368: Chapter 368 Rematch? Our Mad Sand Academy will not accept it!

"President Xia Yun! President Xia Yun!"

In front of the technical control console, the previously desperate technical director jumped up suddenly, ripped the headset off his head, and shouted excitedly, his voice hoarse:

"It's restored! The underlying laws of the instance dungeon have returned to normal!"

"That unknown force that forcibly tampered with the permissions has disappeared! We have regained control of Forbidden Zone No. 009!"

"What?!"

President Xia Yun shuddered, and a piercing, brilliant light instantly erupted from his weathered eyes.

"The gate is open! That fiend has withdrawn his Supernatural Ability!"

President Xia Yun ripped off his coat, and the terrifying life force of a Tier 6 Grandmaster erupted like a waking ancient wild dragon!

The floor tiles around him cracked inch by inch under the pressure of his aura.

"Everyone, stand by! Without my orders, no one is allowed to step even half a step closer to the teleportation array!"

President Xia Yun's hair and beard stood on end as he shouted sternly: "Old Li, Old Zhang! You few at the peak of Rank 5, come in with me and search! Even if we have to dig three feet into the ground of Forbidden Zone No. 009 today, I will dig that Faceless Man out!"

Before the words had even faded.

President Xia Yun transformed into a brilliant stream of light, carrying unparalleled killing intent, and dove straight into the teleportation light gate.

Behind him, several Rank 5 peak experts from the Great Xia Martial Arts General Bureau drew their weapons without hesitation and followed him in one after another.

A Grandmaster was personally searching the mountain!

The group of prodigies and students in the plaza held their breath, not daring to even exhale loudly.

Everyone stared intensely at the big screen, which had also returned to normal, expecting an earth-shattering, peerless battle to break out.

However.

Five minutes passed.

Ten minutes passed.

In the footage transmitted back on the big screen, President Xia Yun and the several Rank 5 experts were frantically traversing the secret realm.

The powerful spiritual force of a Tier 6 Grandmaster was like a dense, giant net, covering every corner of the instance dungeon.

But.

There was nothing.

Apart from the fallen trees, broken stone tablets, and the traces left by the terrified monsters fleeing, not even the shadow of a living person could be found in the entire Forbidden Zone No. 009!

The strange black cloud that had previously shrouded the entire area, plunging everyone into despair, had also disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed at all.

"How is this possible..."

Deep in the secret realm, President Xia Yun stood on a charred mountaintop, his face grave, his chest heaving violently.

He smashed a boulder beneath his feet with a single punch, letting out a roar of extreme unwillingness.

Twenty minutes later.

The light gate flickered, and President Xia Yun walked out from the teleportation array with the several Rank 5 experts, his face ashen.

Facing the expectant gazes of the hundred thousand people in the plaza, President Xia Yun took a deep breath, suppressed the anger in his heart, and announced the final search results in a heavy tone:

"There is no one left inside."

"That Faceless Man, using some unknown method, has forcibly escaped from Forbidden Zone No. 009!"

The entire crowd was in an uproar!

Under the nose of a Tier 6 Grandmaster, within the layers of official, sealed formations, that monster had actually vanished into thin air?

This was simply rubbing the face of the Great Xia Martial Arts General Bureau into the dirt!

Principal Pang Ban sat in his chair, listening to President Xia Yun's announcement, and felt a deep sense of powerlessness wash over his entire body.

"He comes without a shadow and goes without a trace..."

"With such heaven-defying means, if he really appears in the Dragon Fall Abyss, what do we have to stop him?"

With President Xia Yun's official conclusion delivered, this "Faceless Man incident," which was full of absurdity, terror, and had caused all the contestants to suffer heavy losses, was forced to come to a pause filled with suspense.

But the trouble clearly did not end there.

President Xia Yun took the microphone from a nearby staff member and scanned the contestants below, who were still shaken and had suffered heavy losses.

He cleared his throat, preparing to set a final tone for this anticlimactic competition.

"Fellow contestants, colleagues from the various universities."

President Xia Yun's voice echoed across the plaza:

"Due to an extremely rare case of force majeure interference, in order to ensure the fairness and safety of the competition, I, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, hereby officially announce!"

"The results of the second round of the Hundred Schools League, the melee, are voided!"

"Three days from now, we will activate a backup secret realm and hold the second round of the competition again!"

In President Xia Yun's view, this decision was currently the safest and most convincing plan.

After all, everyone had just been robbed clean and had almost lost their lives; it was clear the competition could not continue, so a rematch was a matter of course.

However.

Just as President Xia Yun's voice faded.

A figure in the crowd, covered in mud and tightly clutching a broken half-blade, suddenly sprang up from the ground like a spring!

It was a main team member from Kuangsha Academy.

He pointed at President Xia Yun on the high platform with bloodshot eyes, and in a voice stifled by extreme frustration, he roared at the top of his lungs:

"Protest! I don't accept this!"

"We at Kuangsha Academy absolutely will not accept a rematch!!!"

This sudden shout was like a stone thrown into a latrine, instantly stirring up a thousand waves in the plaza, which had already been preparing to disperse.

The entire audience and thousands of contestants turned their heads in unison to look at the mud-covered Kuangsha Academy member.

President Xia Yun on the high platform was also stunned. He frowned, looked at the emotionally agitated student, and asked patiently:

"This student, we express our deep sympathy for what you encountered in the secret realm."

"But this competition had forced interference from an unknown expert who not only tampered with the laws but also robbed everyone, making it impossible for the competition to proceed normally. A rematch is to ensure absolute fairness. What is it you do not accept?"

"It is precisely because of the rules of the competition that I do not accept it!"

That Kuangsha Academy member stiffened his neck, his eyes red, and loudly retorted:

"The rules of the melee explicitly state that the person who remains in the secret realm until the end is the final winner!"

"The last one to be thrown out was clearly me!"

He raised the broken blade in his hand, pointing in the direction of Magic City Martial Arts University, his voice filled with intense unwillingness and grievance:

"Why was it that in the last round, because Jiang You from Magic City Martial Arts University overslept and was the last one to come out, the Organizing Committee could withstand the pressure and count him as the champion?!"

"This time it's our turn at Kuangsha Academy to be the last ones left, so why does it become a voided competition where the results don't count?!"

"Is it just because we were thrown out, while Jiang You walked out?!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire plaza instantly went quiet.

President Xia Yun opened his mouth, and the official script he had prepared was choked back in his throat.

It wasn't just President Xia Yun; the high-ranking figures of the Organizing Committee around him also looked at each other, a trace of undisguisable awkwardness appearing on their faces.

Yeah, this was incredibly awkward!

Although everyone knew full well that the reason this Kuangsha Academy member was the last one to come out was because the Faceless Man's robbery was an assembly-line process.

This guy was likely the last one to be robbed by the Faceless Man, and it was only due to luck that he was the last one to come out.

If one were to be serious, the truly last person to remain in the secret realm was actually that fleeing Faceless Man.

But the officials couldn't possibly hold their noses and award the Hundred Schools League champion title to a cult leader suspected of being a high-ranking member of the Wusheng Divine Sect, right?

The Great Xia Martial Arts World might as well just disband collectively!

Therefore, if one excluded the bug that was the Faceless Man, and interpreted the rules literally, this Kuangsha Academy member could really be considered the person who survived until the end in this second round of the melee!