Slaying the Henchmen!

"Did any of you hear something?" Song Xia suddenly stopped mid-step and turned her head.

"Heard it — but who cares about any of that!" Bai Cangfeng said, his face chalk-white.

"They don't seem to be chasing us. Let's go back and take a look." Song Xia said.

"Lady, are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Song Xia ignored the cowardly protest and turned back alone.

The truth was, she had caught the scent of a sharper, more violent Fire Element aura — and from that direction, powerful magical fluctuations were still radiating outward.

Step by step she retraced her path, and as Song Xia rounded the dark wall back to their previous position, she stopped cold. Where they had just been standing, a heap of charred corpses now lay in plain sight.

The bodies were piled on top of one another — she couldn't begin to count how many, to say nothing of the Demon-Beasts that had been reduced entirely to ash.

On one hand, Song Xia was baffled as to why Demon-Beasts with such savage, twisted faces had appeared inside the Night Sovereign's Dominion formation at all. On the other hand, she couldn't fathom who could have wiped out an entire swarm like this — they had only been gone a matter of minutes.

"This flame..." Song Xia stared at the crimson fire still guttering across the ground, and shock spread openly across her face.

She was a Fire Element Mage from a prestigious Noble Clan — she knew exactly what this fire was. These were no ordinary flames. This was Spirit Fire.

Another Fire Element Mage had just been here. A powerful one who wielded Spirit Fire.

And yet, across the entire Blue District of Pearl Academy, virtually no one possessed a Spirit Seed. So who had done this? Who was strong enough to slaughter an entire horde of Demon-Beasts in so little time?

"They're dead — the Demon-Beasts are actually dead?!"

"Could they have all somehow stumbled into Song Xia's Ground Shatter Flames after we left?" Zhuang Lifeng said.

"Not a chance. Even you aren't that dense — and these Demon-Beasts are definitely smarter than that."

"Whatever the case, something that doesn't belong to our school has entered this place. Stay alert, and if we run into anyone else, warn them." Song Xia said, her expression grave.

"Damn it, the Shadow Demon-Beast has gone off who-knows-where again." Bai Cangfeng said, fuming.

"It's fine. We can still give chase."

In the dim corridors between the dark labyrinth walls, a man in gray moved slowly, pressing himself flat against the stone.

The Shadow Demon-Beast was resting nearby. This time, Gray One wasn't about to let the creature slip away again.

He moved with deliberate caution, first directing his Black-Beast Demons to silently seal off every possible escape route.

With a wave of his hand, he commanded the Black-Beast Demons to slowly close in and encircle the Shadow Demon-Beast.

The Shadow Demon-Beast was clearly spent from the long chase — it stood heaving in ragged, labored breaths, completely unaware that no fewer than ten Black-Beast Demons had already formed a ring around it.

"There it is — there it is! Ha! Seek it far and wide, then find it without even — what the hell are those things?!" All at once, a young man's startled yell broke through from the other side of the wall.

The Shadow Demon-Beast spun around. It spotted a group of people who had appeared not far away — then swept its gaze across the surrounding walls and found them crawling with those strange black-skinned creatures, each one with green-glowing eyes and teeth bared white.

Without a second thought, the Shadow Demon-Beast bolted.

Under the Night Sovereign's Dominion, it moved at least twice as fast as normal. A single flash, and it vanished into the depths of the dark labyrinth — which path it had taken now anybody's guess.

"Damn you all — you incompetent idiots, you ruined everything!" Gray One snarled at the hapless students who had wandered in.

"Isn't that Senior Li Tong? What a coincidence! So good to see you — did you see those things that were crawling on the black wall? They were terrifying." A girl with braided pigtails smiled brightly, looking over at Gray One.

The young man who had just frightened off the Shadow Demon-Beast was still scanning the area uneasily. He had been the only one to get a clear look at the ghoul-faced creatures — even though they had vanished in an instant, he was certain of what he'd seen.

Gray One forced down his fury and immediately ordered the Black-Beast Demons into hiding. Then he put on a smile. "Ah, so it's you lot... though you did just scare off the Shadow Demon-Beast I was this close to catching."

"Senior Li Tong, why don't you join our team? We're actually one person short." The braided girl said.

Gray One considered for a moment, then gave a nod.

If he was going to catch the Shadow Demon-Beast, he genuinely needed these students' help.

The group was reasonably capable — there was even a Shadow Element student among them.

Under the Night Sovereign's Dominion, a Shadow Element Mage was practically in their element. Tracking a Shadow Demon-Beast was nearly effortless for them.

Before long, they had located the Shadow Demon-Beast again. It was visibly spent — it could barely keep moving.

"Ha, looks like the Three-Step Tower is ours this time!"

"Definitely! This Shadow Demon-Beast has no energy left to run... wait — does anyone else smell that?"

"I smell it too. What is that awful stench?"

The group pinched their noses almost simultaneously. A wave of foul odor rolled over them, thick enough to make breathing difficult. None of them could tell where it was coming from.

Gray One stood behind the four students, a cold smile on his lips, cunning gleaming in his eyes.

In a direct confrontation, he might not come out on top against all four. But from behind, in a sneak attack? Even if they were Intermediate-Level Mages, it wouldn't make the slightest difference.

Take down the Shadow Demon-Beast, and he could go collect his reward.

"Watch out!" Suddenly, a male voice rang out from beyond the dark walls.

Everyone turned. A vaguely familiar figure stepped out from the other side of the wall, moving as though he were passing through invisible doorways of darkness — the effect uncanny and deeply unsettling.

The Shadow Element student among them stared at the newcomer in sheer disbelief. The man's Shadow Fade technique was even more refined than his own. If he hadn't spoken, there was no way any of them would have detected him at all — he had achieved true unity with the darkness.

"Isn't that the big villain?!"

"It's him! You — don't come any closer, I'm warning you. The four of us are Pearl Academy's Four Prodigies, so if you think you can mess with us — oh god, would you *stop staring at me like that*?!" the jumpy student spluttered.

Mo Fan paid them no mind. The moment he stepped out of the dark, his gaze locked onto the man calling himself Li Tong and didn't waver.

"So you're Mo Fan." Li Tong recovered quickly, and in the same breath pulled back every trace of his Cursed Aura, settling into the unremarkable appearance of an ordinary student. "What — did you come here to compete with the rest of us for it?"

Mo Fan kept his cold gaze fixed on him. "You can drop the act," he said. "Take a look at your Black-Beast Demon."

Li Tong's brow furrowed. His gaze swept across the wall — and there was his strongest Black-Beast Demon, flattened against the stone surface, thrashing frantically.

It twisted and contorted, trying to break free, but from somewhere around its abdomen a barely-visible spike protruded — long and razor-thin as a blade, piercing clean through and nailing it to the wall with absolute finality. It couldn't move so much as an inch.