You Think Ordinary Fire Can Hurt Me?
"Coo-coo-coo-coo~"
The Curse Beast Demon felt its master's frenzied rage and hurled itself at Mo Fan with every ounce of its strength.
Its speed was extraordinary — in under a second it had closed to within fifty meters, and the remaining distance might as well have already been crossed.
Mo Fan watched it come without flinching, not even bothering to dodge. The corner of his mouth curved upward. *Let's see how you keep running wild after this.*
His fingers twitched, and a slender thread of invisible shadow silk coiled around his fingertips — as though drawing something toward him.
What Mo Fan was guiding with those fingers were the Giant Shadow Nails. The nails that had sunk into the spatial plane weren't gone — they were waiting for his command, and waiting for the moment the Curse Beast Demon's shadow came within reach.
The Giant Shadow Nails materialized without a sound. Empowered by the Night Sovereign's Dominion, they didn't merely manifest as a single spike — they fractured into a full six.
The first nail drove straight into the Curse Beast Demon's leg.
The creature was in full sprint. The moment its left leg was skewered, that limb jerked to a violent halt — as if it had been severed completely from the rest of its body.
A second shadow nail appeared without warning, punching clean through the top of the demon's skull.
More nails followed in rapid succession: one through its abdomen, one through its right leg, one each through both wrists.
In the past, Mo Fan's Giant Shadow Nails had mostly served to pin a target in place, leaving the rest of its body at least partially mobile. But these six nails, amplified by the Night Sovereign's Dominion, each drove home into a different part of the target's body — turning the Curse Beast Demon into something far beyond merely immobilized. It had become a living specimen, pinned for display.
"Coo-coo—!"
Not a full second had passed before the Curse Beast Demon released an agonized shriek.
As the shadow energy slowly coiled inward around the demon's body, a surge of dark aura began boring through every pierced point — its head, its legs, its claws, its abdomen — drilling deeper and deeper inside.
But these nails weren't piercing flesh. They were piercing the soul.
Dark power was inherently twisted and sinister. Normally, Mo Fan's Giant Shadow Nails could only immobilize a target and suppress the mind. The Night Sovereign's Dominion Array had granted them soul-piercing capability. The very essence of Curse Beast Demons lay in their cursed souls — and now six shadow nails drove through body and soul alike, leaving the creature in torment beyond endurance.
Pinned like a mounted specimen and racked with soul-deep agony, the Curse Beast Demon had been stripped of virtually all combat capability.
With the biggest threat neutralized, Mo Fan's gaze snapped immediately to the two human traitors: Jia Wenqing and Fu Tianming.
"Don't get smug — taste my Wind Element magic!" Fu Tianming bellowed.
The spell he unleashed was Wind Disk—Dragon Cyclone. An enormous coiling torrent of wind shrieked straight toward Mo Fan through the massive iron cage, wild and unconstrained, leaving him nowhere to run.
Wind like blades — the pain arrived before the wind itself did.
Even so, Wind Element was the type of magic least effective against Shadow Element.
Mo Fan simply stepped into a nearby patch of shadow and glided through it — no matter how powerful Wind Disk might be, it couldn't touch a hair on him.
Jia Wenqing, on the other hand, was already ablaze. A massive, rolling concentration of flame energy was gathering at his right wrist.
He was preparing the Blazing Fist.
The enormous fiery fist came crashing down toward the shadow where Mo Fan had taken cover. Wind couldn't touch him there — but fire, if it landed, would reduce him to ash in an instant.
**BOOM—!**
Blazing Fist—Heavenstrike struck with savage, domineering force. The fist detonated against the iron bars like a burning meteorite smashing through everything in its path, blasting a massive black crater into the ground.
Crimson flames raged across the scorched site. Jia Wenqing was confident — Mo Fan had already used Shadow Fade once; there was no way he could use it again so soon. And with fire blazing this brilliantly, there were no shadows left for him to escape into.
The impact was powerful and thunderous enough to draw the attention of students still wandering outside.
As it happened, Mu Nujiao and Ai Tutu had been on the steps just outside the building. They'd felt the gale-force wind first, recognized it as a fight, and rushed inside.
They hadn't expected to walk straight into the sight of Jia Wenqing's Blazing Fist hammering down toward the shadows where Mo Fan was hiding.
"Jia Wenqing, what are you doing?!" Ai Tutu screamed.
He had shown not the slightest mercy. With the power of Blazing Fist, anyone caught without a defensive skill or defensive Enchanted Gear would be reduced to cinders on the spot.
Mu Nujiao was more level-headed. Her gaze swept the surroundings — now that the haze had cleared, she could see everything that had happened here.
When she noticed a grotesque creature pinned there like a mounted specimen, a chill shot through her. She quickly grabbed Ai Tutu, who was already moving to charge forward.
"Sister Mu, let go of me — I need to check if the demon's dead," Ai Tutu said miserably.
"Don't do anything rash." Mu Nujiao's voice was sharp.
Yu'ang had noticed the two women, but he had no time for them now. While the other students hadn't all converged yet, he needed to grab the Earth Sacred Spring and get out.
"Both of you, get back — they're Black Church!"
Just as Mu Nujiao and Ai Tutu stood there bewildered, a human silhouette wrapped entirely in flames slowly walked out from the heart of the inferno.
Crimson fire had scorched everything in the area — the iron bars themselves had been burned red. But the flames clinging to the figure who emerged burned a different color entirely: deep, warm rose. He stepped out from the blaze looking like a terrifying man consumed by living fire — yet those rose-colored flames were radiating from his own body.
They were protecting him.
"You're alive, you demon!" Ai Tutu cried out.
Mu Nujiao stared at Mo Fan too, shock written plainly across her fair, flawless face.
Mo Fan stood wreathed in Spirit Fire, the rose-colored blaze burning in sharp contrast to the orange flames all around. In the heart of the inferno he looked like a phoenix reborn — striking and untamed.
But how did he have fire?
"You think ordinary fire can hurt me?" Mo Fan said coldly. The Rose Flame's aura surged from him in an instant, and his entire bearing shifted as the blaze roared around him.
Ordinary fire was ordinary fire. What could it possibly do against Spirit Fire — something infinitely more exalted?
As Mo Fan's Rose Flame blazed to its fullest, every last trace of orange fire bowed before it like soldiers dropping to their knees before their sovereign.
The Rose Flame's presence swelled further, consuming every spark of Jia Wenqing's ordinary fire in moments. Every tongue of scorching flame converted into the rose-crimson that answered to Mo Fan alone.
Crimson as an ocean, Mo Fan stood at its center, his black eyes burning with an intensity they had never held before.
"Let me show you what true fire looks like." His voice was low and commanding — and utterly contemptuous.