Chapter 49
Chapter 49: The Cub’s Mom Is So Strong—Go Blow Up Her Stamina Limit Until She Begs
Hu Ban Lan stopped in front of Jiang Tea Tea, eyes locked on her. “We haven’t decided a winner. I won’t admit I’m weak.”
He inhaled sharply, curiosity burning under the anger. “But I want to know—your rank is higher than mine. Why hide it?”
He was 4s lightning-element ability. Even against the Commander-in-Chief, he could still throw more than ten bolts. He’d thought taking her down would take one minute.
Instead he’d flipped—hard—and even dragged a colleague into it, letting her squad farm ten points each.
Jiang Tea Tea clicked her tongue. “Little kitty. As an instructor, your job is to figure out how to make us smash the forfeit beacon—not gossip and lecture me because you’re curious.”
She yawned and pointed her branch at him. “Roommate. What do you call this—can’t win, won’t train, and keeps making excuses?”
Sui Xuan Chu raised his voice, unfiltered. “A dog sticking its nose in other people’s business. He’s weak, so he thinks he’s right!”
Huang Da Zhuang went silent for a beat, then muttered, “…I feel like I just got hit too.”
Hu Ban Lan laughed. “You eight are adorable.”
Jiang Tea Tea yawned again. “Thanks. Now hurry up. I want to whip your face until it’s shredded so I can go sleep.”
“What a mouth on you.”
Hu Ban Lan snarled and pulled an iron club from his storage button, swinging it toward her.
Jiang Tea Tea moved first. Her branch snapped out, meeting the club with a sharp crack that threw sparks into the air.
Nearby, the remaining instructors exchanged looks, silently calculating their odds against her one-on-one.
Sui Xuan Chu and the others wanted to jump in—
But thirty-one instructors watched them like hawks, ready to intercept. No openings.
High above, Cai Xi Chao’s voice reached Chong Ming. “Commander-in-Chief, I recalibrated the curve. The energy fluctuation on Jiang Tea Tea’s branch has surged to two hundred.”
Chong Ming glanced at the graph without taking his eyes off the fight. “Hu Ban Lan, major of the First Legion, isn’t her opponent. Within five minutes, she’ll knock him down.”
Cai Xi Chao: “…Yes, Commander-in-Chief.”
She kept recording. The Commander-in-Chief would want the replay.
—
Hu Ban Lan’s iron club couldn’t break Jiang Tea Tea’s branch.
Jiang Tea Tea could break her own branch whenever she pleased.
She snapped it, reversed her grip on the sharpened segment, and stabbed straight for Hu Ban Lan’s chest.
Hu Ban Lan dipped low and dodged. In the same motion, he kicked toward her belly with brutal force.
Jiang Tea Tea pressed down on his club to borrow leverage and sprang straight up. She dodged the kick, flipped in midair, and stomped toward his head.
Hu Ban Lan swung his club up at her foot.
Jiang Tea Tea kicked the club away, planted one foot on his shoulder, and pushed down.
Hu Ban Lan’s boots sank into rotten leaves and mud. His shoulder felt like it was being crushed by a mountain. He couldn’t breathe properly, couldn’t move.
Jiang Tea Tea set her other foot on his head and used power.
He sank again.
Ankles buried. Then calves.
His 4s lightning-element ability wouldn’t respond at all.
On the third push, Jiang Tea Tea pressed down with both feet and drove him halfway into the mud. Then she hopped off his head and chopped the back of his neck with her palm.
Hu Ban Lan went limp.
Jiang Tea Tea grabbed him like a radish, yanked him out of the mud, and tossed him toward her teammates.
They bound him together with the other two instructors they’d already captured.
Jiang Tea Tea turned, scanning the remaining thirty-one instructors. Her voice sharpened. “Cheng Lin Yue. Come here.”
Cheng Lin Yue’s reply rang out, shaky but clear. “Coming, Sister Tea!”
“Use your water-element ability,” Jiang Tea Tea ordered. “Hit them.”
Cheng Lin Yue triggered her S-rank water-element ability. Water columns as thick as thighs slammed toward the instructors.
