Battle-General — The Bone-Spike Dire Wolf

"Good. One more kilometer and we're safe." Xue Musheng let out a long, slow breath.

Putting Mo Fan in command had been the right call. The kid had more experience than his own teacher — reading threats with Demon-Tracking Powder, drawing enemies off with feints, eliminating targets in single devastating strikes. They'd crossed Mingyuan Residential Complex without a single casualty. The complex had harbored far more Demon-Beasts than the main street before it; getting through unscathed was nothing short of remarkable.

"Demon-Beast density around the Safety Barrier perimeter is only going to be higher," Mo Fan reminded the group. "Not one moment of complacency."

The remaining kilometer was an unremarkable tangle of mixed commercial and residential blocks — no clear main thoroughfare, just a maze of narrow lanes and back alleys. The kind of terrain that made it easy to slip past Demon-Beasts, and just as easy for Demon-Beasts to slip past you.

Nine people moved with real agility. Nothing like the main column, where taking a single turn was an operation in itself.

"Looks like other Mages are fighting up ahead," Zhang Xiaohou called down from his elevated position. "Should we link up with them?"

"They're too busy to worry about us," Mo Fan said. "Keep moving."

Zhang Xiaohou was about to climb down when something made him freeze.

A massive wolf skull was rising slowly above a low-rise roofline. Across its forehead, row upon row of backward-jutting jagged bone spikes stood out in horrifying relief.

His eyes went wide. His breathing stopped.

*That building is three stories tall.* The wolf's head cleared the roofline and kept rising. *How large does something have to be—? This isn't anything close to an ordinary Demon-Beast—*

"Zhang Xiaohou, what are you doing up there? Get down already—" Wang Sanpang started.

Zhang Xiaohou's entire body went rigid. With agonizingly slow movements he pressed himself flat against the wall and inched toward the corner, his face white with terror, and pressed a finger frantically to his lips.

Wang Sanpang opened his mouth again — Mo Fan's hand shot out and clamped over his face before a sound could escape.

Xue Musheng seemed to feel it too. His hand signals were urgent: find cover, now.

All eight of them scrambled to the nearest corners and went completely still, not daring to draw breath. Every face was drained of color.

*Hhhhhhhhhh—*

A vast exhale from somewhere nearby. Disordered currents of air swept across the ground at their feet.

**THOOM.**

**THOOM.**

Heavy footfalls. Each one sent a visible tremor through the walls of the surrounding buildings.

Zhang Xiaohou was plastered against a corridor alcove like a statue, and at his height he was nearly eye level with that enormous head. He was almost certain the three-eyed creature had turned and sniffed in his direction.

*If it bites down, it'll swallow the whole room — and everyone in it.*

By sheer luck, the reek of garbage in the alley smothered their scent entirely. With a creature that size, one swipe of its paw could leave half the squad broken on the pavement.

**THOOM.**

**THOOM.**

**THOOM.**

The earth-shaking footsteps slowly receded. One by one, the Vanguard Squad's frozen postures went slack.

Their hearts, held perfectly still until this moment, began slamming against their ribs.

No one moved. Even after the creature's silhouette had long since dissolved into the fog, they stayed rooted in place, too shaken to take a single step forward.

"Who — who the *hell* can tell me what that was?!" Wang Sanpang stared after the retreating shape, his jaw visibly trembling.

Zhang Xiaohou looked about ready to melt down the wall. His calves wouldn't stop shaking.

*That thing had no business existing in this world.* It was on a completely different plane from the Giant-Eyed Ape-Rats and One-Eyed Demon Wolves they'd faced before. A creature that size — their magic probably couldn't even scratch its hide.

"That was..." Xue Musheng's voice was barely above a murmur. "A Battle-General-class Demon-Beast. The Three-Eyed Demon Wolf — also known as the Bone-Spike Dire Wolf. Three eyes giving it nearly two hundred and seventy degrees of vision. A body like forged steel. Razor-edged bone spikes lining its frame. For us, it's a nightmare made flesh."

"There's nothing we could do against that." Xu Zhaoting's voice was hollow with despair.

"Even Intermediate-Level Mages have been killed in a single blow when they weren't prepared," Xue Musheng said. "We need to get word to the main column. If that thing walks through four thousand people without warning, the casualties will be catastrophic."

Everyone nodded.

Mo Fan glanced toward the Silver Trade Building, half-swallowed by the fog still drifting through the city.

*If a Battle-General-class Bone-Spike Dire Wolf is already this terrifying... what about the Commander-class Wing-Azure Wolf crouched on that building's dome?*

*What level of Mage would it even take to face something like that?*

In front of creatures at that tier, every person on this street was nothing but prey.

The rain had stopped some time ago, but the fog it left behind still clung to the city.

One kilometer south of the Safety Barrier perimeter, a young woman in a white uniform — soaked through with blood — was sprinting down an empty road, every breath ragged and desperate.

Behind her, two creatures gave chase: pitch-black from head to tail, their faces grotesquely simian, their bodies warped beyond human proportion. They moved with a predator's focused hunger, as if they would tear her to shreds at any moment.

"Wind Disk: Tornado!"

The air pressure plummeted. Debris scattered across the road began to drift, then spin.

The rotation built fast. In seconds a colossal vortex of screaming air spiraled skyward — a wind-dragon uncoiling toward the clouds.

Parked cars lifted from the pavement. Streetlamps were ripped from their roots. The two pursuing creatures let out shrieks as the vortex caught them and flung them into the air, tossing their bodies like scraps of paper in a gale, the violent rotation reducing them to nothing.

**Bang— Bang— Bang—**

The cars crashed down in a cascade of shredded metal. By the time the creatures fell, they were unrecognizable — torn to wet red fragments, raining down as blood and viscera. A wretched end.

Lin Yuxin watched the aftermath with exhausted relief. Her eyes, weary as they were, held a trace of genuine gratitude as she turned to the Mage who had arrived just in time.

"Thank you, Mr. Yang!"

"If I'm reading those right," Yang Zuohe said, his expression grave, "those were Black-Beast Demons — the Black Church's preferred thralls."

"They are," Lin Yuxin said without hesitation. "This disaster is their work."

"We suspected as much." A heavy exhale. "But we never managed to prepare Bo City in time..." He trailed off, jaw tight. The Scarlet Alert had come without warning. No one knew how many had already died.

"I was stationed at the Earth Sacred Spring when the attack came," Lin Yuxin said. "Their target appears to be the Spring itself."

"We know," Yang Zuohe said. "They sent me specifically to find you — to ensure the Spring's safety. So — you didn't give it to them?"

Lin Yuxin shook her head. "They had me surrounded. When they found I didn't have it on me, they flew into a rage and tried to kill me. I used the chaos from a nearby pack of One-Eyed Demon Wolves to escape."

"Quick thinking. Then where is the Spring now?"

"I passed it to the student who was training inside it." A faint smile crossed her face. "I thought it would be safer with him than with me."

Yang Zuohe went still. "You mean Mo Fan — the boy born with innate Dual Elements?"