This Is a Blood Catalyst
The Zhankong standing before Mo Fan was different from the one he had encountered before. Back then, the Wings of Wind at Zhankong's back had been a single pair — their outlines full and defined, but nothing more.
Now two pairs spread behind him, with currents of air spiraling between each wing — easy to miss unless you looked closely.
Zhankong commanded all four wind-wings with his Mental Intent. They swept forward and wrapped around his body, coalescing into the Wind-Wing Guard — a living, feathered barrier that enveloped him completely.
A gray-white petrifying force rolled toward him, but the Wind Element had an innate aversion to those near-invisible petrification particles, generating a shield powerful enough to deflect any incoming energy...
Within the protection of the Wind-Wing Guard, flames had come to life in Zhankong's eyes at some point — twin fires blazing in his irises.
Wind was only Zhankong's secondary element.
Fire was his true power. Against a devil like Lu Nian — a Military Commander of that caliber — Zhankong held absolutely nothing back.
Crimson Star Motes bloomed around him one by one in rapid succession, each Star Trail tracing a perfect arc as they sketched out an Intermediate-level Star Chart.
The Star Charts interlocked with one another, building into a three-dimensional Constellation. Zhankong stood proud at their convergence — like a sovereign commanding the lives of every living thing, capable of unleashing colossal destruction at the mere raise of his hand.
The Constellation was complete.
High-tier power manifested alongside it. Zhankong hung suspended in the sky and slowly raised both hands, drawing a blazing ring of flame conjured from his Fire Element Constellation higher and higher until it soared into the clouds above.
The scorching ring spread overhead, gradually consuming an enormous swath of sky — like the lurid glow of a world set ablaze at dusk, breathtaking in its terrible beauty.
"Heavenly Flame Funeral!"
Zhankong, enthroned within his Fire Element Constellation, looked down at the devil Lu Nian with cold contempt. His hands held aloft the blazing ring that had already consumed a swath of clouds — and as the words left his lips, wave after wave of roaring flame cascaded down like a meteor shower tearing through the sky, thick as rainfall, relentless!
The sky above the city district blazed red. Those infernal meteors screaming earthward were awe-inspiring beyond words — calling it a funeral was exactly right. Every falling flame brought total annihilation in its wake, enough to reduce entire city blocks to ash.
The Heavenly Flame Funeral was aimed at Lu Nian, but the swarms of Lizard-Skull Giant Demons on the ground were consumed all the same. Countless of them were reduced to cinders beneath the falling curtain of fire...
When destruction reached such a scale, Servant-class creatures became utterly insignificant. Even the collateral edge of the Heavenly Flame Funeral was enough to wipe out every Lizard-Skull Giant Demon on an entire street.
Down on the ground, Mo Fan had no time to watch the battle between Lu Nian and Zhankong.
Head tilted back, he was sprinting desperately after the Celestial Eagle as it flew toward the peak lair.
Zhankong was pinned down by Lu Nian and couldn't reach the others. Watching Zhao Manyan, Mu Nujiao, Bai Tingting, and Mu Ningxue inch closer and closer to death's door, Mo Fan felt his heart burning in his chest.
*What do I do?*
*How am I supposed to save them?!*
Ahead of him lay a sea of Lizard-Skull Giant Demons — whether he could even push through was far from certain. And more than that...
*God — the Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon was awake.*
Less than a hundred meters below the cloud layer, at the summit of the peak lair that nearly grazed the sky, a pair of enormous, fleshy wings was unfurling — slowly, languidly, the way a person stretches after waking from sleep.
Its lantern-huge eyes blinked open, heavy with drowsiness. The creature exhaled from its vast maw, and the breath became a vortex that scattered the surrounding clouds.
Its great head turned slowly. First it gazed down upon its subjects below the peak, checking how its minions were feeding today. Then something moving caught its eye.
Lizard-kin had little sensitivity to stationary prey, but anything soaring through the air triggered a deeply primal hostility in them.
