Violent Fire Element — Blazing Fist!
"Both at the same time!!"
Mo Fan stared at the boundless Magical Energy now surging through him, and no word as simple as "excitement" could begin to describe what he felt.
Under normal circumstances, a mage needed only one Stardust to break through into a Star Nebula — in either element — to be called an Intermediate-Level Mage.
In other words, the moment either his Lightning Element Stardust or his Fire Element Stardust transformed into a Star Nebula, Mo Fan would have stepped into the realm of Intermediate-Level Mages. But this time, both Stardusts had transformed simultaneously — an outcome even he hadn't anticipated.
*Eee-eee-eee— eee-eee-eee—*
Piercing shrieks rang out at his ear, layered with the hideous screech of iron sheeting being torn apart by Black-Beast Demon claws.
Mo Fan stood directly in front of the door, his eyes — flames still smoldering in them — fixed coldly on those greedy, grotesque things.
Black-Beast Demons were the Black Church's signature creatures. They were not Summoned Beasts in any true sense, but abominations born from fusing human corpses with the death-energy of demons — something closer to the undead. These things were the living embodiment of hatred, rage, and greed. Once their lives were seized by Black Church handlers, they became tools to be wielded at will.
Beyond their love of slaughter, they harbored one overwhelming obsession: having been reduced to their own wretched half-human, half-specter forms, they yearned to drag every living person down into the same dark enslavement.
That hatred was contagious — and it made them relentless.
What chance did a thin iron door have against a hunger like that? When greed shed all need for sustenance and became nothing more than the sick pleasure of torment and slaughter, it was more terrifying than any ordinary predator.
Murky green eyes. Saliva dripping from their chins. Restless, scrabbling claws. Ravenous, guttural snarls...
Perhaps half an hour ago, even two of these creatures together would have been a nightmare for a Basic-Level Mage like Mo Fan. Their speed let them dodge Basic-Level spells; they were cunning and coordinated in battle.
But now, looking at this pack of monsters, all Mo Fan saw was a pitiful, wretched band of clowns. The eyes that had survived their transformation no longer held fear — only the cold disdain of something higher staring down at lesser creatures.
Mo Fan stood his ground and let them tear the iron door apart.
**Riiip—**
The iron door finally gave way. The foremost Black-Beast Demons shoved frantically through the gap, as if being the first to sink teeth into their prey might somehow elevate their corrupted souls.
Snarling heads crushed together and lunged through the ruined opening, their bodies still wedged in the bent wreckage of the door frame while the demons behind them shoved and screamed with impatience.
Mo Fan watched without the slightest alarm. Calmly, he drew out the Star Chart Book.
The scroll rested in his palm. As Magical Energy poured into it in a torrent, the scroll lifted from his hand and floated before him, dissolving into scattered points of starlight before his eyes.
The scroll was gone — yet the strange stellar pattern etched upon it burned itself directly into Mo Fan's pupils.
One Star Mote. Two Star Motes. Three Star Motes...
The Star Motes within his Fire Element Star Nebula stirred as if answering a summons, rushing to link themselves together with urgent eagerness.
First they formed a Star Trail — something Mo Fan knew better than anything. That was the bridge by which Basic-Level magic took shape.
But what Mo Fan was casting now was no Basic-Level spell.
The Star Trails continued to connect. A second Star Trail emerged within the magical Star Nebula...
Star Mote by Star Mote they chained into Star Trails, and Star Trail after Star Trail wove together, intertwining into a breathtaking, luminous Star Chart blazing through the Star Nebula.
A Star Chart.
The keystone of higher magic. The opening gate to Intermediate-Level spells.
All forty-nine Star Motes, called forth by the Star Chart Book, crystallized into a resplendent stellar pattern. That pattern didn't merely blaze inside Mo Fan's pupils — it blazed outward, stamped brilliantly beneath his feet.
He stood upon the Star Chart.
Tremendous energy cascaded into his body in a furious torrent; his entire being felt as though it had caught fire.
"Blazing Fist!!"
Mo Fan spat out the name of the Intermediate-Level Fire Element spell, and his blood — already burning — boiled over into a raging, incandescent fever.
He fixed the Black-Beast Demons with a contemptuous gaze, watching them scramble toward him with their deluded hope of tearing him apart. Through the flames, a feral, half-manic grin spread across the corner of his mouth.
"I'll send every last one of you to hell." He said it slowly. One word at a time.
In that instant, every burning flame raging through his body converged at his right wrist and his clenched fist.
What wreathed that fist was not merely fire. It was destruction — the kind that reduces everything it touches to cinders.
Carrying within it all of Mo Fan's fury toward those who had tried to annihilate his home of Bo City and murder everyone he loved, the Blazing Fist — straining to erupt — was hurled forward with a thunderous roar.
The inferno wrapped around his fist blasted outward like a battering ram. First it formed a massive ring of flame around the fist — then, with a violent Release, tongues of fire erupted in every direction, those flames shaping themselves into a colossal fist larger than an entire wall.
The iron door? Irrelevant.
Mo Fan wasn't aiming for the door. He was aiming for the entire wall.
Kill the nearest Black-Beast Demon rushing at him?
Mo Fan wasn't aiming for one demon. He was aiming to obliterate every single Black-Beast Demon in the entire corridor.
The tremendous fire energy roared and thundered. The whole wall simply ceased to exist — reduced to black powder under the force of the enormous fire fist.
In a world blazing crimson, the first Black-Beast Demon to make contact with the towering flaming fist met the same fate as the wall: it was visibly vaporized into char as the energy tore through it.
*Eee-eee-eee— eee-eee-eee—*
From the corridor, the Black-Beast Demons that had moments ago been scrambling toward their prey erupted into panicked shrieks. Even the shockwave of heat was enough to send them scattering in every direction; when the colossal fire fist, packed with ruin, actually crashed into them, those who hadn't managed to escape in time were incinerated at the epicenter — reduced to ash.
The temperature at the fringes of the Blazing Fist was lower — but that gave the quicker-reacting demons no hope of escape.
Their earlier eagerness had been their undoing: every one of them had crowded around the entrance, hungry to be the first to taste Mo Fan's blood. A single Blazing Fist swept them all in one stroke. With the flaming fist spanning the entire width of a wall, where was there left to run?
**BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!!**
The first wall — the control room wall — was reduced to black powder.
The far wall of the corridor was blown to rubble.
The reinforced glass outer wall facing the plaza exploded in massive sheets; the violent tide of flame the Blazing Fist had become flooded the adjacent restaurant all at once, then blasted outward through the restaurant's windows with a deafening roar.
The demons that hadn't been cremated were hurled from the corridor into the restaurant, and from the restaurant were blasted straight through the outer wall.
No more screams came. Six Black-Beast Demons, wreathed in flame, plunged from the third-floor plaza to the ground far below. A driving rain of shattered glass and burning furniture fragments scattered across everything, leaving ruin in every direction.
Heat surged through the entire floor. The whole shopping complex shuddered.
The devastation wrought by the Blazing Fist was not prolonged — yet in the span of a single breath, one wall, one corridor, and one Western-style restaurant had been reduced to nothing.
Of the ten Black-Beast Demons, four had been directly obliterated. The remaining six, even if still alive, were almost certainly in no condition to rise — scattered across the plaza, keeping company with the fire-soaked wreckage littering the ground.