Snatched from the Monster's Jaws!
Mo Fan abandoned any thought of chasing the Molting Demoness and sprinted back to the target's apartment at full speed.
The moment he reached the door, a child's frantic sobbing hit him from inside — desperate, violent crying, as though the little one had seen something too horrible to bear.
"Cry... all you do is cry. I hate it... I hate your crying more than anything. From... from now on... I'll never... *never* have to listen to that grating noise again. Heh-heh-heh~~" A man's voice filtered out through the door.
The voice was utterly wrong — thick and glutinous, as if something viscous had been stuffed down the man's throat. It sounded nothing like a human being.
"Fan Mo, hurry! He hasn't finished molting yet. Once he does, the child is dead." Lingling's voice was taut with urgency.
"Don't worry. I won't let it get that far."
"Shadow Fade!"
Standing at the doorway, Mo Fan's body slowly sank, as though swallowed by deep water, until he dissolved entirely into a mass of dark shadow. The shadow began to shift, slipping through the narrow gap beneath the door.
Once inside, he slowly rose back out of the darkness and reformed in the entryway.
He was in. A single glance across the living room told him everything: the husband stood in the center, moving like a walking corpse, tearing away strips of his own clothes and skin with both hands — piece by piece, in ragged handfuls.
Skin peeled and split, revealing scales beneath — slick with some foul moisture, grotesque beyond description...
The transformation was more than halfway complete, yet the creature's movements remained sluggish — halting and stumbling, like a newborn trying to take its first steps. Had it been otherwise, the child would already be dead.
Mo Fan had now witnessed this creature's full metamorphosis from start to finish. An ordinary person would have passed out cold at the sight. Fortunately, he had seen enough horrors to call himself battle-hardened — even as his stomach turned, he could grit his teeth and put this Molting Demon down.
"Lightning Seal!"
He rapidly condensed his Star Trail, and his palm blazed to life with crackling lightning marks. They streaked across the room and slammed into the Molting Demon, lashing it over and over like a barrage of electric whips.
The creature's scales were clearly formidable — the Lightning Seal left only a series of scorched black marks across its hide and failed to paralyze it completely. That caught Mo Fan off guard.
"Mind... mind your own business!"
The Molting Demon let out a guttural snarl and turned its head. The last of the skin had finally sloughed away from its face, leaving slitted, triangular eyes that fixed on Mo Fan with vicious hunger.
It raised one arm. The shoulder and limb that had still resembled something human suddenly swelled outward — thickening several times over, the muscles locking into slabs as hard and dense as granite.
"Fan Mo, this demon has monstrous strength — be careful!" Lingling's voice crackled through.
Mo Fan's expression went stone-cold as he backed away.
The Molting Demon swung its bloated arm in a sweeping arc toward him. The arm didn't just swell — it stretched, extending like putty.
It was less a punch and more a wrecking ball on a pendulum. The sofa and furniture throughout the living room shattered beneath the swinging impact with a deafening **CRASH**.
Mo Fan was ready. The instant that fist swept toward him, he dissolved into shadow and glided along the contrast at the base of the wall, looping wide around the strike.
After evading, he kept shifting through the shadows until he reached a well-lit patch of floor and materialized again.
The creature's strength was overwhelming — he dared not let it get close.
The moment the demon drew its arm back, Mo Fan sprinted around to its rear and scooped up the wailing little boy with both arms.
He hadn't dared use Intermediate-level magic — not with the child so close. The commission fee was one thing, but he wasn't about to let an innocent kid die on his watch.
"You're dead, freak. Your grandpa Mo Fan passes judgment on behalf of heaven today—" He was already tracing his Star Trail rapidly, weaving the threads into a full Star Chart that hummed with far greater power.
"Fan Mo, watch out — the female is behind you!" Lingling suddenly cried.
Mo Fan spun around — and there it was, crouched against the living-room display cabinet: a hideous creature with its long tongue lolling out, eyes locked on him and on the squirming little kid tucked under his arm.
"You've got to be kidding me — they're working *together*?!" Mo Fan swore.
The Star Chart was out of the question now. Try to finish it and the Molting Demoness crouching on that cabinet would rip his throat out.
"Run! You can't handle both of them!" Lingling called.
"Don't worry about me," Mo Fan replied.
He gave a cold snort.
There was no shadow where he stood — that blasted chandelier overhead had cut off his options entirely.
Fortunately, Dean Xiao had given him a Footwear Enchanted Gear a few days ago, and right now it was exactly what he needed.
"Blood Beast Boots!"
With a single thought, he abandoned the Star Chart and activated the Enchanted Gear bonded to his soul.
Crimson light blazed from his legs — not scattering outward, but gradually solidifying as it radiated, slowly condensing into a pair of boots crafted from thick, armored hide. They rose only to mid-calf, like battle armor conjured from thin air.
The moment the Blood Beast Boots awakened, raw, savage power flooded both his legs — as though a single stamp could cave in the entire floor beneath him.
"Don't drag this out — you'll hurt civilians!" Lingling exhaled slightly as she watched the Footwear Enchanted Gear activate on her surveillance feed.
Mo Fan understood. The moment the Molting Demoness lunged at him, he kicked off the floor with both legs and launched himself to ceiling height.
He caught the chandelier with one hand, swung its pendulum momentum, and carried himself and the child in a wide arc across the room toward the kitchen.
The two demons had no intention of letting them go — they gave chase with bared teeth.
Mo Fan had no desire to fight here. He pushed the Blood Beast Boots to their limit and sprinted to the laundry room at the far end of the kitchen, kicked the glass window clean off its frame, grabbed the child by one leg without pausing to think, and jumped — his plan: fall to the unlit balcony on the sixth floor and trigger Shadow Fade...
*Whoooooosh——*
He plummeted straight down. Beside him, the child howled at the unexpected free-fall. The wind screamed past both of them.
Mo Fan rolled onto his back and looked up. The two demons had thrust their heads out the window above, faces twisted in fury. He freed one hand and raised a slow, deliberate middle finger as the gap between them steadily grew.
"Mom, I'm heading back to my room to study."
"Alright, turn the lights up so you don't strain your eyes."
The voices from the sixth floor drifted up to him. Mo Fan glanced down — and in that instant, every profanity he knew erupted through his mind at once.
With a soft *click*, the sixth-floor balcony — previously cloaked in darkness — blazed to life. Light flooded every corner. Not a sliver of shadow remained anywhere.
He was already past the tenth floor, falling fast, and below him there was not a single shadow to land in. One could only imagine the expression on his face.
*Damn kid — what kind of idiot picks NOW to study?! You're going to get me killed!!*