Shattering His Blood Fangs!

Mo Fan, watching from the side, stood frozen for a long moment.

Nie Dong was the Vampire — so why did he look more like *he'd* seen a ghost when Zhao Manyan showed up?

But while Zhao Manyan kept the Vampire tangled up, Mo Fan hadn't been idle. His most scorching Star Chart had finished forming, and his right fist was already wreathed in flame.

Mo Fan's eyes blazed like twin embers. He locked his gaze onto Vampire Nie Dong and drove his furious fist down into the earth.

"Rose Flame — Blazing Fist — Nine Palaces!"

Scorching energy surged madly into the ground. The instant Vampire Nie Dong hurled Zhao Manyan aside, the Nine Palaces erupted — a massive cage of fire, columns of boiling magma blasting upward from below.

Vampire Nie Dong tried to retreat — only to find a roaring column of fire at his back. He lunged left and was driven straight back again. There was nowhere to go. Tongues of flame lashed him from every direction, searing him until his screams tore through the night.

The Blazing Fist — Nine Palaces was devastating enough to cripple the Vampire outright. Blind in both eyes, he staggered back and forth through the cage, blundering into more and more fire.

Nie Dong thrashed wildly in the inferno, his crimson claws slashing in every direction, carving deep gashes across the walls of the surrounding buildings.

But blind, frantic attacks like those were no threat to Mo Fan or Zhao Manyan.

The flames hadn't even faded before Zhao Manyan finished his Intermediate magic.

"Light Grace — Painted Wall!"

Zhao Manyan conjured a wall of solid light directly in the path of Nie Dong's flailing charge. Where the flames had failed to scorch through his flesh, the barrier seared it open the instant he made contact.

Seeing how effective it was, Zhao Manyan cast the Light Element Intermediate magic again. A second radiant wall materialized directly in front of Nie Dong — and with nowhere to go, he slammed into it from the other side. The burns compounded. He was suffering terribly.

Nie Dong had been wounded from the very start. The gash Liu Ru had torn in his throat had never stopped bleeding. Under normal circumstances, he would never have been suppressed like this by two Mages of their caliber.

For a Vampire, blood was power — every drop lost meant another measure of strength stripped away.

Lightning strike wounds, scorched flesh, the searing ache of the light barrier burns, his ruined eyes, and the dull throbbing of his Blood Fangs — Vampire Nie Dong could feel his situation collapsing around him.

Fortunately, a Vampire's hearing far surpassed a human's. He caught the distant sound of a car crossing a highway overpass somewhere in the night, and that was enough to finally give him a bearing.

He wheeled around and transformed — his body coiling into a set of leathery wings, his entire frame vanishing within their gaunt, bony folds. He burst free from between the two Painted Walls and streaked toward the overpass.

Mo Fan tried to hit him with the Lightning Seal to paralyze the creature, but Nie Dong in wing-form was frighteningly agile, weaving through the dense swarm of lightning-snake marks with ease.

Too few hits landed to fully paralyze a creature of Nie Dong's level. Mo Fan started drawing the Shadow Element Star Chart beneath his feet — then abruptly remembered that the Giant Shadow Nail was useless against Vampires. He abandoned it.

"He's running! Do something — stop him!" Zhao Manyan shouted.

None of Zhao Manyan's spells carried a binding or immobilizing effect. All he could do was stare helplessly at Mo Fan. If he could somehow conjure five Painted Walls at once, they might just form a crude cage of light — but that was beyond him in the time they had.

"Relax. He's not going anywhere." A crimson glow flared to life around Mo Fan's legs, the bloody radiance slowly solidifying into something tangible — armor-like plating clamping down over both limbs.

He sprinted down the empty street, the Blood Beast Boots carrying him after Vampire Nie Dong at a furious pace.

"Everyone else *flies* — you're *running*! How in the world are you going to catch him?!" Zhao Manyan yelled.

All the same, Zhao Manyan had no intention of giving up. He sprinted toward his luxury car, parked farther down the road.

He jammed in the key, gunned the engine, and was just about to floor the accelerator when he spotted a streak of golden light — then another, and another — appearing in the direction Nie Dong had fled.

The beams crisscrossed through the air, weaving densely into a shimmering golden lattice.

The golden net dropped over Vampire Nie Dong without warning. The moment his wing-form touched those strands of holy power, he reverted to his true shape.

The net pinned Nie Dong to the ground. The burning radiance of the beams was eating through the skin of his face.

**"AAARRGH!! AAARRGH!!!!!"**

Nie Dong thrashed like a cornered animal, every trace of his former arrogance obliterated. In its place came the howl of something monstrous — raw and utterly terrifying.

At the other end of the net, the golden cords converged into a bundle held in a pair of small, pale hands.

Lingling wore a smug grin — the expression of a young fox who knew exactly what she was doing. As a Hunter Master, she had little combat power of her own, but when it came to tracking tools and capture devices, nobody wielded them with more precision.

Had she deployed the Light Binding Net from the start, the Vampire might have dodged it. But dropping it without warning the moment the prey was in a blind panic — now Vampire Nie Dong had no escape.

Nie Dong caught the scent of Lingling — something young and sweet. He dimly recalled that same scent from the Northern Club. He lunged toward her with every scrap of savagery he had left, hoping his monstrous appearance would drive her back.

Lingling didn't flinch. Radiant energy coiled around her wrists, and no matter how hard the Vampire strained, he couldn't force his way through the Light Binding Net's narrow opening.

"Lingling, get clear!!" Mo Fan bellowed as he ran, the fury that had been building in his chest finally breaking loose.

Mo Fan surged the Blood Beast Boots' active power, and the moment he reached Vampire Nie Dong, he launched a kick that crashed squarely into the side of Nie Dong's face.

Using magic risked shattering Lingling's Light Binding Net — but the raw, savage force of the Blood Beast Boots was exactly what this moment called for.

**Crack!!!!**

The terrifying brute strength of the Blood Beast condensed into Mo Fan's right leg and exploded outward, the impact against Nie Dong's face ringing out like a gunshot.

Nie Dong spun through the air, still wrapped in the Light Binding Net, and was sent flying over thirty meters before crashing into an illegally parked car and reducing it to a crumpled wreck. The force of the kick needed no further commentary.

**Clang — clang!**

Two white Blood Fangs were knocked clean from his mouth and landed beside the ruined car.

Nie Dong's Blood Fangs had already been loosened when he bit down on Zhao Manyan's golden shield — and Mo Fan's kick had been aimed directly at them.

With the Blood Fangs gone, the Vampire was as good as dead — for they were the only means by which a Vampire could take blood into its body.