The staff member waved the glow sticks in their hands, signaling for the five members of Special Response HQ Unit 1 to step forward.
The device in front of them, which looked like some kind of vertical medical pod, was the Backtrack Backup System.
“Please step inside, relax your bodies, and do not use your abilities to resist.”
The staff member mechanically repeated the operating procedures.
“The scanning process will be accompanied by a slight sense of dizziness. This is a normal reaction to the link.”
The five of them stepped inside. A faint blue light screen rose from the floor, quickly scanning their entire bodies.
In that instant, Yuki Asahi felt a strange sense of weightlessness, as if his soul were being slightly tugged by some kind of suction.
Then, the staff member signaled that they could come out.
‘Is that it?’
The five of them walked out of the medical pods, each feeling a bit bewildered. Before they knew it, five doors had appeared in front of them.
“I will announce the rules once more. Items unrelated to your abilities are prohibited. The match duration is one hour. If no winner is decided within one hour, both sides will be judged as having lost…”
The staff member read from a booklet before saying, “Everyone, please push the doors open.”
The group glanced at each other, then pushed their respective doors and entered.
When their vision focused again, the surrounding scenery had undergone a world-shaking change.
It was no longer the modern New National Stadium. In its place was a towering, steep, crimson canyon.
The blazing sun hung high in the sky, scorching the earth without any cover. The smell of dry dust permeated the air.
On both sides were red rock walls that soared into the clouds.
They were riddled with holes from wind erosion, looking like two rows of giant fangs tightly biting the flat ground in the middle, which was roughly the size of two football fields.
This was the universal map for the preliminaries, the Canyon Arena.
‘This level of realism…’
Kenichi Matsumoto crouched down and grabbed a handful of red sand. A coarse friction and scorching temperature came from his fingertips.
“It is real,” Tsubasa Kubo said, scanning the area with a cold voice. “This isn’t just some virtual reality.”
At the other end of the canyon, five figures appeared.
They were their opponents for the first round — the Gold Buddha Team.
The style of this team was quite uniform. Every one of them had bronze skin and was wrapped in the hemp ropes characteristic of Muay Thai.
The brawny man leading them wore a string of massive prayer beads around his neck, his eyes fierce.
“Act according to the plan,” Yuki Asahi commanded.
“Understood.”
The three people behind him responded in unison, then retreated in a very coordinated manner.
They retreated all the way behind a pile of jagged rocks at the edge of the canyon, striking a pose that said, “We are the cheerleaders.”
In the center of the arena, only Yuki Asahi and Cuiyue remained, waiting for the final countdown to end.
“Do you Japanese look down on us?”
Seeing this, the captain of the Gold Buddha Team flashed a look of rage in his eyes.
He stomped his foot hard, and the ground seemed to tremble.
[1!]
Accompanied by a violent shout, his body began to undergo an astonishing transformation.
His already burly frame expanded rapidly like it was being inflated.
A layer of dazzling golden metallic luster surfaced on his skin, and his entire height instantly shot up to over three meters, resembling a Vajra Arhat.
The four members behind him also took their stances. Some had flames igniting on their fists, while others had the muscles in their legs bulging.
“The style is very consistent. They are all physical enhancement types.”
Yuki Asahi moved his wrists. He didn’t take any special starting stance; he just stood there casually.
“The big one is yours,” Cuiyue’s voice remained flat.
“Fine.”
The countdown floating in the air ended, and two figures vanished from their spots simultaneously.
They didn’t use any fancy energy fluctuations, nor were there any light or shadow special effects. It was just pure — speed.
The Gold Buddha captain’s dynamic vision couldn’t even capture the opponent’s trajectory; he only felt a gust of wild wind rushing at his face.
He instinctively raised his glowing golden arms to block, full of confidence in the defensive power of his Vajra Body, which he took great pride in.
However, he was facing Yuki Asahi.
Boom!
A dull, thunderous sound echoed through the canyon.
Those seemingly indestructible golden arms shattered like fragile plaster the moment they came into contact with Yuki Asahi’s fist.
The massive impact force directly penetrated his defense and slammed violently into his chest.
Splat —
The three-meter-tall golden giant was like a baseball being hit. He flew backward dozens of meters, crashing heavily into the rock wall behind him, smashing a large crater as dust rose everywhere.
On the other side, Cuiyue’s battle was even simpler.
She was like a hungry wolf entering a flock of sheep.
Facing a Muay Thai practitioner who tried to attack her with a flaming knee strike, Cuiyue merely gave a cold smile and reached out to grab the opponent’s ankle.
‘Too slow.’
She exerted force with her arm, swinging the adult man like a sack of grain and slamming him violently into another enemy who was rushing over.
Thump!
The two collided and instantly turned into two corpses as the Backtrack Backup System activated.
A light similar to Light Bug Energy flickered over the two corpses, and they promptly vanished into space.
Even the blood that had splattered in that split second, still suspended in the air, disappeared along with them.
‘This is Muay Thai?’
Cuiyue tilted her head, looking at the remaining two people. The red light in her eyes seemed a bit bored.
A moment later, they too vanished from the Vision World.
