A One-Versus-Seven Sweep

The subsequent group duels proceeded in an orderly fashion. Xu Xiqin's team, assigned to venue A, fared especially well—their opponents had essentially given up, and she herself took down four people in a row to secure the victory.

Because of their swift finish, venues A and B ended up with a sizable time gap. By the time Xu Lingqu's group started, only her team and their opponents remained on the field.

Students who had already finished their initial assessments were mostly clustered in small groups chatting, and virtually no one came to watch this final match.

After all, the member profiles for this match were thoroughly unremarkable from every angle. Better to use the time to network—if later assessments allowed self-formed teams, seizing the opportunity to pick good teammates through these conversations would be crucial.

As a result, the stronger, more standout students attracted especially large crowds. Xu Xiqin stood at venue B cheering for Xu Lingqu, surrounded by several people whose intentions were clearly not about her—though none dared to actually strike up a conversation.

After all, Xu Xiqin's cold exterior alone put her in that unapproachable category, and the prestige of the Xu family name only added to it. Her golden hair gleamed under the evening sunlight like a precious yellow gemstone, something to be admired from a distance.

The match began. Facing opponents who were all combat-track, the analysts and command-track teammates had done their best—especially Lin Xiao, that young woman who had clearly tried to exhaust the enemy's stamina and buy time. But the gap in strength was simply too wide.

Although the combat-track students varied in ability, they were still the cream of their local star-system military academies.

Especially when their opponents sent out their strongest member first. The first five on Xu Lingqu's team basically had no ability to fight back against him.

Xu Lingqu watched as her five teammates were carried down one by one, until finally it was Sun Liao's turn to face him.

Sun Liao ascended the stage with an ashen face. His opponent was Wang Qihu—he knew him. The selection of six-major-academy students in Star System No. 2 differed from other star systems: to ensure a high enrollment rate, Star System No. 2 had only one large military academy that centrally managed and trained all military cadets before holding internal selections for the six major academies. Wang Qihu was among the best of that batch in Star System No. 2—he'd only come to Moye after being rejected by Longyuan. As for himself, if not for his family's connections and financial maneuvering with the school leaders, he wouldn't have even set foot in Moye.

In short, the gap in strength between the two at their star system's academy had been like heaven and earth.

Wang Qihu being placed first had completely overturned the calculations Sun Liao had made. The five people's exhaustion counted for nothing in the face of absolute strength.

On the stage, Instructor Chen announced the official start—but Sun Liao raised his hand at that moment.

He shot a cold glance at Xu Lingqu, the only one left on his team, then gritted his teeth and said, "Instructor, I surrender."

He was the only person in the entire assessment today to directly request surrender. Instructor Chen blinked, pressing his lips together. "Are you sure?"

There was no rule forbidding surrender during the assessment, but for military cadets, this kind of 'retreating in the face of battle' was genuinely disgraceful.

Sun Liao couldn't afford to care about that right now.

His reasoning was simple: it was embarrassing, yes, but it preserved his stamina to the greatest extent. This point was a guaranteed loss anyway, and he'd be docked for it regardless. If some important training or assessment came up next, a stamina advantage could earn those points back.

"Instructor, I'm sure." Recalling how hard those earlier teammates had fought, only to lose like clowns in the end, Sun Liao felt no guilt—in fact, he wanted to laugh. He fully believed those teammates deserved it; if they hadn't held him back, he wouldn't have ended up in this situation.

Having said that, Sun Liao stepped off the stage with an easy stride.

He stared malevolently at Xu Lingqu as she walked onstage with an expressionless face, thinking: if that woman had any sense, she'd surrender like him and save the trouble... but if she was too cocky for her own good, he hoped Wang Qihu wouldn't show any mercy.

At first, he'd only been nervous about provoking a daughter of the Xu family, but after learning she was just an adopted daughter, Sun Liao had nothing but complete contempt for Xu Lingqu.

Xu Lingqu, the object of that contempt, now stood on the stage. Wang Qihu was already annoyed by Sun Liao's cowardly surrender, thinking it had been a team decision. He bluntly addressed the frail-looking girl before him: "Might as well surrender too. I'm not exactly used to fighting women."

Earlier in their team's matches, Wang Qihu had found Lin Xiao the most troublesome to deal with.

