Drank It Like Water

"Well done, Mu Bai!" Zhao Kunsan burst from a corner, face alight with excitement. "God, that was terrifying. I don't think I'll ever trust another person for as long as I live."

Mo Fan let out a long, slow breath and glanced at the slimy little— oh. Mu Bai.

This time they owed a great deal to that pampered, mage-born brat. Without his obscenely expensive Slash Enchanted Gear, there was no telling how many of them would have had to die before putting down Baiyang.

"Is everyone else all right?" Xue Musheng called out.

The students scattered around the area began drifting back together, one by one. Only Zhang Xiaohou remained motionless at the railing, hollow-eyed and absent.

The battle was over. He Yu's blood had long since run dry. That vivid red pool spread across the ground like a carpet of grief, and its weight fell over everyone once more — the same sorrow, the same solemnity, settling back down like a second shroud.

"Monkey, let's go." Mo Fan walked up to Zhang Xiaohou. He had no idea what to say.

When Zhang Xiaohou saw Mo Fan, something inside him gave way completely. Tears flooded down his face.

"Brother Fan, I'm going to get stronger..." Zhang Xiaohou scrubbed furiously at his eyes, the words ripping out of him like a vow cut in blood. "I swear — I swear I'll become stronger. I have to!"

The words kept ringing long after Zhang Xiaohou spoke them, and Mo Fan stood very still.

He looked at this companion — the one who always seemed like a goofy little brother to him.

Right now he was crying like a child. And yet, beneath the searing heat of grief, something inside him had been forged hard and new.

*Only by becoming stronger can you protect the people beside you.*

They crossed the bridge. The shimmering curtain of light rose ahead of them like a city wall.

Exhaustion was carved into every face among the eight survivors, but thin, weary smiles managed to surface. They could see Mages wearing Magic Association insignia standing watch on the other side.

Three kilometers. And yet that stretch of road had felt longer than everything their seventeen years had held combined. Somehow, against all odds, they had made it.

"The main group is still about a kilometer and a half back," Xue Musheng said, glancing behind them. "I hope they get through safely."

Zhou Min, Xu Zhaoting, Wang Sanpang, Zhang Shuhua, and the others all nodded. They had fulfilled their duty as the Vanguard Squad. After what they had seen and survived, they wanted nothing more than for the main body to arrive without further loss. They had seen enough blood.

"Which of you is Mo Fan?" A man with a military emblem on his chest stepped forward and addressed the group.

"Me." Mo Fan raised his head. He was drenched in sweat, bone-tired.

"Come with me. The Commander wants to see you."

Mo Fan nodded and followed the man — a liaison from the Magic Association's military arm — toward a watchtower that had been raised entirely through Earth Element magic as a temporary structure. It was tall. They climbed a winding staircase for what felt like a long time before finally reaching the top.

At the summit was an open observation platform, exposed to the full fury of the wind, which tore through the space and stung their faces raw.

At the unrailed far edge stood a man in a teal military trench coat, hands clasped behind his back, his wild hair streaming freely in the gale. Flanking him on either side stood rows of Military Mages in identical coats, hems whipping in the wind — and yet their bodies were perfectly, completely still, planted like carved stone, radiating a quiet authority that needed no display of anger to command respect. At the center of them all, Commander Zhankong carried an even heavier gravity, an awe-inspiring presence that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the shameless, easy-going Chief Instructor Mo Fan was used to.

Of the ten Military Mages assembled on that platform — Zhankong included — every single one radiated an immense aura of power. At the bare minimum, each of them had to be an Intermediate-Level Mage.

Their eyes were fixed on the distance: the crown of the Silver Trade Building, where Bo City's true catastrophe waited — the Demon-Beast Commander, the Wing-Azure Wolf.

"Commander, Mo Fan is here." The escort gave a military salute, then quietly withdrew.

Zhankong did not turn around. A silence settled over the platform.

"I'm glad to see you alive." There was none of his usual laziness in the words — even saying *glad* came out flat and level, carrying almost nothing at all.

This was not the Chief Instructor Mo Fan knew. This was someone else entirely: austere, cold, unapproachable.

"Do you know what I most feel like doing right now?" Mo Fan asked.

"Yelling at me." Zhankong answered without pause. "Baiyang turning out to be Black Church caught all of us completely off guard. Fortunately, you had your doubts about him. It kept you alive."

Zhankong had already been briefed through his subordinates' reports. He was genuinely surprised — his own military arm had never detected a hint of Baiyang's true loyalties. Which made it all the more puzzling: what had led Mo Fan to suspect him?

"I'll grant you that much," Mo Fan said. "During the Field Expedition at the mountain cave Instructor Baiyang was assigned to guard, I noticed the spring pool at the entrance had clearly been drunk from — and by more than one creature, from the look of it. Afterward I asked Baiyang whether he kept any other Summoned Beasts. He said no."

"And on the strength of something that vague, you decided he was a problem?" Zhankong let out a short, incredulous laugh.

"The Gloom Wolf Beast going berserk for no apparent reason was another thing that didn't sit right with me. Honestly, I didn't want to believe Instructor Baiyang was a spy, and I couldn't be completely certain. I just kept my guard up — and as it turns out, he really did come for us." Mo Fan paused. "I only half-suspected him. If I'd been sure, I would've warned everyone the moment I laid eyes on him. Besides, I hadn't accounted for the Black-Beast Demons appearing at all."

Zhankong didn't press further on the traitor. He steered back to the question that actually mattered.

"What about the Earth Sacred Spring?"

"I was thirsty," Mo Fan said lightly. "So I drank it."

Zhankong nearly slipped off the edge of the platform.

The aura of commanding authority he had so carefully maintained evaporated in an instant.

He turned and stared at Mo Fan.

*Are you actually messing with me right now?* Does this kid think the Earth Sacred Spring is some bottle of water you crack open when your throat's dry? That spring is thousands of years of Bo City's accumulated heritage. Even now, worn thin by the passage of time and nowhere near what it must have been in the ancient era, it remains the most coveted cultivation treasure among Mages across the entire country — and this kid just... just *drank it*??

"This is not the time for jokes." Zhankong's expression hardened, his eyes boring into Mo Fan.