Each time a person was killed, a rousing notification sound echoed through the sky — since one could do whatever they wanted within the Vision World, the kill announcements were a part of the experience that couldn’t be missed.
“Done.”
Cuiyue stopped her footsteps, her breathing not even slightly labored.
Yuki Asahi retracted his fist and looked at the unconscious captain embedded in the wall in the distance, waiting for the staff to judge it a kill.
……
Inside a VIP box.
A massive holographic projection screen was playing this crushing battle in real-time.
Jiang Jian Yue sat on the sofa, swirling a glass of Coke in a wine glass — for no particular reason, she just suddenly felt like doing it.
She knew the reason why Yuki Asahi didn’t let the other three step in.
It was to preserve the ability information of the team members as much as possible, exposing only basic physical combat strength.
It was to prevent anyone from finding a chance to analyze their abilities and find counter-measures.
But…
Jiang Jian Yue looked at Yuki Asahi’s face on the screen, which wore a faint smile, yet she felt inexplicably annoyed.
For some reason, the director had intentionally given Yuki Asahi many shots during this battle, deliberately ignoring Cuiyue.
‘Dummy.’
She cursed in her heart.
From the beginning, the three teams from the Special Response HQ had placed “information gathering” and “information hiding” at the highest priority of their tactics.
But in reality, only Unit 1 had the ability to achieve the latter — the stats for Yuki Asahi and Cuiyue were simply too high.
They guarded against other teams like they were guarding against thieves, cautiously testing the waters and carefully calculating every card they played.
But had that big idiot Yuki Asahi forgotten one thing?
Who was the organizer of this competition?
Who was the person holding the detailed data on all the participants?
It was her, Jiang Jian Yue!
If Yuki Asahi asked her, it wasn’t impossible for Jiang Jian Yue to pull some strings behind the scenes and “accidentally” leak the participant database to him.
As for what if someone found out… all responsibility would fall on a temporary worker, and they would have already been fired.
‘If he came to beg you, wouldn’t you put on airs and make him serve you well before you’d be willing to give it?’
“Shut up.”
‘Admit it, you just want him to depend on you.’
At this time, the image on the screen switched to the next match.
Due to the double elimination system, Special Response HQ Unit 1 quickly faced their second-round opponent after their first victory.
Because of the Backtrack Backup System, the team didn’t need to rest.
This was a team that had also secured a victory in the first round — the Free Scandinavian Union.
As the name suggested, the team members were from the five Nordic countries.
However, the script was almost a one-to-one replica.
The remaining three still acted as the atmosphere group in the back, not even breaking a single drop of sweat.
In less than two minutes, the battle was over.
Special Response HQ Unit 1 easily advanced to the next round with a record of two wins and zero losses.
At the same time, they left a deep impression on everyone following the competition: this team was a pure stat-check team.
[2??]
[No, is this really a superpower competition? Why does it feel like I’m watching Baki?]
[This physical stat is too ridiculous. One punch and the big gold guy is done for?]
[The purity is too high!]
[What’s the origin of this Special Response HQ Unit 1? Not a single light effect shown yet, just basic attacks.]
[Is this the caliber of a National Team?]
There were also negative comments:
[Is this a seed team? This is too boring…]
[They only know how to use brute force.]
[I feel like… it’s not as good as… Superpower Soccer.]
[Am I the only one who noticed the three people in the back were slacking the whole time?]
Looking at the comments on the live broadcast platform, Jiang Jian Yue gave a light snort and put down her empty wine glass.
The waiter standing nearby, holding a large bucket of Coke, immediately filled it for her.
Next, there were other teams she was interested in — ART, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Supernatural Club team.
As for Special Response HQ Unit 1, they could rest now.
The total time reserved for the first round of the preliminaries was two days.
Then would come the group stage — sixteen groups, a round-robin within the group to decide two spots to enter the main tournament.
It sounded like a cruel system, but in reality, Jiang Jian Yue being the one who didn’t set it up as a single-elimination tournament commonly seen in novels was already very merciful.
Even the elimination rounds were BO3 — thanks to the Backtrack Backup System, the GSAC could afford this kind of format, more similar to an e-sports tournament than traditional fighting matches.
It just took a toll on her Light Bug Energy.
She estimated that after the finals were over, only one-fifth of the vast sea of Light Bug Energy would remain — not that Jiang Jian Yue minded.
After all, using this energy to upgrade… was really a pain.
Even if tranquilizers and anesthetics were injected, she would be woken up by the pain. The dosage last time was already hundreds of thousands of times that of a normal person.
If she injected any more, her veins would be flowing with nothing but tranquilizers.
There was a soft knock on the door of the box.
“Come in.” Jiang Jian Yue adjusted her sitting posture, trying not to look too lazy.
The door was pushed open, and Yuki Asahi walked in.
He had already changed out of his combat gear and was wearing his casual clothes. His hair was still a bit damp, clearly having just showered.
“Finished the match?”
Jiang Jian Yue asked despite knowing the answer, her gaze still fixed on the tablet in her hand as if she were processing some billion-dollar deal.
“Yeah, I won.”
Yuki Asahi walked to her side and naturally sat down in the seat next to her.
“Congratulations.”