Chapter 109: A Miraculous Victory

"Isn't that so? He got the two most prestigious awards from this invasion, and it's far more impressive than the 'brave fighter' ones we got!" Li Feng's eyes were gleaming.

"Well, of course he did! Wasn't the scene of him killing that three-star scarab impressive enough to be worth these two medals?" Yang Ze exclaimed. "Could you have done that?"

Li Feng smirked as he retorted, "Perhaps not, but at least I did get a 'brave fighter' award, unlike someone who was defeated by the second wave of Kez..."

"Ah, you bastard! If you keep bringing this up, I'll break off all relations with you! I told the medics I was fine, but they carted me off anyway!" Yang Ze shouted.

The moment Zhang Lie confirmed that the rest of Team Zenith was safe and sound, he turned towards the two girls from the Yun and Chu clans. "Chu Xun, Yun Meng, are your older siblings alright?"

"Yes, they only sustained light injuries!" Chu Xun replied. "And are you alright, Zhang Lie? You had such frightening injuries when they finally brought you back!"

"Yes, I'm fine now. It was just some blood loss—there's not much to worry about."

"You're amazing, Zhang Lie—how did you recover ?from such a serious injury within just a day or two?!" Yun Meng's voice was filled with wonder. "I have to report your status to our fan club!"

Yun Meng, Zhang Lie's #2 fan, aimed her wristwatch at him and snapped a picture.

"Fan club? ...what fan club?"

"A fan club for you, Captain, who else? Don't you know just how popular that recording of you slaying a three-star scarab on your own has been? There's a reason people are calling you an idol now, you know!" Zhou Ying jumped in before Yun Meng could speak up.

Zhang Lie finally understood what had happened. His fight with the scarab had occurred by the side of the teleportation array, an area of dense security. Although the Kez invasion had destroyed much of the surveillance cameras nearby, there were still a few that had made it through the invasion unscathed.

In other words, it was likely that footage of his fight had been captured in its entirety. But in most cases, wouldn't such footage be kept under guard? Who had decided to release it to the public?

"Yun Meng, is the footage publicly available?"

"Yes. Apparently, a media company got to it first, and then..."

Zhang Lie rubbed his forehead. If his sister were to see that footage, she would surely worry about him!

In fact, what Zhang Lie was worried about was occurring right then and there at the Holy Glory Academy.

The classroom was deathly silent.

On the holographic display, a hunter had suddenly appeared within the swarm of bugs and was about to challenge the three-star scarab.

The battle was so intense that just watching it was making the students' hearts palpitate.

The hunter punched a fist in triplicate to ward off the scarab's attack, then countered with a river of blood. Finally, he morphed into a draconic wolfman, fought off the scarab with a gigantic broadsword, then fell to the ground with it like a comet.

The final image was of the human warrior extricating himself from the scarab's corpse, then glancing at the swarm of bugs encircling him.

Zhang Hanxiang's face morphed from excitement and surprise into worry.

"Teacher, may I ask what happened to this hunter at the very end?" Zhang Hanxiang, who never spoke up in class, suddenly ventured a question. She hated drawing attention to herself, but there was no choice—after all, the hunter in the video was her own brother!

None of her classmates noticed her unusual behavior, because just like Zhang Hanxiang, they were extremely interested in what happened to that brave and valiant hunter.

Their teacher smiled. "This isn't part of the message I wanted to convey, but it looks as though we won't be able to continue with our lesson if I don't answer this question. Don't worry: the hunter in the recording was saved by his teammates and the gathered defense forces, and he's recuperating at the moment."

The students all heaved a sigh of relief.

"Teacher, I'm sorry, I need to take a half-day break!"

Of course, despite her teacher's reassurance, Zhang Hanxiang, as Zhang Lie's only relative, was still quite worried about him. The teacher was nonplussed by Zhang Hanxiang's curious reaction, but she agreed.

"Very well, but I expect an explanation as to why when you return, Miss Zhang."

Zhang Hanxiang nodded fervently, then hurriedly left the classroom with her guardian robot.

Many of the students were still overwhelmed by their emotions after watching the clip that their teacher had just shown them, and most were daydreaming about being as imposing and impressive a hunter as the one they had just seen on screen.

Meanwhile, their teacher emphasized the bravery, decisiveness, and fearlessness that the hunter had shown in the face of grave danger.

However, footage of the fight wasn't being used solely as educational material for civic purposes. In the St. Roland Military Academy, footage of Zhang Lie's battle was being dissected one frame at a time as part of a special seminar on battle tactics.

The instructor's conclusion was that Zhang Lie, who was a hunter in the first realm who had filled all his gene fragments to capacity, should only have had at most a 0.1% chance of winning a battle against a three-star scarab, but not only had he won, he had done so decisively with a frontal assault.

Indeed, if not for the fact that Zhang Lie's qualifications as a hunter had been publicized as an awardee of the prestigious 'dragonsoul warrior' medal, there was hardly anyone who would believe that a hunter from the first realm would have been able to defeat a three-star black-tipped scarab on his own.

A three-star black-tipped scarab would have been a difficult opponent even for hunters of the second realm, with only about equal odds of winning, and that only if they had all their gene fragments at capacity.

When these experts first saw the footage, almost all of them guessed that Zhang Lie was such a hunter from the second realm, but in truth, he was only a first-realm hunter. The difference between a first-realm and second-realm hunter was significant enough that these experts could hardly believe their eyes, and Zhang Lie's fight was eventually termed a near-impossible feat ascribed to his breaking through his limits at a critical juncture.

As this footage was disseminated to and dissected by military academies all over China, and even all over the world, Zhang Lie's name spread far and wide, and countless hotblooded youths began to idolize him.