Demon Purge — Full Throttle!

"Twenty meters!"

"There's a wall ahead — no door."

"I checked the gymnasium blueprint. Unless you blow straight through it, you're looking at a two-hundred-meter detour before you can reach the other side."

"Damn it!!"

Mo Fan cursed and immediately spun around, following Lingling's directions to take the long way around.

Punching through the wall wasn't beyond him — the problem was that a single Blazing Fist would reduce the whole room to rubble. That was no different from killing everyone inside.

Two hundred meters. Running flat out, it wouldn't take long.

He reached the room — a standalone dressing room by the look of it — and kicked the locked door open with a single strike.

The door swung wide. The dressing room was brightly lit, and Mo Fan saw it in an instant: a girl in a performance costume hanging against the wall, unconscious, her wrist artery sliced open, blood streaming in a steady sheet down the surface beside her.

A greenish-yellow demoness crouched at the wall's edge, lapping greedily at the blood-soaked surface with its tongue.

There was only one word for the scene: horrifying.

Mo Fan's gaze snapped to the girl — her face had gone a deep, livid purple. Fury surged through him.

The parasitic process was more cruel than an outright kill. These vile creatures would hang their victims up, seal their throats, and drain them while they remained fully conscious.

The victim suffered not only the slow agony of blood leaving the body — they had to endure the psychological torment of watching a creature feed on them in utter ecstasy. The kind of horror that would carve lasting scars into a person's mind.

"Die."

Without a moment's hesitation, Mo Fan hurled the Rose Flame at the feasting demoness.

The creature was still reveling in its meal — completely unprepared for what was coming.

It had no time to dodge. Fire Burst: Blast connected dead-on, hurling it across the room in a violent explosion that toppled several vanity tables on impact.

"Thinking of running?"

Mo Fan gave it no room to breathe. The Lightning Seal formed in an instant.

The seal came crashing down. Already badly wounded, the demoness had no strength left to drag itself upright after being lashed by wave after wave of crackling lightning strikes.

"Fire Burst: Scorch!" Mo Fan was returning the favor, measure for measure.

This vile creature had drained the girl drop by drop. He would burn out its last breath the same way — slow, relentless, inescapable.

With the Rose Flame enhancement, Fire Burst: Scorch burned at a searing intensity. Within the rose-hued flames, Mo Fan could see the demoness's face contorting in ugly, agonized convulsions.

It writhed. It shrieked. The Scorch sustained itself for nearly half a minute before it was done — and by the end, the demoness was beyond dead.

Charred scales began to flake away. The ravaged skin cracked and peeled. Like the ones before it, death brought molting — and from within the shell emerged a young woman, her own face hollow with suffering.

Mo Fan grabbed a spare performance costume and pulled it over the slime-covered girl, then cut down the one still hanging from the wall.

Fortunately, he'd gotten into the habit of carrying medical supplies during his time with the Demon-Hunting Squad. Without them, a severed artery would have been a very different kind of problem.

He applied the medication to the wound — a hemostatic agent brewed by Healing Element Mages, expensive but worth every coin. Even arterial bleeding yielded to it.

After getting some water into the girl in the performance costume, Mo Fan noticed the faint signs of consciousness returning. A measure of relief eased across his face.

"Fan Mo — cut her thumb." Lingling's voice came through immediately.

While the girl was still drifting in and out of awareness, Mo Fan made a small cut on her thumb.

A thin line of blood appeared — and within seconds, something moved beneath the skin. He went very still.

As if sensing it had been exposed, the thing wriggled out through the cut.

Mo Fan snatched it before it could go further. The parasitic demon worm — no bigger than a small earthworm, its body dusted in tiny scales — was utterly helpless without a host. Separated from it, the thing was no different from any ordinary bug. He squeezed, and it died.

"Th… thank you…" The girl in the performance costume opened her eyes, her face gaunt with exhaustion.

"What's your element?" Mo Fan asked.

"H… Healing Element," she answered weakly.

"Can you cast?"

"After a little rest — I think so." Despite everything, there was steel in her. A faint, fragile smile surfaced on her worn-out face.

"Good. There's another girl who needs looking after too. Get yourselves to the fire safety room — I'm pretty sure there's food, water, and medical supplies there."

The Healing Element girl gave a small nod. "Are there… many more of these things?"

"Quite a few. They parasitize and spread. Cutting your thumb was what kept you from becoming one of them." Mo Fan could see she still had her wits about her, still calm. He was quietly relieved.

"Then bring everyone you rescue to the fire safety room," she said, her voice steadying. "I'll heal them."

"Deal."

Mo Fan had been quietly wrestling with the same problem — he had no way to evacuate every victim one by one. There simply wasn't time.

But with a Healing Element Mage anchored in a sealed fire safety room, it could serve as a proper refuge. Everyone he pulled out could be sent there — the supplies were already in place, and when the Hunters' Alliance and school authorities finally arrived, they could evacuate and treat everyone at once.

"Hey — can I at least know your name?" Mo Fan was already turning to leave when the pale Healing Element girl spoke up.

"Uh…"

"Don't tell me it's Lei Feng," she said, a small laugh escaping her. Even hollow-faced with exhaustion, she was strikingly beautiful.

"Let's just say my reputation isn't exactly spotless." He didn't linger — already gone.

And that was no understatement.

In the Blue District, Mo Fan's name had long since become synonymous with public enemy. He'd monopolized every resource meant for the entire first-year class, and no one had forgotten it.

Small wonder he'd hesitated when she asked.

But she hadn't pushed, and Mo Fan had no interest in playing the credited hero. The next red dot was all that mattered.

"Lingling. Positions."

"Fifty meters to your right. A hundred meters straight ahead. A hundred and thirty meters to your left-rear… They're moving en masse now — molting in clusters, all across the building!"

"What the hell — how many people got infected?!"

"Think about it. The school's residential. One infected person in a dorm room, and the whole room goes down with them."

"Lucky the break started when it did. Wait — there won't be anyone who got infected and left campus already, right? If this spreads outside, we've got a real problem."

"None have left."

"How does that work? During the day they seem completely normal," Mo Fan said.

"My guess is that after infection, the parasite exerts a form of subliminal mental control — keeps its host from leaving campus regardless of the hour. There are plenty of suitable targets here, after all."

"So that's it. They've been treating this whole campus like an all-you-can-eat buffet — and nobody even thought to warn the freshman's self-appointed top dog."

"Fan Mo — three of them seem to have caught your scent. They're converging on your position."

"This corridor's too narrow — no room to fight properly. There's an indoor basketball court ahead. I'll draw them in and take all three at once." Mo Fan was already moving, making a beeline for the court.