52: Chapter 52 Wang Jincheng's Crushing Defeat and the Contrast

It was Wang Jincheng's battlefield.

The Tianhai Star audience had still been cheering for Wang Pingan's victory over Kyle, but upon seeing Wang Jincheng's name, the cheering gradually subsided.

A direct descendant of the main Wang family line, B-grade Lightning Spirit Root, special building Lightning Pool, with an overall rating of A-.

Before Wang Pingan's rise, this title was enough to make students at Tianhai No. 1 High School look up to him.

Yet, at this moment, Wang Jincheng's situation on the battlefield was dire.

His opponent, drawn from Qingteng Star, was named Ye Lan, possessing A-grade Wood-type spell talent and utilizing a jungle guerrilla strategy within a God's Kingdom civilization.

The battlefield was a vast, dense forest with towering ancient trees, crisscrossing vines, and heavy humidity, which shattered the line of sight.

After Wang Jincheng's three hundred Lightning Spirit subjects entered the battlefield, they immediately set up a Lightning Strike Array, attempting to force a breakthrough.

Lightning flashed through the forest, blasting down large swaths of trees and leaving charred trunks scattered everywhere; it looked quite impressive.

Wang Jincheng stood in the rear, his expression much calmer than during the weekly exams; clearly, he had put in serious effort during this period.

His Lightning Spirit subjects now wore a faint layer of lightning armor, and their staves had been replaced with the Rune Lightning Staff provided by his family.

Staring at the dense forest ahead, Wang Jincheng ordered in a deep voice: "Advance, don't give her a chance to hide."

The three hundred Lightning Spirit subjects pressed forward in unison, lightning arcing above the formation and striking deep into the forest.

Several audience members from Qingteng Star looked nervous, as Wang Jincheng was indeed not weak in frontal output.

However, Ye Lan did not engage him in a direct exchange.

Her Wood-type subjects were scattered throughout the forest, moving in small groups of three or five, never staying in the same area.

Whenever the lightning swept through, they would shift positions using vine bridges and tree hollows, leaving behind only shattered wooden shells.

Wang Jincheng's first round of heavy attacks was fierce, but the points awarded were pitifully low.

Old Li sat in the Tianhai No. 1 High School viewing area, his brows gradually furrowing.

He saw the problem at a glance.

Wang Jincheng's lightning magic had strong burst potential, but his team's reconnaissance in the jungle was terrible, and his logistical protection was too weak.

His supply caravan trailed behind the main force, carrying spirit stones, energy-recovery pills, and spare lightning staves, guarded entirely by twenty ordinary subjects.

This configuration was fine for frontal exchanges on the plains, but in a jungle guerrilla war, it was like sticking his neck out.

Ye Lan clearly saw this as well.

Deep in the dense forest, a dozen green vine shadows quietly circled behind Wang Jincheng.

Wang Jincheng was still ordering his main force to continue bombarding the front, unaware that the true killing blow had already arrived at his back.

A member of the Wang family couldn't help but call out: "Wang Jincheng, look behind you!"

But the battlefield isolated external sounds, and Wang Jincheng could not hear.

The ground beneath the supply caravan suddenly split open, and thick vines burst from the earth, directly entangling the spirit stone boxes and medicine chests.

The twenty guards responsible for protection were just about to draw their swords when dense wooden spikes rained down from the canopy.

The guard unit fell by half in the blink of an eye.

The supply carts were dragged into the mud by vines, several boxes of spirit stones were crushed, and energy-recovery pills rolled everywhere, only to be snatched up by the Wood-type subjects who had been lying in ambush.

Wang Jincheng turned his head sharply, his expression changing drastically.

"Rear guard, fall back, quick!"

The three hundred Lightning Spirit subjects hurriedly turned, but the forest paths were narrow, and the formation became chaotic the moment it moved.

This was exactly the moment Ye Lan was waiting for.

She decisively ordered: "Don't fight the main force, cut his medicine, cut his spirit stones, cut his lightning staves."

The Qingteng Star Wood-type subjects began to harass them constantly.

They didn't attack the main force, focusing only on the supply points.

Vines entangled the carts, wooden spikes blocked the paths, and poison powder sealed off the wetlands; Wang Jincheng's lightning army had to expend a massive amount of spiritual energy with every step.

Wang Jincheng was forced to continuously cast Lightning Strike, hoping to clear the area and salvage the situation.

The first few rounds were indeed effective, and over a dozen Wood-type subjects were blasted into projection fragments.

But Ye Lan's losses were minimal.

Wang Jincheng's consumption, however, was skyrocketing.

Lightning magic was inherently a burst system; every volley consumed a massive amount of spiritual energy.

Previously, in the family training grounds, with the Lightning Pool and spirit stone supplies, Wang Jincheng had never considered this a problem.

Now that his supply line was cut, he finally understood that every round of firepower from the lightning army was burning their lives away.

A quarter of an hour later, the release speed of Wang Jincheng's Lightning Spirit subjects was visibly slowing.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and the light of the lightning armor began to dim.

Ye Lan was not in a rush.

She had her troops continue to circle, constantly forcing the lightning army to fire, inducing them to clear the open ground.

The dense forest was blasted until it was covered in charred marks, but Ye Lan's main force never appeared.

In the livestream, those who had been cheering for Wang Jincheng gradually fell silent.

The commentator's speech quickened: "Contestant Wang Jincheng's logistics have been cut off, and his main force's spiritual energy reserves are dropping rapidly."

Another commentator added: "Without continuous supplies, a lightning army turns from a burst-damage unit into a hollow shell."

This statement was cruel.

And it was accurate.

