You Have It Too, Right

In the surveillance room, Wu Gong's eyes were glued to the scoreboard.

813.

He slapped his thigh excitedly and turned to Lin Xiao beside him, spittle flying as he spoke.

"Brother Lin! Brother Lin, did you see that?! Eight hundred! They broke eight hundred!"

"At this rate, they can easily break into the top five within three days!"

Lin Xiao's expression remained unchanged. He didn’t even glance at Wu Gong.

Instead, he raised his hand and pointed to another screen.

It displayed the real-time data of Team Thunderhawk.

Points: 2450.

"Their 'reference group' currently has 2,450 points," Lin Xiao said flatly, his tone devoid of emotion, yet it sent a chill down Wu Gong’s spine.

"According to the competition rules, both the initial point gap and the improvement gap will be factored into the final weighted score."

"With their current hunting method, their initial score is decent. Even if they barely catch up to other teams in points, what’s the use?"

"Have you considered the long game?"

"If they’re already pushing themselves to the limit now, are they planning to hunt eighth-tier Origin Realm creatures next?"

"It’ll be hard for them to earn improvement points."

"I estimate their final ranking will be fifth out of the seven teams."

"For them, that’s already quite an achievement."

"A small way to prove themselves."

"But compared to your expectations…"

"Hmph."

The color drained from Wu Gong’s face. He opened his mouth but couldn’t utter a single word.

Right.

He had been too focused on the rankings and forgotten the most crucial point.

This competition wasn’t about who had the highest initial score.

It was about who showed the most "improvement."

...

A day passed in the blink of an eye.

Deep in the forest, nine blood-soaked figures finally regrouped at their designated nighttime meeting point.

Nighttime was neither efficient nor safe for hunting.

And spending the night alone in the Origin Realm was a dangerous gamble.

No one spoke.

Each of them gasped for breath, using every second to recover what little stamina they had left.

But their eyes were completely different from a few hours ago.

No longer filled with confusion and despair, but with the ruthless ferocity of beasts backed into a corner.

Li Ran plopped down on the ground, flashing a blood-stained grin at Liu Feiyu nearby.

"Glasses."

"Still think my idea was stupid?"

Liu Feiyu kept his head down, meticulously wiping the blood off his glasses with a relatively clean cloth.

After a long pause, he finally looked up.

"It was stupid," he rasped, his voice hoarse.

"But it worked."

Li Ran let out a low chuckle, then winced as the laughter tugged at his wounds. "Alright, let’s figure out the watch rotation."

"Everyone, rest up. We continue at dawn."

Just then, Yang Fuchichan, one of the girls, suddenly pointed in a direction, her voice tinged with alarm.

"Look over there!"

Following her finger, the group saw an intense battle raging in the distance, flashes of light illuminating the trees amid furious roars.

"Should we check it out?" a male teammate suggested.

"Check out my ass! Find a damn place to rest!" Li Ran snapped. "In this state, we’d just be walking into our graves!"

But no sooner had he spoken than the distant fight seemed to conclude.

A final, agonized howl echoed before silence reclaimed the forest.

Then, an eleven-member squad emerged from the trees.

They wore the same academy uniforms, their auras steady, their faces relaxed with the ease of victors.

A stark contrast to Li Ran’s battered group, who looked like refugees crawling out of hell.

At the front was a handsome young man, a faint smirk of arrogance playing on his lips.

He immediately noticed Li Ran’s team, his expression twisting into exaggerated surprise.

"What happened to you guys? You look like you got dragged through the mud."

Li Ran’s fists clenched, veins bulging on his forehead.

Laughter erupted from the other team.

"Brother Zhao, didn’t you hear? Rumor has it their leader took his sister sightseeing on the first day. Who had time to care about them?"

"Yeah, just a bunch of abandoned strays."

Zhao Teng, the squad leader, waved a hand with mock magnanimity.

"Now, now, let’s not be harsh. If they passed the preliminaries, they must have some merit."

As he spoke, he led his team closer, scanning Li Ran’s group before his gaze settled on the corpse of a slain Origin Realm creature behind them.

"Not bad. A seventh-tier low-grade. You actually took it down."

His tone was patronizing, like an elder praising a child.

