Slay the Wing-Azure Wolf!
"I'm not joking." Mo Fan was perfectly serious. "Do you think I could have made it here safely while carrying something that was leaking Sacred Aura in every direction? With the Earth Sacred Spring on me, I was practically a walking target — every Demon-Beast and shadowy faction in range would have come for me. But I couldn't just throw it away either, not without risking a catastrophe. As luck would have it, all the fear had left me parched, so I drank it down in one go. Not a single drop left."
As he finished speaking, Mo Fan pulled out the bottle that had held the Earth Sacred Spring and tossed it over to Zhankong.
Zhankong caught it. He peered deliberately inside, and a range of emotions crossed his face that had never been seen there before.
He — he actually *drank* it??
Someone from a military dynasty like himself — a man who held authority over national affairs — had never been this extravagant in his entire life.
Zhankong took a few steps back, just to make sure he didn't actually lose his footing and topple off the platform.
After a long moment, he finally came back to himself. "Before this disaster," he said, resigned, "someone like you would have been burned at the stake — no different from the Black Church... But all any of us ever truly wanted — me, Mu Zhuoyun, Yang Zuohe, Old Zhu, Deng Kai — was to make sure the Earth Sacred Spring didn't fall into the Black Church's hands. As for the spring itself... it was going to dry up in the years ahead anyway, not many left in it. Gone is gone. Saving Bo City is what matters."
"I had the same feeling," Mo Fan said with a grin. "So I just drank it. If the Black Church had tracked me down and torn open my corpse, the most they'd have found is a particularly foul-smelling puddle of piss."
"You little..." Zhankong laughed and shook his head.
He didn't linger on the fate of the Earth Sacred Spring. In truth, he wasn't sure he entirely believed Mo Fan's story — but a spring on the verge of running dry was more of a liability for Bo City at this point than a blessing. If Mo Fan, that crafty little rascal, had quietly kept it for himself, then so be it. Call it his reward for protecting something this critical. After all, this was a student who hadn't even graduated from high school — and he had guarded this treasure and exposed a traitor like Baiyang. Had it been anyone else, the spring would almost certainly have ended up in the Black Church's hands.
Truly drank it, or quietly pocketed it — it no longer mattered.
Now that Zhankong was certain the Earth Sacred Spring had not reached the Black Church, and equally certain that the only threat left before them was a single Commander-class Wing-Azure Wolf, it was time to cut this menace down once and for all.
*You invaded our city. However powerful you are, you will pay with your life. Wherever you flee — I, Zhankong, will take your head. A tribute to the fallen souls of Bo City.*
"Attention!" His gaze blazed like lightning as he suddenly bellowed the command.
The Intermediate-Level Military Mages standing motionless on both sides snapped into combat formation. A killing intent swept through the howling gale in an instant.
"We slay the Wing-Azure Wolf — to the death!" Zhankong roared again, his voice soaked through with killing intent.
"We slay the Wing-Azure Wolf — to the death!"
"We slay the Wing-Azure Wolf — to the death!"
"We slay—"
All nine of Zhankong's direct subordinates answered as one, their voices ringing like iron on iron. In those voices, Mo Fan heard not a single trace of fear — only duty, and the unyielding resolve of soldiers who knew exactly what they stood for.
When those iron voices faded into the wind, Commander Zhankong took one deliberate step forward. His azure military coat billowed high in the gale.
He fell. Zhankong simply stepped off the edge of the towering watchtower and dropped. Before Mo Fan could recover from his shock, a pair of off-white wings blazed into view in the far distance —
Wings of Wind!!
This was the second time Mo Fan had witnessed the Wings of Wind. The awe it struck in him had not dimmed from the first.
Against a grey, overcast sky. Above a city stained with blood. Between heaven and earth — a single silhouette, borne aloft by wild, howling wings. What a figure of proud, untamed defiance...
Before a disaster like this, every person seemed impossibly small. Every person — except for him. The man who commanded the Wings of Wind.
He dared say he would slay the Wing-Azure Wolf.
He dared say: *I will protect this city.*
**Whoosh — whoosh — whoosh —** The wind from beating wings crashed against them in waves.
After Zhankong shot forward, his nine subordinates leapt from the platform one by one. Soon Mo Fan could see nine great white eagles soaring through the grey sky, each carrying a lone rider on its back, all headed straight for the Silver Trade Building.
Those were the eagles reserved for senior officers only — the symbol of the military's finest.
As Zhankong charged ahead on his Wings of Wind and the nine eagle-riders swept overhead in formation, a thunderous cheer erupted throughout the entire Safety Barrier.
This disaster was finally going to be put to rest.
On this day of Scarlet Alert, humanity had played the roles of prey, of refugees, of the helpless, of the terrified — but none of that meant humanity was truly weak. It did not mean they were livestock, penned inside city walls.
Among humanity, there existed a kind of person called a Mage.
Their calling — when a human city came under siege from Demon-Beasts — was to fight, to wield the power that nature had granted them.
To fight with everything they had.
And slaughter every last Demon-Beast.
Beneath the shelter of the safe zone barrier stood a young man in earth-brown clothes.
He sat helplessly among the protected crowd — unremarkable, adrift.
But then he looked up. He saw the silhouette soaring above the city. He saw nine streaks of white cut across the grey sky. He saw the Military Mages throughout the Safety Barrier raise their voices in a roar — like the first drumbeat of a counterattack. His eyes were seized completely by the sight, his pupils widening, and widening.
From the moment He Yu died, all light had left his eyes. Until now — now, they felt as though they were about to catch fire.
His heart swelled with the drumbeat of the counterattack, and following those ten resolute figures flying toward the Wing-Azure Wolf, he finally found the direction that was his alone.
"If you could know — if you could know that the helpless boy you gave your life to save might one day become a Military Mage who guards an entire city, who uses his own strength to save countless girls like you — then surely you, in heaven, would smile."
The helpless boy clenched his fists. He knew where he needed to go. And even more than that, he knew what he needed to become.
Mo Fan descended from the watchtower. At the base, he came across female instructor Pan Lijun.
Pan Lijun had always worn a stern expression, but today a grief had settled between her brows that hadn't lifted for some time, leaving her worn despite her usual sharp composure.
"A patrol team member risked themselves to bring back a report," Pan Lijun was saying gravely to a man beside her who wore a headband. "There are clear signs of excavation beneath a number of caves outside the Safe Zone."
"So the reason Bo City was suddenly overrun with Demon-Beasts is most likely that there are several underground passages outside the city connecting directly to our drainage system — and the Demon-Beasts used those tunnels to bypass our defensive perimeter and enter the city directly?" the man with the headband said, his expression grim.
"Yes. The most urgent priority now is to locate those Demon-Beast entry points and seal off the underground passages completely — otherwise Bo City will face an endless stream of Demon-Beasts pouring in," the headband man said.
"The problem is, we still have no idea where those entry points actually are." Pan Lijun was equally at a loss.
The Demon-Beast attack had come too suddenly, throwing the entire city into chaos. Finding Demon-Beast tunnels hidden somewhere in the vast sprawl of Bo City was no simple task.
Their conversation triggered a sudden flash of insight in Mo Fan.
Caves, tunnels, drainage systems... Something with extraordinary burrowing ability had to be behind this.
*Giant-Eyed Ape-Rats!!!*
In his year on the Demon-Beast patrol, Mo Fan and his teammates had hunted down countless Giant-Eyed Ape-Rats prowling through Bo City.
Now, at last, he understood why Giant-Eyed Ape-Rats had been so rampant throughout Bo City for nearly the past year.
Good god — this disaster had been foreshadowed all along.