Shadow Fade, Level Four (Part Two)

Mo Fan had never considered himself to be someone with exceptional luck. In dramas and novels, it was always someone else who leaped off a cliff and landed on a priceless manual, or took a casual swing at some scrubby hill pheasant only to discover it was a one-in-ten-thousand Golden Pheasant King bursting with legendary loot. But today, fortune had deigned to notice him.

He had been exactly one Servant-class soul short of upgrading his Shadow Element skill Shadow Fade to the fourth level — and by sheer coincidence, the fourth White Sand Giant he killed had dropped a Servant-class Spirit Essence outright.

*This has to be the second time something like this has happened. Before now, a Spirit Essence almost never dropped directly — and I've killed so many Demon-Beasts...*

Under normal circumstances, a naturally-occurring Servant-class Spirit Essence like this would have gone straight to the market. The artificial ones condensed inside the Loach Pendant couldn't be extracted; they could only be used for enhancement. Natural ones were for selling, artificial ones for enhancing — and the fragments needed for enhancement could always be slowly accumulated by collecting Remnant Souls from slain Demon-Beasts anyway.

But right now he was short exactly one, and given how dangerous things had become, upgrading without delay was the obvious move — anything to ease his precarious situation.

The White Sand Giants clearly belonged to the highest-bloodline tier among Servant-class creatures. Their Remnant Souls were worth considerably more, and the odds of a full Spirit Essence dropping from them appeared to be higher as well.

Mo Fan used Shadow Fade to slip to a relatively safer spot. In that brief window, he split his focus, hurriedly channeling energy into his remaining two Shadow Element Star Motes to enhance them.

In the Inner World, the transformation of Star Motes might seem like a slow, gradual process — but in truth it took no more than an instant. By the time the White Sand Giants raised their sand blades and came sweeping toward him again, Mo Fan's body had already sunk beneath a drifting veil of shadow.

The White Sand Giants weren't entirely brainless. They had noticed that every time Mo Fan used Shadow Fade he dissolved into a dark mass, so they began tracking that mass, pressing in from all sides to force him out. They understood teamwork well — cluster after cluster of them cut off every direction he might move.

Their blades rose, then came crashing down with a howling vortex of sand in their wake. The grit spiraled around each blade, amplifying the force of every strike by a full factor of two.

Shadow Element Mages caught in Shadow Fade state suffered far worse injuries from any blow that connected. And this time, as a shadow-form, Mo Fan found himself with nowhere left to run.

The sand-laden blades hacked down in rapid succession, tearing straight through the shadow. In an instant it was shredded apart, the force scattering it completely. Had a person been hidden inside, there would have been nothing left to bury.

The sand soldier giants split wide, rigid grins. They'd finally dealt with that troublesome Mage. Truth be told, they rather enjoyed the feeling of intruder blood soaking into their sand.

"Rose Flame — Blazing Fist — Nine Palaces!!!"

The shout rang out from an entirely different direction — Mo Fan's voice, shot through with domineering authority.

The White Sand Giants whipped around, every face frozen in disbelief at the sight of Mo Fan — alive, standing on the opposite side. They couldn't make sense of it. They had chased the shadow down. So how had he gotten away?

Rose-red flames already blazed across Mo Fan's body, the firelight catching the wild, uninhibited grin on his face.

What none of them could have imagined was that Mo Fan had upgraded Shadow Fade to the fourth level in the middle of the fight.

Level Four Shadow Fade was remarkably versatile: it allowed the Mage to project a false shadow-copy to deceive enemies while the true body stayed hidden in place, then slipped away to a shadowed blind spot the moment attention shifted elsewhere.

The false shadow had done its job, drawing the White Sand Giants in completely. For the first time, Mo Fan had enough breathing room to unleash his most devastating magic.

Every flame burning around him converged suddenly into his hands as his gaze fixed on the cluster of White Sand Giants ahead. The moment the energy reached its peak, Mo Fan drove his power-laden fist hard into the ground.

A surge of molten force flooded into the sand and split instantly into nine separate rivers of fire.

The White Sand Giants had packed themselves together in that area to cut off Mo Fan's shadow — and the searing heat of the Blazing Fist was already turning the ground beneath them incandescent.

**BOOM!!**

**BOOM!!**

**BOOM!!!**

...

Nine massive pillars of fire erupted one after another from the earth and screamed skyward. Molten liquid sprayed in all directions, and countless tongues of flame snaked between the pillars like roaring dragons. The inferno raged with such violent intensity that it had become a purgatory — utterly inhospitable to anything still breathing.

Imposing as the White Sand Giants were, their bodies were ultimately made of sand. The sheer force of the fire pillars was enough to blast them apart, and the flames extinguished whatever life remained in moments.

Blazing Fist — Nine Palaces was staggering in its lethality. Once a mass of Demon-Beasts clustered within range, it showed absolutely no mercy.

Creatures of Battle Commander physique — the level the White Sand Giants had reached — simply couldn't endure magic of this caliber. Every one of them caught within the nine fire columns was annihilated. In moments, nearly twenty White Sand Giants dissolved into wisps of Remnant Soul and were drawn into Mo Fan's pendant.

Twenty White Sand Giant Spirit Essences were equivalent to sixty fragments from ordinary Servant-class creatures. With that, the condensation of his next Servant-class Spirit Essence was already halfway done.

Though all three of his basic-tier skills had now been enhanced to the fourth level, if he could enhance every single one of the forty-nine Star Motes in his Star Nebula, his intermediate magic would reach the fourth level as well.

If Blazing Fist — Nine Palaces was already this devastating, pushing it even one tier higher would make it practically unstoppable.

Of the forty-nine Fire Element Star Motes, seven had been enhanced so far, leaving forty-two still to go. It was a colossal undertaking — but one that filled him with anticipation.

That single Blazing Fist — Nine Palaces had flipped his situation completely. For someone like Mo Fan, whose entire arsenal was offensive magic, seizing the initiative meant he could unleash his intermediate spells without restraint — and against that, the White Sand Giants simply had no answer.

Meanwhile, barely five hundred meters away, Chenying and the Swift Star Wolf were working in tandem but still hadn't managed to break free from the White Sand Giants surrounding them. She looked pressed; the pair had taken down only about ten of the creatures.

In the thick of her own fight, Chenying caught a glimpse toward Mo Fan's position — and saw that his side was nearly cleared. Her breath caught.

*How can anyone's combat ability be this terrifying?!*