Night Raid on a Beauty

"They probably don't even realize they've cleared out nearly every White Sand Giant in the entire area." Chenying was still reeling from shock, staring at the battlefield in disbelief.

The fighting had gone on for quite some time. There was no need for Chenying to join in — she was fairly sure that even if she had, she would have accomplished little at this point. In the thick of battle, the three of them had clearly come to understand each other's strengths, their teamwork growing sharper with every passing moment. What had started as a desperate scramble to break out of a White Sand Giant encirclement had turned around entirely — now it was Zhang Xiaohou, Zhao Manyan, and Mo Fan who were on the offensive, hunting down the giants in groups and wiping them out wholesale.

The Shamang River, perpetually churning with towering walls of sand, had by now settled in nearly every direction — only the stretch around the three fighters still roiled. Even that was only a matter of time. The White Sand Giants were no longer any kind of threat.

"Looks like the road ahead just got a lot easier," Lingling remarked.

As she spoke, the White Sand Giants had already broken into full retreat. The three of them began sweeping up what remained.

Now that they had figured out how to deal with the White Sand Giants in the heat of combat, even greater numbers would pose no real danger. The Shamang River was fearsome, no question — but it was no true river of the dead. Those with the courage and strength to face it could still cross.

The night had grown deep, but it was not dark.

The endless white sand stretched out like an empty canvas beneath a sky ablaze with brilliant stars — a scene of raw grandeur wed to quiet beauty that could only ever be witnessed here, in the land of Dunhuang.

After the great battle, this stretch of the Shamang River had fallen completely still.

Xinxia was at work with her gentle Healing Element magic, tending to all three of them. Her Mind Element Magical Energy was limited, but her Healing Element reserves were ample — as long as it hadn't run completely dry, she could replenish their fighting strength in a steady, unbroken stream.

"Now *that* was satisfying — I've never fought like that in my life!" Zhao Manyan grinned wide, already on the verge of getting carried away, when the gash across his face split open again.

Zhang Xiaohou nodded eagerly. Even coordinating with his comrades in the military hadn't felt this smooth.

Mo Fan lay stretched out in the soft sand, hands laced behind his head, gazing up at the beautiful night sky. He savored the memory of that single punch demolishing wave after wave of Demon-Beasts, then began carefully tallying exactly how many Servant-class Spirit Essence he had collected.

Counting the two from before, he now had five in total. If he could sell them, that was twenty-five million — an absolute windfall.

He didn't dwell on it long. Mo Fan channeled the three newly acquired Spirit Essence directly into strengthening his Fire Element Star Motes.

Combined with the seven he had already enhanced, his total now stood at ten. Strengthening all forty-nine was still a long way off, but at this rate, the day would come when he had forged the Blazing Fist to its fourth tier.

Mo Fan knew perfectly well that breaking through to High-Level Mage was a long and grueling process. But if he could push the Blazing Fist to its fourth tier before reaching that threshold, he would already command half the destructive power of a true High-Level spell. Factor in his four-element combat capability, and by that point, even some High-Level Mages wouldn't find him an easy opponent.

And besides — the whole reason for this expedition was the Flame Queen.

If he could claim the Flame Queen, his fighting strength would reach a level that left others speechless.

"You always seem to wear that." Xinxia's soft voice drifted to his ear.

Mo Fan turned his head to find that she had finished treating the others and settled down beside him.

Because he was lying down, his collar had fallen slightly open, revealing a corner of the Loach Pendant he always kept tucked against his chest. The ever-observant Xinxia had noticed at once.

"I do," Mo Fan said with a smile. "I don't know where it came from, but I have a feeling it brings me luck."

"It's special," Xinxia said with a gentle smile. As a Mind Element user, her perception was far sharper than most Mages'. She could sense a peculiar energy lurking within the small pendant — though what exactly it was, she couldn't quite say.

She didn't press further about the Loach Pendant.

Her philosophy was simple: if Mo Fan wanted to tell her, he would. There was no point in asking about something he had chosen to keep to himself.

To outsiders, this attitude might have seemed almost too meek, too old-fashioned for a young woman. But the truth was that Xinxia had grown up entirely under Mo Fan's influence — and the one who reaped the benefits of that long, deliberate shaping was, naturally, the ever-far-sighted Mo Fan himself.

Xinxia was by no means without a mind of her own. Her exceptional results at school and the poise with which she carried herself made her sharp and capable intellect plain to anyone watching. Yet in front of her brother Mo Fan, something almost instinctive took over — she became compliant, pliable, entirely at his mercy.

Take right now, for instance. That scoundrel, seizing the cover of night while everyone else was resting, was letting his wandering hand creep lower and lower along her slender waist, inching steadily toward the soft curves beneath. Xinxia had a thousand ways to put a stop to this shameless behavior. But the moment she remembered whose hand that was, her pretty face flooded scarlet. She wanted to slap his roaming paw away — yet somehow couldn't quite bring herself to do it. All she could do was let her clear, bright eyes dart nervously from side to side, terrified that someone might notice.

Meanwhile, that utterly incorrigible wretch — Mo Fan — was gazing up at the sky with the expression of a man in deep philosophical communion, the very picture of a brooding young aesthete overcome by the grandeur of nature and the bittersweet ebb and flow of existence. Half melancholy. Half carefree. His right hand, however, was quietly angled into a blind spot hidden from everyone else's line of sight, doing something that would make even the gods furious.

It was a good thing Xinxia had no temper where Mo Fan was concerned. If it had been Mu Ningxue or Tang Yue in her place, Mo Fan would have been sent to the afterlife in a combined blast of ice and fire long ago.

Not a shred of remorse from him. Mo Fan savored the warmth and softness, marveled at the astonishing give beneath his fingers, his hand drifting ever lower — until he had very nearly cupped half of the pristine young woman's shapely rear in his palm.

Xinxia's cheeks burned so fiercely they seemed ready to drip. She tried to rise—

But getting up was no easy feat when you were naturally soft-limbed and flustered beyond reason. Worse still, the moment she stood, everyone would see exactly where Mo Fan's hand was resting — which would be a hundred times more mortifying. The scoundrel was using *her own body* as cover, blocking the entire group's line of sight.

She squirmed in place, her whole body beginning to burn. Xinxia didn't even have the presence of mind left to roll her eyes at him. All she could do was force herself to look calm and pretend nothing whatsoever was happening.

What made it even more infuriating was that Mo Fan kept chatting with her the entire time as if nothing were amiss, discussing perfectly earnest topics — disguising his outrageous behavior beneath the vast, magnificent landscape without a single crack in his composure.