A Fist, Falling from the Sky!

Night was nearly upon them. The whole of Bo City lay swaddled in the dim gray of dusk.

At this hour, the city would normally blaze with lights. Instead, there was nothing but that murky gloom and wisps of fine rain, broken only by roars erupting from somewhere in the distance — leaving one to wonder whether this was still a city where humans lived, or a hunting ground claimed by Demon-Beasts.

Mingwen District, a zone from which almost no one had evacuated, was blanketed in corpses. Every second, another person was dragged out and devoured.

At this very moment, with the sun still clinging to the city's edge in a last pale smear of evening light, hordes of Demon-Beasts surged through the streets in a frenzy. Their fury had a reason: a group of wretched humans had destroyed one of their most vital passages.

There were still so many of their kin and companions who had never tasted human flesh — they hadn't even finished seizing the city. Yet the passage had been obliterated just like that...

Every Demon-Beast in the vicinity burned with rage. They gave chase to the humans who had destroyed the tunnel without mercy. Even knowing there was an Intermediate-Level Mage among the fleeing group, they would not yield a single step.

That formidable human had already been cut down. Only four remained, scurrying like cornered rats. No matter — not one of them would escape this place alive.

"Luo Yunbo, it's over. We can't run anymore." Pan Lijun watched him push himself to the absolute limit, and a look of bleak resignation crept across her face.

From the moment she had stepped into this mission, she had already made peace with not coming back.

The passage had been destroyed. Commander Cheng was gone. How could Basic-Level Mages like them possibly outrun a Demon-Beast pursuit?

"What kind of nonsense is that? They're not fast enough to catch me — trust me, we're getting out of here!" Luo Yunbo snapped.

He hadn't given up. No Military Mage truly had a death wish; they were simply more resolute than ordinary people, and when sacrifice was called for, they didn't hesitate.

The mission was complete. Commander Cheng had spent his last reserves of Magical Energy to carve a blood-soaked path for them — all because he wanted them, even staring death in the face, to never stop fighting.

Life had always been precious. Too many people had already died in Bo City. Having grown up in this city since childhood, Luo Yunbo couldn't bear to see another person fall. Least of all Pan Lijun, dragged down into a Demon-Beast's maw.

He still wanted to see Zhankong and the others return in triumph, Wing-Azure Wolf heads in hand. He wanted to see every Demon-Beast driven out of Bo City. He wanted to see this city rebuild itself after the catastrophe and return to the quiet days of before — no screaming, no weeping...

Luo Yunbo refused to die. And he refused to let Pan Lijun give up.

"*Arroooo—*"

Without warning, six One-Eyed Demon Wolves planted themselves squarely in the middle of the road at the intersection ahead, cutting off Luo Yunbo and Pan Lijun's escape route.

There were no side alleys along this stretch of street. The horde behind them numbered at least a hundred — far beyond what two powerless people could hold off. And the six One-Eyed Demon Wolves now blocking their path ahead were already more than enough to seal their fate.

A quiet, unburdened look crossed Pan Lijun's face. She truly no longer had the will for a pointless struggle. He was already dead, after all. What was the point of going on alone in this world?

Luo Yunbo burned with desperate refusal.

Even with a hundred Demon-Beasts in pursuit, as long as they stayed behind him and none of them were Battle-General-class, not one of them could catch him.

Past this long street, they still had a chance to live. But now these six wandering Demon-Beasts had appeared — clearly drawn by their companions' calls to cut them off here.

*So bitter. If I were just a little stronger, all of this would have turned out differently.*

Luo Yunbo scanned the surroundings, searching desperately for any thread of a chance. He found nothing — except, strangely, he couldn't explain why there seemed to be a flicker of flame on the rooftop of a building not far away...

"Burn!"

Should anything streak through the black of night like a blinding meteor — blazing with ruin, saturated with the promise of destruction — rest assured, it could only be Mo Fan the Great's own fist of flame.

**Blazing Fist!!**

Day and night seemed to teeter on the knife's edge of their boundary at that very instant. Right then, on the terrace of a nearby building, searing flames lit up a vast stretch of the darkened street below.

Wreathed entirely in fire, the figure standing at the terrace's edge looked nothing short of a fire-mad colossus — looming above the city, the blaze howling against the deep of night, heat surging outward in furious waves.

The surrounding air crested at a scorching peak. As Mo Fan's fist erupted outward in a savage, untamed arc, the colossal flame fist that shattered the darkness carried the force of something raging against the Demon God of Night itself.

The area was flooded with light. The enormous fire fist blazed like a roaring meteor, streaking between several commercial buildings and driving straight into the intersection at the end of the long street.

**BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!!**

The Blazing Fist was born to obliterate. The six One-Eyed Demon Wolves had never once imagined that fire could rain from the sky. It was as though a giant had slammed its fist down upon them — even as they scrambled in terrified chaos, the surging waves of flame still caught them, and their howls split the night.

When the fire fist crashed down, it carved a horrifying crater of flame into the center of the intersection. Of the six One-Eyed Demon Wolves that had stood in Luo Yunbo and Pan Lijun's way, some were reduced to ash on the spot. The rest fled in all directions.

"This—" Luo Yunbo and Pan Lijun stood frozen.

It was as though heaven itself had reached down to spare them. Just as they had been about to step through death's gate, a flaming fist had blasted that gate to pieces. There were no words for what they felt.

Luo Yunbo snapped back first. He activated Wind Trail again, pulling Pan Lijun along as they fled. As they sprinted past the enormous crater, he couldn't help turning his head to steal one last look at the rooftop that had blazed with fire just moments ago...

That silhouette wreathed in flames...

Why did it look so familiar? Why did it look like Mo Fan — the one who had gone to find his family?

*Was I seeing things?*

Pan Lijun had also turned her head as they ran. She had never imagined that a miracle could still happen when she stood at death's very door — and that miracle had come from the mysterious young man on that terrace.

*Who is he?*

Was there some hidden master in Bo City they didn't know about? Why had he been willing to save them?

As the firelight faded, the district was swallowed once more by darkness.

On the terrace, Xinxia stood quietly. Her plain, elegant dress drifted gently in the ebbing wake of the heat waves that had swept through everything moments before, her dark hair rising and falling alongside it — together, they composed a scene of quiet, almost painterly beauty against the night.

And yet her delicate, lovely face was filled with undisguised wonder.

Her beautiful eyes were fixed on the figure standing at the terrace's edge. She had known he'd broken through to Intermediate-Level Mage — but watching him, his entire body alight and surging with fire, swinging that fist through the darkness with wild, unbridled force, Xinxia felt something shift in her chest. His very presence had been remade. The imperious flames had transformed him entirely.

In her heart, Mo Fan had always been warm. Mischievous. The kind of person who always shared his little schemes with her in secret. She'd never been able to imagine that absolute power in his hands could look like this — solemn, and awe-inspiring.

"Pretty cool, right?" Mo Fan turned around, and found Xinxia's beautiful eyes still fixed, unblinking, on his face. He asked with undisguised self-satisfaction.

Xinxia only then realized she had been staring openly. A flush of crimson swept up her cheeks in an instant, racing all the way to the tips of her ears. She quickly looked away, no longer daring to meet Mo Fan's gaze.

In that moment, Xinxia finally understood what all those novels meant when they described a heart thrumming like a startled little deer.