Chapter 161: Defeating Ilio.

The vast training field rang with the clash of wooden swords as five young Fairies surrounded and attacked a single adult Elf with black hair.

“Dicio, attack from the left! Angel, take the right! Budno, get behind him!”

Gripping his wooden sword, Shu Li issued orders to his companions.

“Kumandi, you take above! I’ll handle the front!”

Front, back, left, right, and overhead—a full assault from every direction. Shu Li refused to believe they still couldn’t defeat Ilio.

After three years of study, he had finally advanced from Senior Mage to Intermediate Archmage, far surpassing the requirements the Elven King had set for him.

And yet, he still couldn’t leave to gain experience on the continent, because there was one important goal he had yet to achieve.

They had to defeat Ilio as a team.

Ilio truly deserved his title as the strongest Elf in the Elven Kingdom. As if his formidable magic weren’t enough, his physical combat ability was exceptional as well. He was a perfectly well-rounded warrior without a single weakness. They had trained for three years and still hadn’t managed to beat him.

At first, Shu Li and his three companions had fought alone. Later, when Kumandi learned they intended to leave early to gain experience on the continent, he asked the Elven King for permission to join them.

The Elven King granted his request.

And so, the five young Fairies formed a team and united against Ilio.

Unfortunately, Ilio was virtually invincible. Even against five opponents, he handled them with ease. His sword moved like lightning, equally effective in attack and defense, and he never once seemed strained.

Each of the five Fairies attacked from a different direction, their wooden swords shifting through countless variations, but none could break through the Elf’s defenses.

“Is that all you’re capable of?” Ilio took two steps and launched into his favorite form of attack: mockery. “The five of you can’t even handle me, and you think you’re ready to travel the continent?”

“Human experts and warriors of other races won’t be as gentle as I am. They certainly won’t hold back against you.”

“Budno, did you skip lunch? Should I feed you a piece of fruit so you can put some strength into your attacks?”

Singled out, Budno flushed scarlet and answered through gritted teeth, “No. Thanks!”

He had eaten lunch only an hour ago. His stomach was still full, and he wasn’t remotely hungry. It wasn’t that he lacked strength. Ilio’s back simply seemed to have eyes. No matter where Budno attacked from, his strike was blocked.

“Dicio, your sword is as straightforward as your personality. Have you never heard of adapting? You keep attacking the same spot. Do you think I’m a training dummy?” Ilio switched targets.

Dicio flew into a rage and attacked even harder.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to change targets. Ilio simply kept revealing an opening in the same place so skillfully that it provoked his stubborn streak. Dicio refused to believe the opening was false and kept attacking it, only to accomplish nothing.

“How many times have I told you? Acting on impulse only guarantees defeat. The thing on your neck is a head, not a decoration.” Ilio blocked his attack yet again, then thrust his sword in return, forcing Dicio several steps backward.

Withdrawing his sword, Ilio flicked it toward the right and intercepted Angel’s wooden blade.

His attack thwarted, Angel flashed his white teeth and gave Ilio a cheeky grin.

Ilio arched an eyebrow. “Before you try deceiving an enemy with a feint, learn to deceive yourself. Otherwise, your clever trick will only backfire.”

“Got it.” Angel humbly accepted the lesson, then immediately thrust his sword again.

Ilio countered with crisp efficiency while maintaining an airtight defense against attacks from every other direction.

“Kumandi, you have excellent jumping ability, a fast sword, and agile footwork. Unfortunately, your teammates are holding you back, so you can’t fight at full strength. Frustrating, isn’t it?”

“Not particularly.” Kumandi remained utterly composed. Weaving between his teammates, he focused on attacking Ilio’s head with his wooden sword. Even though every strike was deftly avoided, he never became discouraged.

Ilio’s taunts were useless against him. No matter how many faults Ilio pointed out, Kumandi remained calm and unhurried, relying on sheer persistence.

