The Curse Element

"They're gone — time to collect our prize." The young man with the mole on his face clicked his tongue in anticipation. "A Fire Element Spirit Seed... if I get my hands on that, Yun Mei would be crawling to me for once, instead of acting like she's too good for me every single day."

"This belongs to me." Dongfang Jun smoothed the front of his jacket — the kind that cost several thousand yuan a piece — and spoke in a tone that left no room for argument.

The others froze for a beat, then broke into strained, conciliatory smiles.

Whatever resentment simmered beneath the surface, none of them dared challenge Dongfang Jun to his face. They were all Intermediate-Level Mages, true, but Dongfang Jun was a direct heir of the Dongfang Clan — the kind who could sit at the same table as the family patriarch. Going head-to-head with him over this was simply not an option.

"I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you — this belongs to me. As for other benefits..."

A voice, cold as a grave, drifted into the clearing from nowhere.

"If I'm in a good mood, I might let you die a little less painfully."

A nondescript baseball cap. A face that was, on closer inspection, rather sharp and handsome. But the moment this man stepped out from the shadows, even the lingering heat left over from the magical battle seemed to drop by several degrees — a bone-deep cold pushed through the skin and burrowed into the marrow.

The aura of a predator. A calm, detached killing intent. This man who looked, at a glance, like nothing more than a bookish drifter had now fully unveiled the savage, demonic ferocity beneath his surface — his eyes swept across the four Dongfang Clan mages with absolute emptiness.

"Who the hell are you? You have some nerve trying to profit off our work—" Rage flooded Dongfang Jun's face.

"You may have heard my name before." The fugitive slowly removed the cap that had been hiding half his face, revealing a sinister, striking set of features. What made everyone recoil was the brand seared into his forehead — the unmistakable mark of a hot iron. People bearing that mark had almost certainly already been sentenced to death by the Tribunal.

"Chao He... That's — that's the killer!" The young man with the slicked-back hair blurted the words out before he could stop himself.

"The Dongfang Clan." Chao He tilted his head with something that might have been amusement. "As I recall, you have a girl in your clan called Dongfang Qing'er. She had quite a... distinctive flavor."

"You animal — you dared lay hands on a member of our clan?"

"Oh, 'lay hands on.' That's generous." Chao He ran his tongue slowly across his lips. "I meant she tasted rather good when I ate her." The smile that spread across his face belonged to something that had long since stopped being human.

Every hair on all four of them stood on end.

They all knew that Dongfang Qing'er — their clanswoman — had been taken by this madman. None of them had ever imagined the monster had simply *eaten* her.

Across the clearing, Mo Fan glanced at his teacher Tang Yue. Ice had settled in his own chest.

*This guy has completely lost his mind. He eats people. How is he any different from a Demon-Beast?*

"That's exactly why we cannot let him escape this time." Tang Yue's eyes were sharp and cold.

"The four from the Dongfang Clan are no pushovers — they should be able to—" Mo Fan started to speak. Then Chao He let out a sudden, eerie laugh that severed every other thought.

It was a horrible sound — like the shriek of a blood-drinking bat, piercing and deeply wrong.

While the laugh was still echoing, Mo Fan noticed something dark and viscous descending slowly from above, like a black sticky spider's web that had been set there long before any of them arrived — or like the clotted claw of some enormous creature slamming down from the sky.

"I got here before all of you, as it happens. This Evil Spider Snare is my little welcome gift."

Black claws. Black webbing. Looking up, you could just barely make out the ghostly silhouette of an Evil Frenzied Spider looming above the descending trap, its rows upon rows of eyes blazing with greedy, soul-eating light.

"Curse Element — *run!*" Dongfang Jun's face went white as he screamed the warning.

Chaos erupted among the four of them. None had ever encountered magic like this — invisible black threads binding their entire bodies. Each time any of them shut their eyes and tried to Release a spell, their Inner World was immediately invaded by the image of that monstrous spider: its grotesque body, its dense clusters of unblinking eyes, crashing down on their consciousness. In the grip of that profound spiritual terror, none of them could Control so much as a single Star Mote.

"Too late — there's nothing I can do!" Tang Yue surged to her feet, the color draining from her face.

She had intended to strike the instant Chao He moved against the Dongfang four — to close the distance in a heartbeat and subdue this wanted fugitive before he could react. But Chao He had laid this cursed web long before he ever revealed himself, and in a single moment had neutralized all four Dongfang mages without so much as breaking a sweat.

Curse Element skills were notoriously treacherous — nearly impossible to guard against under any conventional strategy. The Dongfang four had been entirely focused on Pan Xiong's Hunter-mage squad, and by the time they had burned through nearly all their reserves, Chao He had activated his Intermediate-Level Curse magic and swept them all up in one cast, effortlessly.

Worse still, this Evil Spider Snare had been cultivated to the third tier. At that level, the wraith of the Evil Frenzied Spider became a spiritual attacker — a phantom capable of invading a person's mind and stripping them of any will to resist.

The four Dongfang mages were formidable fighters under normal circumstances. But no conventional combat instinct prepared you for a Curse Element ambush. Once caught in the snare, they were no better than cripples — helpless lambs awaiting slaughter.

"We should be grateful we didn't step out too soon," Mo Fan said, his expression grim. "Otherwise we'd be the ones in that trap."

The fugitive Tang Yue had come to apprehend was more frightening than any Demon-Beast he'd faced. The man was like a spider — he spun his invisible web and left it there in silence. His prey walked right into it without knowing, and only when he pulled the web taut did death make itself known.

"Let's hope one of them has a Mind Element or Light Element," Tang Yue murmured. "Otherwise, they're finished." She desperately wanted to intervene. But she was powerless. Her primary element was Fire; her secondary was Dark. Neither could break a Curse Element spell.

"Would Lightning help?" Mo Fan had already drawn out a Star Chart Book.

Tang Yue shook her head sharply. "Curse Element skills are pre-deployed. Even if you killed the caster with Lightning this very second, it wouldn't matter — the curse would keep consuming all four of them. What that means is: from the moment those four stepped in here without detecting the curse, their lives were no longer their own."

*He's terrifying.* A chill settled deep in Mo Fan's chest.

Tang Yue pressed her lips together, her expression set and severe.

As a Tribunal agent, she had an obligation to save these people. But right now, all she could do was stand by and watch the curse drain the life from four Dongfang Clan mages.

She couldn't act. And even if she did, she couldn't save them.

She had to wait — wait for Chao He, drunk on his own victory, to lower his guard and move to claim the Fire Element Spirit Seed. That would be her window, and she would take him down in a single decisive strike. If she let him slip away again, there was no telling how many more people would suffer.