It Really Is Him
The soft light of dawn spread gently across West Lake's surface, gilding the nine enormous Thunder God Halberds jutting from the water. Day had fully broken, and people could now see clearly the world-shaking Transcendent Tier Lightning Element magic...
The Lightning Element spell still held the towering serpent firmly in its grip. Its body was covered in wounds, and it looked utterly spent.
The upper half of its body still protruded above the water. It swept its gaze across the onlookers who shrank from it in fear, and made occasional attempts to break free of the Lightning Ring Punishment. But the Lightning Ring Punishment held firm — with what little strength it had left, the serpent stood no chance of shattering it.
On the Su Causeway, Tang Yue sat keeping vigil beside the Totem Xuan Serpent. If the Totem Xuan Serpent was truly about to leave this world forever, she would be there to see it through to the very end.
The wounds on the Totem Xuan Serpent's body kept spreading. The lightning raging within the Thunder God Halberds hammered relentlessly against its flesh, torturing it to the brink of death.
At last, the Totem Xuan Serpent seemed to have almost no strength left. It slowly coiled its massive body, rested its head upon its coils, and gently closed its exhausted eyes.
"Big guy, are you alright? Please, hold on just a little longer — I'll find a way to save you..." Tang Yue called out to it from the Su Causeway.
The Totem Xuan Serpent opened its heavy eyes. It looked at Tang Yue once, then let out a long, slow hiss — as if telling her: *I'm just tired. Let me rest a while.*
The Totem Xuan Serpent's wounds continued to fester. The lightning kept boring mercilessly into its flesh, hell-bent on tearing it apart entirely.
Tang Yue kept calling out to the great creature from the shore, urging it not to fall asleep. But the Totem Xuan Serpent had shut its eyes completely and gave no response.
Tang Yue buried her face in her hands, tears flooding her eyes. She stared at the Totem Xuan Serpent, its body seemingly being ripped apart by the lightning, and she did not know whether it would simply drift off into an endless, eternal sleep.
**Western Fortress**
The sky was a brilliant blue, scattered with clouds as white and soft as down. It would have made a beautiful painting — if not for the crimson blood raining through the air and the shredded flesh strewn across the ground.
Above the entire fortress, a massive white storm wheeled through the sky — a colossal celestial vortex slammed down upon the broad earth, swallowing the human fortress whole.
And who could have imagined that this entire white storm was composed of tens of thousands of densely packed White Demon Eagles?
Their cries were as piercing as grating thunder; their wings wove together into an endlessly churning white whirlwind; and countless pairs of ravenous eyes fixed hungrily upon the human city spread out below.
Within the fortress, magic roared.
Basic-tier spells of every color burst like fireworks in a dense and overwhelming barrage across the fortress's skies, and the heavy stench of elemental destruction saturated the earth.
Powerful Mages rose into the air to fight, plunged into an endless sea of razor-edged wings and raking talons, while the brilliant radiance of Star Palaces blazed around them in soul-stirring splendor.
Torrents of flame rained down upon the White Demon Eagles — a funeral pyre for the flock. Feathers burned; bodies crumbled to ash; the sky blazed red.
A pair of death-tinged eyes radiated a strange, pale light. In an instant, an ashen reaper descended, and wherever it passed, White Demon Eagles froze into lifeless sculptures, toppling in swaths and shattering against the ground.
A Dark Element Mage raised both hands high and inverted day and night. When his dark ritual was complete, the battlefield was surrendered entirely to darkness — the White Demon Eagles' sharp eyes became utterly useless.
A massive Blood Beast leapt upward and plunged into that darkness. Before long, agonized shrieks rang out one after another — the White Demon Eagles trapped within Night Sovereign's Dominion had found themselves in a nightmare.
Light and shadow flew like arrows as high-tier Light Falls Boundless Zhang punched through the White Demon Eagles, bringing them down in a steady stream, one after another.
Basic-tier magic could only lay down a sustained bombardment across the skies of the Western Fortress — a defensive line to hold back the invasion. It was the High-Level Mages and their high-tier spells alone that could inflict genuine damage on the White Demon Eagles.
As the Palace Guards entered the fray, the White Demon Eagles' ferocity was finally beaten back. Through an entire night of slaughter, untold numbers of White Demon Eagles had fallen, their corpses re-baptizing the land.
The eagles' Sovereign appeared to realize that its current forces were not sufficient to breach the human fortress's defensive line, and ordered a withdrawal.
And so, the storm-like White Demon Eagle army dispersed completely at dawn and flew back to their mountain ridges.
Yet the situation offered little comfort. The eagles had not retreated to their Nest — instead, they massed in the forests nearest the fortress, ready to launch their next assault at any moment.
On the eastern road into the Western Fortress, Mo Fan — dressed in the uniform of a military medic — strolled through the gates with his little assistant Lingling, the two of them moving with the easy confidence of people who had every right to be there.
Their credentials had come from Leng Qing; they would hold up to any inspection.
Mo Fan raised his head and watched the vast pale mass of White Demon Eagles recede into the distance, then cast a glance at the mangled corpses that had plummeted from the sky around the fortress, now stripped of all recognizable form.
The fortress had once been cast in shades of grey and white. Now bloodstains covered every surface, feathers were strewn everywhere, and the fighting had been brutal beyond measure. How many Military Mages had given their lives to destroy so many White Demon Eagles?
Mo Fan didn't linger on the thought. Following Leng Qing's instructions, he kept close to the shipment of blood reagents that Military Commander Ming Kuo had transported into the fortress. All they needed to do was lie in wait for their quarry.
When they reached the open-air warehouse, Mo Fan and Lingling intended to use their cover as military medics to inventory and inspect the blood reagents — but by the time they arrived, the bulk of those critical combat supplies had already been claimed. Only a few scattered crates remained.
"We're too late," Lingling said.
"The fighting barely just ended — there are enough wounded to fill an entire parade ground. Demand for blood reagents must have been enormous." Mo Fan scanned the area and dropped his voice. "Careful. Someone's coming — and they don't look like Western Fortress personnel."
Lingling's dark eyes immediately locked onto the several men striding purposefully toward them. "We should hide."
The men arrived with barely contained urgency, but when they found that the blood reagents had long since been requisitioned by the military for use, their faces went ashen. Panic flashed across every face.
"What do we do — this batch of supplies wasn't meant to be used..."
"We need to inform Councillor Luo Mian at once. If we don't, this is going to blow up into something serious." Deputy Chief Adjudicator Wang Yi said in a low, controlled voice.
The group departed in haste, looking every bit like men bearing terrible news.
Mo Fan and Lingling had been crouched behind a stack of cargo crates — and they had just caught something crucial.
"Councillor Luo Mian?" Mo Fan said, surprise flickering across his face.
"Hmph. It really is him — my sister suspected him all along!" Lingling said through gritted teeth.