Slaying the Wing-Azure Wolf

The city had gone quiet in the deep hours of the night. Even the liveliest, most neon-soaked streets had fallen still, swept clean by a biting, whistling wind.

In the apartment, Mo Fan shouldered open his bedroom door, barely keeping himself upright. He cast a single glance at the disaster zone — clothes flung everywhere, snack wrappers, stray socks...

He had no energy to deal with any of it. He pitched face-first onto the mattress and was unconscious before he'd fully landed.

That commission from the medicine merchants had been brutally difficult. Without the Xuanshe Demon Armor, he likely would have died out there.

Still, however close it had gotten, he hadn't brought shame to the Azure Sky Hunting Firm. The job was done.

His Magical Energy was completely spent. He burrowed under the covers and passed out, not even noticing he'd left the window open.

He slept straight through to dawn. A shaft of sunlight sliced across his face and dragged him back to consciousness.

*Ling~ Ling~~~~*

The little Flame Queen had been up long before him, pacing back and forth along the headboard. She made a point of crossing directly over his face, her tiny fiery paws pressing into his skin. Mo Fan snapped fully awake.

He grabbed the little troublemaker and flicked her on the forehead. She let out a string of pitiful *wu-wu-wu* whimpers, her stubby limbs flailing in midair.

He fed her a Spirit Seed Fragment before she would calm down. Still aching all over, Mo Fan flopped back under the covers.

He hadn't been under them five seconds before he threw them off and sat up, staring around in bewilderment.

The room was spotless.

He was exhausted, not amnesiac. He clearly remembered the room being a disaster before he passed out — so how had it transformed overnight? There was even a faint scent lingering in the air, barely there, like the ghost of perfume from somewhere distant.

Mo Fan glanced at the little Flame Queen, currently crouched nearby gnawing on what she apparently considered "chocolate," and immediately dismissed the idea. That creature was more likely to reduce the place to a fire hazard than to tidy it. And besides, since Xinxia had left, no one had touched this room — two months of accumulated chaos that most people wouldn't want to look at too closely...

"Liu Ru?" The name came to him suddenly. His gaze drifted to the window — now shut.

He pressed his fingers to his neck. A faint sting. He checked his reflection and found only a small lip print on his skin — no puncture marks.

She must have known he'd been through a brutal fight. She hadn't taken his blood.

Over the past two months, Mo Fan had noticed small wounds appearing on his neck at irregular intervals. He'd suspected it was her — she seemed to need his blood to survive, but couldn't bring herself to face him that way. So she came only in the dead of night, when he was already asleep.

She never took more than she needed. There wasn't a trace of vampiric greed in her. Losing a small amount of blood in a healthy body could actually improve circulation — the same logic as donating blood. Liu Ru always kept herself in check, taking only what she required, never enough to affect his health.

Staring at the closed window, feeling the faint impression of her lips still on his neck, Mo Fan found himself smiling — a tired, helpless sort of smile.

He knew she was still in this city. He knew she watched him from a distance, now and then. He just hadn't expected this to be the choice she made.

Even if feeding from him was what kept her alive — for the rest of her life — she still refused to step into his world. She refused to disturb his life by even a fraction.

The Nanling Mountains stretched endlessly in every direction, an ocean of peaks so vast that even a bird soaring high above couldn't see where they ended.

Four wings of swirling wind cyclones snapped open, cutting beneath a bank of white clouds. The Wings of Wind tore through with terrifying speed, carving a clean gash across the sky and leaving a vivid trail marking the path of flight.

The wings belonged to a man with rough stubble and hair that fell to his shoulders. He wore a military uniform that had been reduced to tatters, nearly every inch of it stained with blood that had long since dried and darkened.

Below, across endless slopes and valleys, countless pairs of green-glowing eyes tracked this brazen human cutting through their domain. No matter how many Demon Wolves had gathered, not one dared make a move.

Because in the man's right hand, gripped by the scruff, was an enormous wolf's head.

It bore two horns. Noble beast-markings covered its brow. Its terrifying fangs hung exposed to the open air.

The head had been severed clean through the neck. Blood still dripped from the cut — bright crimson drops falling one by one onto the mountains below. Every mile he flew, another mile of scarlet trail, stretching from one mountain range all the way to the next.

Every Demon Wolf creature that called these mountains home had gone utterly still. The head in that human's fist belonged to their Commander — the Wing-Azure Wolf.

He had entered the wolf mountains alone. He was flying back to Bo City with the Wing-Azure Wolf's severed head.

When the military's hawk, Zhankong, touched down in Bo City, countless citizens stood with tears streaming down their faces, their hearts filled with nothing but awe for this Military Mage.

"Zhankong, how dare you defy direct orders. Did I not tell you — we were working on a plan to eliminate the Demon Wolf Clan ourselves? Going off on your own like this — if you'd gotten yourself killed, Bo City would have been left in an even worse position..." The newly stationed Grand Commander, Jiang Yu, laid into him.

Zhankong dropped the Wing-Azure Wolf's head on the ground. "If we'd waited for your spineless plan," he said flatly, "the millions of souls Bo City lost would never rest."

"What did you just say?!" Jiang Yu's fury erupted.

"Use whatever military code you like against me. I'll present myself for judgment when the time comes." Zhankong didn't linger. The Wings of Wind at his back stayed open, poised to carry him skyward at any moment.

"And just where do you think you're going?!" Jiang Yu bellowed. Zhankong's complete indifference only stoked his rage further.

"To find Saron."

"That Red-Robed Cardinal from the Black Church??" Jiang Yu went still.

Saron.

Even among the upper echelons of the Magic Association, that name alone was enough to run a chill through anyone who heard it.

Zhankong said nothing more. Despite the wounds still covering his body, he took to the sky.

Bo City's greatest threat had been eliminated. Whatever came next, Jiang Yu could handle.

Zhankong's gaze was fixed on the northwest. The only emotion behind his eyes was killing intent.

This trip to Nanling hadn't been about the Wing-Azure Wolf alone. He had uncovered something far more staggering.

Saron's true target was never Bo City.

*"Yu'er — if I make it through this, I swear I'll come find you beneath the Tianshan Rift..."*

*"If I don't — forgive me for breaking my word."*

*"You know that I, Zhankong, have never feared anyone in my life. But Saron — his methods are unlike anything I've ever faced. The kind of dread that reaches into your very marrow..."*

Zhankong's eyes were dark and clouded, his hand wrapped tight around a broken necklace — snapped in two, missing its other half.

Sky and earth blurred together in the haze ahead, the path before him vast and uncertain.

He knew that every step closer to that man brought him a step closer to death. But he had no choice. His silhouette grew smaller and smaller against the seamless expanse of sky and earth, until it was nothing more than a fading point in the distance.