Public Fury — Slay the Serpent!

"This is..." Mo Fan could hardly believe his eyes.

"Lightning Ring Punishment — Nine Seals Forbidden! It's a Transcendent Tier Lightning Element spell. Cast through a grand formation, it has the power to suppress a Sovereign-class creature. Councillors Luo Mian and Zhu Meng have been preparing this for some time — all to put the Totem Xuan Serpent to death," said Leng Qing, standing at his side.

Lightning lashed the Totem Xuan Serpent like a hundred merciless whips, each stroke leaving deep, scorched welts across its body. The serpent had just shed its most vital layer of protective skin, and every bolt carved into its exposed flesh with searing, unbearable agony.

Yet it did not yield. It snapped its enormous jaws shut on one of the lightning spears, trying to shatter the elemental shackles by brute force. Instead, a surge of thunder far more violent than before poured down its throat, tore through its esophagus, and slammed into its organs — a devastating electrical wound from the inside out.

A blow like that would have reduced any ordinary Commander-class creature to ash. Yet the Skyreach Serpent dragged itself upright and lunged at another lightning spear — and even as the result left its whole body convulsing, it refused to stop.

Its fury was that of a wronged tyrant. Eyes fixed on the two architects of its torment, it strained against the shackles of the Transcendent Tier formation, desperate to tear itself free and swallow both of them whole.

The wounds multiplied across its body. With every new scar, something fiercer burned in its eyes.

It feared nothing — not even this world-shaking Lightning Element sorcery.

It would destroy everything. It would destroy the very lightning that dared to provoke it.

"Stop — please, stop!" Tang Yue cried out, her voice breaking with desperation.

Every time she watched the Totem Xuan Serpent take another bolt of lightning, it felt as though she herself had been struck.

"Begging for mercy?" Councillor Zhu Meng's voice was ice-cold. He turned toward the city in the distance and pointed at the terrified crowds gathering along the shores of West Lake — a swelling mass of bodies, already beyond counting.

"Why are you doing this!" Tang Yue screamed at them.

Councillor Zhu Meng's expression did not change. He opened his mouth, and his voice rolled across the lake like a thunderclap, carrying over the kilometers of open water to reach the bustling city beyond: "Citizens of Hangzhou! This is the serpent demon that appeared in your streets and spread terror through your city. It is the source of the plague that has afflicted you. It lives here in West Lake — and there are those laughable enough to call it a god, to claim it must be protected! I, Tribunal Council Member Zhu Meng, will execute it here today and eliminate this threat forever. If you agree with what I am doing — let me hear your voices!"

It was an extraordinary display. Zhu Meng's words reached the entire city — some magic Mo Fan had never encountered before.

Across the lake, the crowds continued to swell. The far bank was a great distance from Su Causeway, yet the sheer mass of gathered bodies made the dense throngs visible even from here — every face etched with shock, and beneath the shock, something deeper and more primal: dread of the unknown creature before them.

Among the crowd were students from magic academies, ordinary merchants going about their trade, elderly men and women who had simply been out for a stroll and stumbled upon the scene, common citizens, and countless Mages who pursued the deeper mysteries of the arcane. None of them could believe that such a creature had been living among them all this time. Had they not seen it with their own eyes today, they never would have believed it.

Panic and outrage swept through the crowd. They felt deceived — as if someone had played with their lives without a second thought.

"Kill it! Kill it now!"

"How could something like that be living in West Lake?! Get rid of it!"

"So the plague was its fault all along! That thing is a catastrophe — a curse on this city!"

The voices merged into a single roar that rang across West Lake, audible even here on Su Causeway.

"No — no, that's wrong! It isn't the source of the plague — it *protects* this city! You can't hurt it!" Tang Yue stood on Su Causeway and screamed until her voice tore raw.

But what could one voice do against ten thousand cries for blood? Even if her plea reached every ear on the far shore as Zhu Meng's words had, no one would spare her a moment's pity. Fear was all they had room for. Anger was all they felt. Like Councillor Zhu Meng, they wanted this thing gone from their city — one way or another.

The chanting grew louder, and louder still — heard by some, beyond reach of others...

Inside the Lightning Ring Punishment, the Totem Xuan Serpent was covered in wounds from head to tail. The fierce, untamable fire that had blazed in its eyes had dimmed to something tired.

It was far too weakened. Already suffering the natural ordeal of the Molting Season, it was now pinned within a formation overflowing with the destructive force of lightning, held there by human Mages who refused to let it go. The strength that had once been enough to shatter mountain ranges was gone. The lightning raged unchecked across its body.

It could hear the cries from across the water — voices calling for its death. They did not seem to trouble it. Enduring the agony of lightning tearing through its body, it slowly turned its great head and fixed its gaze on Tang Yue where she knelt on Su Causeway.

Tang Yue had slumped onto the edge of the causeway, her knees folded beneath her — the fury of an entire city pressing down on her, making her look impossibly small.

*Were it not for me, the Totem Xuan Serpent would never have left the safety of its lair at its most vulnerable moment.*

It had lived for centuries beyond counting, wiser than any human. It had placed its absolute trust in her — and she had led it to ruin.

Watching the Totem Xuan Serpent — its body riddled with wounds, its eyes touched by the first faint shadows of exhaustion and disappointment — she felt more and more as though it were asking her, silently: *Why? Why did you do this to me?*

Tang Yue's face was already streaked with tears. There was nothing she could do. Around her stood countless Mages far more powerful than she was; across the lake, tens of thousands of citizens screaming for the serpent's death. What resistance could she possibly offer?

Her sobs were choked and broken. Mo Fan, standing close by, heard every sound.

He was just as helpless.

This city had long been living under the shadow of two fears — the serpent, and the plague. Now that a target had been named, people would respond the only way they ever had: with raw, ancient violence.

Councillor Zhu Meng's actions were precisely what they wanted. Mo Fan was certain that once this was over, Zhu Meng would be celebrated throughout Hangzhou. Who would stop to care about one woman's grief?

"Watch out — it's forcing its way out!" Guard Captain Wu Pinjing shouted.

Mo Fan snapped back to attention. The Totem Xuan Serpent — battered and broken by the relentless lightning — was forcing its enormous head through the barrier of the Lightning Ring Punishment.

Arcs of electricity lashed wildly at its skull, but the serpent seemed beyond feeling. Still it pressed forward.

It stretched until its head was nearly upon Su Causeway itself. For a breathless moment, every Tribunal Agent and Palace Guard on the causeway stumbled back a step in alarm.

Even shackled within the Lightning Ring Punishment formation, the Totem Xuan Serpent's presence was enough to make hardened warriors flinch.

Then — just when everyone braced for a final assault — the serpent's enormous head moved in a different direction entirely. Slowly. Deliberately. Until it came to rest before Tang Yue as she knelt there, utterly spent.

Its forked tongue curled out from that immense maw — gently, so gently.

The red tip brushed Tang Yue's cheek...

Tang Yue froze.

The red tongue was impossibly soft — like a father's large hand wiping the tears from a child's face.

She lifted her head. She looked at that great, guileless face; looked into those eyes that, despite everything they had endured, remained so unbearably tender; watched that red tongue brush lightly against her —

*It was still trying to comfort her.*

In that instant, the last of Tang Yue's composure shattered. She buried her face in her hands and wept — without sound, without restraint, without end.