The Return of the Cursed Beast Demon
Yu'ang could no longer stomach the sight of Mo Fan drawing one more breath. Strange incantations began to take shape on his lips.
The words manifested like visible gray musical notes, floating around him and weaving themselves into long gray ribbons.
The ribbons coiled and intertwined, knitting themselves into a gray door covered in carved rune-markings.
The gray door swung slowly open. A beam of deep green light shot out and locked directly onto Mo Fan inside the massive iron cage.
Mo Fan was certain those were eyes burning with a righteous, consuming hatred. Only when the creature stepped through the gray door did he finally make out its form.
Its body was a mottled gray-black, the wizened skin seared again and again with iron brands of strange shapes, the scars crossing each other in every direction, crawling across its entire body like rows of tiny centipedes.
In size, it was nearly identical to a Black-Beast Demon — yet in some fundamental way, it was entirely different. Looking more closely, Mo Fan realized that the aura radiating from this thing bore an unsettling resemblance to the odor he had once sensed from Xu Zhaoting.
That same stale, sinister reek of the cursed — and the raw power of this creature was surely far above any ordinary Black-Beast Demon.
"This is a Cursed Beast Demon. When we throw a living person into the pool to steep, we first subject them to torments that fill them with the deepest resentment they can hold. The more hatred they carry, the greater the chance of transformation. This is my first Cursed Beast Demon. Xu Zhaoting was my second. And you — you will become my third." Yu'ang pointed at Mo Fan, his mouth curling into a wide grin.
Yu'ang knew that Mo Fan possessed innate Dual Elements. As a general rule, the stronger the Mage thrown into the pool for tempering, the higher the likelihood that a Cursed Beast Demon would emerge — and someone with Mo Fan's innate Dual Elements talent was an even more promising candidate.
Mo Fan stared at the creature before him and couldn't help but frown.
Judging by its aura alone, this thing had undeniably reached Battle-General-class. He hadn't expected Yu'ang to have come so far in just a year or two — from a small-time lackey who could barely handle Black-Beast Demons to a Priest commanding a Cursed Beast Demon of his own.
By now, Mo Fan had a fairly clear picture of the Black Church's hierarchy.
The lowest rung were simply called Cultists. They hid among ordinary people, exploiting the ability the Black Church granted them to control Black-Beast Demons, all in service of their own ends.
One rank above were the Priests. Yu'ang was now a Gray-Robed Priest, with a cohort of Cultists doing his bidding.
Above the Priests were the Deacons.
The name that Xu Zhaoting had risked his life to steal belonged to a Blue-Robed Deacon of the Black Church.
As a Gray-Robed Priest, Yu'ang naturally possessed the capability to command a far more powerful Cursed Beast Demon.
It was a pity that when Xu Zhaoting transformed, he had retained some fragment of consciousness — enough to let him escape. Yu'ang had known he would be impossible to control, and had written him off as a loss.
The Cursed Beast Demon summoned now, however, was absolutely loyal. It had been enslaved by Yu'ang for over a decade.
"Do you know who this is?" Yu'ang gestured toward the Cursed Beast Demon at his side, something savage twisting across his face.
"I have no interest in knowing," Mo Fan replied flatly from within the cage, stalling for time while scanning the bars for any way out.
Yu'ang said nothing more and ordered the Cursed Beast Demon forward.
There was perhaps no one left in the world who would ever know that this Cursed Beast Demon had once been Yu'ang's own biological father.
At the age of seven, shortly after unwittingly being drawn into the Black Church's fold, the very first thing Yu'ang had done was turn the father who had abused him into a Black-Beast Demon.
Not long after, Yu'ang had entered the Mu household. For the ten years he spent there, he never once revealed his true identity — all while steadily channeling the resources he acquired into tempering that Black-Beast Demon.
Sure enough, one's own flesh and blood never failed to deliver. From among all his enslaved creatures, it had risen above the rest and crossed the threshold into a Cursed Beast Demon.
It was precisely thanks to this Cursed Beast Demon that Yu'ang had risen to the rank of Priest, reporting directly to the Blue-Robed Deacon.
If this mission could be completed, he would earn the personal recognition of Bishop Saron, and ascending to the vastly powerful position of Blue-Robed Deacon would present no obstacle at all.
Anyone who had ever crossed him had come to a sorry end. At seven years old he had been able to reduce his own father to this neither-human-nor-ghost state. So what of someone who had destroyed ten years of careful infiltration and taken half his face? What of Mo Fan?
Mo Fan would pay for every second of it.
"Go. Tear the skin off him first." Yu'ang barked the command, cracking his whip mercilessly across the creature's back.
The Cursed Beast Demon clearly feared Yu'ang deeply. It funneled every ounce of its own suffering and misery onto the figure trapped inside the iron cage.
The Cursed Aura rolled outward like a suffocating cloud of poison, crashing against the bars in waves from outside.
Mo Fan had been standing near the edge of the cage. As the creature drew closer step by step, he found himself instinctively backing away.
*This thing is roughly human-sized. There's no way it can squeeze through the bars, right?*
Just as that sliver of hope took hold, he suddenly noticed that the Cursed Beast Demon possessed the ability to compress its own bones. Its already grotesque body twisted at an impossible angle — its skull forced through the gap first, followed by that shriveled, soft-boned, misshapen frame squeezing in behind it.
The entire process of the Cursed Beast Demon working its way into the cage was profoundly unsettling. Anyone with a weaker constitution would have fainted dead away.
Yu'ang watched Mo Fan's face finally betray the first signs of fear, and his teeth gleamed white with satisfaction.
He was going to savor every moment of this. Ideally, by the time the Night Sovereign's Dominion Array dispersed, all that would remain in the cage would be Mo Fan's empty skin.
"Yu'ang, withdraw immediately!" A voice crackled suddenly into his ear.
Yu'ang adjusted his earpiece and replied with swift deference: "We're almost there, my lord Deacon. What's got you so alarmed?"
"I have a bad feeling."
"But my lord Deacon — the one with the Earth Sacred Spring is already trapped inside the cage. We'll have him secured any moment now. Please, just give us a little more time." Yu'ang pressed urgently.
There was no way he was retreating now. He'd gone to extraordinary lengths to drive Mo Fan into this cage. Walking away empty-handed was out of the question.
"Is that so?" The Deacon's own hesitation was audible.
If they returned empty-handed this time, Saron's punishment was guaranteed.
But staying meant the Tribunal might be closing in — and the Blue-Robed Deacon wavered.
"My lord Deacon, the Earth Sacred Spring will be in my hands momentarily. I will deliver it to you at the earliest possible moment," Yu'ang said, unwilling to let the opportunity slip.
"Then... I'll wait a moment longer," the Blue-Robed Deacon said.
For the sake of the Earth Sacred Spring, they would take the risk.