Chapter 378: Away Game

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The instructor glanced at him, showing no reaction to the protest, and simply said coldly, "Follow me!"

With that, he turned and strode away quickly, not caring whether Wang Feng and the others would lose track of him.

Fantexi stuck out his tongue behind Old Wang. "Seems pretty unfriendly..."

"Obviously." Winnie rolled her eyes. "If someone came to our Temple to cause trouble, would you be friendly to them?"

"It's not the same. It's a matter of manners." Fantexi shook his head repeatedly. "In business, even if someone's about to stab you in the back, they'll do it with a smile. Courtesy before hostility, you know? Unlike this Mangalam place—no sense of decorum at all!"

Fantexi's voice wasn’t loud, and the instructor ahead was walking too fast to hear it. But the people around them—porters, merchants, travelers, and officials—all turned their heads sharply toward him. They were dressed in long white robes, and even the porters who couldn’t wear robes or white clothing had their heads wrapped in spotless white cloth. This was an ancient tradition among the Holy Light devotees—the Holy Light was pure and flawless, orderly and disciplined. Only uniform white attire could embody the order and sanctity of the Holy Light.

At that moment, these Holy Light devotees were glaring at Fantexi with fury. A few burly porters even rolled up their sleeves, ready to pummel him into the ground. A foreigner daring to openly slander the great Mangalam? Even if they beat him right there on the street, no one would bat an eye.

Sensing the hostility around them, Kela and Wu Di grew wary. Though not followers of the Holy Light, they understood the fervor of such fanaticism. It was like in the beastmen’s royal city—if a human dared to strut around insulting beastmen, they’d be left dead in the streets instantly, no matter who they were.

Fantexi quickly shut his mouth. He seemed to have stirred up something serious. Fortunately, the crowd soon recognized the Rose Temple uniforms.

"They’re those Temple disciples from that place, here to challenge our Mangalam Holy Temple."

"So it’s the city that abandoned the Holy Light, the Temple that’s fallen into darkness! No wonder they’re so ignorant and arrogant. What a bunch of disgusting heretics!"

"Glory to the Holy Light! Disperse the darkness!" someone growled lowly. "Spill these heretics’ blood!"

"Save your energy for work. Our Temple’s children will teach these heretics a lesson soon enough. Just wait and see!"

The murmurs swelled around them, but no one actually took action. Ah Xi quietly sighed in relief. Though he’d been feeling confident lately and wasn’t afraid of a fight, he’d never tried taking on a hundred at once... Winnie chewed her gum nonchalantly, Mapeier remained expressionless, and Kela and Wu Di just looked innocent.

Old Wang slung his backpack over his shoulder and followed the instructor, who was already far ahead. "Let’s go, let’s go."

The streets of Mangalam weren’t complicated. Following the traditions of ancient order, the city was laid out in a perfect grid—thirteen straight, parallel streets dividing the entire place into countless uniform blocks. The shops lining the streets and the pedestrians moving about were all uniformly dressed in pristine white, with only a few travelers standing out. The discipline was so severe it bordered on suffocating, even to Old Wang.

For example, if a traveler spat on the ground, a devout follower in a white headscarf would immediately kneel and wipe it clean—scrubbing until the floor shone. Of course, it wasn’t free labor. The offending traveler would be stopped and made to pay a fee. It wasn’t a shakedown—they were also given the option to clean it up themselves...

A city of rigid order, a haven for perfectionists.

There probably wasn’t another city in the world that would satisfy a perfectionist as much as Mangalam. At that moment, Old Wang began to understand why Mangalam had attacked the Temple during the Holy Light’s zenith. It wasn’t just due to the influence of certain powerful figures. For Holy Light devotees who upheld order to such an extreme degree, the Temple’s breaches of conduct must have felt like splinters under their nails—unbearable and inescapable.

The distinct Rose Temple uniforms stood out starkly on the white-robed streets. People stared at them with disdain, their whispers turning into jeers.

The instructor didn’t lead them toward the Mangalam Holy Temple but instead headed straight for the city center, where a colossal statue of the Holy Maiden stood beside a massive oval-shaped building.

The crowd here was even denser—thousands packed the streets, engulfed by raucous noise. Some waved betting slips, shouting offers. The Holy Light didn’t forbid gambling, of course, but the bookmakers here definitely weren’t beastmen. Even the sprawling underworld of the beastmen couldn’t penetrate a Holy Light city like Mangalam. Beastmen were treated as lowly here, far worse than in other human cities. They weren’t allowed any respectable work—even manual labor required them to wear black cloth to mark their inferiority, distinguishing them from human workers. Forget running bars like in Aurora City.

The crowd roared with excitement, the noise unending.

"Last call for bets! Last call! Three-to-zero against the Temple heretics at two-to-one odds! Three-to-one at three-to-one!"

