The Lizard-Skull Giant Demon Nest
They pressed on, and with every step the swamp grew wider — entire stretches of what had once been road had been swallowed entirely by the earth.
The Swift Star Wolf was already among the most agile creatures alive, yet every step forward now demanded extraordinary care.
The wolf was building to a sprint. It stood at the far-left edge of an unfinished building's rooftop — the roof stretched nearly a hundred meters from end to end, while everything below had become a sea of mud and swamp. To continue forward, it would have to leap from this rooftop directly onto the terrace of another crumbling structure across the gap.
The two buildings were separated by a considerable distance. The Swift Star Wolf needed a proper running start.
**Fwoosh——!!**
Velocity erupted. The Swift Star Wolf's silhouette transformed into a dark-blue arrow loosed from a bowstring.
A hundred meters meant nothing — within seconds, the wolf had crossed from one end to the other.
It launched into the air, cutting a brilliant blue arc between the two buildings, its form impossibly graceful...
"There! Over there!!" Not far behind, a military officer pointed between the two structures and shouted.
Immediately, several Wind Element officers sprinted to the unfinished building at blistering speed. When they tried to cross at ground level to reach the old structure where Mo Fan had landed, they found only an expanse of black-reeking mud ahead of them.
Impassable.
The sinkholes were expanding fast — even Wind Track might not guarantee safe crossing. Worse still, Lizard-Skull Giant Demons lurked within those mud pits, and in the mud, a Lizard-Skull Giant Demon was far more dangerous than it was on solid ground.
"Don't let him escape," said the female staff officer in the gray-white uniform, Jiang Yi.
Two Earth Element Military Mages moved forward and set about clearing the mud.
Earth Wave proved strikingly effective against the swamp. Like water parted by invisible hands, the sludge divided to either side, gradually exposing the solid ground beneath.
The mud was thick, however — vast and stubborn. Clearing a corridor wide enough for fast movement was going to take time.
They were only one building apart, and yet the entire pursuit party could do nothing but inch forward.
On the other side, Mo Fan rode the Swift Star Wolf from rooftop to rooftop. The buildings in this district were still standing, but the entire neighborhood had sunk halfway into the earth, leaving rooflines at a convenient, uniform height. For a wolf born to leap, this was ideal terrain — roof to roof, pushing deeper into the heart of this muddy lake.
"Awooo~!"
The Swift Star Wolf let out a low rumble and landed lightly on the roof of a residential building.
Fifteen years ago, Jinlin City hadn't been especially prosperous. Elevator buildings were rare; structures were modest in height, and their rooflines sat at roughly the same level. For the Swift Star Wolf, it was a launching pad built for showing off.
"Why are you crouching?" Mo Fan felt himself sinking and frowned. "What's going on?"
"Awooo~~~~" The Swift Star Wolf called back — informing this particular idiot that it was not crouching. The entire building was sinking.
Mo Fan glanced around and confirmed it: he had just dropped an entire floor in height without moving a muscle.
"Jump — now. Unless you want us buried alive with this thing."
The Swift Star Wolf didn't waste another moment. Watching the building descend lower and lower, it broke into a full sprint.
As it leaped between the buildings, Mo Fan ran a quick calculation in his head and realized, with creeping unease, that the wolf was very likely going to slam face-first into the wall ahead...
The sun blazed directly overhead. Not a shadow anywhere — Shadow Fade was completely useless.
Fortunately, the Swift Star Wolf's claws were powerful. They caught the far ledge and held.
Wolf gripping the ledge, Mo Fan gripping the wolf's thick fur — the two of them dangled against the building's outer wall.
Below, mud stretched like an open ocean. And then, directly beneath them, a whirlpool yawned open in the sludge. At its center gaped a Colossal Death Lizard, twenty meters of patient nightmare, its throat open like a mineshaft into the earth...
It was waiting. Waiting for Mo Fan and the Swift Star Wolf to fall — straight down into its gullet.
The Swift Star Wolf strained and heaved, and finally hauled itself up onto the roof.
Mo Fan seized the moment to glance back at their pursuers. The Military Mages were moving fast — they had no need for rooftops at all. With Earth Element Mages clearing the path ahead, the mud posed no real obstacle.
They pushed deeper. Lizard-Skull Giant Demons grew more numerous with every passing moment. Whichever direction Mo Fan looked, clusters of them moved through the swamp — swimming, prowling, converging.
The Military Mages had nearly closed the gap when they cut straight through a patch of mud that turned out to be a Lizard-Skull Giant Demon colony. Instantly, creatures beyond counting hauled themselves from the sludge — from a distance they looked like a horde of enormous lizard-crocodiles, and the moment living prey entered their territory, they surged toward it.
Spells thundered without pause. These officers were in a different class from academy students — Servant-class Lizard-Skull Giant Demons couldn't get within reach. A relentless barrage of basic-level magic, interlaced with intermediate spells, and by the time Mo Fan had covered any real distance, every last demon in that colony had been wiped out.
Disciplined. Battle-hardened. It would take several hundred Servant-class creatures at minimum to even inconvenience them.
*Strange — where did that devil disappear to?* Mo Fan watched from a distance as the officers swept forward, and the thought gnawed at him.
Lu Nian, the High-Level Mage, should have been among the pursuers from the start. But at some point, he had simply vanished.
After careful observation, Mo Fan confirmed that Lu Nian was genuinely gone from the area. Only the gray-white-uniformed staff officer remained, leading her thirteen officers in their relentless chase.
Her cultivation had clearly reached the peak of the intermediate tier — third-tier intermediate magic flowed from her with fluid ease, instinctive and refined. Her ability was at least on par with Teacher Tang Yue at her best.
As for the officers, each one was roughly Mo Fan's level — capable of Releasing second-tier intermediate magic without effort.
One or two, Mo Fan might barely hold his own. All thirteen together? He wouldn't survive the opening exchange.
"Awooo~~~~~!!"
The Swift Star Wolf's eyes snapped to a razor-sharp focus. It froze, every instinct on high alert, staring hard at the terrain ahead — a patchwork of solid ground and mud pools.
What lay ahead had once been one of Jinlin City's busiest commercial districts. Buildings rose in clusters from the half-submerged earth; occasional stretches of road and pavement were still walkable. But something was wrong between the structures. A strange odor hung in the air — thick, alien — and the sensation of being watched pressed in from every direction at once.
"You're saying there are at least a dozen Lizard-Skull Giant Demon Nests up ahead?" Mo Fan asked.
The Swift Star Wolf gave a slow nod.
Its instincts delivered the verdict plainly: extreme danger lay ahead. Step inside, and the odds of survival dropped to one in ten.
"Then we gamble." Mo Fan set his jaw. "Worst case, we go down together."
He urged the wolf forward, straight into the trap-laden district ahead.