The Shadow of Fear

The mist thickened rapidly, soon enveloping the sky-scraping serpent entirely.

The fog coalesced into a serpentine shape that stretched from the earth all the way up to the overcast sky, and for a long while it refused to disperse.

A breeze rolled in from West Lake across the bustling district, and at last the great coil of dense fog began to unravel...

It dissolved slowly, from thick to thin — and by the time it had cleared, the sky-scraping serpent was nowhere to be seen.

In truth, the creature had already departed the moment the mist first began to gather. People had only believed it was still there — held motionless by that belief — because if the sky-scraping serpent had moved, the streets below would have been leveled in an instant.

And yet it had simply vanished. No buildings destroyed, not a single roar. All it left between the bank tower and the five-star hotel was a strange wisp of cloud slowly dissolving into nothing... Well — that wasn't quite all it left. It had left behind fear. Fear that hung over the prosperous heart of Hangzhou, long and stubborn, refusing to lift.

Inside the restaurant's floor-to-ceiling window, Mo Fan's dark shirt was soaked through and through.

The moment he confirmed that the colossal serpent was gone, his legs nearly gave out beneath him.

Honestly, he would have preferred to believe he was trapped in a nightmare. Only in a nightmare could something so utterly impossible appear.

But the fear — the kind that drenched you in cold sweat and felt terrifyingly, bone-deep real — offered no other explanation.

"Mo Fan… Brother." Xinxia opened her eyes. All she could see was Mo Fan's back, his soaked shirt plastered flat against his skin.

He stood rooted to the spot. The more air he dragged into his lungs, the harder his body shook with helpless, delayed terror.

Hearing Xinxia call his name, Mo Fan forced himself to turn around and dragged a stiff, unconvincing smile across his face. "It's… it's okay. We're fine."

"Did it disappear?" Xinxia asked, her voice still trembling.

"Should have."

"Does Brother Mo Fan know what it was?" Xinxia asked in a small voice.

Mo Fan shook his head and slowly opened his phone, pulling up a browser.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before news flooded the internet from every direction — headlines screaming about a towering serpent appearing over Hangzhou detonated across every media outlet in the country.

"The government will explain eventually... Whatever the case, let's — let's get out of here first." Mo Fan said to Xinxia.

"Okay." Xinxia gave a small nod.

Yan'an Road, which had been a picture of thriving prosperity not long before, was now in chaos — screaming, car horns, sobbing...

People were still running. God only knew whether the serpent would show up again. All anyone wanted was to escape this nightmare place.

Mo Fan stopped caring about any regulations. He summoned the Swift Star Wolf and flew straight out of there.

He had nothing to say, and no interest in the wild speculation flooding the internet. He just wanted to get Xinxia somewhere he was certain they would be safe.

He didn't know what was coming next. The lingering dread had completely extinguished any curiosity he might otherwise have felt.

*Just don't ever show up in front of me again. Not once. Not ever.*

"Citizens of Hangzhou, there is no cause for alarm. What appeared was nothing more than a newly developed Beast Shadow Array — the entire sky-scraping serpent was not real. It was merely a projection. This is precisely why it materialized without warning in the middle of the city streets, and why it vanished so abruptly. Had that been an actual Demon-Beast of that scale, a creature of that size would have caused catastrophic destruction from the very first moments."

Within the hour, the authorities released an official explanation for the shocking event.

"So it was just a projection after all — made from mist and clouds. It looked so real, though."

"Right, and those eyes — like searchlights. I was more than a dozen streets away and it still felt like the thing was standing right in front of me."

"There is absolutely no way that was a projection. The government is hiding something. I was inside the hotel when it happened — I had a perfectly clear view of that serpent's head from where I was standing. There is no possible way what I saw was some illusory magic conjured from Shadow Element."

That entire day, the incident gripped the nation. Many of those who had been present insisted the official account was a cover-up.

But every major event fades when nothing follows. Without new developments, without further news, something from somewhere else inevitably sweeps it away.

On the second day, netizens were still marshaling evidence to punch holes in the official narrative, demanding the truth.

By the third day, more and more people were tilting toward the government's version. However real the sky-scraping serpent had seemed, however oppressive the cloud of dread it had conjured, it had appeared like mist — and vanished like mist.

Demon-Beasts were violent by nature. If something that enormous had truly appeared, the entire Yan'an Road area would have been reduced to rubble within minutes. That was an undeniable fact.

A week later, the voices still demanding answers had thinned to almost nothing. Public attention had drifted to a series of incidents along the coast involving various species of sea beasts...

Mo Fan spent that entire week in Hangzhou.

It took a full seven days before the shadow weighing on his heart showed any sign of lifting.

A projection?

Some kind of Shadow Element formation?

As a Hunter-mage who had spent as long as he had surviving in the wilds, Mo Fan would stake everything he had as a man on this: it was not a projection.

The sky-scraping serpent was real.

He had a dreadful premonition. *It will appear again. I know it will.*

For days Mo Fan had kept himself shut inside the rented apartment. For the first few, he hadn't been able to concentrate on cultivating at all — every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was the face of that massive serpent. Its gaze, cold and utterly indifferent. Lethal beyond measure.

What was it, really?

In this world, no government concealed the truth about Demon-Beasts. So why had the Hangzhou authorities called the sky-scraping serpent a projection?

And a creature of that size — how had it appeared out of nowhere in streets packed with high-rises? How had it vanished without so much as a sound, without a single tremor?

And what level was it?

It was definitely not a Commander.

Mo Fan had encountered enough Commanders by now. Not one of them had ever shaken him anything like this.

He had told himself he wanted nothing more to do with that serpent — but over these past few days, he'd realized that as long as its shadow hung over him, he couldn't focus on anything. Until he untangled the fear and the questions gnawing at him from the inside, his whole body felt wrong.

"It looks like there's only one person I can ask about this."

He'd made up his mind: at the very least, he needed to know what the sky-scraping serpent was. He needed to understand what the creature had planted in the depths of his mind — and why, every time he shut his eyes, dread consumed him whole.

"Teacher Tang Yue, do you have a moment? I'm in Hangzhou." Mo Fan said.

"Why aren't you resting properly at the military base? What are you doing running around again?" Tang Yue's voice carried a faint note of reproach.

"I've fully recovered. I've actually been in Hangzhou for a week already..." Mo Fan said.

There was a noticeable pause on her end. When Tang Yue spoke again, her voice had dropped. "You saw it?"

"Yeah."

"Come to my place."

"I'm honestly a little afraid to go anywhere near West Lake right now."

A bright, lilting laugh came through the phone. "Hehe~ So even the one who fears neither heaven nor earth has moments of cowering in fright?"