Unfit to Call Himself Human!

A wave of cold, dark energy crashed over Wang Xiaojun and the Gray Eagle. The Gray Eagle instinctively shuffled back several steps, and Wang Xiaojun felt his own body trembling against his will. Councillor Luo Mian was formidably powerful — those piercing eyes cut through the air like twin blades driving straight into the soul.

"I'm asking you one last time — hand it over, or don't." Councillor Luo Mian's voice was cold as forged iron.

Wang Xiaojun clutched his space bracelet tightly, showing no intention of surrendering it.

"I forgot to mention — my secondary element is the Curse Element. I imagine you've never experienced what a curse feels like. You should count yourself fortunate: I haven't killed a single person with my curse since becoming a Councillor. And many of those I did kill in my time were masters you couldn't hope to surpass in your lifetime." Councillor Luo Mian slowly swept his palm toward Wang Xiaojun.

His hand seemed to conceal something — a surge of blood-red power, reeking of malice.

The spectral form of a massive evil spider materialized above Wang Xiaojun and the Gray Eagle, hovering grotesquely in midair. Its long, spindly legs were wound with the same blood-red threads that coiled around Luo Mian's palm.

Somehow, without either of them noticing, those threads had already spread to encircle Wang Xiaojun and the Gray Eagle completely, wrapping tight around their bodies. Before long, a blood-red web had materialized around them — it looked freshly woven, yet at the same time like something that had lain in wait for its prey for ages. Above, the evil spider began yanking the threads with brutal force, and the crimson strands coiling around Wang Xiaojun drew tighter and tighter.

A curse, by its very nature, targets what is most vulnerable in a person. These threads were not merely shackles binding the body — they transformed into conduits draining the very essence of the soul, furiously siphoning away Wang Xiaojun's life force.

"How does it feel? I'm getting on in years — I'd rather not add to my sins. Give it to me, and I'll lift your suffering at once," Councillor Luo Mian said.

Wang Xiaojun struggled desperately, his face draining from ashen to a deep, bruised purple. He was in agony. He tried to speak, but the crimson threads had packed his throat, silencing him.

Councillor Luo Mian watched him, certain the boy was about to beg for mercy — yet a cruel smile played at the corner of his lips. His open palm abruptly curled into a vicious claw, mimicking the grotesque talons of the evil spider, reaching for the kill.

Wang Xiaojun's body went rigid all at once, as though every last drop of his soul had been drained away…

All color left his face. The rigidity gave way, and his body went completely limp.

His eyes rolled upward, like those of a hanged man. In them — beyond terror and agony — was something far greater: sheer disbelief.

"Overestimating yourself, and blind to the vastness of the world." Councillor Luo Mian walked calmly to Wang Xiaojun's side and tore the space bracelet from him.

He paid no further attention to the hollowed-out Wang Xiaojun. A nobody like this — had he not happened to stumble upon the cure for the plague, Luo Mian would never have spared him a second glance.

The key to his rise was now in hand. He needed to return to Hangzhou's central quarantine zone as quickly as possible; with this, he could negotiate all manner of terms with the city's power brokers.

Using his Shadow Element abilities, Councillor Luo Mian slipped effortlessly through the region swarming with White Demon Eagles and departed without hindrance, leaving behind the motionless body of a young man — and a Gray Eagle screaming with all its might.

**Hangzhou — West Lake**

"Idiot!! Idiot!! That absolute idiot!!!" Lingling cried out from atop the Totem Xuan Serpent's head, her small face contorted with grief and fury.

Through a special communicator, she had heard everything that had happened in that forest.

She screamed and raged — yet her wrath was not directed at the monstrous Councillor Luo Mian. It was directed at Wang Xiaojun.

*Why did he have to resist? Why?!*

He was only a Basic-Level Mage. How could he have thought to stand against a Councillor who had long since abandoned any pretense of conscience…

*Why didn't he just hand it over?* At least that way he might have lived!!

Curse after curse poured from her lips, and before long Lingling's eyes had gone red.

Call him foolish — yet there was also something clever in what he'd done. Right at the moment Councillor Luo Mian had moved against him, Wang Xiaojun had quietly activated a hidden communicator.

Councillor Luo Mian would never have imagined that every moment of his brutal, utterly vile performance had been recorded in full — and transmitted directly to Lingling and Mo Fan.

"Evil Spider Snare…" Mo Fan's gaze went distant. "That skill devours the soul…"

Mo Fan knew the Evil Spider Snare all too well. When he and Tang Yue had once hunted the wanted criminal Chao He, that man had wielded the terrifying Curse Element — and the four members of the Dongfang Clan had been reduced to soulless husks in moments.

Now Wang Xiaojun had suffered the same assault. His cultivation was nowhere near the level of those four — how could he have withstood an Intermediate-tier Curse Element spell?

Luo Mian was cruel beyond all measure, to use such vicious magic against a mere boy.

"Lingling, calm down — maybe he's still—" Mo Fan clung to a sliver of hope.

"Do you think I'm a child?! Do you think I don't know what the Curse Element does?!" Lingling shrieked, her voice cracking. "That Councillor — he doesn't deserve to call himself human!"

Mo Fan's heart sank.

Luo Mian was the mastermind behind the plague. Mo Fan had already believed that, as a corrupt Councillor, Luo Mian had shown the full, unbridled depths of his ruthlessness and his contempt for human life — but he hadn't anticipated that Luo Mian would go so far as to hunt down Wang Xiaojun…

Just how cruel, shameless, vicious, and cold-blooded did a person have to be to do something like this?

The plague was his doing. He had brought catastrophe to Hangzhou. He had shown no remorse. He had made scapegoats of his subordinates while he walked free. All of that was already damning enough — but now he had killed the very person who had risked his life to find a cure for the disaster he'd caused.

How could he have done it? How could he bring himself to strike down a boy with such a pure and selfless heart?

Mo Fan had thought Lu Nian was the worst butcher of the innocent he would ever encounter — but today he had met someone a hundred times more ruthless and despicable than Lu Nian. And this man was a Councillor of the sacred Tribunal.

He thought of Wang Xiaojun storming into that conference hall. He thought of the resolve in the boy's eyes even as he walked knowingly into danger. Then he pictured Luo Mian's mask of false virtue — his contemptuous sneer as he tore away the cure that Wang Xiaojun had purchased with his life — and the rage building inside Mo Fan's chest became something enormous, something that wanted to explode outward and consume the world.

This Luo Mian…

Ten thousand deaths wouldn't be enough!!!

**"Screeeee!!!!!"**

**"Screeeee!!!!!"**

From the other end of the communicator, one piercing cry rang out after another.

It was the Gray Eagle's voice — each shriek soaked in boundless grief. Even Mo Fan and Lingling could not hold back their tears.