Xu Lingqu acted as if she hadn't heard, merely nodding at Instructor Chen to signal that the duel could begin.

Tsk, offering a toast and she'd rather drink the penalty. Wang Qihu sneered inwardly, thinking he'd have to pick up this frail girl and toss her off the stage—gently, of course, in case anything happened..

Then the next second, that frail girl's leg was in his face.

His reaction couldn't keep up with her attack speed; there was no time to block. Wang Qihu was sent sprawling to the ground by a single side kick. Still stunned, the next kick came at him without mercy. Two moves—she only needed two moves to send him off the stage.

She hadn't even truly used her hands.

Wang Qihu, lying on the ground below the stage, remained in shock, his whole body numb until several seconds passed before the searing pain in his neck and abdomen hit him. Those two kicks had carried absolutely no restraint. He scrambled to his feet in disbelief, clutching his injured spots, gaping at Xu Lingqu on the stage with wide eyes, unable to speak for a long time.

The students who had been chatting in small clusters fell silent collectively. The entire venue went quiet, nothing but the rustle of wind through leaves.

In real life, watching a frail girl flip a 1.9-meter powerhouse would already be remarkable—let alone in a military academy one-on-one assessment, with a command-track student facing off against a combat-track one. Judging purely by appearances, the two were worlds apart, yet Xu Lingqu—the 'earth' in that equation—had punched a hole straight through 'heaven.'

A few seconds later, Xu Xiqin's applause and cheers broke the silence. Her eyes lit up, and she jumped to her feet—a sight wildly inconsistent with her aloof exterior—but she couldn't be bothered right now. Her sister was this strong!

This way, she could shamelessly and rightfully team up with Xu Lingqu from now on and never have to worry about Xu Youwen's reaction again!

With Xu Xiqin's lead, everyone else reacted instantly. Applause rose in waves, like an orchestra performing. The match that no one had cared about drew a crowd, and even a few instructors wandered over to watch the excitement.

The crowd erupted in chatter.

"Isn't she command-track?"

"Did anyone catch her moves and technique?"

"I saw afterimages—are you serious about that speed and power?"

"This has to be staged, right? Is this really not staged? That Wang Qihu's built like a tank, and she settled him in two kicks?"

Xu Lingqu paid the crowd's reaction no mind. As the second opponent from the opposing team stepped up, she simply nodded again, signaling that the duel could begin.

This time she used her hands, but attacked even faster—a punch to just above the abdomen. That opponent, while also combat-track, was far weaker than Wang Qihu. Xu Lingqu didn't need much effort; seeing he couldn't hold his footing, she swept his legs and sent him off the platform with ease.

Then their third and fourth members came up in succession. With two cautionary examples before them, they clearly no longer held the same dismissive disdain toward Xu Lingqu that Wang Qihu had. They'd prepared thorough defenses and even consulted with Wang Qihu about strategy, but they still got thrashed—lasting five moves at most.

Wang Qihu, watching Xu Lingqu from below, found himself feeling slightly better knowing he'd been brought down by someone like her.

Her techniques were too fast, the targets too precise and utterly unpredictable. She had no defensive posture at all—just raw, full-on offense time after time. No weaknesses on display. Losing to her seemed entirely reasonable.

As his teammates were picked off one by one, Wang Qihu's back gradually straightened.

He wasn't the only one embarrassed—and against terrifying strength like that, a loss was only natural.

He wasn't the only one whose perspective shifted. The crowd of onlookers below was in complete frenzy. This was entirely different from the dazzling duel between Shen Shouli and Liu Zheng. That match—high-level, evenly matched—was impressive in its own right, but Xu Lingqu's lone one-versus-seven sweep, filled with personal heroism, delivered a thrill that far surpassed it.

The last to step up, thrown into the breach, perceived by everyone as a fragile command-track student—she alone had nearly toppled an entire team of combat-track military cadets.

How could anyone watch that without getting fired up?

Xu Lingqu's name was repeated endlessly, people asking who on earth she was. Xu Xiqin, standing in the crowd, declared with immense pride, "She's my sister!"