Wang Jincheng realized something was wrong and wanted to tighten the formation to protect the remaining supplies.

But Ye Lan had already completed the encirclement.

Trees in all directions lit up with green light simultaneously, and the vines in the dense forest wove into a net, trapping Wang Jincheng's Lightning Spirit subjects in the center.

Wang Jincheng ordered urgently: "All troops, fire! Blast this forest open for me!"

The three hundred Lightning Spirit subjects raised their staves.

Lightning lit up, but it was significantly weaker than at the start of the match.

After the roar, one layer of the vine net was broken, only to be replenished by new vines.

Ye Lan's voice came from deep in the forest: "Wang Jincheng, your Lightning Spirit Root is strong, but you rely too much on supplies."

Wang Jincheng gritted his teeth and said: "Cut the crap, come out and fight head-on!"

Ye Lan did not take the bait.

She continued to let her Wood-type subjects drag Wang Jincheng down, tightening the vine net even further.

Wang Jincheng's subjects began to experience spiritual energy depletion; the lightning staves in several hands flickered twice before going dark.

When the first batch of Lightning Spirit subjects fell, Wang Jincheng's face turned ashen.

He knew he was going to lose.

But he was unwilling to accept it.

He was a direct descendant of the main Wang family line.

The thing he heard most often growing up was that among the younger generation of the Wang family, he was the one who deserved to be seen.

On the day of his awakening, he was overshadowed by Wang Pingan.

On the day of the weekly exam, he was beaten by Wang Pingan until he had no power to fight back.

For this Seventeen-Star Joint Entrance Exam, he had desperately gone into seclusion, desperately practiced his lightning magic, and desperately wanted to prove that he could still catch up.

But now, he hadn't even made it past the preliminary round.

What defeated him wasn't a crushing display of raw frontal power, but a logistical line he had never seriously considered.

"I don't accept this!" Wang Jincheng gritted his teeth and said aloud.

He forcibly mobilized his remaining Lightning Spirit subjects, wanting to break out of the vine net.

But the lightning army, drained of spiritual energy, moved pitifully slowly.

Ye Lan's Wood-type subjects killed their way out from behind the trees, wooden spears and vine blades focusing on the front line that had lost the protection of lightning armor.

Wang Jincheng's battle losses rose rapidly.

The system judgment sounded.

[Wang Jincheng's battle losses exceed one-fifth.]

[Ye Lan wins.]

[Wang Jincheng, eliminated.]

White light descended, and Wang Jincheng was forcibly teleported back to the school's viewing area.

He stood outside the connection pod, stunned for a long time.

The surrounding students looked at each other, speechless.

Wang Jincheng suddenly raised his hand to cover his face, his shoulders trembling uncontrollably.

He made no sound, but tears had already slipped through his fingers.

Old Li walked to his side without scolding him.

At a time like this, any more preaching would seem superfluous.

Wang Jincheng spoke in a low voice: "Teacher, I always thought that what I lacked was resources, time, and talent."

Old Li looked at Wang Pingan's battlefield on the big screen and spoke slowly: "What you lack is a complete war strategy."

Wang Jincheng looked up.

On the big screen, Wang Pingan's three thousand Immortal Martial Legion subjects were reforming their ranks while stepping over mechanical wreckage, the Artillery Battalion was inspecting cannon barrels, the Cavalry were feeding horses and changing armor, and the infantry were distributing potions.

Every soldier had a storage bag at their waist.

Inside were energy-recovery pills, healing powders, spare talismans, compressed rations, and basic repair materials.

There was no long supply caravan.

There were no spirit stone boxes trailing in the rear.

There was no fragile vital point that could be cut off by an enemy with a single strike.

The commentator was also reviewing the match.

"Many people think Wang Pingan has zero logistics, but this statement is wrong."

"It's not that he has no logistics; he has broken logistics down into the smallest units and stuffed them directly into every subject's storage bag."

"This means it is very difficult for enemies to defeat him by beheading his supply line, unless they crush his entire legion head-on."

"And that is where the problem lies: crushing Wang Pingan's legion head-on is the most difficult thing to do."

As these words fell, the team leaders from the Seventeen Stars had different expressions, and the atmosphere became heavy.

Some looked at the Immortal Martial Legion on the screen calmly changing their medicine, their faces showing difficulty.

"This isn't a pure Combat Path; this is a war machine that can carry its own provisions."

"Cutting supplies is useless, dragging out consumption won't necessarily kill him, and you can't move him by attacking head-on—how is this supposed to be handled?"

"No wonder he dared to enter the match with three thousand combat subjects; he had long since blocked the areas most easily targeted."

In the Tianhai Star viewing area, Wang Jincheng listened to these words, his heart sinking.

He understood that his loss to Wang Pingan was not just a gap in one or two battles.

From the very beginning, the two of them were not thinking about the same thing.

He was thinking about how to train his lightning magic to be stronger and how to make a single volley hit harder.

Wang Pingan was thinking about space, logistics, equipment, formations, mobility, supplies, actual combat, and emergencies.

Wang Jincheng stared at the big screen and let out a bitter smile: "I concede."

Old Li turned to look at him.

Wang Jincheng wiped the tears from his face, his eyes red, but he did not evade anymore.

"Before, I didn't accept it because I thought he just had more courage than me, dared to burn money, and dared to gamble."

"Now I know, he wasn't gambling; he had calculated every step."

Old Li patted him on the shoulder.

Wang Jincheng looked at that Immortal Martial Legion, which was re-forming its ranks, and the last bit of awkwardness in his heart dissipated.

He had lost miserably.

But he had also clearly seen the path forward.

On the big screen, Wang Pingan's name lit up again, and his next opponent had already been matched.

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