Azure Flame, Dongfang Ming
The Blade-Feather Sparrow's plumage was exceptionally rigid, each feather's leading edge honed to a razor point — as if countless daggers bristled across its body and wings, glinting cold and bright beneath the moonlight.
**"Screee—!"**
The Blade-Feather Sparrow cried out across the night sky, its razor-sharp eyes most likely already locked onto Mo Fan and Tang Yue.
Running was no longer an option. The enemy clearly had reinforcements on the way, and they couldn't afford to keep being trailed like this. These winged pests had to be dealt with immediately.
The Blade-Feather Sparrow drew steadily closer, its riders cautious enough not to simply dive down from altitude.
"Sir Wu, we've located the targets — requesting immediate backup," Liu Zhongming called into his communication device from atop the Blade-Feather Sparrow.
"Good. Keep them pinned down, stay on them — and whatever you do, do not let them reach Bai Mountain. We'll be there in roughly twenty minutes," came the voice of Palace Guard Captain Wu Pinjing.
"Understood!" Liu Zhongming answered with crisp authority, though a grin was already spreading across his face that he couldn't quite suppress.
*Having a Blade-Feather Sparrow really does make all the difference.* Those Trainee Tribunal Agents couldn't compare to a Summoning Element Mage who could take to the skies.
"Brother, what do we do now?" Liu Yilin peered down from high above, spotted the pair below — a man and a woman — and felt an unmistakable flutter of nerves.
This was Liu Yilin's first real assignment for the Tribunal, and word was that the order had come directly from Councillor Zhu Meng himself. That alone meant it was no trivial mission — and it made Liu Yilin uneasy about exactly what kind of targets they were pursuing.
Anyone who warranted Councillor Zhu Meng mobilizing the Palace Guards was no ordinary fugitive.
"They're making for Bai Mountain," said the thick-browed young man carrying the Wing Enchanted Gear.
"We cannot let them into that mountain — those are the Palace Guard Captain's orders. We have to stop them," Liu Zhongming said.
"Then we go down and pin them!" The thick-browed young man spoke with an almost careless confidence, not bothering to think too hard about what their targets might actually be capable of.
That pair down below barely looked past twenty. However strong they might be, there was a ceiling to that — Dongfang Ming had absolutely nothing to worry about.
Bold with the confidence of someone who knew his own ability, Dongfang Ming folded the azure wings at his back and let himself fall from the black sky.
Flames engulfed him as he plummeted, burning fiercer with every foot he dropped — like a gray meteorite scorching the air on its way down, trailing a long tongue of fire in its wake.
**Boom——**
He landed in a column of fire. When it settled, Dongfang Ming stood tall in gray robes, posture straight and expression cold and severe.
He stood in the scorched crater his landing had gouged into the earth, raised his gaze with unhurried arrogance, and fixed his eyes on Mo Fan and Tang Yue.
"Since you've had the misfortune of running into me, Dongfang Ming, I'd suggest surrendering quietly — or I can't promise I'll hold back." He stood before them, and the flames still burning across his body showed a different quality now, a new tint to their hue.
From the way those flames breathed and moved — from their very color — it was plain that this was no Ordinary Fire.
Which made sense. Someone who could afford Wing Enchanted Gear had every reason to be burning Spirit Grade flame-seed.
*This one's trouble.* Mo Fan caught Tang Yue's eye and tilted his head — a silent signal that this arrogant piece of work was his.
"Be careful," Tang Yue said quietly. "That's Dongfang Ming — the finest young Fire Element Mage the Dongfang Clan has produced."
*Dongfang Clan?* Something stirred in Mo Fan's memory. Hadn't his Rose Flame come to him at least partly thanks to them?
Tang Yue stepped aside, giving Mo Fan and Dongfang Ming room to face each other.
The gesture clearly irritated Dongfang Ming.
He fixed Mo Fan with proud, measuring eyes, and the corner of his mouth curled into a sneer. "You honestly think you can go one-on-one with me?"
He had already swept Mo Fan with his Mental Intent — this man's cultivation ranked a notch below his own. In the Intermediate Domain, Dongfang Ming was virtually unbeatable. Stack ten of this kid together and they still wouldn't be enough to trouble him.
"Of course not," Mo Fan said, shaking his head.
"At least you know your place." Dongfang Ming smiled.
"I just need to finish you off in fifteen minutes." Mo Fan smiled back — the same cocksure, swaggering grin.
He understood the math perfectly. The Palace Guards would arrive in roughly twenty minutes, which left five minutes for escape. That gave him fifteen for this fight.
"Ignorant fool!" Dongfang Ming's composure cracked. He was untouchable in the Intermediate Domain — and now someone was claiming to beat him in fifteen minutes?
He moved first. A Fire Element Star Chart blazed to life beneath him, forming with such extraordinary speed that there was no watching individual Star Motes link together — what the eye caught instead was Star Trail after Star Trail weaving across each other in rapid succession.
It was one of the fastest Fire Element Star Chart formations imaginable, fast enough to give even Mo Fan pause.
"One thing I forgot to mention — I was born with a natural gift: lightning-fast Release of Fire Element magic." Dongfang Ming was nothing if not self-assured, apparently seeing no reason not to announce his own secret talent outright.
Mo Fan's own Fire Element casting speed was quick by any standard — but he had barely sketched half his Star Chart when a Blazing Fist came roaring at him.
He broke off the casting. His body dissolved into shadow and he threw himself sideways with Shadow Fade.
The enormous fist of flame swept past where he had been standing. Against Ordinary Fire he might have simply tanked the blow — but he had caught something: the outer edge of Dongfang Ming's flame was faintly azure.
*What's with that pale blue tinge?*
He cleared the Blazing Fist's range with Shadow Fade, still turning the question over in his mind — when a searing heat shot straight through the soles of his feet, hot enough that his heels felt about ready to cook through.
Mo Fan looked down. The pale azure flame had crept to where he stood at some point, and it was already spreading — catching on every plant around him and igniting…
The fire grew as it fed on the vegetation, and within moments Mo Fan was completely wrapped in pale blue flames.
*So it's an ignition-type Spirit Grade flame-seed. Burned through this much ground in one go — that pale blue fire is something else.*
Azure fire stretched in every direction around him. It might not run as hot as the Rose Flame, but no matter what you did, it simply would not be smothered.
The azure glow had swallowed every shadow around him — nowhere left for Shadow Fade to take root. Watching the pale blue flames close in from all sides, Mo Fan made his decision. He pulled back his fist and drove it into the ground.
*Like hell my Rose Flame is weaker than this Azure Flame.*
Crimson fire roared to life all around him, wreathing Mo Fan like some calamitous fiend let loose upon the world. The moment his fist struck the earth, a brilliant Earth Fiend flower erupted beneath his feet —
The full Earth Fiend swallowed Mo Fan whole, tongues of flame whipping in every direction, blazing outward to crash headlong into the encircling azure fire.