled for a scroll from his storage device.
The leader chuckled:
"Stop being stubborn! Hurry up and go!"
"As for the 'Brother Ran' you mentioned, you must mean Lin Ran..."
"I have to admit, he is indeed very strong, but in the end, he is only one person."
"In front of our vast army, he will only be crushed!"
"Don't worry, none of you elite school students will escape."
Guo Yu was stunned.
Elite school students?
Could this be an alliance formed by students from ordinary schools to target their highly ranked counterparts?
Normally, students from these ordinary schools were merely participants in the survival competition, often just making up the numbers.
This was because their individual strengths were far inferior to those of the top hundred ranked elite schools.
Often, several of them together were no match for a single elite student.
Unless they were incredibly lucky and could rack up points, or they managed to avoid encountering anyone and survived purely on passive points, becoming dark horses.
Otherwise, they simply lacked competitiveness.
However, if their alliance were successful, they could indeed bring down the elite students.
This way, their schools' rankings could be stealthily improved.
Some exceptional individuals might even aspire to better results, such as breaking into the top hundred.
Such situations had occurred in previous years, but never on the terrifying scale seen this year.
Usually, gathering nearly a hundred people was difficult, and there was often chaos and insubordination between different schools.
But this year...
In the short time Guo Yu hesitated, the students had already gathered close to a thousand.
And judging by their momentum, the number seemed to be continuously increasing.
"Damn it, are they trying to gather tens of thousands of people?"
Realizing this, Guo Yu's face contorted in disbelief.
It seemed that there was an extraordinary individual among the non-elite students this year...
He possessed such charisma that so many students from different schools would obey his command, advance and retreat together, and even appoint subordinate leaders. It was truly remarkable.
"What's wrong? Still not leaving? Do you want us to send you out?"
The leader raised an eyebrow, looking at the hesitant Guo Yu.
Guo Yu sighed:
"I'd like to be an informed ghost. Is that possible?"
The leader smiled:
"You want to know our leader's name, don't you?"
"I don't mind telling you! Anyway, he's preparing for a powerful rise, and soon everyone will know him."
"Fenhe University, Tang Jiu. Satisfied?"
Fenhe University...
A university ranked around two thousand...
Guo Yu silently committed Tang Jiu's name to memory and then activated the teleportation scroll.