Chapter 040: Life in the Imperial Capital (18)
Today was the second day of the preliminaries, and just like yesterday, all participating teams were assembled on the training field, waiting for the drawing of lots.
Team Seven, led by Tong ng, actually didn’t need to participate today. But since Tong ng wanted to gauge Lan’s strength, he still chose to join the lineup and enter the arena.
There were eleven teams remaining in the competition. Apart from Team Seven, the other ten drew lots again according to their numbers.
Lan’s team once again had Li Xin step forward for the draw. It had to be said, the kid’s hands seed blessed — yesterday he’d lucked out and drawn Team Eleven, the youngest team of all, called “Tiger Claw.”
Today, it was the opposite. He drew Team Nine — the oldest team in the draw — called Rose.
(Note: In this context, “rose” doesn’t refer specifically to won. Young nobles or aristocratic heirs often wore rose thorns as a symbol of status, so “rose” ca to represent fashionable nobles.)
In other words, today’s match was against the so-called “enemies” of Little Bear and Lupin — that team of upperclassn known for their elite combat skills.
When they saw the results, both Lan and Luo were unfazed. It didn’t matter who their opponent was — they had to fight one proper match today anyway. Facing the Rose team just ant they’d get to settle scores for Little Bear and Lupin earlier than expected.
Little Bear, on the other hand, was delighted by the draw.
“Sis, big bro’s gonna avenge you today,” he said, beaming. “I’ve fought that guy before. All he’s got are so flashy tricks. I swear, I’ll give him a full-face bloom of peach blossoms today. Paint his whole body red!”
With all teams having drawn lots, it was announced that Lan’s match would be the third of the morning. Since there was no telling how long the first two matches would take, Lan and Luo both decided to stay put.
The first match was between Team One and Team Four. Team Four, known as Glorious Shield, was the seeded team this year — ford entirely of guards’ children. anwhile, Team One, Wild Iron Youth, was the only team left made up of interdiate-level students.
Apparently, Wild Iron Youth was composed of the most outstanding interdiate students in the academy. People were surprised that Lan and Luo weren’t familiar with any of them.
Honestly, Lan and Luo didn’t know many students from their own grade. When the players took the stage, they realized a few looked familiar at best. If they ran into them elsewhere, they might not even recognize them as classmates.
While the crowd was still adjusting its view of Lan and Luo, the match began.
Shield team set up a “three-front, two-rear” formation, with each person standing just over half a ter apart. This allowed for dual-zone defense while also giving the rear fighters room to maneuver through gaps for offense.
Luo’s own design for team formations was based on sothing similar.
Wild Iron team chose a deford straight-line formation, with a ter of distance between each mber, forming a loose semicircle around Shield.
It seed that Wild Iron was going for an aggressive strategy. But given Luo’s understanding of the Shield team’s formation, there wouldn’t be many offensive tactics that Wild Iron could effectively execute from that position — unless they were individually strong enough to tear through Shield‘s formation by brute force and take them down one by one.
To pull that off, at the very least, one person would need to take on three mbers of Shield by themselves.
For Wild Iron, that was not a wise move.
Still, they ford their semicircle. Not a bad tactic — two mbers confronted the front-left and front-right of Shield, while another two targeted the two at the back. The last one floated between them for support.
Shield imdiately adjusted. Their “3-2” formation morphed into a circular defensive stance composed of all five.
This was a battle formation developed by humans to counter the highly mobile wolf-tribe — a do-or-die circular defense ant to hold out while waiting for reinforcents.
The reason it was called a “last stand” circle was because it specifically addressed the wolf-tribe’s penchant for mobile, raiding attacks.
When caught off guard by wolf cavalry, human troops usually employed frontal defense and long-range strikes.
But wolf cavalry rarely attempted direct charges anymore — hundreds of years of war had taught them better. They’d rather harass from the flanks or circle behind their enemies.
To counter this, humans developed the circular defense.
The formation had two glaring weaknesses:
It was purely defensive.Mobility was poor.It was vulnerable to single-point penetration.If one side broke, the teammates’ backs would be exposed.
But these weaknesses didn’t matter much under most circumstances. In regular battles, the circle served like a nail hamred into the ground — infantry delaying mobile cavalry until reinforcents arrived.
And to make up for its vulnerability, the circle was usually thickened to prevent easy breaches.
Even a single-layer circle could offer three-person coverage at any point. A reinforced circle could reach multi-layer defense or even swarming defense.
If the fighters within the circle moved slowly with the center as the axis, then their defense would beco practically impenetrable.
Even the modern wolf-tribes, when facing such formations, had two options — retreat far away or charge in a suicide arrow formation to crack it from the center.
There was a third thod — using a bigger mobile circle to wear down the inner circle from the outside, gradually slicing it apart — but the wolf-tribes never had the manpower or ti to execute such long-winded strategies. Once human reinforcents arrived, they’d be slaughtered.
Back to the match — for Wild Iron, the circular formation now before them was even harder to break than the previous “3-2” layout.
