A Fire Burst That Breaks the Rules

White frost blanketed the arena. Against that pale backdrop, any blazing Fire Burst that came screaming through the air would be easy to spot.

When the "sneak attack" Fire Burst came flying in, Mingcong caught it in his peripheral vision. His mind raced through the calculations in an instant — mapping out exactly how to thread between the two closing Ice Locks while simultaneously sidestepping the incoming fireball...

The Fire Burst was admittedly cunning: timed to cut off his retreat at the precise moment the Ice Locks converged from both sides.

Any other Mage would have thrown up a defensive Enchanted Gear by now. But who did they think he was?

He could stroll through a hailstorm of gunfire without batting an eye.

"I'll give you Water Control," said the slightly pudgy girl standing at the back of the team.

"No need. This is nothing." Mingcong called back, dodging without even losing his easy rhythm.

The Ice Locks whipped through the frost-heavy air like two massive, rigid iron chains. One solid hit from either would shatter bones without question.

Using Wind Track, Mingcong angled his body slightly forward — telegraphing a lunge. Ah Li Jie tracked the wind's trajectory, saw it flowing forward, and immediately drove both Ice Locks ahead to cut him off.

Then, in the very next instant, Mingcong shifted the wind's path entirely. Or rather, he'd already laid a second Wind Track. The man who'd been lunging forward suddenly reversed course. The tip of his shoe barely grazed the ground before his entire body glided back effortlessly along the wind channel...

Both hands still tucked in his pockets. The reverse glide had the casual grace of a prince riding the wind, and the female students watching nearby erupted in screams.

"Not done yet..." Mingcong soaked it all in, a supremely confident smile spreading across his face.

After sliding back to clear the intersecting Ice Locks, he suddenly tilted his body to the right.

Directly above his head, a Fire Burst was dropping straight down — almost as if it had been waiting for him.

"I've said it before — basic-level spells can't touch m—"

Mingcong's ability to change direction was exceptional. After the backward glide, he tilted sideways, placing himself just outside the Fire Burst's blast zone.

**BOOM!!!!**

A deafening explosion. The seemingly ordinary Fire Burst slammed into the ground and erupted, sending a massive wall of flame billowing into the air.

The tongues of fire within the blaze were ferocious — lashing out a full ten meters in every direction, like a writhing army of flame serpents.

The shockwave was tremendous, enough to scatter even the two Ice Locks.

Mingcong had confidently positioned himself beyond what should have been the Fire Burst's blast radius — he'd calculated the exact detonation zone. But this Fire Burst refused to play by the rules. The explosion's reach exceeded twenty meters.

A normal Fire Burst, even bolstered by a Spirit Seed, would cover maybe ten meters on detonation.

Standing roughly twelve meters back, Mingcong had been not only perfectly safe — he'd even planned to let the rising heat wave dramatically toss his signature flowing blue-green hair in the breeze...

But the fire tore past ten meters without slowing and launched him clean off his feet, sending him crashing face-first into the ground in a shower of sparks.

That beautifully flowing blue-green hair was now a tangled, half-singed mess.

With both hands still in his pockets and no time to pull them out, he'd face-planted into the dirt hard enough to nearly draw blood from his nose.

"I— what the *hell*?!"

Mingcong wasn't badly hurt, but the fall had atomized every scrap of cool he'd spent the fight building up. He climbed to his feet covered in dust and soot, practically beside himself with fury.

"I knew he looked familiar," the pudgy woman finally spoke up. "He's the Great Demon Lord of Fire Hall — Mo Fan. He's trained his basic-level spells all the way to the fourth tier."

"**Why didn't you say so sooner?!**" Mingcong snapped.

What an absolute disaster. He had never seen basic-level magic hit this hard — it was practically on par with intermediate skills. In all his countless fights, not once had he met anyone reckless enough to pour that kind of investment into strengthening low-tier spells.

"His flame is the Rose Flame — it multiplies Fire Element skill power by two and a half times. Fire Burst at the fourth tier doubles the explosion force. Together, his Fire Burst is five times stronger than a normal one. Basically half an intermediate spell," the pudgy woman explained.

"Fine, I miscalculated. I drew all that fire — so don't tell me you two just stood there and watched," Mingcong said.

"Of course not. Didn't you notice my Ice Locks are already..." The red-lipped female Mage let out a thin, sharp laugh.

"The famous Mo Fan is all yours then. Word is he's a walking destruction machine — we'll take out the others first," said the Stone Element student, whose body was built like carved rock.

Seeing that his teammates had already been at work, Mingcong pushed the humiliation of a moment ago aside.

His body ached in a dull, distant way, but nothing serious. Time to stop playing around — sloppy performance like that wouldn't earn high marks from the judges either.

"All that destructive magic, and I'll still bring him down without breaking a sweat," Mingcong declared, his confidence rebuilt. Between his fingers, invisible black energy coiled silently and condensed into a set of razor-sharp spikes — without drawing a single eye.

"Giant Shadow Nail: Pear Thorn!"

Mingcong spread his hand wide like a fan. The black energy that had been coiling between his fingers solidified into three obsidian spikes, one gripped between each pair of knuckles...

Three in total. He flung them out with a vicious snap, letting them dissolve into the air to wait for his command.

Unlike the first and second tiers of Giant Shadow Nail, the third-tier Pear Thorn was far more sinister. Once dispersed, all three nails entered a dormancy phase, lurking within whatever shadows they found.

From that point on, a single flicker of Mental Intent from the Shadow Element Mage could send any one of them streaking toward a target at any moment...

*One nail binds the body. Two nails seal the mind. Three nails lock the soul.*

Anyone struck by the first nail would be completely paralyzed.

Hit by the second as well, and their concentration would be crushed entirely — unable to cast so much as a single spell.

The third was the most terrifying of all. It drove directly into the soul, inflicting anguish beyond description. Without immediate treatment, the shadow energy would slowly consume the soul — the equivalent of carving years from a person's life. Permanent, irreversible damage.

Mo Fan hadn't yet trained his Shadow Element intermediate skill to its third tier, but he understood better than anyone just how terrifying those nails were.

The Pear Thorns had already gone to ground. For the foreseeable future, Mo Fan would need to stay constantly on guard — there was simply no telling when they might strike.

Of course, the nails couldn't slip just anywhere. They needed shadow to hide in, and if triggered under intense direct light, their power would fall dramatically.

"Don't use Light's Grace on me." Mo Fan spoke quickly, cutting Ai Tutu off as she moved to cast her Light Element magic. "Mingcong isn't stupid enough to spring the Giant Shadow Nails right now. Cover the other two."

A Light's Grace Sacred Shield wouldn't last as long as the nails could remain dormant. Mingcong could simply wait it out and strike the moment the shield fell. Casting it now would be nothing but a wasted defensive spell.

Ai Tutu nodded and shifted her attention to Liu Xin and Ah Li Jie.