Shu Li saw that Ilio had already mocked every one of his teammates. He was bound to be next. Rather than wait for Ilio to open his mouth, Shu Li decided to strike first and shouted, “Scatter!”

The young Fairies immediately obeyed, breaking formation and retreating.

With all the wooden swords attacking him withdrawn, Ilio stopped defending and stood at ease. Smiling, he asked, “What’s this? Giving up already? We’ve barely begun.”

“Of course not!” Shu Li exchanged several meaningful glances with his companions, raised his sword, and became the first to attack Ilio again.

Ilio leisurely blocked his blade and taunted, “Too slow. You’re making me want to take a nap.”

The instant he finished speaking, Kumandi joined the fight and attacked from the front as well, moving without the slightest hesitation.

Then Dicio, Angel, and Budno circled behind Ilio and struck with all three swords at once.

Ilio was immediately caught between attacks from the front and rear.

The young Fairies abandoned every other direction and concentrated solely on those two fronts. To defend himself, Ilio had to keep turning back and forth.

“Now this is a little more interesting.” The corner of his mouth curled upward. It was as though his entire body had grown eyes.

Clack, clack, clack!

He accurately blocked every wooden sword thrust at him without missing a single one.

However, while his defense remained flawless, his offense suffered. The frequency of his attacks dropped sharply.

Shu Li had achieved his objective.

As long as they suppressed Ilio’s attacks, they had a chance to win.

How could Ilio possibly fail to understand what the young Fairies were planning?

If they could suppress him that easily, he would hardly deserve to be called the strongest Elven warrior in the Elven Kingdom.

If these five young Fairies wanted to defeat him with swordsmanship, they needed at least another five hundred years of training.

“Budno!” Shu Li shouted.

Understanding at once, Budno abruptly threw himself to the ground and rolled twice, closing the distance between himself and Ilio. Without hesitation, he thrust his wooden sword toward Ilio’s ankle.

Attack low and disrupt his rhythm.

To evade Budno’s sword, Ilio had no choice but to widen his range of movement.

Shu Li’s eyes lit up.

It worked.

He exchanged a knowing glance with Kumandi, and the two split up to circle around Ilio’s left and right, obstructing his movement in either direction. Meanwhile, Budno kept his body low and focused entirely on Ilio’s lower half. Every so often, he rolled, lunged, or crawled across the ground, fighting without any recognizable technique or regard for honor.

Dicio and Angel exchanged cunning smiles, turned their wooden swords, and aimed directly at Ilio’s backside.

Ilio was genuinely amused by the shamelessness of these Little Fairies.

To defeat him, they truly would stop at nothing. They were even resorting to dirty tricks.

As far as Shu Li was concerned, swordsmanly dignity and honor could go to hell. When someone found himself in a desperate situation, survival came first. If he lost his life, what use were dignity and honor?

No matter what, they were going to defeat Ilio today.

The terms were simple: if any Fairy’s wooden sword touched any part of Ilio’s body, they won.

Originally, Ilio had barely needed to move from his position to deal with them effortlessly. Now, the Little Fairies forced him to keep moving, his limbs sweeping through wider motions. Inevitably, the bundle of black hair tied behind him began to swing.

“Got you!” Shu Li shouted.

Aiming his wooden sword at the back of Ilio’s head, he hooked and twisted. A foot-long section of black hair wrapped around the wooden blade.

Pain instantly shot through Ilio’s scalp.

“Wow, I won!” Shu Li cried excitedly.

The other Fairies immediately withdrew their swords and retreated.

Ilio touched the back of his head. His blue eyes narrowed as he stared at Shu Li.

Unafraid of his imposing presence, Shu Li grinned. “Hair is part of your body too, isn’t it?”

Ilio untangled his hair and handed the wooden sword back to the blond young Fairy.

“Cutting off an enemy’s hair won’t kill him.”

Shu Li accepted the sword and blinked with feigned innocence. “But this is a sparring match, and we agreed beforehand that we’d win if we struck any part of your body.”

