Night of the Sweep!

Dark clouds still smothered the sprawling city — dense enough to blot out every last star.

The city stretched vast as a giant's body, its glittering roads crisscrossing in a dense web, countless red lights flowing through the entire frame like blood pumping through an immense living form.

Even at midnight, it kept running — like a giant's heart, beating without cease.

But certain corners, certain shadowed places not easy to notice, harbored forces that had clung to this great city like parasites, tumors, and vermin. In a single night, every last one of them was swept clean.

Uprooting them might bruise flesh and strain sinew and bone. But everyone understood that leaving such dangers in place meant the next outbreak could corrupt entire muscle groups, even vital organs. For the sake of every soul that called this giant city home, when iron resolve was demanded, there could be no mercy.

Mo Fan lay sprawled on the balcony, high enough to take in a sweeping view of the city's glittering nightscape below.

He'd tried calling Teacher Tang Yue several times. Every call went straight to voicemail.

Tonight, every Tribunal member was probably in the thick of it somewhere. It was a war Mo Fan couldn't see — a war the students back on campus still arguing about Shadow Demon-Beasts couldn't see, a war the ordinary people already asleep in their beds would never know had happened. But none of that made it any less real.

"Hey — why are you just lying there like a corpse? You'd better start explaining yourself right now, or I'll... I'll..."

Ai Tutu's face suddenly popped into his field of view. Though it wasn't exactly her round, pouty face that seized his attention first. She had the nerve to be wearing nothing but a spaghetti-strap camisole, with a view that offered rather more than the eye could politely handle.

"Nothing. It's my business — better if you don't know," Mo Fan said.

He found himself acknowledging, somewhat guiltily, that he had very little conscience to speak of. One look at those things bouncing with her every step, and his mood had already drifted right back to its usual languid ease.

"That is *not* nothing! Why were Black Church people coming after you? And that cursed demon-beast — did you subdue it yourself? I heard those things are Battle-General-class. How could a student possibly beat a Battle-General-class creature? And what about Jia Wenqing and Fu Tianming — are they really Black Church? Wait... don't tell me you're a Tribunal mole planted at the school to root them out? Ha — you totally are, aren't you!" The questions came at him in a torrent.

"Quite the imagination. Go write fiction with Luanxue."

Mo Fan was utterly at a loss for words.

"One more thing — the most important question of all. Answer this one and you can skip everything else." Ai Tutu crossed her arms, dead serious.

"Go ahead," Mo Fan said.

"Which element are you?!"

It was a question Mu Nujiao, sitting quietly on the sofa nearby, had been waiting to ask as well. The moment Ai Tutu voiced it, she turned to look at Mo Fan, her clear and luminous eyes settling on him.

At the freshman assembly, Mo Fan had appeared to be a Summoning Mage — his Gloom Wolf Beast had cut through everything in its path. He'd then displayed Intermediate-level Lightning Element magic, which was unusual but not impossible. Perhaps Lightning was his primary and Summoning his secondary; an Intermediate-Level Mage could awaken two elements, after all.

But when Mu Nujiao had faced Mo Fan directly in combat, he'd shown capabilities that went beyond either element. The question had gnawed at her ever since.

And then, inside the Beast-Taming Cage, he'd left her more stunned than ever.

He'd walked straight out of a wall of flames, wreathed in crimson fire — and the power he'd unleashed was unmistakably Fire Element Intermediate-level magic.

The devastating force of Blazing Fist — Ground Crash was something Mu Nujiao could still feel in her bones.

He was a Fire Element Mage too?

But how could that be possible? He hadn't reached high-level cultivation — yet he somehow commanded three elements.

"You've both seen it for yourselves. Not sure what else there is to ask," Mo Fan said, making no effort to deny it.

Honestly, if either of these two felt like asking around among people from Old Bo City, they'd probably hear about his innate Dual Elements soon enough. Let them know — it wasn't the end of the world.

"You actually have *three* elements?!"

Mu Nujiao's composure cracked. She shot to her feet, and her striking, sculpted figure landed squarely in Mo Fan's field of view.

Ai Tutu's mouth fell open wide enough to swallow an egg whole. She stared at Mo Fan as if her mind refused to process the information.

"You absolute freak. Innate Dual Elements is supposed to be a legend — that talent isn't supposed to actually *exist*!"

"And you've still managed to cultivate every single one of them to a level beyond almost everyone else." Mu Nujiao cut straight to what mattered.

The scene in the Beast-Taming Cage had made one thing clear: Mo Fan's Fire Element surpassed his Summoning Element — and might even edge out his Lightning Element.

What made it all the more staggering was that what he wielded wasn't ordinary fire. It was Spirit Fire.

"So your strongest element isn't Summoning, and it's not Lightning — it's *Fire*?!" Ai Tutu said.

"More or less."

She looked about ready to drop to her knees.

Mu Nujiao was, at her core, a deeply competitive woman. She'd assumed the gap between herself and Mo Fan was roughly even — neck-and-neck, perhaps. But it turned out he was cultivating three elements: the formidable Lightning Element was merely his secondary, a Summoning Element capable of taking on a hundred opponents was just his auxiliary, and Fire was his primary. A hollow, deflated feeling settled over her.

"You sick freak," Ai Tutu huffed, and stormed off.

She was a gamer at heart — had always thought she was pretty good. Now she found out she couldn't even beat this guy's throwaway alt account. The injustice of it was unbearable.

That same night of the Black Church sweep, something shook all of Hangzhou.

The news covered it only in vague, unsubstantiated fragments — no hard evidence, nothing concrete — and the story quickly sank beneath the tide of more pressing headlines.

Mo Fan had caught bits of it from Xinxia over the phone. He vaguely recalled Teacher Tang Yue mentioning she'd been dealing with the situation — but what exactly had transpired in the beautiful, poetry-soaked waters of West Lake that night was knowledge likely confined to the Tribunal and the highest ranks of a few select organizations.

Not long after the Black Church incident wound down, Mo Fan paid a visit to Xinxia's school.

Xinxia and Lingling had become inseparable, playing together like a pair of sisters.

"Has anyone been making moves on Xinxia?" Mo Fan asked Lingling.

"Relax, she'll be fine. Hangzhou has a Tribunal chapter house — the Black Church wouldn't be stupid enough to come looking for trouble here." Lingling waved him off, then tilted her head. "That said, while I was keeping an eye on your little girlfriend, I noticed something you might not have caught yourself."

"What is it?" Mo Fan asked.

"Xinxia seems to already have someone protecting her," Lingling said.