"Three-to-one, a thousand for me!"

"Respected brother of the Light, let me kindly advise you—three-to-zero is the obvious choice. Let me break down the current strength comparison for you..."

"Top-tier standing tickets, only thirteen left! Just fifty! Just fifty!"

"Front-row VIP seats! Get up close to witness the heretics’ steaming blood! Spilling a heretic’s blood honors the Holy Light! Rare opportunity—just a thousand! Just a thousand!"

The raucous noise engulfed the streets until the Mangalam Holy Temple instructor led the Temple disciples forward. Someone on the outskirts suddenly shouted, "The damned heretics have arrived!" The piercing cry silenced the buzzing street in an instant. Thousands of eyes snapped toward them.

The suddenly hushed air, coupled with thousands of eyes locking onto them, sent a tense atmosphere rippling through the surroundings. These gazes were far from friendly—toward these infamous heretics who had desecrated the Holy Light, the gathered devotees would gladly strangle them with their own hands.

Fortunately, the mentor from Mangalam Holy Temple led the way, and the crowd reluctantly parted to form a narrow path. Old Wang ushered everyone through the gaze-laden crowd.

Being surrounded by so many people for the first time, with the path barely wide enough, they constantly brushed against the devotees on either side, each contact met with disdainful snorts. The immense pressure left Wu Di drenched in sweat, his undershirt and palms soaked, the hostile stares making his scalp crawl and his breath come in short gasps.

Luckily, the walk wasn’t long. Ahead stood a thick iron door about two meters wide, faint tremors vibrating through its frame from the muffled din inside.

"Go in yourselves!" The mentor stopped at the entrance, leaving them to it. Unfazed, Old Wang pushed the door open with force.

The soundproofing had been too effective—outside, only a dull murmur had been audible. But the moment the door swung open... Unlike the quiet outside, the crowd inside had long been worked up, eagerly awaiting their arrival. At the sight of the Rose Holy Sanctuary uniforms, an explosive tsunami of noise crashed outward like a sonic boom!

"Look! The heretics are here, along with those lowly, filthy beasts! They’ve defiled the Holy Light—burn them!"

"Only their blood can cleanse the stains they’ve left upon the Holy Light!"

"O Holy Light, your humblest servant begs you to purify these wicked souls! The sight of them makes me tremble with disgust!"

"Mangalam will triumph! Glory to the Holy Light!"

"Divine light descends from the heavens, bringing boundless and mysterious radiance, like the staff in the Holy Maiden’s hand, banishing darkness, ensuring the Holy Light’s eternal prosperity. May its unfathomable love forever fill our yearning hearts..."

Curses, jeers, taunts—even hymns praising the Holy Light sung by men and women—all mingled chaotically within the massive arena.

Every spectator seemed to have gone berserk, either standing and wildly shaking their fists while screaming at the Rose members by the door, or fervently singing without distraction. The only commonality was the bulging veins on their foreheads and necks, thick as chopsticks.

Everyone was venting, clamoring, as if the louder they shouted, the harsher their insults, the more fervent their zeal, the holier they proved themselves to be.

The terrifying wave of sound and hostility struck instantly. The old Rose team might have crumbled under such pressure, but after the baptism by fire at Dragon City and the enhancements from Old Wang’s Soul Refining Array, even Fan Texi remained remarkably composed—save for Wu Di.

"Damn, are they seriously throwing us straight into battle?" Fan Texi muttered, his courage bolstered lately. He followed Old Wang, glancing around. "Not even offering us water? We just got off the Magic Rail Train. They’re obviously stacking the deck..."

"Even if they did, would you dare drink it?" Winnie shot him a look, chewing her bubblegum. "Don’t be fooled by Mangalam’s prim exterior. When they lose it, they’re shameless beyond compare."

The Lees knew Mangalam’s true nature all too well—the records were too vile for words.

So-called pious devotees of the Holy Light, harsh doctrines—in truth, people were all the same. The more repressed, the more deranged. Mangalam, this city hailed as sacred, might appear spotless and regimented on the surface, but the underhanded filth hidden beneath was far worse than the worst rumors. By comparison, Aurora City was a true paradise.

"Order! Order!"

Old Wang and the others had reached the arena’s edge, but the stands remained in uproar. A commanding voice suddenly rang out, cutting through the chaos and forcibly quelling the noise.

A tall, white-robed devotee stood at the center of the arena. Around forty, his voice like a tolling bell. As he spoke, his robes billowed as if inflated by surging soul power, faint energy waves radiating from him—an imposing presence. This was Ren Zhangquan, dean of Mangalam Holy Temple’s Martial Arts Academy.

