# Chapter 47: The Gloom Wolf Beast Loses Control
"We're... we're completely outclassed." Wang Sanpang hauled himself up from the ground, half his body slicked with blood.
Xu Zhaoting lay where he'd fallen, his condition much the same as Mu Bai's.
Across the way, five more students had gone down — buried under dust and rubble, too spent to drag themselves upright.
As for the Gloom Wolf Beast: its wounds were real, but nowhere near enough to strip it of its fighting capacity.
The creature's power dwarfed everything they had imagined. Even with clear heads, even with over a dozen students united against it — they still couldn't bring it down.
"If all forty of us had Released together from the start, we might've had a real shot. Damn it, damn it all — I can't believe I'm actually going to die here." Wang Sanpang raged, curses spilling out of him in a torrent.
"Mo Fan, your... your Fire Element is stronger than... than mine — just do something!" Zhou Min shouted from beside him.
Fire Burst and Lightning Seal were the only skills that could genuinely hurt the Gloom Wolf Beast, but Fire Element students were desperately few.
"It's pointless — this thing isn't the One-Eyed Demon Wolf!" Mo Fan kept his eyes locked on the creature.
A One-Eyed Demon Wolf had one eye. This Demon-Beast had two — cold and green, both of them.
Nearly everyone had been driven half-mad with terror. Who would have thought to notice the creature's features?
"H-help... help... help..." He Yu crouched where she stood, her face drained to a ghost white.
The Gloom Wolf Beast, apparently intolerant of whimpering, had finished cutting down every student capable of casting — and now fixed its attention on He Yu once more.
"Just run, damn it!" Mo Fan's frustration boiled over.
*This woman is beyond hopeless. All those people buying her time with their attacks, and she can't even take a single step.*
This couldn't continue. Everyone would die if it did.
*I have to kill this thing.*
"Monkey — can you still sprint?" An idea had taken shape. Mo Fan snapped the question at Zhang Xiaohou, who stood not far away.
Zhang Xiaohou gave a firm nod.
"Good. I'm going to draw this thing in. When the moment comes, grab me and run — straight into the cave. Understood?" Mo Fan said, his voice dead serious.
"Brother Fan, what are you planning?" Zhang Xiaohou asked.
"Kill it."
Mo Fan set his jaw, using the bite of pain to hold himself steady.
The Fire Element Stardust bloomed into a vast, silent cosmos swirling around him.
One by one, the Fire Element Star Motes answered his call, falling into alignment along the magic Star Trails.
Mo Fan threaded the Star Trails fast. By the time the sixth Star Mote locked into place, even the most stubborn seventh submitted under the force of his will.
The Star Trails completed. The magic took form.
A blazing mass of fire erupted in Mo Fan's palm, scarlet tongues of flame spilling between his fingers.
"Fire Burst: Char Bone!"
Everything was set. Mo Fan's hair whipped wild in the churning air currents, his entire bearing transformed by the roaring flame cradled in his palm.
He hurled it. The blazing mass screamed through the air and struck the Gloom Wolf Beast square in the center of its massive torso.
For a heartbeat the fireball went silent — then, like a tangle of scarlet vines spreading in wild, frenzied growth, flames erupted from within the beast itself. The blaze burned far more fiercely than anything Zhou Min's Fire Burst had managed.
The fire burned vivid and savage. The Gloom Wolf Beast threw back its head and released a howl of pure agony.
It thrashed in evident pain — racing blindly in circles, rolling across the ground, then plunging headfirst into the spring pool.
The Char Bone flames did not die in the water. That terrifying incineration was likely burning the creature's organs to cinders.
Zhou Min, Zhang Xiaohou, Wang Sanpang, Zhang Yinglu — they all stood frozen, staring.
The top students scattered near the gorge entrance stared at Mo Fan, barely able to believe what they'd just seen.
"Brother Fan... your Fire Burst..." Zhang Xiaohou gazed at him, utterly dumbfounded.
Mo Fan's Fire Burst was far more powerful than Zhou Min's — and the effect was something else entirely.
Zhou Min's was a Scorch. Her flames clung to the Gloom Wolf Beast's surface and burned continuously. At best they split skin and seared hide — they could never reach deep enough to damage muscle and bone.
Mo Fan's Fire Burst seemed to burn from inside the creature. Every skill their entire group had chained together appeared to have done less damage than this single release from Mo Fan.
Up on the stone ledge, the summoner known as Baiyang had his brow drawn tight.
A Summoned Beast shared a telepathic bond with its summoner. Baiyang could feel his Gloom Wolf Beast's agony firsthand — and it was unmistakable: the student's Fire Burst had genuinely wounded it.
"Fire Burst: Char Bone!"
At that moment, both head instructor Zhankong and Teacher Tang Yue wore expressions of outright astonishment.
Both of them cultivated the Fire Element. How could either of them not recognize their own element's basic skill?
Fire Burst — the Fire Element's entry-level technique — had three levels.
The first was called Fire Burst: Scorch.
Fire Burst: Scorch was its lowest form. Its effect was straightforward: ignite the target rapidly, inflicting burn and sear damage.
The second form was something else entirely.
Fire Burst: Char Bone — the name said it all. After the fireball struck, flames of a far higher temperature ignited from within the target's body, capable of burning bone to ash.
Outward-burning Fire Burst: Scorch could only do so much to the Gloom Wolf Beast — partly because the students had failed to target vulnerable spots, and partly because the creature's fur carried strong natural resistance.
Fire Burst: Char Bone was a different matter entirely. Those internal flames would likely incinerate the creature's organs completely. This penetrating Fire Element technique surpassed Scorch in destructive power by a staggering margin.
"That student..." Zhankong came back to himself, something close to genuine admiration entering his eyes for the first time. "What's his name?"
To have pushed a Fire Element skill all the way to its second level — the boy was extraordinary. Truly extraordinary.
"His name is Mo Fan," Teacher Tang Yue said, a smile spreading across her face.
*Mo Fan — he really hasn't disappointed me. In just one year, he's already pushed Fire Burst to the Char Bone level.*
In fact, the Fire Burst Tang Yue had first demonstrated to her students had been Fire Burst: Char Bone — which was precisely why her display had burned so much more fiercely than anything the students had managed since.
"This student earns an S," Zhankong said with satisfaction.
Instructor Luo Yunbo and vice-instructor Pan Lijun both nodded. To reach this level at this age — you wouldn't find more than a handful like it in all of Bo City.
"Something's wrong!" The summoner Baiyang suddenly cried out.
"What is it?" Head instructor Zhankong asked sharply.
"After the Gloom Wolf Beast came back up out of the pool, it suddenly became... frenzied. It's like... like it's not fully under control!" Baiyang's face had gone chalk white.
"You fool — weren't you supposed to have conditioned its wild instincts out of it?" Zhankong erupted.
Those words knocked the color from Tang Yue's, Zhang Jianguo's, and Chen Weiliang's faces alike.
Out of control?
The Gloom Wolf Beast's combat strength arguably surpassed even the One-Eyed Demon Wolf. If it truly went berserk, the number of casualties among those students would be unthinkable.
"Go — stop it now!"
"We can't — it'll take us time to get there."
"How did it lose control — how?! It's over, it's over, people are going to die!" Even Chen Weiliang, the academic affairs director, had gone rigid with panic.
The Gloom Wolf Beast had been holding back before — otherwise those students would have started dying the moment they entered the cave.
Now that restraint had snapped. If the beast truly began to kill, few of those students would survive.
"I'm sorry, I... I don't know what happened," the summoner Baiyang said.
"What good is sorry now? Move — save those students!" Zhankong roared.