One of his teammates casually tossed another corpse onto the ground.

Seventh-tier high-grade—a Three-Headed Flame Python.

The guy dusted off his hands as if it were nothing. "Alright, enough chitchat. We’ve got another target to chase."

"Keep at it, though. Don’t embarrass our Mystic Card Academy."

With that, Zhao Teng led his team away without so much as a backward glance.

It was a dismissal—bone-deep, absolute contempt.

Silence.

The tiny flicker of hope they had clung to was doused in ice water.

They had fought tooth and nail, risking life and limb, just to take down one or two seventh-tier low-grade creatures.

Meanwhile, Zhao Teng’s squad had effortlessly slaughtered a seventh-tier high-grade beast.

And they still had energy to hunt more.

This was the gap between them.

An insurmountable, suffocating chasm.

"Heh… heh heh…"

A hollow laugh escaped Li Ran’s throat. His head hung low, shoulders trembling violently.

The others fell silent, their fragile confidence shattered in an instant.

Li Ran slowly crouched down.

He had been wrong.

He thought sheer determination could bridge the divide.

But reality had slapped him hard across the face.

Just as despair threatened to swallow them whole—

A cool, detached voice cut through the silence from behind.

"They’re strong."

Everyone whirled around.

Yun Huang stood there, her clothes dust-stained but her breathing steady, showing no signs of a grueling battle.

"But they’re about to die."

"What?" Liu Feiyu’s head jerked up.

Yun Huang didn’t explain. She merely tilted her chin toward the direction Zhao Teng’s team had gone.

"Follow me."

...

Zhao Teng was in high spirits.

Running into another team and crushing their morale with overwhelming strength—

This feeling was even more satisfying than hunting a seventh-tier high-grade beast.

If not in the arrogance of youth, then when? Old age?

Besides, demoralizing the competition could subtly affect their future performance.

No downside for him.

His squad was handpicked—no ragtag misfits here.

The scout in the team suddenly reported, "Captain, there's a high-energy reaction ahead!"

Zhao Teng's spirits lifted.

"What is it?"

"Unclear. The energy fluctuations are unusual—it resembles a plant, yet it contains immense vitality!"

A plant-form Source Realm creature?

That was a rarity among rarities, worth a fortune!

"Everyone, prepare for battle! Today, we'll claim another victory!" Zhao Teng commanded with unwavering confidence.

Soon, they located their target at the center of a swamp.

It was a massive, eerie purple-glowing man-eating flower.

Its bloom spanned three meters wide, lined with jagged, tooth-like thorns, while countless vines writhed around it like venomous snakes.

Eighth-tier, early stage.

The battle erupted instantly.

Zhao Teng's squad displayed combat discipline worlds apart from Li Ran's group.

Two defensive members simultaneously erected intersecting energy barriers in front of the team, effortlessly blocking the first wave of whipping vines.

"Plan One, diamond formation!"

At Zhao Teng's order, the team swiftly repositioned.

Two close-combat fighters flanked from left and right, their blades gleaming sharply as they aimed for the vines' roots.

Meanwhile, the ranged attackers unleashed a steady barrage, each strike landing precisely on the flower's massive bloom, splattering purple fluid.

Their coordination was a sight to behold.

Though far from military precision, every member knew their role.

Every attack and defense was executed flawlessly, without a single wasted movement.

Behind a dirt slope, Li Ran and the others watched, barely breathing.

"How are they so coordinated?" one boy muttered, his voice thick with bitterness.

Li Ran clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.

Liu Feiyu adjusted his glasses, his face pale behind the lenses.

"See that?" Yun Huang's cool voice cut through their thoughts.

"They work well together," she observed.

"But each of them is only giving eighty percent."

"They’ve all left themselves an escape route."

Eighty percent?

This was just eighty percent?

Li Ran and the others couldn’t comprehend it.

To them, Zhao Teng's squad was already performing beyond imagination.

On the battlefield, the fight unfolded as expected—completely one-sided.

The eighth-tier man-eating flower, though tenacious, was overwhelmed by the relentless assault. Its bloom grew riddled with wounds, its vines sluggish and weak.

"Finish it!"

