Gloom Wolf Beast vs. Luo Song

Every eye in the Trial Arena was fixed on Mo Fan — and on the creature standing at his side. It was unmistakably a Gloom Wolf Beast, powerfully built and radiating raw menace.

"It seems, young Mo Fan, that your Mental Intent is considerably stronger than we anticipated." The old professor pushed his glasses up his nose, a smile spreading across his face.

"Surely this isn't his first summoning," said a female examiner nearby, her tone laced with skepticism. "It's nearly impossible to call forth a Gloom Wolf Beast on a first attempt."

"It genuinely was his first summoning — I'm certain of it." The department head, Jiang Yunming, turned toward the old professor. "Dean Xiao, we're taking this student. The Summoning Element department claims him."

Luo Song and his butler stood nearby, staring at the living, breathing Gloom Wolf Beast beside Mo Fan. The shock on their faces was plain to see.

*You've got to be kidding me.* No one had ever heard of anyone summoning a Gloom Wolf Beast on their very first try.

A Gloom Wolf Beast's combat power was on par with a Servant-class Demon-Beast — which meant that for a Basic-Level Mage, it left every other element eating its dust.

*No supplementary tools, and it's his freaking first summoning...* What kind of absurd luck did this guy have? And how stupid did that Gloom Wolf Beast have to be, getting tamed so easily?

"Young Master Song," Old Li said, his expression caught somewhere between awkward and apologetic, "it seems the Summoning Element department head, Jiang Yunming, has already decided to take him."

"Take him?!" Luo Song bristled immediately. "On what grounds?!"

Across the arena, the five examiners had fallen into a huddle.

As the Summoning Element department head, Jiang Yunming was firmly in favor of accepting Mo Fan — if the department went much longer without new students, it would simply cease to exist. Dean Xiao — the old professor with the thick glasses — had seemed favorably impressed from the start, and his vote aligned accordingly. The remaining three examiners were visibly uncertain, quietly weighing whether Mo Fan's performance truly merited a place at Pearl Academy.

"Summoning a Gloom Wolf Beast is nothing special," Luo Song declared, not waiting for the examiners to reach a verdict. He leapt down from the viewing stands. "Doesn't Pearl Academy pride itself on practical combat? I could wipe out a whole pack of those things on my own."

His Earth Wave skill was remarkably fluid — a light tap of his foot and he glided across the ground, closing the distance to Mo Fan in an instant.

Standing before the fierce beast without a trace of fear, Luo Song looked Mo Fan up and down with open contempt. "Have that wolf of yours spar with me. Let's find out if it's all show and no substance."

"Sure," Mo Fan said with an easy grin. "I was just wondering how to break it in properly."

A Gloom Wolf Beast was born for battle. Calling one over for nothing more than a brief examination display felt like an insult to the creature's nature — not the most dignified introduction for either of them.

Mo Fan glanced at the Gloom Wolf Beast. The beast turned its enormous, fearsome head toward him — that long muzzle and powerful face filling his entire field of view, hot breath washing over his face with every exhale. Any other time, that would have scared him half to death. But this Gloom Wolf Beast — the one he'd summoned himself — felt entirely different. It felt like running into an old friend.

Mo Fan reached up and scratched the beast behind its massive head. "He's trying to pick a fight with you," he said simply. "Go ahead and answer."

The Gloom Wolf Beast swung its head around. Its gaze locked onto Luo Song — cold and calculating, with a slow-burning aggression smoldering behind its eyes.

"A ragged wolf like you?" Luo Song sneered. "Back home, you'd be no better than a guard dog."

The Gloom Wolf Beast looked as though it understood every word. Its pupils contracted to sharp points.

*"Grrrrrr——"*

Its fang-lined maw stretched wide, and deep within its throat, a churning mass of turbid energy began to gather. With a savage expulsion, that breath erupted outward — a ferocious storm of sand and stone that swept every loose pebble and grain of grit from the ground.

**Sand Tempest!!**

A flicker of delight crossed Mo Fan's face.

Back during their Field Expedition, Baiyang's Gloom Wolf Beast had used that very Sand Tempest to make the whole squad's lives miserable. What pleased Mo Fan even more was that his own beast's breath seemed several degrees stronger — the eruption wasn't merely flying grit but a true sandstorm, surging toward Luo Song like a coiling earth dragon.

Luo Song didn't panic. He simply stepped aside. His body shifted laterally with practiced ease, and the howling torrent grazed past him without leaving a scratch.

A strange light shifted in the Gloom Wolf Beast's eyes — it likely couldn't believe the pudgy kid was that nimble.

Abandoning the Sand Tempest, the Gloom Wolf Beast launched itself forward on all four powerful limbs. It locked onto Luo Song, bunched its haunches, and exploded forward — the sheer speed of it was breathtaking. Each paw left deep impressions in the gravel; the shockwave of displaced air preceded every stride. Mo Fan found himself wondering, *What would it feel like to ride on its back?*

The Gloom Wolf Beast's burst speed was terrifying — faster than even the Giant-Eyed Ape-Rat at full sprint. When that momentum was paired with a swipe of its claws, anything in its path could be torn clean in two.

*Let's see how that smug, puffy-faced idiot handles this.*

Luo Song had retreated to the far end of the arena, only to find the Gloom Wolf Beast closing the gap in just a few strides. A flicker of alarm crossed his face.

"Earth Wave — Collapse!"

Luo Song completed his Earth Element Star Trail in a flash and slammed both palms down onto the ground.

In an instant, the entire floor of the Trial Arena began to writhe. What had been compacted, solid gravel yielded under Luo Song's Earth Wave, softening into loose layers of wet sand — and those layers surged and rippled backward, like a current flowing in reverse.

The Gloom Wolf Beast's paws began to sink with every stride, swallowed by the yielding earth, and its charge slowed considerably. But it wasn't only the sinking that hampered it — the entire ground was actively pulling backward. Luo Song's control was formidable: he depressed a wide swathe of earth around the beast, combined with a relentless inward drag toward a central point, creating a substantial field of quicksand.

The quicksand churned downward without pause, pulling the Gloom Wolf Beast inexorably toward the center.

*Come on, faster — push through it, run!* Mo Fan urged silently from across the arena.

Quicksand, after all, was slow by nature. If something moved fast enough, it could outrun the drag — and once its running force exceeded the suction, the quicksand would be nothing more than a sluggish patch of ground.

**"AWOOOOO——!!!"**

The Gloom Wolf Beast seemed to hit its limit. It threw its powerful head back and let out a thunderous roar.

Then, one leg at a time, it wrenched its paws free from the collapsing earth with brutal, deliberate force and broke into a run — the rhythm of its legs growing faster and faster. Its forelegs, its hindlegs — they blurred into a frenzy. It was racing the quicksand itself. The sand dragged at a constant, relentless pace; the Gloom Wolf Beast, fueled by fury, simply ran faster.

And finally — the quicksand could no longer stop it.