Burning One's Boats

The season brought little but lingering drizzle. Mist floated high above the unbroken mountain ranges, fine rain falling without pause, leaving everything wet and muddy. The valley rivers ran swollen and swift, their distant roar carrying far across the land.

A gray sky stretching to every horizon. Gray mountains rolling on without end. Between them, a curtain of rain that never stopped falling.

Through the cold downpour, snow-white wings appeared without warning — beating steadily, maintaining a careful distance from the rivers below, drifting westward at a calm, unhurried pace.

The snow-white creatures were Celestial Eagles — a special trained breed closely associated with the military, serving almost exclusively as mounts and rarely deployed directly in battle.

Celestial Eagles were among the few creatures that could be tamed through Mind Element magic. Over the long centuries of humanity's war against Demon-Beasts, only this one special breed had ever been found willing to attach itself to human companions — yet unwilling to fight on humanity's behalf.

More and more white shapes appeared, arraying themselves in perfect formation, carrying the cold and precise bearing that was the hallmark of Military Mages.

"Remember — from this moment on, none of you are soldiers. Whatever happens has nothing to do with the North China Military Command." On the back of a Celestial Eagle, a man in a sharp military coat spoke.

He wore a thin mustache and held an antique pipe, drawing a puff with each sentence he uttered — as naturally as drawing breath.

Smoking a pipe was a rare habit in this age, but Lu Nian had long since made it his own. A Commander-class dark creature had once torn a gaping wound across his back, and it had never fully stopped aching. No matter how many skilled Healing Element mages he sought out, none of them could fix it. Only this particular tobacco could numb the nerves enough to offer him some relief.

"Commander Lu, Jinlin Abandoned City is roughly three hundred kilometers ahead. There's a colony of Drillblood Eagles nesting in the surrounding area — do we push straight through?" The staff officer was a female Military Mage whose brows were so thick and close-set they nearly fused into a single line. She was not a particularly attractive woman.

"No need for that," Lu Nian said. "Once we reach their territory, we go on foot."

"Understood!"

"This mission — failure is not an option."

"Yes, sir!"

On the south side of the Imperial Capital Academy stood a charmingly refined bamboo pavilion. Dean Songhe, who favored chrysanthemum tea above all things, sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion like some aged Japanese master, eyes half-closed as he savored the fragrant warmth rising from his teapot.

**Bang!!**

Without warning, the door was flung open with tremendous force. The bamboo frame rattled and shuddered as though it might fly apart.

"Who's there? Have you no manners?" Dean Songhe frowned.

"Me, old man."

"Zhankong?" Songhe raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised to see the figure in his doorway — a man who had once been young, and now looked distinctly less so.

As he studied him, Songhe noticed five vivid scars running below Zhankong's collar, across his neck and chest. They were clearly only the surface of something far worse; who knew how deep or far they ran.

"Those wounds — an inch higher on your neck and you'd have been done for." Dean Songhe's voice carried a quiet note of sorrow.

"Didn't die, so it's fine. These scars just had to go and ruin a perfectly good physique." Zhankong forced a light laugh.

"Wing-Azure Wolf, I'd wager. Those claws are razor-sharp, and they carry a blood-corruption effect on top of that. Injuries like these will take long, careful treatment before they're truly healed." Dean Songhe said.

"That Wing-Azure Wolf — I will kill it with my own hands before I die." Zhankong's expression hardened. "But I didn't come here to talk about that."

"Oh? Your Southern Military Command is also interested in the boy with Dual Elements?" Songhe guessed at once, a faint smile on his lips.

"Interested — he's my sworn little brother. Back in Bo City, I was the one looking out for him. I've been worried about something ever since his Dual Elements talent went public..." Zhankong said.

"Relax. Old Xiao and Qiu Yuhua are both firmly against it. Lu Nian came all this way in person and still left empty-handed." Dean Songhe said.

"That's exactly why I'm here. Two days ago I received word from an old contact in the Northern Military Command — several of Lu Nian's officers were suddenly discharged from service, and Lu Nian himself looks ready to hand in his own commission." Zhankong said.

"Commander Lu has been behaving somewhat unusually of late. Perhaps he's hit a ceiling in the military world and is simply looking for a different path." Dean Songhe mused.

"Are you going senile? When Lu Nian does something like this, it means he's very likely planning to go completely off the rails — no orders, no restraints, nothing!" Zhankong snapped.

Dean Songhe stiffened. Something shifted behind his eyes, and then a cold realization hit him.

"Surely not..." he murmured.

"What do you mean, 'surely not'? Tell me right now where that boy is." Zhankong demanded.

"He's with a Field Expedition team." Dean Songhe said.

"Does Lu Nian know?"

"He does." Dean Songhe said.

"..." Zhankong went silent for a moment. Then the words came in a rush: "Your brain has completely rusted over! Lu Yifang's people are fanatics who stop at nothing — didn't it cross your mind that Lu Nian might just throw everything at this? Those officers he's just purged from service — that's so that even if they commit serious crimes, the Xuanwu Military Command won't be dragged down with them!"

"I didn't think — I never imagined they'd go this far. There's no time to waste — someone has to get to Jinlin Abandoned City right now. We can't let him do what I think he's planning." Dean Songhe said, suddenly agitated.

"You're all old bones — spare yourself the trouble. I'll go personally." Zhankong said.

"The hunter Yaoman is in the Imperial Capital dealing with that matter. Let me send him with you — he has Wing Enchanted Gear, he moves fast." Dean Songhe said.

"Fine!"

Deep in Jinlin Abandoned City, amid a thick tangle of climbing vines, Mo Fan sat perched atop a lone standing column in a black shirt, chewing a strip of dried meat and watching Swift Star Wolf go to work on a Three-Eyed Demon Wolf.

It was a rare find — a familiar breed, turning up here in this abandoned city. Somewhat unlucky, too: this breed could sense the sound waves emitted by detection devices.

The Three-Eyed Demon Wolf was colossal. As it lumbered down the old streets, its head alone cleared the rooftops. Mo Fan still remembered the first time he and his classmates had stumbled across one of these massive creatures while sneaking through a residential block — how they'd gone utterly still, not daring to breathe, praying with everything they had that it hadn't noticed them. That bone-deep helplessness had been seared into him.

And yet here he was again, facing a Three-Eyed Demon Wolf, and something had completely changed. He hadn't even needed to step in. He simply let Swift Star Wolf handle it.

Both were wolves — but Swift Star Wolf had not one ounce of respect for this mountain of muscle and fur. The moment it closed in, it launched into a savage, relentless flurry of bites and tears, giving the bigger wolf a practical lesson in what it actually meant to be a wolf.

Watching that massive, battered figure stagger and bleed, Mo Fan couldn't help smiling.

*An enemy I once had to run from in blind panic — and now I can sit back and watch. That really is something worth being proud of.*