Ren Zhangquan cast a brief glance at Wang Feng’s team before addressing the stands. "Though Rose Holy Sanctuary has come to challenge Mangalam Holy Temple, such duels are a tradition among our institutions, bound by rules. Our guests deserve courtesy. I ask everyone to restrain their emotions and allow me to introduce the participants."

Though merely a dean at Mangalam, Ren Zhangquan held immense prestige in the city, renowned as its strongest public figure in martial arts. His words quieted much of the noise, though the hymns to the Holy Light continued, unified and chant-like, lending a solemn backdrop to his speech.

"Team Rose has six participants. Captain Wang Feng, who participated in the Dragon City Illusory Realm campaign, ranked five-hundredth (dead last) among the five hundred combatants," Ren Zhangquan stated coolly.

"Dead last! And this guy’s the captain?"

"Isn’t he the one who invented those runes? Shouldn’t he stick to that instead of daring to challenge Mangalam? Doesn’t he know how to spell ‘death’?"

"Pah! Did he really invent them? They’re Thunder Dragon’s work! This deceitful charlatan, defiling the Holy Light—he’s a wicked heretic!"

The stands, barely calmed, erupted again in laughter and jeers.

Unfazed by the insults, Ren Zhangquan continued, "Vice-captain Winnie Lee, members Mapeier, Fan Texi, the beastmen Kela and Wu Di..."

With each name he announced, the stands erupted in jeers and taunts, going all out to mock them—especially Kela and Wu Di, who even had trash thrown at them.

Honestly, the difference between home and away games was something everyone on the Rose side was ready for. Expecting cheers while coming to someone else's turf to cause trouble would be absurd, so they weren’t particularly bothered.

"Silence!"

The uproar almost drowned out Ren Zhangquan, prompting him to quickly finish listing the Rose team’s names before solemnly introducing, "Our Mangalam Holy Temple will also send six fighters. Team captain—Sacred Sword Chris!"

The jeering stands instantly shifted in tone, erupting with thunderous applause and cheers.

"Chris! Chris! Chris!"

He was the absolute star of Mangalam Holy Temple. Though he hadn’t participated in the last Dragon City illusionary realm expedition, everyone knew it was merely a strategic decision by Mangalam. Had he gone, he would’ve easily ranked within the top hundred.

Old Wang narrowed his eyes and looked across the arena. At the far end, a man carrying a rune broadsword stepped forward slightly, giving a casual wave to the crowd. He had a square-jawed face and an average build—almost appearing smaller than the massive sword on his back. Yet his aura was steady, his gaze sharp, and his emotions unreadable, the picture of a rising star.

"Hold up, I thought the vice-captain was Demon Fist Bao Chong?"

"Vice-captain Black Thunder Wu Li! Wu Li’s strength rivals Chris’s. It’s only natural for him to take the vice-captain spot as a reinforcement..."

"Wu Li! Wu Li! Wu Li!"

Wu Li was the top fighter of Cassie Holy Temple. Though he had just transferred, the two temples were only a city apart, so his reputation preceded him here. Besides, he was here to help crush the heretics from Rose, which made him instantly popular.

The stands erupted in cheers once more, with many chanting Wu Li’s name. The deafening roar was no less intense than the earlier one for Sacred Sword Chris.

A lean young man stepped forward from the opposing team. He smiled without even glancing at the Rose members, instead raising a finger to his lips in a "shush" gesture toward the stands. Yet, the cheers only grew louder.

"Team member—Demon Fist Bao Chong!"

A towering, muscular disciple over two meters tall stepped forward. His explosive physique was already striking, but standing next to the slender Wu Li, he looked like a primordial beast.

*BANG!*

He swept a proud gaze across the stands before slamming his massive fists together. The collision, fueled by dense Soul Power, produced an explosive boom, showcasing his terrifying strength and setting off another round of cheers.

"All brawn, no brains," Winnie muttered, blowing a bubble and rolling her eyes.

Ren Zhangquan continued the introductions. Every name from Mangalam Holy Temple was met with nonstop cheers—a stark contrast to the earlier jeers directed at Rose.

"...The rules follow the ancestral traditions of the Holy Sanctuary! Challengers take the field first, rotating in sequence. Best of five wins!" After finishing, Ren Zhangquan lightly tapped his toes, floating effortlessly to the sidelines to clear the combat area. His gaze coolly fixed on Wang Feng. "Rose Holy Temple challengers, step forward!"

"Feng, let me go first! I’ll take the first match!" Famier, shedding his former dejection, felt strong now—thanks to his improved power and perspective. At least against these opponents, he figured he could take them. Famier’s presence had also given him newfound confidence and courage.

However, Wang Feng rolled his eyes beside him. "Stand down. Wu Di, you're up first. The captain has always trusted you the most!"

Winnie rolled her eyes as well. *Same old play.* But fine—good for warm-up fights.

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