The instructors didn’t sit and wait. Abilities flared as they struck back at Cheng Lin Yue and Jiang Tea Tea at once.
Jiang Tea Tea shoved Cheng Lin Yue backward and snapped her branch into smaller pieces. Her wrist flicked.
The branch segments struck the water columns.
Boom.
The columns exploded into countless droplets—each one instantly turning into a sharp ice shard that streaked toward the instructor ring like homing blades.
The instructors cursed and threw up defenses, breaking ice, shattering the incoming storm.
That was what Jiang Tea Tea wanted.
As the ice shattered, she fired again—short branch segments flicking out like darts, slicing across throats.
One. Two. Three.
Six.
Blood welled along necks.
The instructors finished destroying the ice and surged forward—
A voice thundered from above, cold and absolute.
“First Legion’s thirty-one instructors,” Chong Ming announced, “your throats have already been cut by classmate Jiang Tea Tea. You are dead. Dead people cannot attack enemies.”
The instructors’ hearts jolted. Hands flew to their necks.
Blood.
On a real battlefield, they would have died on the spot.
Jiang Tea Tea glanced up.
Only bright sky. No visible warship. No visible speaker.
She looked back down, completely unbothered.
She walked to one of the “dead” instructors and yanked off his storage button with one smooth move. She tossed it back. “Huang Da Zhuang—catch.”
Huang Da Zhuang caught it and stuffed it into his pocket. “Thanks, Sister Tea. An instructor’s storage button has to be loaded.”
Jiang Tea Tea grinned. “Exactly. Their protective suits and helmets look good too. Come strip them.”
From the ground, bound and bleeding, Wolf rasped, “Jiang Tea Tea… classmate… that’s disrespecting corpses.”
Jiang Tea Tea flicked a small branch segment across his throat.
Blood trickled.
She raised two fingers to her lips in a clear warning. “Stripping clothes is ‘disrespecting corpses’? You really don’t know how to talk. Better to be a dead person.”
“If you’re dead, then even if I chop you into pieces and strip you down until you don’t even have underwear left, all you can do is stare and swallow your anger.”
Wolf shut up.
The remaining instructors went still.
Suddenly, they were very afraid their underwear really was about to become optional.
Huang Da Zhuang already had his hands on someone’s suit, happily echoing, “Sister Tea’s right.”
Sui Xuan Chu, Yan Yu, Cheng Xiao Ting, and the others joined in, chanting like idiots who’d discovered religion. “Believe in Sister Tea—win the championship!”
Except for the one instructor who’d been fried by lightning earlier, everything on the thirty-four instructors was looted: combat suits, boots, storage buttons, lightbrains.
They were left in nothing but underwear.
For instructors who’d served the First Legion for years, this was the greatest humiliation of their lives.
Jiang Tea Tea’s squad rummaged through the looted storage buttons, pulling out medical spray and treatment devices.
Cheng Lin Yue treated everyone, easing pain and restoring some stamina.
Then they pulled out a signal jammer and activated it.
Riding captured land skimmers, they disappeared deeper into the forest.
—
Chong Ming’s voice rolled across the entire Primitive Tropical Planet, heard by every cadet and every instructor.
“Congratulations to the Royal Military Academy’s ‘wipe out the other twenty-nine military academies’ squad. Eight members have killed thirty-four instructors of the First Legion.”
“Squad bonus: three hundred forty points. Each individual gains three hundred forty points.”
“Special bonus: classmate Jiang Tea Tea—five hundred points.”
“I hope classmate Jiang Tea Tea continues to kill more instructors and farm more points.”
“And I hope all other classmates learn from her. Kill thirty-four instructors alone, and you gain squad points, personal points, and special bonus points.”
Across thirty schools, cadets and instructors alike went silent with shock.
Chong Ming’s tone didn’t soften.
“Legion Commanders,” he ordered, “from this moment on, each of you will bring ten elites down there. Day and night, without rest—blow up Jiang Tea Tea and her squad’s stamina limits until they smash the forfeit beacon and quit!”