Scared of This Transfer Student

A pall of misery hung over the Fire Hall students. They hadn't expected Zhao Ji — the strongest among the challengers — to go down in defeat.

Zhao Ji had been careless, no question about it. The fight had been completely in his favor, yet Mo Fan had somehow turned it around and finished him off.

Then again, the Shield Enchanted Gear the opponent carried was genuinely extraordinary — a counter-strike effect built into a defensive item wasn't something most people would ever think to watch for.

What mattered most was that the Great Demon Lord had clearly taken damage from Zhao Ji's Blazing Fist. He'd been on the verge of going down — and then the Shield Enchanted Gear had sprung its hidden trap.

"The Nether Separation Shield isn't much for raw defense, but the counter-attack capability is solid. Worth every coin." Mo Fan stowed the Nether Separation Shield away, murmuring to himself.

He'd wanted to smile, but the searing burns across his body made even that impossible. Fortunately the damage wasn't too severe — otherwise he'd lose the concentration needed to trace Star Trails and find himself completely combat-ineffective.

Zhao Ji stepped down from the ring, his gaze still hard and venomous as he glanced back toward Mo Fan. Lost in that poisonous stare, he nearly walked straight into a tall young man with gold-dyed hair.

The gold-haired young man had fair skin, a sharp nose bridge, and the kind of bold, sculpted features usually associated with Westerners — yet he retained an Eastern elegance that softened the lines. Compared to Zhao Ji, whose face and skin were mottled with strange dark patches, the difference was glaring.

"So you were here too." Zhao Ji spoke to the gold-haired man. "I was this close to putting the Zhao name on the map. Still — he got a solid taste of my flames. If he'd gone much longer without treating those burns, his whole outer layer of skin would've charred right through."

The gold-haired man stood nearly a full head taller than Zhao Ji, looking down with cold, flat eyes.

Then, without a word, he raised his hand and cracked the back of his palm hard across Zhao Ji's face.

**Smack!!**

The slap rang out like a gunshot. The crowd had been debating what to do next about the Great Demon Lord — then every head snapped toward the sound. Zhao Ji had just been struck.

"Who is that?!"

"Seriously — that's Zhao Ji, ranked 101st! Someone actually hit him?"

"Wait, what happened? I wasn't looking — when did Zhao Ji get slapped?!"

The onlookers erupted into chatter. Those with a clear line of sight saw Zhao Ji stagger back several steps, and then a tooth — blood still clinging to it — struck the ground.

A single blow had sent a tooth flying.

Blood seeped from the corner of Zhao Ji's mouth. His eyes burned with fury, yet he couldn't let that fury fully reach his face. He stared at his younger cousin, and what showed through more than anything else was disbelief.

"I just lost one challenge..." Zhao Ji said, struggling to hold himself together.

Even the people who knew Zhao Ji well were stunned. He had always been the type to make others pay for every slight — so why was he completely spineless in front of this one person? Getting slapped that hard in front of a crowd was about as humiliating as it got. Shouldn't he be rushing in to fight back?

"Get out of my sight," the gold-haired young man said, his eyes cold with fury, "before I cripple you for real."

Zhao Ji's standing was clearly far beneath this man's. However deep his shame, he didn't dare say a single word in response. He glanced once at the tooth lying at his feet, then turned and stormed off with his face twisted in silent rage.

"Young man," said White-browed Teacher, fixing the gold-haired man with a mildly reproving look, "this sort of roughness isn't appropriate inside a school."

"Teacher, I was only handling some family business. My apologies." The gold-haired man's expression shifted almost instantly — a relaxed smile replaced the ferocity of a moment before, transforming him into what seemed like an entirely different person.

Wei Rong had watched the whole scene. Having his own student struck should, by rights, have prompted some objection — but when he saw Zhao Ji standing there without daring to even breathe wrong, he made a reasonable guess that this gold-haired figure was someone significant, and decided to keep out of it.

Before most of the crowd had managed to piece together what had just happened, the figure on the platform — Mo Fan, his upper body now bare — broke into a grin.

"Half a year without seeing each other, and you open with *that*?"

Mo Fan clearly knew the gold-haired man well, calling down from the ring like he was greeting an old friend.

"Same as ever, aren't you." The man grinned back. "If I hadn't been bored enough to come hear about some big challenge going on, I wouldn't even have known you were back at school."

"Just a routine challenge," Mo Fan said.

"That part's none of my business. What I care about is who hurt a friend of mine. Doesn't matter who they are — I'm not letting it slide. Especially not a dog who eats at my family's table." Zhao Manyan said it without a flicker of hesitation.

"Nice hair color, by the way."

"I half expected that the next time I saw you, you'd be lying in a coffin." Zhao Manyan spread into a wide grin, though something flickered behind his eyes. "Good to see you making it out to school events."

The last time he'd seen Mo Fan, the man's hair had been standing on end, his entire body wreathed in a swirling, overwhelming malevolence — the result of Military Commander Lu Nian and his group's terrifying demon experiment.

He'd been half-convinced he would never see this person again — the one who had turned himself into something monstrous to save everyone else. Seeing Mo Fan alive and standing here, arrogant as the day they'd met, cutting down over two hundred Fire Hall challengers the same way he'd once seized every resource in Pearl Academy in his very first days — it hit Zhao Manyan with a warmth he hadn't anticipated.

Knowing Mo Fan had survived, the burden he'd been carrying quietly dissolved.

As for that wretch Zhao Ji who'd dared wound his sworn brother — there would be time to settle that properly later. Mo Fan had given Zhao Manyan his life; that made him a benefactor to the entire Zhao Clan. Zhao Ji owed every scrap of his cultivation and his Spirit Seed to the Zhao Clan — losing one tooth was getting off light.

With no intention of disrupting Mo Fan's enjoyment of his one-man war against all of Fire Hall, Zhao Manyan found a seat, settled in with an arm around his newest girlfriend, and watched.

Mo Fan caught sight of this from the platform and shook his head inwardly. *Another new one already.*

"Next challenger — ranked 467..." Wei Rong called out the name.

Now that Zhao Ji had fallen, the challengers who followed were unlikely to pose any real threat. Anyone ranked past four hundred would be handled quickly and cleanly.

The count had crossed two hundred challengers. The fighting had pushed well past midnight — at any other time, people would have been back in their apartments resting or in Meditation. Tonight, the arena was still packed.

Every challenger after Zhao Ji failed to trouble Mo Fan, even as his Magical Energy to Release intermediate-tier spells dwindled toward nothing. Even injured, his basic attacks were more than enough.

Gradually, though, people began to notice something that offered a sliver of comfort: Mo Fan was visibly running out of steam.

The truth was that by the time the fight with Zhao Ji had started, Mo Fan had been running on fumes. The only reason he'd won at all was because the Nether Separation Shield's counter-strike had landed the finishing blow.

"He's finally dried up, this Great Demon Lord. Any top-two-hundred challenger who steps up now would end him without breaking a sweat!"

"Don't even need top two hundred — anyone outside the bottom six hundred could probably do the job at this point!"

"What exactly are you people celebrating?" a student from another department cut in. "You've had over two hundred of your own beaten into the ground!"

"Better than a total wipeout. If that had happened, our whole department really would've become a permanent joke."

Mo Fan's reputation as the Great Demon Lord had taken on a weight of its own. The Fire Hall students were well and truly scared of their transfer student.

And the truly terrifying part? If he actually completed every last challenge — Fire Hall would never be able to hold its head up in front of another department again.