The Perfectly Synchronized Trio

**Boom! Boom! Boom!!!!**

Like a bowling ball scattering pins, the White Sand Giants on the far side of the wall toppled in swaths — and the ones responsible for sending them there careened into each other as well, some struck with such force that their bodies shattered completely.

It looked like a massive pile-up on a highway packed bumper to bumper: White Sand Giant debris flying in every direction, the scene nothing short of catastrophic.

Staring at the carnage spread out before him, Mo Fan could hardly believe his eyes.

He'd been treating these White Sand Giants like a serious threat — picking them off one by one, working himself to the bone — when they apparently had this degree of collective self-destruction in reserve?

Looking more carefully, he noticed something in the stretch of sand where Zhang Xiaohou had been racing earlier — something rolling relentlessly forward, like swells rising and breaking across an ocean surface.

From the color of the sand, it had to be Zhang Xiaohou's Earth Element Spirit Seed: the Flowing Marsh. Everything clicked into place.

So the White Sand Giants weren't hopelessly stupid after all. Zhang Xiaohou had already deployed a wide-area Earth Wave, and when the Giants had been just about to slow to a stop near the wall, he simply wouldn't let them. He harnessed the Earth Wave's constant forward surge to shove them bodily into their own comrades.

White Sand Giants were massive and heavy by nature — once they got moving, they couldn't stop without skidding forward a good distance. Zhang Xiaohou had exploited that lumbering quality to perfection, maneuvering Earth Wave to engineer one spectacular "crash."

Imagine: the ground beneath your feet not only as slick as ice but actively shoving you forward. With no way to control their own bodies, the White Sand Giants had slammed full-force into their iron-wall formation and blown a massive gap clean through it.

"Once I coat this sandy terrain with Flowing Marsh, these White Sand Giants lose their burrowing ability entirely — and their movements get noticeably clumsier too." Zhang Xiaohou grinned at his handiwork, clearly pleased with himself.

Mo Fan gave him a firm thumbs-up. It was evident that training under Chief Instructor Zhankong had paid off. Zhang Xiaohou was a far cry from the high schooler who'd once struggled to handle a single Servant-class creature.

"Let's go — we push in together!" Mo Fan called out to him.

Zhang Xiaohou's dazzling display had lit a fire under Mo Fan. The White Sand Giants of the Shamang River weren't as terrifying as he'd feared — sheer numbers were the only real obstacle, and that was a problem with solutions.

"Brother Fan, I've got your back — just cut loose and do what you do!" Zhang Xiaohou said.

Those words put Mo Fan at ease. There was a saying on the battlefield: a true comrade is someone you can turn your back to without a second thought.

Mo Fan had few people he trusted at that level. Zhang Xiaohou was absolutely one of them.

"Qianjun — Thunderbolt: Yaksha!!"

Mo Fan simply closed his eyes. Letting the brutish sight of the White Sand Giants disturb his concentration would only slow him down — shutting them out let him trace his Star Chart faster.

When he opened them again, arcs of violet-black lightning were already flickering in his gaze.

A curved stone barrier had risen to his left. The White Sand Giants hurled themselves against it in a frenzy, but hardened by the Flowing Marsh Spirit Seed, the barrier's defenses were more than a handful of giants could hope to breach.

And by then, Mo Fan had already completed his Lightning Element spell. The Thunderbolt that split the night sky was blinding — a shrill, tearing shriek trailing in its wake.

Unlike the Blazing Fist, Thunderbolt offered no slow death. Enemies simply ceased to exist the moment the lightning touched them.

Five White Sand Giants shattered apart, their lives snuffed out in an instant.

Mo Fan pressed forward through the melee, his gaze cutting through ring after ring of giant bodies until he made out Zhao Manyan sheltering inside a Sacred Shield.

Zhao Manyan had clearly seen that his long-awaited reinforcements had finally arrived. While his shield still had time to hold, he immediately launched a Water Element Tidal Surge toward the direction of the rescue. Under normal circumstances, a Tidal Surge would barely budge these hulking White Sand Giants — but because Mo Fan and Zhang Xiaohou had already thrown their formation into chaos, the Water Element magic designed to break ranks worked beautifully, sending giants tumbling and leaving them struggling to rise.

The fallen White Sand Giants rolled toward Zhang Xiaohou and Mo Fan on the crest of the Tidal Surge. Zhang Xiaohou, nimble and fearless, took one look at the wave bearing down and simply leapt forward — using the bodies of tumbled giants as stepping stones. Pure skill, matched with pure nerve.

Mo Fan activated his Blood Beast Boots and followed suit, attempting the same precarious stunt through the churning flood. He was nowhere near as graceful, lurching and wobbling the whole way, but he made it to Zhao Manyan in one piece.

At the sight of them dropping in like soldiers from heaven, Zhao Manyan was overcome with emotion.

"How are you holding up? Still got some fight left?" Zhang Xiaohou gave Zhao Manyan's battered state a quick once-over.

"Are you kidding? Your safety is on me now. If any of these bastards so much as touches a hair on your heads, you can write my name backwards — now go tear them apart!!" Zhao Manyan roared, all his pent-up fury finally finding release.

It was rare to see Zhao Manyan looking this fired up. Mo Fan and Zhang Xiaohou both settled into grim-faced focus, eyes locked on the White Sand Giants that were closing in from all sides once more.

The Giants were genuine fanatics — utterly devoid of fear, as though any intruder who set foot in their territory was destined to be dragged into hell no matter the cost to themselves.

All the better. Mo Fan's tier-four Fire Element spell, the Blazing Fist, needed exactly this kind of fodder to grow. What supremely powerful Mage had ever climbed to the pinnacle without using the massed corpses of Demon-Beasts as the steps beneath his feet?

With the Loach Pendant's unique properties, combat offered Mo Fan more than the growth of experience and battle-hardened instinct — the foul Remnant Souls of these Demon-Beasts would become the very foundation for strengthening his spells.

And White Sand Giant Remnant Souls were worth three ordinary ones. There was no better place in the world for stockpiling Spirit Essence.

"Monkey, you distract that group. I'll send a shadow decoy to draw the ones on the left. Once both flanks are pulled away, Zhao Manyan — you and I wipe out everything right in front of us." Mo Fan commanded.

All around them rose sand-covered giants the size of walls, every one bristling with menace, sand-blades raised and ready. Against this horde of behemoths, the three young men hemmed in among them looked utterly small — three lambs fallen into a pack of wolves.

But they had each other's backs. Their expressions were grave, and utterly without fear.