Outwitting the Church (Part One)

The night sky hung pitch-black over Magic City. Tonight, the city's brilliant lights hadn't painted the heavens with their usual amber glow.

Dense, dark clouds pressed low. A handful of skyscrapers stood head and shoulders above the rest, a few floors here and there glittering in proud isolation as they speared up into the cloud layer — their rooftops swallowed completely from view.

Tens of thousands of lights burned across the city. Buildings packed together in a dense web, roads cutting through the urban grid in every direction. As traffic crawled through the arteries of Magic City, the flickering red taillights strung together like slow-moving veins threading through the very heart of the metropolis.

On the domed rim of one great tower, a solitary figure stood. His hair was a deep blue-black, parted down the center, lying flat against sharply chiseled cheekbones. Combined with his pallid complexion, he looked less like a man and more like a specter born from the city itself.

His eyes were sunken — so deep-set that no emotion could be read in them.

A vintage Tang-style coat clothed his lean frame. More striking still: behind him grew a pair of wings like those of a black eagle.

Each feather was sharp as a blade, its grain crisp and distinct. The wings were currently folded against his back, but even at rest the roots were massive, the musculature dense with power.

A figure like this, perched at the edge of a skyscraper's dome, was something apart from the ordinary world entirely. No matter how vast the city sprawled below him, all of it could be taken in with a single glance.

"The target has been located."

"Position."

"Jiang Bei district. Coordinate Light Radiance has been Released."

The pale man's gaze dropped southward — and sure enough, above the blazing constellation of that city ward, a distinct pillar of Light Radiance was rising steadily into the sky.

"Hmph. Blue-Robed Deacon — don't think you'll escape Night Hawk's grasp this time."

He stepped off the edge. The wings behind him snapped open with a resounding *whoosh*, ink-black feathers catching the building's reflected light and shining with an almost unearthly elegance.

The wind screamed around him. He beat his wings and leveled into a flat, high-altitude glide, skimming just beneath the thick cloud cover. With a graceful tilt of his body, he slipped past one of Magic City's colossal towers — a structure so tall it seemed to split heaven from earth — and left the entire building behind in an instant. He swept over the Huangpu River like a wild goose in flight, drawing ever closer to the pulsing light ahead.

"Mo Fan, Mo Fan—" An urgent voice crackled through his Bluetooth earpiece.

"Teacher, I'm a little busy right now."

"Just listen for a moment. The Blue-Robed Deacon is preparing to flee. Our Tribunal Agent, Night Hawk, is on standby — just stall for five more minutes and that Blue-Robed Deacon won't be able to escape no matter what. Word from our surveillance is that they seem to be waiting for something." Tang Yue's voice came through clearly.

"They must be waiting for the Earth Sacred Spring to be secured." On the other end, Mo Fan pressed a finger to the corner of his mouth where blood was seeping out. "Damn it — filthy scum."

Lightning Seal's paralysis had bought Mo Fan a few moments to recover, though his situation was far from comfortable.

"Oh — Teacher Tang Yue, I wasn't cursing at you. I've got a cursed beast-demon here and it's giving me real trouble. What were you saying just now?"

Mo Fan was something else — in the middle of a life-or-death fight and still somehow finding time for phone calls.

"I see. The Blue-Robed Deacon is waiting for the Gray-Robed Priest to complete his task, so he's taking the risk of staying for the handoff. Mo Fan, our capture operation still needs five minutes to fully deploy. You have to stall them — make them gamble five more minutes for you!" Tang Yue said.

Mo Fan couldn't quite figure it out — they'd already located the target, so why couldn't they just move in right now? *Were they casting a wider net to haul everything in at once? Or was the target somewhere so crowded that engaging could endanger civilians?*

Either way, Mo Fan knew his job: buy the time. Come to think of it, Yu'ang had indeed been communicating with someone not long ago — and that someone was almost certainly the Blue-Robed Deacon.

"Priest!" Outside the massive iron cage, Fu Tianming and Jia Wenqing came running up, faces burning with fury as they reported to Yu'ang. "There was only one drop of Earth Sacred Spring inside the Shadow Demon-Beast — and even that was nearly dry. That little rat played us!"

Yu'ang's expression darkened with rage, but he forced himself to keep it in check.

Judging by the Blue-Robed Deacon's tone, the situation was critical. If there was no hope of completing the mission, they needed to pull out immediately.

But Yu'ang couldn't stand the thought of letting Mo Fan walk away.

**Slash!**

A savage claw raked the air. Inside the Beast-Taming Cage, Mo Fan was sent tumbling, rolling until he slammed into the cage's edge.

This time, the damage was clearly severe. Worse still, the impact had jostled a pendant loose from inside Mo Fan's shirt — and it could no longer contain the extraordinary aura flooding outward from it in every direction.

The sensation spread outward like an expanding ring of light. Within that ring, the air was suffused with Sacred Aura — a feeling that sharpened the mind and soothed the spirit all at once.

"The Earth Sacred Spring — the *complete* Earth Sacred Spring!!"

Yu'ang's eyes nearly burst from their sockets.

So it had been in the boy's possession all along, kept in perfect condition. That explained everything.

No wonder Mo Fan's power had skyrocketed in recent years, reaching heights that could dominate even Pearl Academy. All this time, he'd been hoarding Bo City's greatest heavenly treasure entirely for himself.

"Kill him — kill him now! Take that pendant!" Whatever remained of Yu'ang's composure shattered completely.

He'd spent ten years as a sleeper agent. Part of that time had been serving as an informant in Bo City, but the far more important purpose — the one that had kept him going through all of it — was to steal the Earth Sacred Spring. Lord Saron had made it clear: he only needed the spring to activate a ritual, and had no interest in its cultivation effects. If Yu'ang could steal it, everything would be his once the ritual concluded.

Yu'ang had dreamed of his golden future so many times — and now he had nothing but half a rotted face to show for it.

One look at the complete Earth Sacred Spring, and whatever remained of his sanity turned red.

"Deacon — it's the complete Earth Sacred Spring, right here in this boy's pendant! Lord Saron will be overjoyed when he hears!"

"Then what are you waiting for?! Take it — now!" On the other end of the line, the Blue-Robed Deacon seemed to have sensed something amiss, and was screaming at Yu'ang.

Yu'ang had no idea how dire the situation had truly become. In that moment, his entire world was the Earth Sacred Spring.

The Blue-Robed Deacon also had no choice but to wait.

Lower-ranking followers and Priests had no way of knowing Saron's location, and absolutely no means of contacting him. The only one who could ever reach Saron was the Blue-Robed Deacon. This single-chain structure — where each tier could communicate only with the tier directly adjacent to it — was precisely what had allowed the Black Church to survive and endure for so long.

As it stood, Yu'ang and his companions were already half-exposed. Without the Blue-Robed Deacon's support, the Tribunal would seal them inside Magic City before long. Even if they secured the Earth Sacred Spring, there would be no way to pass it on.

And so the Blue-Robed Deacon had no choice but to wait as well. Every Deacon-level figure in the Black Church was under the tightest surveillance — they could only rely on Gray-Robed Priests and lower followers to carry out the work on the ground. The moment the handoff was complete, a Blue-Robed Deacon had the ability to vanish without a trace, ensuring that whatever precious cargo they carried would never be intercepted by the Tribunal.