Ascension Phase Gloom Wolf Beast (Part Two)
**Slash!!!!!**
The claws tore through the shield of condensed water droplets, razor tips raking across the Wind Element student's body.
A bloody gash appeared — stark, lurid, impossible to look away from — slashed across the Wind Element student's chest.
"Ahhh~~~~"
He toppled backward, blood seeping from the wound, tumbling through the grit and dust for a long, rolling stretch.
"This — how is this *possible*?!" The Water Element girl with the acne-scarred face stared in wide-eyed horror.
Her Water Control was already at the third level. So why couldn't it stop this Gloom Wolf Beast's attack?
She had fought countless battles. She could block any Demon-Beast's strike — she always could.
"You were too slow." Li Junwei's expression darkened, his voice carrying a sharp edge. "Next time something like this happens, don't wait for me to tell you before you think to protect someone."
He was right. The Water Element girl had been too slow to release her skill. The Gloom Wolf Beast's claws had already torn into the Wind Element student before the Water Control fully formed — what had appeared to be a timely shield had only blunted the creature's follow-through impact, not the initial strike.
"You beast — taste my Lightning Seal!!"
Purple lightning screamed through the air. Driven by the Lightning Element student's will, bolt after bolt of serpentine electricity hammered down in a frenzy toward the Gloom Wolf Beast's position.
The electrical light was blinding — one crackling brand of lightning after another, crashing down from every angle, seeming to box the creature in completely.
The Gloom Wolf Beast's nostrils flared. It caught the scorched smell drifting through the air.
Its hind legs drove hard into the ground, and in one fluid, impossibly graceful bound, it leapt sideways—
The next instant, where it had been standing, dozens of Lightning Seals detonated in sequence, hammering the earth into a patch of scorched black.
Tiny arcs of electricity danced across the Gloom Wolf Beast's deep blue fur, but the faint static caused it no real harm. The beast turned. Its gleaming green eyes locked onto the student who had released the Lightning Seal.
"*Grrraaawww!*"
Its head rose with regal contempt, throat thrown open like the mouth of some deep cavern — and without warning, a demonic gale surged up from its depths.
The wind poured out, sweeping through everything in its path, ripping up every grain of grit and sand from the ground until dust billowed in every direction.
"What the — is that even Sand Tempest?!" Mo Fan couldn't hold back his shock.
The first Sand Tempest Mo Fan had ever seen came like a buckshot volley — countless chips of grit and gravel flying outward — enough to riddle an ordinary person's body with wounds. Lethal in its own way.
But *this*—
The Sand Tempest his Gloom Wolf Beast had just exhaled was more than twice as wide as anything he'd witnessed before. The creature hadn't released a skill. It had spat out a small-scale sandstorm.
"Scatter — everyone scatter!" Li Junwei's face drained of color.
Sand Tempest was, in theory, something you could dodge. React fast enough, throw yourself into a roll — you might get clear, since the beast had launched it from a distance.
But a miniature sandstorm blanketing a full quarter of the Beast Cage? There was nowhere to run. Anywhere you went, you'd get shredded to ribbons.
Li Junwei's palms slammed down onto the ground without hesitation.
"Earth Wave!"
A ring of earthen ripples expanded outward from him in a circle, rushing across the floor in every direction.
The wave caught his Lightning Element and Fire Element teammates, sweeping them rapidly toward opposite walls of the Beast Cage.
"Spotty — get behind me!" Li Junwei shouted.
Having launched those two clear, he knew better than to expect the Water Element girl to produce a second Water Control in this timeframe.
She sprinted to his back. But the Sand Tempest was already upon them — the forward edge of flying grit stung their faces raw before she'd even reached his shadow.
"Vine Wall!"
His Mental Intent surged, and Li Junwei activated his personal defensive Enchanted Gear.
A flash of cyan light — and an impossible tangle of black-green vines erupted from nowhere directly in front of him. The vines laced and coiled around one another, endlessly sprouting new tendrils, weaving into a dense, interlocking wall.
The sandstorm hit. It came in waves, shrieking against the vines with a sound that set teeth on edge.
Without that dense barrier between them and the storm, their bodies would have been torn to pieces by the force of it.
"That student is impressive." Dean Xiao watched the haze-choked arena, a faint smile of approval crossing his face.
Zhou Zhenghua, the Earth Element department head, visibly brightened.
Not long ago, Luo Song had stepped up and brought considerable glory to the Earth Element department. Now it turned out the department had another one — Li Junwei, a student with genuine tactical instinct and an understanding of teamwork that put him in a different class from his peers.
A snap decision to use Earth Wave and clear two defenseless teammates — the Lightning and Fire Element students who had no means to protect or reposition themselves — pushing them to safety on opposite sides of the cage. Then activating his own Enchanted Gear to shield himself and the Water Element girl at his back.
That Gloom Wolf Beast's Sand Tempest had clearly been powerful enough to shred all four of them. And yet an Earth Element mage like Li Junwei had neutralized it.
Too many Basic-Level Earth Element mages had no idea what their role was — no sense of where they fit in a fight. Li Junwei's performance today was a masterclass for every Earth Element student still fumbling for purpose.
Earth Element could be the core of an entire team. The ability to freely manipulate ground ripples was a tether between teammates — a force that transformed a loose group of individuals into something mobile and coordinated.
"A shame they still lost," Dean Xiao added quietly.
Zhou Zhenghua blinked, his gaze snapping back to the dust-choked arena.
The sand had come fast. It settled just as fast.
Li Junwei's brilliance was undeniable. But brilliance meant nothing against something this far beyond him. Every tactical read he had made, every decisive command — all of it had been rendered hollow.
Through the last wisps of settling dust, a powerful silhouette materialized directly before Li Junwei. Dark green pupils, less than a meter away, regarded him with cold and savage stillness.
Li Junwei and Spotty looked up together. Having barely survived the Sand Tempest, they felt as though their bodies had been plunged into freezing water — and Spotty, in particular, looked on the verge of fainting from sheer shock.
"Third Burst..." Li Junwei murmured, eyes wide with something that hadn't yet settled into disbelief.
He had resisted believing this was an Ascension Phase Gloom Wolf Beast. He couldn't resist any longer.
A Gloom Wolf Beast capable of executing Third Burst was unambiguously in the Ascension Phase — a creature with one foot already crossing the threshold into Battle-General-class.
Their five-person team was more than enough to handle ordinary Demon-Beasts. But against an Ascension Phase creature, they were children — taken apart without effort, left to be hunted down at will.