Immovable as a Mountain

Wang Fang remained reasonably calm. "I wondered who it was, but it's just you, Tian Rong! We can be considered—" Wang Fang was cut off midway. "Fuck your mother." A flush crept onto Wang Fang's face. Forcing himself to endure it, he snapped, "We may have our grievances, but there is no need to make things so undignified—" Tian Rong looked at him with sheer contempt, spat, and said, "Fuck your mother!" In an instant, Wang Fang's face burned crimson. He roared furiously, "Stay right there! Your granddaddy will send you straight to the Red Tide Sect!" Seeing Wang Fang charge forward with bloodshot eyes, Tian Rong did not hesitate for a second—he spun on his heel and fled! Wang Fang gave chase immediately, roaring, "Don't run if you have the balls! Your granddaddy will fight you to the death!" Sprinting at top speed, Tian Rong glanced back and yelled, "You think I'm afraid of you? Don't chase me if you have the balls!" And so one party chased while the other fled, heading straight north. Then, two contingents in azure suddenly burst out from both flanks, encircling the yellow vanguard from three sides and swallowing them whole in a single gulp. Inside the airborne Evaluation Hall, silence fell. The expressions on the evaluators' faces were magnificent to behold. The middle-aged Confucian simply could not hold back any longer. "This... how could Miss Bao be like this... This is an absolute disgrace to cultured society!" The Bao family wielded immense power, so the middle-aged Confucian did not dare use harsher words. Yet holding back the breath trapped in his chest felt unbearable, leaving him no choice but to grit his teeth and condemn it as an insult to propriety. The young cultivator chuckled. "All is fair in war; it has been so since ancient times! Besides, those three hundred famous lines were penned by someone else—what does that have to do with the young lady? If you dare slander her reputation again, I fear even the academy will not be able to protect you. You'd better worry more about the yellow team! I'd like to see whether you still have the face to rank Li Zhi first if the yellow team is defeated." The moment he said this, several evaluators secretly thought to themselves: *Of course we will!* The old Confucian's face darkened. He glared fiercely at the young cultivator, already scheming how to suppress Bao Yun. What Li Zhi needed to cultivate was the momentum of ranking first in the overall unified examination, not first in the martial test. Wei Yuan was no longer a threat; it would not matter even if the top rank in the martial test went to Wei Yuan, so long as it was not Bao Yun. Within the illusory realm, Wei Yuan stood atop the knoll. From afar, he watched Tian Rong taunt and Wang Fang fly into a rage, followed by Wang Fang walking into the ambush and his entire squad being eliminated from the realm. The azure robes had lost only two people, who popped medicinal pills and were lively and kicking again. After wiping out the yellow vanguard, many azure-robed examinees smeared blood across their faces and bodies, split into two squads, and moved south along the eastern and western flanks—clearly intending to outflank Li Zhi from both sides. Even with Wei Yuan's modest grasp of military strategy, he could see that the azure team held a decisive advantage. The azure faction had started with over a hundred and fifty people, while Li Zhi had gathered only a hundred and twenty in yellow. With thirty men in the yellow vanguard wiped out, the disparity in troop strength became even starker, shifting to a hundred and fifty against ninety. Barring an unexpected masterstroke, Li Zhi's defeat was sealed. As for how to stage such a masterstroke, Wei Yuan pondered it for a moment, but came up empty. Knowing his grasp of tactics was limited, he stopped dwelling on it. However, unable to devise a plan himself, he was not prevented from scorning the yellow vanguard in his heart: *Not an ounce of composure. Losing his mind over a couple of insults—how could someone like that lead troops?