Kill Them All!

Lu Zhenghe sat beside Mu Ningxue. He hadn't fallen under the enchantment himself, but he'd been worn out dealing with Liao Mingxuan and Xu Dalong.

He wanted to strike up a conversation with Mu Ningxue, but seeing her sit there in absolute silence, he couldn't find the first word to break it.

He tilted his head back, still searching for an opening, when suddenly a line of snow-white wings appeared at the brightening horizon — moving in steady formation toward this direction, feathers catching the faint early light and dotting the heavy sky.

A quick flicker of excitement passed through Lu Zhenghe — then he immediately schooled his expression, pretending he hadn't seen a thing.

The white wings didn't fly directly into Desolate City. They landed somewhere nearby.

Not far off — they'd reach this area soon enough. Lu Zhenghe made a deliberate point of scanning the surroundings, looking for Mo Fan.

As it happened, Mo Fan was already walking toward them with Mu Nujiao, Bai Tingting, Zhao Manyan, and the others. Mo Fan spoke first: "Nobody has the heart to keep surveying. Should we head back?"

"We haven't found Mingcong yet," Mu Ningxue said, raising her head.

"No need to look." Xu Dalong's voice cut in bluntly. "Liao Mingxuan accidentally killed him."

Liao Mingxuan broke into a cold sweat. He pointed a shaking finger at Xu Dalong. "Don't you dare put that on me."

"Dead is dead." Mo Fan said it with complete indifference, twisting the knife. "Everyone was out of their minds anyway — it was kill or be killed."

"Liao Mingxuan — you killed him?" Mu Ningxue demanded.

"I... I didn't mean to. I couldn't control myself..." Liao Mingxuan was on the verge of breaking down. He shoved both hands into his hair as though he wanted to pry his own skull apart.

He and Mingcong had been close — practically brothers. He still couldn't accept that he'd killed him with his own hands and left the body beyond recognition.

"Then let's pack up and head back," Mu Ningxue said, asking nothing more, speaking with the quiet authority of a team captain.

After everything that had happened, no one had the courage to continue the survey. Desolate City was far more terrifying than any of them had imagined. Who knew how many would even still be alive by the time the full survey was complete?

They were exhausted — completely, utterly spent. And more than that: they were afraid.

The Dread Mimic's appearance earlier had already left them shaken. Then the Enchantment Spider had turned them against each other, and Liao Mingxuan had killed Mingcong. Even if Liao Mingxuan had been the most deeply affected among them, none of them could bring themselves to accept that horrifying reality.

They gathered their things, then went to look at Mingcong's body one last time. In the end, they buried him directly in the earth, sealing the grave with an Earth Element spell — a solid earthen tomb to keep the Demon-Beasts from digging him up.

Song Xia, gravely wounded, had regained consciousness. Her abdomen was still wrapped in bandages and she looked utterly drained. That she was alive at all was luck enough. Song Xia asked for nothing more, and fell in with the group as they prepared to leave.

Zheng Bingxiao was in terrible shape as well. Bai Tingting's Magical Energy was completely depleted, and whether she could bring Zheng Bingxiao back from the brink was anyone's guess.

When they had set out, this group had carried themselves with spirit — the confidence of people who could flatten this little Desolate City without breaking a sweat. Now, after barely completing a fraction of the survey, they had been ground down into a ragged band of stragglers. The brutality of Demon-Beast territory had given them a thorough and bone-deep education.

What did it matter that you were an elite from Pearl Academy? What did it matter that you were the finest Magic student the Imperial Capital Magic Academy had to offer? In the lethal wilderness, even basic survival was no guarantee.

No matter how you'd towered over your classmates back at school, no matter how many times you'd listened to your elders describe the world outside — living it had made one thing very clear: everything they'd learned in school and in the city counted for almost nothing out here. Those who were meant to die still died. Those who were meant to be wounded were still wounded.

They were bitter about it. As the nation's most outstanding young Mages, every one of them carried a vein of pride. Now all they could do was swallow it — drag their exhausted bodies back the way they had come.

This Field Expedition had proven far more brutal than any of them had imagined.

Gradually, they cleared the city walls.

Dawn had fully broken. From the woods outside, birdsong drifted over — surprisingly pleasant, as if it were slowly dissolving the weight of death that had clung to them inside Desolate City.

Ahead lay the same stretch of train tracks, overgrown with moss and weeds, threading through the trees toward the distant city that felt like paradise to every one of them right now.

Everyone was desperate to get back. Back to somewhere with people. Back to a warm room.

They had barely started following the tracks when a column of figures stepped out from the trees. The strangers wore matching uniforms — similar in cut to what Military Mages wore, but strikingly different in color.

There were roughly twenty or thirty of them, and beside each one stood an enormous snow-white eagle. The birds had broad chests, sharp eyes, and wings folded nearly to the ground — wings that, if spread, would easily reach two meters across.

Mo Fan recognized those eagles immediately. They were the tamed beast-mounts used by Military Mages.

He'd heard that taming Demon-Beasts was something only certain powerful Mind Element Mages could manage. The creatures couldn't be deployed in combat, but as a means of transport, they were an excellent choice.

"Military Mages?? Are they here to rescue us?" The moment Zhao Mingyue and Jingjing spotted the figures, they practically lit up, already moving forward.

Seeing living people out here — it was a relief beyond words.

"Something looks off about their uniforms," Zhao Manyan said.

"They must be the rescue team — thank goodness. Zheng Bingxiao might actually make it!" Peng Liang said, a grin breaking across his face.

Lu Zhenghe stood a little apart from the others. His gaze kept sliding away.

The column of soldiers walked directly toward them. At the head of the group was a broad-browed, sharp-eyed man with a heavy lower lip, a pipe clamped between his teeth.

He wore a military-green longcoat. The eyes beneath those heavy brows swept across the group of Field Expedition students before settling on Lu Zhenghe.

Lu Zhenghe's glance flickered sideways — toward Mo Fan's position — as if signaling something to the pipe-smoking man in the coat.

Military Commander Lu Nian gave a small nod. Slowly, he raised his right hand and addressed the column of uniformed Mages standing behind him:

"Loose ends. Kill them all."

He said it the way you'd say *take them away* — offhand, barely weighted.

But what he issued was a kill order.

Even Lu Zhenghe froze. He scrambled to paste on a stiff smile. "Brother — I think there's been a misunderstanding. These are Pearl Academy and Imperial Capital students on a Field Expedition. They were with me."

"Which is exactly why they need to be silenced," Lu Nian said, voice perfectly level. "I don't want any party learning of this matter." The fact that he could issue a death sentence without so much as blinking said everything about how many people had already died by his hand.

Behind him, killing intent flooded the air instantly — radiating from more than twenty Military Mages, every one of them a ranked officer, none below Intermediate-Level. The moment their eyes locked onto the group of relatively green Field Expedition students, the shift was immediate: wolves that had just spotted sheep.

The atmosphere changed completely.

Zhao Mingyue and Jingjing were still stepping forward to greet what they believed were their rescuers — when chains of frost erupted from the ground beneath their feet without warning.

The chains drove through both girls before either had any chance to react. Silver-white Ice Lock, in an instant, turned red.

Ice Lock ran through both of them. Blood, everywhere.

Two girls who had been bright with youth just moments ago were, in a heartbeat, reduced to two corpses strung upon chains of ice.

The sight stopped every heart — something so impossible that the mind simply refused to accept it was happening.