Slaughtering the Black-Beast Demons

**BOOM BOOM BOOM—!!**

A violent thunderclap ripped through the factory, the sound so sharp and piercing that anyone nearby would have clapped their hands over their ears.

Zhang Lulu was crouching outside, her face drained of color, when a bolt of lightning blazed through the factory walls.

The electric light threw everything into stark relief. Screams poured out from inside—grotesque, nauseating silhouettes flickered against the lightning's glow, too many to count.

"Zhaoting..." Zhang Lulu stood frozen, unsure what to do.

She bit her lip, then sprinted toward the factory. She couldn't leave Xu Zhaoting alone to face those strange figures and terrifying monsters.

She reached the entrance and immediately spotted four creatures crawling slowly forward. Their limbs looked horribly contorted—twisted into grotesque deformities. Their faces were more like ghost-apes than anything human, their skin an unbroken pitch black.

Further inside, a man in a gray cloak stood watching Xu Zhaoting with cold eyes, one foot planted on Xu Zhaoting's blood-soaked face. "Bastard," he snarled. "You had to go and ruin everything."

"The Priest has ordered us to take him away," Gray Four cut in urgently. "We need to evacuate now before we expose ourselves too early."

"I'll take this kid with me," Gray One snapped, his voice sharp with fury. "You lot kill the woman, clean the scene fast, and leave no trace."

They had come here to intercept their real target, and some unconnected fool had blundered in and wrecked the ambush entirely.

Time was running short—their actual target would be arriving soon. They could not let him learn in advance what they had planned for him.

Gray One blew a sharp whistle, commanding the Black-Beast Demons to drag the battered, bloodied Xu Zhaoting away alive. The remaining four turned their eyes on Zhang Lulu as she came running in.

The four men might not have been the worst of it. The true threat was the Black-Beast Demons. Zhang Lulu never could have imagined this factory would hold so many monsters and human fiends—and by the time the thought of fleeing entered her mind, it was already far too late.

**"Guk guk guk guk guk—!!"**

The Black-Beast Demons surged toward her like a pack of starving wolves that had caught the scent of fresh meat.

In her panic, Zhang Lulu fought to Control the Water Element's Star Trails, shaping the countless water droplets around her into a barrier of Water Control.

The Water Control bought her a brief reprieve against the fatal assault—but it couldn't hold against so many Black-Beast Demons tearing at it from all sides. The barrier shattered almost immediately. Claws raked across her chest, opening a long, ragged wound. Blood sprayed outward and splattered across the rusted iron window frames on both sides, painting them red.

"Should we take the woman with us for some fun?" Gray Three watched Zhang Lulu's ragged, pained cry with a gleam of lust in his eyes.

"This mission has already failed," Gray Two said flatly. "Waste any more time and wait for the Priest to deal with you himself."

The image of the man with the half-mask snapped into Gray Three's mind, and every filthy thought vanished at once.

Better to silence the woman quickly and clear the scene.

"S-save me..."

Zhang Lulu's leg bore a new wound so deep the bone was visible. She clawed her way toward the exit, fighting for every inch.

She had grown up in the safety of a school campus—nothing in her life had prepared her for this. These people had no shred of humanity. One command, and they intended to rip her apart.

Even as an Intermediate-Level Mage, she couldn't cast a single spell when attacks were coming from every direction at once.

She had no decent defensive Enchanted Gear. With the right gear, the Intermediate-Level skill Tidal Surge might have saved her life—but in her current state, there was no hope of completing the intricate Water Element Star Chart.

A long smear of blood trailed across the floor behind her. A swarm of Black-Beast Demons circled her, clearly savoring the slow torture of a living victim.

"Finish her already!" Gray Two snapped at the Black-Beast Demons. "Keep wasting my time and I'll feed every last one of you to the great demon."

The Black-Beast Demons flinched in terror—and at last, reluctantly abandoned their sport.

**"AWOOOO—!!"**

From the darkness came the howl of a wolf.

The sound rolled through the night, and with it came a billowing wave of dust rising in the distance, churning and sweeping toward the factory.

Sand Tempest—countless grains of fine sand blasted into the Black-Beast Demons like buckshot. The more cowardly ones flung themselves sideways, dodging the stinging shower.

Through the dust and haze, a powerful silhouette came barreling forward with terrifying speed.

It was three or four times the size of a Black-Beast Demon. As it charged, that vast, fang-crammed maw clamped down on one of the creatures that had tried to leap clear.

**"CRACK!!"**

The jaws snapped shut. Bone splintered. The Black-Beast Demon let out an agonized shriek—and was bitten clean in two at the waist.

The upper half toppled to the ground. It wasn't fully dead. It clawed desperately at the floor with its front limbs, trying to drag itself away from the horror bearing down on it.

The Gloom Wolf Beast raised one massive paw and brought it down on the creature's skull like crushing a watermelon. Pulp and fluid spread across the floor in an instant.

That Black-Beast Demon's end was absolute.

One moment it had been relishing the thrill of torturing the living. The next, it had experienced its own slaughter.

On the ground, Zhang Lulu—pale and bleeding heavily—lifted her head.

What she saw was a wolf of sleek, dark-blue fur, like shadows given shape. The creature stood right beside her, visibly shielding her. When she recognized the figure seated atop it, tears streamed from her eyes and mingled with the blood on her face.

She knew him. He was the one Xu Zhaoting was always talking about—Mo Fan. The demon king whose name alone could make the whole school go pale.

"You... you should run too," Zhang Lulu sobbed. "There are still so many inside."

"Is that so?" Mo Fan's gaze swept across the Black-Beast Demons and the four gray-cloaked figures, cold as a drawn blade. "However many there are—I'll kill every last one."

Mo Fan dropped down from the Gloom Wolf Beast and helped Zhang Lulu to the side.

**"AWOOOO—!!"**

The Gloom Wolf Beast could no longer contain its bloodlust. It charged the remaining four Black-Beast Demons first.

One slam, one swipe—the two smaller ones went flying, crashing into the factory's rolling shutter door with a resounding crash of metal.

The other two seized their chance and bit into the Gloom Wolf Beast's flank, tearing away fur and skin together.

The Gloom Wolf Beast didn't even flinch. It turned and seized one by the arm, then snapped its powerful neck sideways—and hurled the creature a full story into the air.

Before that Black-Beast Demon could even fall, the Gloom Wolf Beast's front paw shot out and smashed it to pieces in midair.

"Target confirmed—move in, now!!" Gray Two's eyes lit with vicious intent as he barked the order to the Black-Beast Demons massed behind him.

The other three gray-cloaked figures also issued commands to their own Black-Beast Demons. They had thought the operation was already lost—but somehow, the very target they had been waiting for had walked in of his own accord, drawn by the sound of fighting. It was better than anything they had planned.

Outside the iron gate, Mo Fan stood before the gravely wounded Zhang Lulu, his eyes sharp and still as a blade, watching the black tide of Black-Beast Demons pouring toward him.

Zhang Lulu gasped for breath. Fifteen Black-Beast Demons at minimum—just the sight of them charging made her head swim.

A Mage's greatest vulnerability, stripped of any means of protection, was being swarmed. Under a mass assault, no Mage could cast a single spell.

Despair settled into Zhang Lulu's chest.

It looked like she was going to die here after all.