“That’s right!” Angel moved to Shu Li’s side, smiling brilliantly. “So, Ilio, a bet is a bet. You have to accept your loss!”

Dicio and Budno firmly supported their leader, raising their swords and chanting, “Accept your loss!”

Kumandi silently walked over to Ilio, bent down, and picked up a long, slender black hair lying near his feet.

“If Sperien’s sword energy had been a little sharper, it wouldn’t have been your hair that was severed. It would have been your neck.”

In other words, severing his hair was equivalent to taking his head. They had won this round.

Ilio looked at the black hair between Kumandi’s fingers and burst into hearty laughter. After a long while, he finally stopped and surveyed the five young Fairies.

“All right,” he said lazily. “I lost. You won.”

“Wow! Really?” Budno threw his arms around Shu Li and cheered. “Sperien! We won! We actually won!”

Dicio and Angel rushed over as well, squeezing their companions in a fierce embrace.

Three years!

Three whole years!

Ilio had put them through hell. Every match had ended in a crushing and humiliating defeat.

Today, they had finally redeemed themselves!

“Waaaah! We won! We finally won!”

“We can finally go have fun on the continent! Hahaha—all the delicacies of every kingdom, here I come!”

“Idiot, you glutton! We’re going there to train, not to play!”

“Hehehe!”

The four eighteen-year-old Fairies hugged one another, nearly beside themselves with excitement. At twenty-eight, Kumandi was far steadier than they were. He stood quietly to one side and watched them shout and jump around.

Ilio folded his arms and asked Kumandi with a smile, “All right, tell me. Whose idea was this?”

Budno was lazy, while Dicio was impatient. They could both be ruled out completely.

Angel was meticulous and full of devious ideas, while Sperien excelled at adapting to the situation and approaching problems from unconventional angles. The two of them were the most likely to have devised the plan together.

As for Kumandi, he had been frighteningly composed even as a child. He kept every thought hidden inside, making him impossible to read.

Kumandi met Ilio’s intrigued gaze and remained silent.

Shu Li’s sharp ears caught Ilio’s question. He broke free from his companions’ embrace, ran over to Kumandi, and draped an arm around his shoulders.

“Guess,” he told Ilio, grinning from ear to ear.

Ilio’s hand was beginning to itch.

As the Little Fairies grew older, each of them became more cunning. It was no longer easy to grab and ruffle them the way he had when they were cubs.

“Guess! Go on, guess!” The other three Little Fairies finished celebrating and crowded around Ilio, laughing and pulling faces at him.

Ilio’s eyebrows twitched as he watched the three young Fairies bounce around.

Fairy cubs really were easier to cuddle. They were innocent, adorable, and easy to fool. Once they reached their teens and entered adolescence, they became bundles of inexhaustible energy. Their individual personalities gradually emerged, and they grew far too lively.

His sharp gaze swept across the group before his slender finger pointed at Kumandi.

“It was your idea.”

Kumandi’s eyes flickered. Budno and Dicio stopped jumping around and asked in astonishment, “How did you guess?”

Angel pressed a hand to his forehead, thoroughly defeated by his two companions’ inability to keep their composure.

Shu Li sighed. “To be precise, Kumandi made the initial suggestion. Then all of us worked out the strategy together, ran countless calculations and simulations, and practiced for two months. Today, we finally succeeded.”

They had worked hard for three years and still couldn’t defeat Ilio. With their opportunity to train on the continent growing increasingly remote, they refused to accept it. Two months ago, they decided to change their strategy and approach the problem from another angle.

Ilio had said they would win as long as they struck any part of his body. Did his hair count as part of his body?

If it did, could they exploit that?

Ilio’s black hair reached his waist. During battle, he tied it into a single bundle that hung down his back. When they surrounded him, he usually fought while barely moving from the same spot, so his hair remained pressed against his back without stirring.

However, if they forced him to make wider movements, they might have a chance to make his hair swing free.

Kumandi lived up to his reputation as the team’s top student. He assigned each companion a role based on their individual strengths, drew simulation diagrams, compared the data, and calculated which plan had the highest probability of success.

