Top of the Food Chain

**CRACK!!**

At last, the Pseudo-Terror Demon could no longer withstand those crushing jaws. Its entire head was pulverized between the fangs, collapsing along with the already crumbling upper floors of the building.

The Lizard-Skull Giant Demon kept drinking — sucking greedily at the liquefied remains of the Pseudo-Terror Demon's skull. Whatever that slurry was, it seemed to offer tremendous nourishment; the creature refused to waste a single drop.

Throughout the city hall, the dense tangle of vegetation — a jungle that had spread across every surface — went rigid and died all at once. The Pseudo-Terror Demon's end had been swift and absolute, like a mountain goat seized by the throat in the jaws of a great crocodile: every struggle was futile, every twitch only bleeding life away faster.

"It… it got eaten." Bai Tingting's face went sheet-white. She couldn't bring herself to believe what she had just witnessed.

Mo Fan was equally stunned. The Pseudo-Terror Demon, which had been rampaging with terrifying power mere moments ago, had become another creature's meal in the span of a heartbeat. *If that Lizard-Skull Giant Demon had set its sights on us instead... we'd have been dead before we could blink.*

Its appetite apparently satisfied, the creature spread its great wings without sparing a glance for anything else. It licked the last of the slurry from the corners of its mouth and launched itself into the sky.

**RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE——**

The moment the Lizard-Skull Giant Demon departed, the entire second level of the city hall gave way — taking the soaring upper floors down with it.

The once-towering building snapped apart at its midsection. The great spire carved a breathtaking arc across the overcast sky before it came crashing down, sending a titanic wave of dust and debris slamming into the surrounding residential buildings. Those far more fragile structures crumbled like wet paper.

The shockwave rolled outward from the far side and washed over Mo Fan and Bai Tingting. Billowing clouds of dust spread everywhere, whipped along by the wind howling through the valley.

The only comfort was that this had always been a dead city. Had it been otherwise, a collapse of this magnitude would have claimed countless innocent lives. Against a structure this enormous, a human being was nothing but an ant.

Inside the city hall, the ceiling gave way in a cascading frenzy. Enormous slabs of stone crashed down one after another, pillar after pillar thundering to the ground.

All fourteen of them sprinted desperately for the exit. Enchanted Gear barriers, Water Domains swirling in rotation, Holy Light protection, Stone Walls jutting up in jagged formations — every defense they had was thrown up around the group. Fortunately the base of the city hall was still solid, and the collapse had begun from the second level upward. Had the foundation gone down with the rest, they would have been buried alive.

They charged through without pausing. With the plant barrier gone, they moved far faster.

"The main entrance — we're almost there!"

"Go!"

"Thank heaven — we made it!!"

The Rock Golem carried the frozen Song Xia. The others rode Wind Tracks or surfed the pulse of Earth Waves beneath their feet.

The collapse was falling on the far side, but the shockwave hit them anyway, sweeping over the group like an invisible wall of force. No one looked back to see what had happened — they simply ran, pressing through the blast and bursting free of that death-trap of a building.

"We're over here!" Bai Tingting spotted the group emerging safely and cried out with relief.

"Quickly — save Song Xia. She's dying." Zheng Bingxiao ordered the Rock Golem to set Song Xia down in front of Bai Tingting without a moment's delay.

The instant Bai Tingting saw the hole torn through Song Xia's abdomen, she could only imagine what had unfolded inside that building.

"Melt the ice." She didn't hesitate — she channeled an intermediate-tier Healing Element spell without delay.

A healing sprite drifted out and dove headfirst into the wound the moment the ice fell away...

Song Xia had long since lost consciousness. Her breathing was so faint it seemed liable to stop at any second.

Bai Tingting held nothing back, pouring every last drop of her Magical Energy into regenerating Song Xia's blood supply...

Internal organ damage wasn't necessarily the fatal part — what was killing Song Xia was blood loss. She had gone utterly ashen; she might slip away in the next heartbeat.

"Damn it — whose brilliant idea was it to enter that building? Nearly got us all killed." Someone cursed, face plastered with dust and grime.

Liao Mingxuan immediately shot a look at Mo Fan, voice cutting with cold fury. "It was you, wasn't it. Wonderful. Just wonderful — send us in to die while you stay safe outside. Mo Fan, you are despicable."

Shen Mingxiao and Luo Song turned their hostility on Mo Fan as well. They had never liked him to begin with; now that there was something to pin on him, they had no intention of letting it go.

It was true that Mo Fan had been the one to suggest coming here. It was equally true that Mo Fan himself had spent the whole time outside, completely unharmed, while everyone else had walked through death's door and back. Emotions had snapped completely free of their leash.

Mo Fan wasn't one to take things lying down. He returned the shot with a cold sneer. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have simply blocked the door myself."

"You promised to stand watch outside. Why did you end up over here? You're faithless and disloyal!" Liao Mingxuan raged.

His leg had been pierced clean through, and even now the pain was making him grind his teeth. The fury coiled inside him had to go somewhere.

Bai Tingting was busy saving Song Xia's life and had no way to speak up for Mo Fan. Mo Fan had long since given up on that girl — she was hopeless — while the others' incessant haranguing grated on everyone's nerves.

"What exactly happened? The whole building just came down out of nowhere," Zhao Manyan asked, cutting through the noise.

"The creature at the top of this city's food chain saved you," Mo Fan said.

"What do you mean?" Mu Ningxue pressed.

"It was a Lizard-Skull Giant Demon. One of them dropped out of the sky and ate the Pseudo-Terror Demon alive." Bai Tingting paused to catch her breath, then launched into an explanation.

She gave a quick account of how the Lizard-Skull Giant Demon had appeared from above and killed the Pseudo-Terror Demon in an instant. Everyone who heard it was left slack-jawed, a bone-deep chill refusing to fade.

They were fortunate the Lizard-Skull Giant Demon had only been interested in the Pseudo-Terror Demon. From everything Bai Tingting described, the creature was without question Commander-class — a monster that had seemed like the embodiment of nightmare couldn't even endure a single bite from it.

"That's it. I'm going back!"

"Same. This place is insane. Has Principal Songhe lost his mind, sending us out here? Look at what we've run into — none of this is anywhere close to what we can handle right now!" Liao Mingxuan was the first to say it out loud.

Song Xia had nearly died. Several others had come within a hair's breadth of being dragged away during the push through the plant barrier. It had been terrifyingly close.

What made everyone's skin crawl even more was the knowledge that they had only survived because a Lizard-Skull Giant Demon had swallowed that monster whole and brought an entire building down in the process. Who in their right mind could find the nerve to keep surveying this city?

"It seems the Hunters' Alliance's intelligence was inaccurate. The danger level here is far higher than the reports indicated. That said, we've probably just run into a streak of terrible luck encountering such powerful creatures. If we're more careful going forward, we should still be able to complete the mission." Lu Zhenghe moved quickly to talk the group down.

Liao Mingxuan and Xu Dalong both glanced over at Lu Zhenghe with something like surprise — they hadn't expected him to be showing this much backbone today.

"I don't think the Hunters' Alliance's reports were wrong," Zhao Manyan said.

"How can they not be wrong? We've barely gone anywhere and we're already dealing with all this!"

"You saw the bodies inside the hall." Zhao Manyan paused, then went on with a grim smile. "The Hunter-mages who made it back alive to file their reports genuinely didn't encounter anything powerful. Their assessments came out mild. As for the ones who did run into dangerous Demon-Beasts..." He let the silence hang for a moment. "Every last one of them is dead. And dead men don't file reports."