They didn’t have the speed of wolf cavalry, nor their relentless bloodlust or suicidal tactics.
They simply couldn’t chew through this circle.
But Wild Iron didn’t seem to realize this. They thought they’d found a fair one-on-one layout and began pressing forward on all fronts.
Not surprising. They were kids, after all — and the academy didn’t teach battle formations.
Only in history classes, when discussing actual wars, or during PE team gas, would formation tactics get ntioned.
And those were two subjects that martial arts students barely touched.
History involved morizing tilines and political contexts — a bore. And PE was mainly for liberal arts students to stay fit.
Martial arts kids hating liberal arts? That was universal.
And a martial arts student attending PE class? Unheard of.
Watching Wild Iron charge at the circle, Luo had already ntally declared victory.
On the surface, Wild Iron looked like they were going all in. But in truth, every attack was filled with hesitation.
Every strike they made was blocked. Worse — they kept getting countered from unexpected angles. Not from the front, but from the sides, making defense nearly impossible.
Now, they were trapped in a vicious cycle.
If they didn’t attack, their teammates got overwheld.
If they did attack, they got blindsided.
“Fall back — now!”
Their captain finally realized the problem and gave the only right order.
Too bad. Once caught in a trap, it wasn’t that easy to get out.
One teammate was already struck in the side, then kicked flying.
Another tried to retreat too slowly and got sward by three Shield mbers.
Now things were even worse.
Going in to help would just turn it into a 4v5 and risk another ambush.
Staying back ant watching a teammate get taken out.
As their captain hesitated, the second team mber went down — two punches and a kick, writhing on the ground in pain.
Now it was 5 vs 3.
The Shield team was already smiling.
They opened up their formation again, fanning out like a net to trap fish.
Three of them advanced in a triangle to surround one target. The remaining two flanked the sides, ready to stop escapes or fend off backup.
Another one down.
The Wild Iron captain dropped his stance, admitting defeat.
“Team Four, Glorious Shield, wins! Advances to the next round!”
The referee’s whistle blew. The academy officially declared the result.
The crowd was split — so booed, so cheered.
So called Shield‘s tactics shaless. Others said team battles were supposed to be like that.
So casual spectators just felt the match was too strategic, not exciting enough. Too boring. No adrenaline.
Lan glanced at Luo.
Luo nodded, understanding what his brother ant.
“Strong. Their coordination’s really tight — better than ours, honestly. But if we break their formation, ss up their rhythm, we’ll still have a good shot.”
Another whistle blew. The second match teams stepped onto the field.
These were all senior students from the academy. Xiao Yi knew them well and even gave Lan and Luo a quick rundown.
His verdict? “Decent fighters, but they won’t make it to the finals.”
This match looked more like a tavern brawl than a competition.
5-on-5 chaos. Teams drifted close, then split. Paired off, then swapped partners.
Sotis they crashed into each other and it beca a ss. Then they’d switch again and continue brawling.
For individual fights, this was way more exciting than the first match — raw fists, fast exchanges.
So of the stronger ones finished their opponents early and jumped into soone else’s fight.
The match lasted over twenty minutes.
Eventually, it was down to 2 vs 2.
Everyone was panting hard, and their moves had slowed.
Finally, the last four tangled together. So teamwork appeared — nothing fancy, but at least it was there.
They were all tired. Slower, softer, but still punching hard.
When nearly thirty minutes had passed, all four collapsed.
Two were knocked out. The other two were just exhausted.
The audience buzzed — all four down? Who won?
The ref called for silence. The academy was still deliberating.
Just then, soone slowly started crawling up.
Everyone could see clearly from the sidelines — the figure was trembling as he stood. But he raised his right fist high:
“Fight! Never die, never bow!”
The ref blew the final whistle.
Team Ten, Blue Sailors, won.
“Haha! That idiot’s got stamina, I’ll give him that! He’s from our class. His old man owns a string of shops in South City,” Little Bear said, cracking up. “He always used to brag that his dad was an ex-gangster with a bunch of henchn. Always picking fights outside the city. Wanted to be his little bro. I beat him up twice, and he shut up. His dad tried to protest, and got beaten up by my dad! And now my dad still drinks at their bar — pfft, I’m dying!”
Lan could tell — if Little Bear was talking this much, they must be on good terms. His laughter was sincere happiness for the guy.
This break between matches took a while — mainly because the outgoing team was barely moving.
They were so drained, they needed help just to walk off the field. So even collapsed halfway, subs couldn’t even catch them in ti.
Eventually, a bunch of classmates ca to help carry them off.
Lan pointed at Little Bear:
“They’re your classmates — get over there and help. Clear the field and co back quick. We’re next.”
Finally, the field was cleared. The referee’s whistle blew again.
Team Nine, Rose, and Team Eighteen, Lan, entered the arena.
As they walked on, Tao Ji’s Rose team strutted arrogantly. When they did the pre-match salute, they held their chins high and looked down their noses like nobles sniffing at peasants.
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