* If it were Wei Yuan, no matter how fiercely the enemy barked, he would treat it as nothing more than the sound of wind and rain. Immovable as a mountain was the foundation of any great general. While Wei Yuan was lost in thought, a voice suddenly rang out in the distance. "Look over there! There's a big dumb lug..." Wei Yuan slowly turned his head. Not far down the hill stood more than a dozen azure-robed examinees, pointing and gesturing at him. These were the azure vanguard who had lured the enemy deep and tricked the yellow vanguard into the encirclement to annihilate them. Originally, Wei Yuan had harbored some reservations. He had yet to see Li Zhi's true skill, but the commander in the north was genuinely formidable at deploying troops. Wei Yuan feared that once he left the knoll, dozens of people might suddenly leap out and surround him. Historical records were full of tales where lone forces pushed too deep, only to be enveloped by an ambush. Not only were they defeated and killed, but their names were also written into the history books for generations to mock. Leaving a name in the annals of history was not always a good thing. Yet now, having been insulted, Wei Yuan's breath suddenly grew deep and long. He drew in a breath that seemed endless, and Outlaw of Heaven and Earth began to circulate slowly. Deep within his heart, an indescribable wildness and fury welled up. Without a single word, Wei Yuan strode down toward that squad of azure vanguards. Tian Rong was startled. Seeing Wei Yuan's ferocious and terrifying momentum, he instinctively spun around and ran! Having already experienced fleeing—or rather, luring an enemy deep—Tian Rong's subordinates reacted with remarkable speed, sprinting a hundred zhang away in the blink of an eye. Only after running far off did they realize Wei Yuan had stopped after taking just a few steps. The azure-robed examinees instantly felt ashamed of their cowardice. They also came to believe Wei Yuan was merely fierce of face but faint of heart. After all, he was just one man, while they were more than a dozen. Humiliation turning to anger, several of them began cursing loudly, demanding to eliminate Wei Yuan first. Although Tian Rong felt something was amiss—his mission was to harass Li Zhi's central army—examinees were not elite soldiers after all. Once emotions flared, even he, the commander, could barely keep them in check. Wei Yuan had returned to the top of the knoll because, after dashing out a few steps, he realized his foot speed was not fast enough. While he could eventually catch them, it would be a massive headache if they scattered and fled. Fortunately, Outlaw of Heaven and Earth possessed countless miraculous facets, and he had his own ways of dealing with this. Wisps of black qi began seeping from Wei Yuan's body once more. As Outlaw of Heaven and Earth accelerated its circulation, the range of his spiritual perception expanded rapidly, reaching into the dense forest behind the hill. Moments later, a wild boar crashed out of the woods and charged straight toward Wei Yuan. A faint wisp of black qi drifted from between Wei Yuan's brows and sank into the boar's body. The wild boar let out an agonizing wail and collapsed to the ground, instantly experiencing the torment of a torn soul, internal fires burning the body, and mind-clouding delusions. Screaming in pain, the boar began to swell, transforming from the size of a small lamb into a colossal beast ten feet tall at the shoulder in the blink of an eye! The pain passed in an instant. The wild boar scrambled to its feet, its small eyes turning blood-red, while its tusks grew to three feet in length, their tips gleaming with sharp menace. Wei Yuan felt his mind connect with the beast. He leaped into the air and seated himself steadily atop the wild boar. With a thought from Wei Yuan, two plumes of white mist snorted from the boar's snout, and its four hooves struck the ground, charging toward the azure vanguard like wind and thunder! Tian Rong's mouth slowly fell open. Before he could even scream, the wild boar was upon him. All he caught was a flash of spear shadows before his vision dissolved into pure white light. The wild boar charged at terrifying speed, rolling through the azure vanguard like a moving mountain. In a single sweep, half of the vanguard was wiped out, many of them not even knowing whether they had been run through by a spear or trampled to death by the boar. Wei Yuan wheeled the boar around and charged once more, leaving only two of the azure vanguard standing. Those two were clever enough to scatter and run in opposite directions. At first, this might have given Wei Yuan a slight headache, but now that he had a mount, how could two human legs outrun a wild boar? In the blink of an eye, Wei Yuan overtook them and skewered them one by one. Annihilating the azure vanguard had proven unexpectedly easy—practically like chopping vegetables. It seemed that even if one were surrounded like the yellow vanguard, breaking out and slaughtering the ambushers was entirely possible. Wei Yuan rode the boar in a circle, confirming there were no stragglers left, and then set off toward the north. In the north, the girl had already moved her sand table to a small rise near the central zone. Her main force stood drawn up before the slope, arranged in a thick formation three ranks deep, waiting in strict readiness. Inside the Evaluation Hall, another uproar broke out.