Chapter 186
Mo Fan was sprinting too fast to catch whatever Lingling said at the end.
He reached the indoor basketball court, pushed open the corridor door, and heard the unmistakable sound of a ball bouncing inside.
"Well, look at that — someone's in here playing basketball. Perfect. I'll recruit them to help take down these three Greenish-Yellow Demonesses." He quickened his pace toward the center of the court.
The floor was polished so clean it could have served as a mirror. Mo Fan ran in and found a squad running a full practice match — and it looked intense.
Relief swept through him. He was just about to shout when a crash rang out from somewhere behind him — the Greenish-Yellow Demonesses had apparently bowled over the large trash cans by the entrance.
"Hey! Hey — stop the game for a second! Three Demon-Beasts are heading in. Let's take them out together." He ran to the center of the court and called out to the players.
With that said, he turned around and smiled, watching the three arrogant Greenish-Yellow Demonesses pour through the doors.
*You thought having more of you would scare me? Well, now I've got even more backup.*
The three Demonesses surged in, their triangular eyes fixed on Mo Fan standing in the middle of the court with a self-satisfied grin. They bared their teeth — but didn't charge.
"*Kya~~~~~~~~~!*"
"*Kya~~~~~~~~~!!*"
They let out strange, sharp cries toward him. Whatever they were trying to accomplish, it wasn't obvious.
Behind Mo Fan, the basketball players all stopped moving. They stared at the three Demonesses with stunned faces, plainly unable to believe that Demon-Beasts had actually materialized in a place like this.
But before any of them could react, it was as if a curse had seized them all at once. One by one, they crumpled to the floor in agony, strange sounds tearing from their lips.
"Fan Mo, didn't I mention — the indoor basketball court is *all red dots*!!" Lingling's voice drifted in at exactly the wrong moment.
*What?*
*All* red dots?
Which meant the basketball team standing right behind him—
*Oh, for the love of—!!*
Mo Fan spun around. There were no words for the expression on his face.
The female basketball players were on the ground, their bodies writhing in pain beneath the Demonesses' shrieks. Their fingernails grew longer by the second. Then, with those nails, they began tearing into their own skin.
It peeled away — and beneath it, greenish-yellow scales caught the light.
Mo Fan stood there, stupefied. The feeling was something like watching a dozen horror-movie skin-shedders strip their disguises all at once. The scene wasn't just terrifying — ice shot down his scalp.
*Every last one of them. Parasitized.*
One second he'd been staging a heroic group battle — a dozen allies against three small monsters. In the space of a breath, the board had flipped. Mo Fan, the lone white piece, was now surrounded on all sides by black.
The molting was happening fast. He had no time to cut their thumbs.
They were all women, too. He should have seen it coming: once one was parasitized, the rest were practically guaranteed to follow. He'd charged in expecting teammates — and walked straight into a mob of enemies.
*If they all rush at once, I'm torn apart.*
"Fan Mo, can you handle this?!" Lingling's voice came through.
"Not a chance."
"Then what?"
"Run first, think later!"
Mo Fan wasn't suicidal enough to stand there and wait for an entire women's basketball squad to finish molting.
Without hesitation, he activated the Blood Beast Boots. A layer of blood-red light armor wrapped around both legs.
When Mo Fan ran, he left something close to a visible streak in his wake. Fortunately, the court had a second exit — otherwise things would have gotten very ugly, very fast.
The Blood Beast Boots had just saved his life again. With the indoor court blazing with light, finding a patch of shadow would have been nearly impossible. Caught in that encirclement without the boots, not even Intermediate magic would have pulled him through — the casting time alone would have gotten him eaten alive before a single spell went off.
Mo Fan sprinted to the far exit. It looked like a players' tunnel, leading to a rest area behind the main court.
The passage was long and narrow. He'd barely entered when, behind him, the Greenish-Yellow Demonesses finished shedding. They no longer resembled basketball players at all — they looked like a pack of brutish rugby forwards stampeding forward in a dense, layered surge.
Mo Fan ran straight to the end. When he glanced back and saw every last Greenish-Yellow Demoness funneling into the tunnel after him, the corner of his mouth curled up.
*Perfect. One net. All of them.*
He turned to face them, a wild grin splitting his face, eyes locked on the greedy and not-particularly-clever mob bearing down on him.
"**Rose Flame: Blazing Fist: Heaven Shatter!!!**"
His body ignited. Rose-crimson fire blazed across his skin, turning him into a figure of living flame as waves of scorching heat rolled off him in every direction.
He roared. Every ounce of Blazing Fist power he could muster condensed to a single point at the base of his right wrist.
"One — two — three — four — five — *all of you, die!*"
He hurled the fist.
**BOOM.**
The dimly-lit tunnel was flooded with rose fire in an instant. A colossal fist of flame thundered the full length of the passage — the walls themselves seemed about to crack open along the seams.
The two Demonesses at the front were swallowed whole. Shrieks tore from their throats. They had nowhere to dodge and no room to run.
Mo Fan had reined in the power slightly — any more and those two would have been reduced to black ash on the spot.
The fire-fist punched through everything in its path. All five Greenish-Yellow Demonesses who had chased him into the tunnel were scorched black and hurled hard against the far end.
The entire indoor arena blazed with light. Tempered glass panels cracked in several places, and the thunderous roar echoed and rolled through the vast space.
"That was incredible!!" Lingling's voice came through, clear and bright.
"What did you say!!" Mo Fan's ears were still ringing. He hadn't caught a word.
That one Blazing Fist had put down five Greenish-Yellow Demonesses outright. Its destructive force was genuinely among the top tier of Intermediate magic.
There were also two more who hadn't made it into the tunnel in time — but the Blazing Fist's power hadn't stayed contained. The shockwave burst through the tunnel mouth in a massive wave of fiery pressure and caught both of them in the blast, leaving them half-crippled where they stood.
"What I said was," Lingling raised her voice to cut through the ringing, "these Greenish-Yellow Demonesses seem a lot weaker — in strength and in intelligence — compared to the two we dealt with at Masterpiece Private Garden. Especially the female host's molted form. Fast, and genuinely cunning."
"These are probably Servant-class at most," Mo Fan said. "But if there had been even more of them, I'd have been in serious trouble. What just happened in that gym was genuinely dangerous."