Jin stood beside Shen Shouli, the two keeping their distance, watching Xu Lingqu from afar. He twirled a strand of red hair with one hand and draped the other over Shen Shouli's shoulder. "She's a Xu family daughter, isn't she? You know her better, right? Her moves are pretty weird—can you make anything of them?"

"No." Shen Shouli slapped Jin's hand away with force, frowning.

"Tsk, still mad at me? All's fair in war. You're so petty." Jin shook his aching hand in grievance, then added, "Who do you think's stronger, her or Liu Zheng?"

He pointed at Liu Zheng, who stood just ahead of them, likewise drawn in by Xu Lingqu's performance.

"I've never fought her." Shen Shouli watched Xu Lingqu, his gaze dark.

Xu Lingqu's moves were strange, impossible to read.

She sent the sixth opponent off the stage with a backhand knife-hand strike, once again igniting the crowd. All the instructors had gathered now—the scene was even more electrifying than the first focal match.

Xu Lingqu flexed her slightly numb hand. It was only natural that they couldn't read her moves—these 'techniques' were muscle memory and bodily reactions honed through countless battles against Mutant Beasts and infected humans.

To be fair, no matter how skilled these students were, they'd been raised in a hothouse. Their sensitivity to techniques came from textbook collisions—too much theory, too little real experience. But Xu Lingqu, who had survived hundreds upon hundreds of life-or-death moments, was aiming straight for her opponents' vital points.

Instructor Kai Ang had noticed all of this.

From the moment Xu Lingqu took down Wang Qihu in two moves, he'd walked over to stand beside Instructor Chen. "If she had a sharp object—even just a needle—her opponents would be very unlikely to survive."

Instructor Chen nodded in agreement. "These can't be defined by technique anymore. This is pure killing art."

Refined yet elegant.

Kai Ang's expression was mixed. As the seventh opponent was dispatched with equal ease, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is exactly the style of those madmen in Ares..."

As he said it, some unpleasant memories flickered through his mind.

Kai Ang felt a sour ache in his teeth. The most vivid of those memories was the time he'd been fortunate enough to witness Ares carrying out a military execution on a treasonous officer. They'd swept unimpeded into the office area, blown a hole through the officer's skull without hesitation—brain matter splattering, even a speck landing on Kai Ang's hem.

That man had been an officer, at minimum, and his death had been gruesome. Kai Ang had found it acceptable—that was the price of treason—but the brain matter had been genuinely revolting.

But then, he'd watched as the leading Ares commander removed his leather gloves and, with bare hands, gouged out one of the officer's eyes.

At the time, Kai Ang had been just a student running errands in the Military Department's clerical division. He'd gone home that night, hugged a trash can, and vomited. It got better later, once he transferred to the front lines and grew accustomed to life and death—but the eyeball incident still haunted him.

"But her psychic power is only B-level, and she passed out during the warp transition. She wouldn't even meet those madmen's standards, and Ares would never come to our school scouting for talent anyway, right?" Instructor Chen sensed the anxiety and unease seeping from his partner.

He patted Kai Ang's shoulder, signaling him not to overthink, then stepped forward to the center of the stage and announced Xu Lingqu's team's victory.

Lin Xiao, who had been ecstatic since Xu Lingqu effortlessly took down Wang Qihu, was nearly in tears by the end—though at the thought that the shameless Sun Liao would also get a share of the victory points per the rules, her face darkened.

"Congratulations. You've achieved the one-versus-seven comeback." Instructor Chen beamed at Xu Lingqu.

The crowd roared in approval of the spectacular revival, but Xu Lingqu herself wasn't feeling particularly good.

She hadn't taken everyone down within thirty moves, and the latter part had been completed while she was dizzy and barely holding herself together.

By now, her body was completely overloaded. Blink once, and she felt like her vision would go black the next second. Her instincts told her she needed to get off the stage and rest immediately.

Still, she forced herself to stand firm and address Instructor Chen. "I did great, right? So can I make one request?"

Instructor Chen had congratulated many students over the years, but this was the first time anyone had made a request of him. "What is it?"

"I demand that the one who surrendered on our team not earn any points." Xu Lingqu said directly.

She had always been hard-hearted and quick to repay slights. In fact, she suspected that was precisely why she'd managed to serve as a Law Enforcer in the apocalypse for so long without breaking.