It fixed its gaze on the white Celestial Eagle flying toward it — and on the humans suspended in the net of hide trailing beneath.
Its tongue flicked out. Its eyes glittered with greed, and with fury at the audacity of any creature that would dare fly within its domain.
On the ground, Mo Fan had already reached the edge of the Lizard-Skull Giant Demon territory...
No matter how many Lizard-Skull Giant Demons stood in his way, he wasn't afraid. Worst case, he'd pile their corpses into a mountain.
But the Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon had awoken. This Commander-class creature — the one capable of swallowing a Dread Mimic in a single bite — had fixed its sights on Mu Ningxue and the others.
"You're walking to your death..."
Just as Mo Fan paused for a moment to catch his breath, a woman's voice drifted out from the ruins of a nearby building.
He glanced over. It was Staff Officer Jiang Yi.
The woman had more to her than he'd given her credit for — she had actually escaped the tide of Lizard-Skull Giant Demons. But most of the officers around her had been cut down, and Jiang Yi herself was covered in wounds. Whatever fight remained in them was spent.
"Try to stop me and I'll kill every last one of you," Mo Fan said flatly, eyes sweeping across the battered remnants.
He had no time for these people. Whatever it took, he would not let Mu Ningxue and the others die.
"Setting aside whether you can even break through those layers of Lizard-Skull Giant Demon battalions — even if you made it to the Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon, one swipe of its claw would flatten you into paste. You're throwing your life away." Jiang Yi had no interest in fighting him further. Her words were a cold, dispassionate warning.
"Don't lecture me. If it weren't for lunatics like you lot, none of this would be happening!" Mo Fan snapped back.
He had already burned through the Blood Beast Boots sprinting across half the city district, and their effect had long since worn off.
Two kilometers of Demon-Beast-infested wasteland stretched before him, thick with Lizard-Skull Giant Demons as far as the eye could see. How was he supposed to cross that?
And even if he did — what then? He had no answer for the Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon. Zhankong was struggling to hold his own against Lu Nian and couldn't spare a moment to save anyone. It seemed as though Lu Nian had orchestrated this deliberately, to make certain Mo Fan understood what it meant to stand against him.
"The Military Commander has lost his mind," Jiang Yi said. Despair pooled in her eyes.
If she had been able — however tenuously — to justify Lu Nian's earlier actions, what he was doing now had crossed her absolute line.
Their Military Commander had truly changed. He had become something monstrous.
It was no longer about completing the birth of a new element — he was indulging his bloodthirsty ambitions, and reveling in every moment of it.
She should have seen it coming the moment she accepted this assignment.
"Deep down, you already know — they can't survive the Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon. Even if Zhankong fought through Military Commander Lu's interference, there's no guarantee he could save them," Jiang Yi continued.
Mo Fan was doing something pointless.
He couldn't even make it through two kilometers of Lizard-Skull Giant Demon territory — so how was he going to save those four people?
"Shut up!" Mo Fan snarled.
Flames were already blazing out of control around him, and arcs of lightning crackled through the air nearby — the kind of phenomenon that only emerged when a Mage's emotions were pushed to their absolute limit.
Jiang Yi could see it plainly. This young Mage would not give up until the very last moment — he was going to force his way through the Lizard-Skull Giant Demon tide regardless.
"Are they really that important to you?" Jiang Yi asked.
Mo Fan didn't answer.
The question hadn't even registered in his mind. Right now, all he wanted was to kill every last one of those damned Lizard-Skull Giant Demons blocking his path, reach the peak lair, and drive the greedy Giant Lizard Pseudo-Dragon out of the sky with his bare fist.
*Nobody lays a finger on the people in that net. Nobody.*
"Mo Fan, if you truly want to save them..." Something violent shifted in Jiang Yi's eyes — the look of someone forcing herself toward a decision she wasn't sure she could believe in.
She opened her palm toward him and said, "This is a Blood Catalyst."