Sabotaged by a Teammate!

Chenying was, after all, one of the top-ranked powerhouses at the Imperial Capital Magic Academy. She knew perfectly well how difficult these well-trained White Sand Giants were to handle — and on top of that, Mo Fan still had a Swift Star Wolf guarding his flank.

That Swift Star Wolf was a Battle-General-class beast, and it belonged to Mo Fan as well. That he had managed to wipe out the White Sand Giants in such a short time, under these conditions — it was nearly unbelievable.

"Mo Fan, once you've cleared your side, get to Zhao Manyan as fast as you can," Lingling called out from the center of their formation. "He looks like he's nearly at his limit."

Mo Fan nodded — he knew this was no time to be careless. He swiftly finished off the remaining White Sand Giants, then activated Shadow Fade and shot toward Zhao Manyan's position.

"Wait a moment, Brother Mo Fan." Xinxia's voice stopped him as he swept past her.

Mo Fan slowed to a halt, his body rising gradually from the shadows, and looked back at Xinxia with a questioning tilt of his head.

Before he could say a word, a milky-white butterfly sprite drifted toward him, its entire body suffused with a strange, otherworldly radiance. The creature seemed to sense wounds by the scent of blood — it alighted briefly on his shoulder, then fluttered around to his back.

Mo Fan's back had been riddled with several bloody gashes by the force of the sand spray, and there were other wounds scattered across his body that he hadn't even registered. The Healing Sprite moved quickly, drawing out the grit and debris lodged in each wound and coaxing them to close at a remarkable speed.

The Healing Sprite worked with startling efficiency. Each time its wings brushed lightly across his skin and paused for just a moment, the wounds beneath simply disappeared.

Yet as it worked, the pale green luminance of the Healing Sprite was fading, little by little — not nearly as vivid and bright as when it had first appeared.

"This Healing Sprite will stay at your side. Whenever you're injured, it will treat you right away. Each time it heals, its glow dims a little more — when it becomes fully transparent and dissolves, the spell is over." Xinxia looked up at him and smiled, warm as a spring morning, and something stirred quietly in Mo Fan's chest that he couldn't quite name.

Mo Fan glanced at the Healing Sprite perched on his shoulder.

*No wonder every Healing Element Mage gets treated like a living Guanyin — everyone worships them. This intermediate Healing Element magic really is absurdly powerful. Having it trail beside you in battle, quietly erasing every wound you take along the way...*

*Wounds could be lethal in their own right. The pain crept up on you, chipping away at a mage's combat effectiveness without warning — not just through mental exhaustion as injuries worsened, but through the slowdown it caused when drawing a Star Chart. If pain caused a Star Chart to shatter mid-drawing, the consequences could be catastrophic.*

The battle he'd just fought left no trace on his body. He could enter the next engagement at full capacity — and as long as the Healing Sprite lingered at his side, he could hold that edge indefinitely. Not a single wound to weigh him down.

"Zhao Manyan, I'm coming to save you!" Mo Fan roared, fully restored, and charged forward.

He surged toward Zhao Manyan's position with all the bravado in the world — until he saw the White Sand Giants. Over a hundred of them. Every scrap of that boldness evaporated on the spot.

"What the hell — did you stir up their entire Nest or something? Why didn't you say there were this many?" Mo Fan demanded through his Communicator, shouting across the dense wall of towering giants at Zhao Manyan trapped inside.

Zhao Manyan's defensive power was genuinely staggering — practically worth an entire squad on its own. Mo Fan found himself thinking that if the Shamang River Hunter-mage team had had someone like Zhao Manyan, that indestructible old tortoise, they wouldn't have died so miserably.

"Stop making snide remarks and do something!" Zhao Manyan's roar crackled over the Communicator, thick with more resentment than Mo Fan could measure. "Three minutes — maximum. If you don't get me out of here in three minutes, I swear I'll haunt every last one of you from beyond the grave!!"

"I want to save you too — the problem is I literally cannot get through that wall of giants," Mo Fan called back, grimacing. "Your family's absurdly wealthy — why didn't they ever buy you Wing Enchanted Gear? You're clearly terrified of dying. If you had the money, you should've spent it."

Even if Mo Fan planted himself out there and blasted away like a living artillery platform, he wouldn't be able to punch a gap through that wall fast enough to matter.

"Maybe I should step in?" Xinxia's voice came over the Communicator, laced with quiet concern.

The only thing capable of freeing Zhao Manyan this quickly was Xinxia's Soothe.

"Brother Fan, I'm here to help!" Zhang Xiaohou's voice rang out — close, not through the Communicator.

Mo Fan spun around and found Zhang Xiaohou already nearly at his side, closing fast.

The moment he saw him, a grin broke across Mo Fan's face. *Perfect timing.*

The thought had barely formed before the grin vanished.

Zhang Xiaohou had arrived, yes — but he'd brought an entire pack of White Sand Giants crashing along behind him. The situation was already a nightmare, and now this fool had delivered his own unfinished horde straight to Mo Fan's feet. The only reason Mo Fan didn't start cursing was out of respect for Zhang Xiaohou's parents.

As for Zhao Manyan, trapped inside — if he ever learned things had come to this, he'd have wanted to gut Zhang Xiaohou on the spot. You didn't sabotage your own teammates like this.

Mo Fan watched the White Sand Giants churn up a billowing wall of dust as they bore down behind Zhang Xiaohou. With no other choice, he was going to have to burn through Xinxia's Mind Element Magical Energy ahead of schedule — otherwise Zhao Manyan was finished. Keep him alive first, solve everything else after.

"Just watch me!" announced Zhang Xiaohou — the very architect of this disaster — with a brilliant surge of confidence.

Without breaking his sprint, he banked sharply in front of Mo Fan and led the pack of White Sand Giants chasing him straight toward the ring of giants already surrounding Zhao Manyan. It was like pouring oil onto a roaring fire.

Zhang Xiaohou raced to the outer edge of the giant wall at full speed, and Mo Fan watched the second pack thundering after him with no sign of slowing. A thought crossed his mind: *Is this idiot actually planning to make the White Sand Giants he's leading crash into the outer wall like a herd of brainless cattle?*

*That's absurd. There's no way that actually works.*

But what happened next made Mo Fan's jaw drop. He stared in disbelief as that entire pack of White Sand Giants charged headlong into the outer ring of their own kind.

They could clearly see their fellow giants right in front of them. And they didn't slow down even slightly.