Sam and Ling Tian watched what's happening in front of the Hub.

A group of people got ready to attack that building as well. They are nowhere near as strong as the Deans that went to destroy that place, in fact, these people are not even on part with the elders of the academies.

They are the Elders of the families that came to attack the Gambler academy.

They are here to attack the Hub on the orders of their family heads. Of course, the family heads got these suggestions by the Deans of Various Olympian academies, just like how they were encouraged to attack the Gambler academy.

So, after Dean-Poseidon almost kissed death on the lips and came back just by taking a single clean punch from Bloody Chariot, he cooked up this plan.

He contacted all the family members that lost their children who were in fourth grade. He also made the other academies to do the same. Now all these angry families were told a single store.

A student from Gambler academy conspired with an entity called hub and the people that worked in Hub to kill their children in cold blood. And while doing so, they uprooted the foundations of their future generations.

With this little direction, everyone got angry and came here.

They manipulated these angry people a little bit to divide their forces like they did now. While these people are mindlessly attacking the Gambler academy and the Hub, the Deans are watching this whole thing from the shadows.

That is not the most interesting part though.

The interested part is the one defending the Hub. It was neither a manager nor a member of Gambler academy. Instead, it was Bloody Chariot.

A soon as he sensed some disturbance in the region, he immediately went to the Hub and stood guard. His contract is still not over. He needs to do it until and unless he finds the guy who he signed the contract with and kills him.

For that he needs to leave the academy realm, but the moment he leaves, the others will destroy the hub, hence he cannot leave. So, he is stuck in such an uncomfortable position

The number of people surrounding Bloody Chariot is very large. But neither Sam nor Ling Tian were worried. At least for the Hub.

Ling Tian is bit worried about what this one-sided beating would do the Olympian region though.

Sam was amused by the situation as well. But he shifted his focus back to the main gate and smiled.

Because he saw Elder Nian doing exactly what Sam expected him to do.

Which is to beat the ** out of the people that are coming at the academy, with a wide and borderline creepy grin on his face.

"I knew it. This guy was itching for a fight.

"

Sam muttered to himself. And this time Ling Tian didn't appear surprised.

Both of them just focused on the battle.

Nian jumped out of the formation's protection and swung his halberd. The energy condensed into runes at a speed that appeared impossible to the naked eye. And these runes follow the swing of the halberd's blade.

When the blade stuck one of the opponents, the condensed runes gathered at the point of contact and formed an inscription in that fraction of a second.

*BOOM*

It is an inscription for energy discharge, or in other words a mild explosion. Which is mostly used for small scale traps while hunting beasts. It was usually combined with concealment formations and placed in the forest paths.

When someone chases a beast and it steps on it, it could most possible lose its balance and trigger the next and much bigger trap.

So, in a way, this is not even the actual trap. One could guess just how unimportant or insiginificant people believed it to be.

But when the full power of such an inscription was concentrated to the narrow area like the tip of the blade and it was concentrated into an even smaller region, right in the middle of the wound created by this blade…

It had the perfect efficiency for that explosion.

*BOOM*

The flesh exploded along with that inscription and the whole arm was mangled. The impact also threw the opponent completely off balance and Nian used this chance to spin and land another attack on the opponent's leg.

*BOOM*

The same attack, exploded limb and the guy crashed at this point and just fainted.

Nian's grin widened as he blocked another attack with the halberd. And this time the inscription conjured into a shield as soon as the contact was made with the weapons.

The weapon was just deflected.

When a huge ball of flames made its way to him, he swung at it again. Like a bat hitting a ball, the attack flew away and hit another opponent. Elder Nian, didn't look out of place at all.

Usually, with his scholarly look and the level of research time he put into inscriptions, one would assume that he is a good inscription master. And judging by the way he conjured inscriptions just based on spiritual energy condensation, he definitely is the master.

He understands the runes better than even Sam.

Maybe, he might not beat Sam in the creativity levels of using the inscriptions. But he definitely beat him in terms of knowledge, working principals and even the basics of it.

On the other hand, his halberd skills.

Sam really couldn't find any holes in that as well. It was perfect, almost too perfect. Maybe because he was only using basics and there are no fancy tricks involved that it was smooth and efficient.

"I thought he was a pure scholar. Even the hub didn't manage to collect any info on his battle records.

"

Sam exclaimed.

Ling Tian smiled and said.

"I bet you will find the same with all the instructors and the elders of the Gambler academy. Elder Nian…

That guy was quite a piece of work when he was a student here.

His reign was not as dominant as yours, but his opponents often ended by being traumatized so bad. So, did the healers of the opponent. He could make them feel hell.

But he had a drawback, whenever he battles, he becomes way too excited and gets lost in it.

That's why he focused mostly on inscriptions.

"

"I can see that. This guy is good. I am going to record his battle and use it for my research. The usage of inscriptions in a battle at that level… I hope I could create a squad like that in dusk.

There are a lot of kids who are losing out on the combat side because of their over research in the inscription side.

This could be a good inspiration for them.

"

Ling Tian stayed silent as he looked at Sam and sighed. He knew more than anyone else how many hidden figures are there in the Gambler academy.

So, he is preparing himself mentally to hear more of these ridiculous statements from Sam.

It is one thing for Sam to be not worried about this, but it is a whole lot of messed up for him to be looking for more research material.

He shifted his attention back to the fight.

Elder Nian was slick and smooth with his halberd. The attacks were precise and he focused more on dodging and blocking than attacking. However, he still maintained the upper hand.

But of course, he soon found himself in trouble as the number of opponents increased. People from more and more families are coming forward to join the fight and a lot more are still standing there watching the show.

"He won't be able to hold out for too long. And from the looks of it, the outer barrier formation won't as well.

"

Sam said as he gauged the battlefield.

And just like that, in two minutes, Nian finally got a clean hit on his back while the outer barrier cracked.

Some more elders joined in to finish the formation, while Nian retreated a bit.

He stepped back and whistled loudly.

Then only Sam noticed several fourth graders standing at various spots near the entrance of the academy. They are within the academy grounds, but they are distributed along the gate and the wall of the academy.

They reacted to the whistle and activated what seemed like formation nodes.

At that moment, an announcement was heard all over the academy.

"First Level External Guardians have been activated.

Second Level External Guardian Controllers take positions and await orders. Initializing the Second level barriers.

"

After the announcement was made, a ring of light appeared from the ground right outside of the academy walls.

The ring of light perfectly enveloped the whole academy and rose up like a curtain.

*RUMBLE*

At the same time, the ground quaked and the area that emitted that ring of light collapsed into the ground. However, the collapsed earth was not ordinary like what it looked on the first sight.

Even through the projection Sam could see that it is a combination of rare soil and stone. And while everyone is witnessing, the collapsed earth rose up in the form of humanoid golems.

And in place of the collapsed earth was a huge pit which emitted a dark black smoke and up on inspecting one would find a lava light substance inside. Except it is black in color.