They ultimately concluded that Budno should stay close to the ground and attack Ilio’s lower body.

Why choose Budno?

Because as someone who loved sleeping late, his greatest talent was rolling around in bed.

Rolling around in bed and rolling across the ground were much the same. With some training and a little extra technique, he could attack while hugging the ground.

Budno lived up to their expectations. He could roll across the ground with remarkable speed and agility, making him the perfect choice to attack Ilio’s lower body and throw off his balance.

Angel and Dicio would focus on Ilio’s backside, confusing him with tactics that bordered on outright cheating. Meanwhile, Shu Li and Kumandi would flank him from the left and right, giving them two chances to seize the opportunity, entangle his hair, and secure their final victory.

The strategy sounded simple, but executing it was extremely difficult. All five Fairies had to practice together constantly until they developed flawless coordination.

To gain more practical combat experience, they had even shamelessly asked the stern Daigmon to serve as their sparring partner.

Although Daigmon wasn’t as strong as Ilio, he was still more than capable of handling five Little Fairies at once.

After two months of grueling practice, their calculated probability of success reached ninety-five percent. Only then did they decide to risk trying it today.

A strategy based on trickery like this could only be used once. They had to succeed. If they failed, all their previous efforts would be wasted, and they would have to start over from the beginning.

Fortunately, they had won.

Shu Li animatedly confessed every detail of their plot and tactics, leaving Ilio astonished.

Never in his wildest dreams had he expected that rigid, humorless Daigmon to agree to become the Fairies’ sparring partner. Even more baffling was the fact that Daigmon hadn’t breathed a word of it and had kept Ilio completely in the dark.

“Does this mean we’re qualified to leave and gain experience now?” Shu Li asked expectantly.

The other young Fairies fell silent and gazed at the black-haired Elf with shining eyes.

The corner of Ilio’s mouth lifted. He reached out and ruffled Shu Li’s hair.

“Once the Midsummer Festival is over, you can all get lost!”

“Yeah!”

The Little Fairies erupted into cheers, jumping around the training field. Dicio was so delighted that he performed ten somersaults in a row.

Sayah entered through the gate. Seeing the lively training field, she asked in surprise, “Why are you still here? Isral is about to be born. Everyone is already waiting at the Mother Tree. You’re the only ones missing.”

The moment Shu Li heard her, he hurriedly dashed outside.

He had been so focused on defeating Ilio lately that he had neglected Number Three. He had even forgotten that today was the day of his birth.

Isral was the name the Elven King had chosen for him in advance. It meant Child of God, revealing just how much hope he placed in the newborn Elf cub.

The other young Fairies ran after Shu Li. Deciding that running wasn’t fast enough, they revealed their wings and took to the air.

Ilio clicked his tongue, straightened his robes, and leisurely walked toward the exit.

Sayah glanced at him and covered a smile.

Ilio raised an eyebrow. “What are you laughing at?”

Sayah shrugged. “I was merely thinking that you’re no longer the youngest Elf.”

Ilio stroked his smooth chin. “True.”

From this day forward, the Mother Tree would give birth to more and more Elf cubs. At long last, the white Elves would continue into a new generation.

When Shu Li and the other young Fairies flew into the Elven courtyard, they stared in stunned disbelief.

Every Elf had come, packing the courtyard so tightly that there was no way through. Unable to squeeze inside, the Fairies had all shrunk to their smaller forms. Tens of thousands hovered densely in midair, while many others perched on the Mother Tree’s branches. The sight made Shu Li’s fear of tightly packed clusters flare up.

Swallowing, he and his companions circled overhead, hesitating over whether to shrink and join the rest of their clan.

“Sperien.”

A gentle voice reached Shu Li’s ears. He immediately looked down at the Elven King standing before the Mother Tree’s trunk.

No Elf or Fairy dared crowd around the Elven King, leaving an open circle around him. Without hesitation, Shu Li folded his wings and landed beside him.