Zhao Teng grinned in triumph. "Final strike—focus fire on its core!"

The team shifted formation again, their ranged attacks angling for the killing blow.

Victory seemed assured.

But then—

The dying flower suddenly contracted its massive bloom, retracting all remaining vines.

A terrifying aura erupted from it.

"Shit! It’s self-destructing!" Zhao Teng’s face twisted in alarm.

But it was too late.

The flower wasn’t exploding. Instead, it channeled all its remaining energy into the gaping, fanged maw at its center.

A thick beam of purple energy, laced with corrosive venom, shot out at an impossible speed.

Its target? Not the frontline defenders—but the ranged attacker at the rear, the one who’d mocked Li Ran’s group earlier.

The attack was premeditated, too fast to evade.

The smug grin on the attacker’s face froze, replaced by sheer terror.

He tried to dodge, but his body refused to move.

The defensive teammate could’ve blocked it.

But he didn’t dare.

He wasn’t confident he could survive the hit—he was only seventh-tier, mid-stage.

Yet, just as the lethal beam was about to consume its victim, a golden barrier materialized out of nowhere.

The shield trembled violently but held firm, deflecting the purple energy.

The rescued teammate collapsed, gasping for air, his face drenched in sweat.

Zhao Teng and the others exhaled in relief.

Then a cold, mechanical voice rang out:

[Contestant ID C-003, Wang Hao, has triggered the 'Non-Self Emergency Rescue Protocol,' violating the competition’s 'Self-Reliance' principle. Judged as 'Hunt Failed.']

[All personal points revoked.]

Before they could process this, the man-eating flower, having spent its last ounce of life, collapsed.

They’d won—earning a thousand points.

But the cost was losing a core member and all his contributions.

Behind the slope, Li Ran’s group also heard the announcement.

Someone blurted, "Holy shit—they just wiped his points?"

All eyes turned to the speaker.

"You mean…"

"You too…?"

"Obviously…"

Li Ran’s face flushed crimson, humiliation burning through him.

Liu Feiyu froze mid-motion while cleaning his glasses, then mechanically finished the gesture, his expression hidden behind the lenses.

The girl, Yang Fuchichan, bit her lip, her already pale face now ghostly white.

The atmosphere turned stifling.

No one spoke, yet the same unspoken truth hung over them all.

Finally, the same teammate who’d cried earlier stammered, "You… you have one too?"

Li Ran opened his mouth, but the word "I" lodged in his throat.

His so-called fearlessness, his grand declarations of "fighting to the bitter end," even his vow to "be a nuisance if nothing else"—

All of it was a farce.

He wasn’t afraid to die.

Because his family had ensured his safety. That life-saving trump card, the one that activated automatically in mortal danger? His high-and-mighty older brother had handed it to him personally.

His "bloody resolve" was just a performance—a charade with a safety net.

After a suffocating silence, someone let out an awkward chuckle.

"Ha… my family forced it on me. Said they’d lose their minds if I didn’t take it…"

One admission broke the dam.

"Same. My sister threatened to break my legs if I left home without it…"

"My dad said it's the family standard..."

The excuses sounded more like a competition of who could offer the lamest self-justification.

They seemed to have finally found an outlet, all talking over each other about their "helpless circumstances," as if that could lighten the weight of shame pressing on their hearts.

In the end, this so-called "burn-the-boats" squad was just a bunch of privileged young masters and misses, decked out in expensive gear, here to slum it for a taste of "real life."

Amid the chaotic and awkward "confession session," everyone's voices gradually, almost in unison, trailed off.

Because they realized one person hadn’t spoken a single word from the start.

Yun Huang.

She stood there quietly, her cool expression unreadable, like an outsider observing their performance with detached calm.

All eyes instantly locked onto her.

Their gazes held curiosity, a last flicker of hope, even a barely detectable plea.

They needed her to be "one of them."

That way, their actions wouldn’t seem quite so pathetic.

Li Ran’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His voice came out hoarse, rougher than he’d ever heard it.

"You..."

"You must have one too, right?"

Yun Huang lifted her eyes, meeting his gaze evenly.

Her clear, unclouded eyes held no mockery, no pity—nothing at all.

Then, softly, she shook her head.