Chapter Thirteen: Ruthless!
Vote for me, please~
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Xu Wen looked down and saw several glaring, blood-red gashes on the front of his robe. For the first time, he felt an overwhelming gratitude for the garments prepared for registered disciples by the Hortonklin family! If it hadn’t been for this uniquely crafted inner garment, the Wind Fox’s claws would have torn open his chest just now, leaving him with the same fate as the other fallen disciples scattered on the ground.
But now was not the time for reflection or relief.
As the Grand Fireball grazed past, unleashing a torrent of searing heat and devouring waves that completely engulfed the Wind Fox, Xu Wen sprang forward, diving behind a large tree. He shouted at Xie Zhan, who was still frozen in shock, “Go!”
His roar finally jolted Xie Zhan awake to the realization that reinforcements had not yet arrived and the Wind Fox still posed a deadly threat!
The brush with death and the thrill of survival sent a shiver through Xie Zhan. He snatched up his round shield and, following Xu Wen’s lead, sprinted toward the “trap” they had carefully laid out in advance. Ding Yushan, after all, was the grandson of a Hortonklin family elder and seemed to have brought along many “contraband” items. While they couldn’t deal with the Wind Fox, he was perfectly capable of protecting himself. If they didn’t seize this moment to escape, were they really going to stay and die?
Fleeing the Wind Fox, Xu Wen fished a porcelain vial from his storage pouch as he ran…
There was no time to worry about how precious or hard-won the substance inside was. Pouring the cool liquid into his hand, he flung it into the air.
Drunken Breeze—once released into the air, it would evaporate within ten seconds. Any creature within ten meters that inhaled even a trace would be rendered senseless, for anywhere from ten seconds to a full minute, though it was only effective against those with a physical strength below three stars. Anything stronger would quickly react and purge it from their system.
Furthermore, due to its instability, Drunken Breeze lingered for only about ten seconds before dispersing entirely from the air. This was why Xu Wen had previously used high temperatures to rapidly vaporize it, allowing it to instantly spread over a ten-meter radius!
“What was that?” someone asked.
“Is this really the time to worry about that?” Xu Wen shot Xie Zhan a fierce glare, then immediately began chanting a spell.
Caught off guard by the Grand Fireball, the Wind Fox’s snowy white fur was instantly singed pitch black, its magic interrupted. With a murderous glare at Ding Yushan, whose defensive magic protected him, the fox’s gaze quickly shifted to the two figures who had fled dozens of meters away. The pain radiating from its ruined eye far outweighed its other wounds.
Before Ding Yushan could cast another spell, the Wind Fox leapt at them!
“It’s coming!” Xie Zhan finally noticed the short sword embedded in the creature’s left eye. With a shout, he darted off course, slipping out of the Wind Fox’s line of sight.
But in its remaining eye, the Wind Fox saw only that fire mage—the one who had destroyed its left eye. Why would it care about Xie Zhan, who was running to the side? It pressed on, rapidly closing the distance to Xu Wen.
Suddenly!
Its nose twitched. The Wind Fox clearly detected a strange scent—just like before.
Before it could react, a wave of dizziness crashed through its mind. If the pain from its left eye hadn’t been constantly stimulating its nerves, it might have collapsed on the spot.
Seeing that Drunken Breeze hadn’t worked as thoroughly as he’d hoped, Xu Wen was somewhat disappointed.
However!
Though the Wind Fox didn’t collapse completely, the intoxication made it impossible to focus its magic, and even its movement slowed sharply.
Xu Wen hadn’t spared the Drunken Breeze—he’d scattered far more than a single drop throughout the forest.
Waves of dizziness continued to assault and numb the Wind Fox’s nerves, disrupting any attempt to gather magic.
Watching from the side, Xie Zhan’s heart pounded in his chest. He couldn’t fathom why the Wind Fox kept “holding back” and slowing down, but with a dagger lodged in its eye, it was easy to attribute its behavior to that wound.
And so, with Xu Wen making a hair’s-breadth escape into the zone of traps, Xie Zhan finally made his move…
“Go!”
With a sweep of his hand, five firebolts shot from the forest, fanning out in the air to strike at the Wind Fox chasing Xu Wen, as well as in front and behind it.
Ding Yushan, having landed a blow, was too fired up to retreat immediately. The deaths of six fellow disciples and his own guilt made him long to tear the Wind Fox apart with his own hands. Seeing the creature pursue Xu Wen, he swallowed a few pills and, gritting his teeth, charged after them.
It was because of this that he clearly saw Xie Zhan’s firebolts—cast with such clumsy technique that it made people frown.
But before the thought was even finished—
The fireballs that struck the ground to the side and behind the Wind Fox exploded just like fire bombs!
Boom!
A massive burst of flame erupted, splattering in all directions!
Boom! Boom!
Each fireball’s landing spot detonated in quick succession, shockwaves blasting from every direction. Even as a high-level two-star magical beast, the Wind Fox was caught off guard by the force and was flung violently aside by the blast…
“Damn it!” Xie Zhan cursed, frustrated. He had triggered five traps, but the fox had dodged four—only the one at the very front, and that only because the shockwave had tossed it in. He knew that relying solely on the fire-phosphor’s explosive power wouldn’t kill the Wind Fox in one go, and such a cunning beast would never fall for the same trap twice. If the Wind Fox caught up to Xu Wen, that would be their end.
As Xie Zhan prepared to cover Xu Wen’s retreat, he realized to his shock that Xu Wen had stopped fleeing and was instead running back toward the spot where the Wind Fox had fallen.
“Xu Wen!!”
“You—”
Not only Xie Zhan, but even Ding Yushan was startled by Xu Wen’s seemingly suicidal action.
Yet, to their astonishment, the Wind Fox did not jump up as expected; it lay motionless on the ground, as if dead.
They certainly didn’t believe that a beast of such overwhelming strength would play dead at a moment like this!
“Could it be… the chain of explosions actually worked?!”
Xie Zhan raised his hands in disbelief. Even Ding Yushan, for a moment, thought it was the work of Xie Zhan, whose power was second only to his own.
What they didn’t know was that on his way back, every time Xu Wen passed a trap, he emptied several times more Drunken Breeze than before.
Xie Zhan’s fireballs ignited the fire-phosphor, and the resulting flames vaporized all the Drunken Breeze on the ground. At all five trap sites, the intoxicating vapor flooded the area in an instant—enough to fell not just an injured fox, but ten elephants!
Taking a deep breath, Xu Wen sprinted at full speed to the fallen Wind Fox.
For the second time…
This time, Xu Wen didn’t recklessly stab at the Wind Fox’s vital points. Now that he knew pain could snap a beast out of its stupor, there could be no repeat of his earlier rashness, which had nearly cost him his life.
He poured two whole packets of white powder over the Wind Fox’s head and body—without a second thought.
So swift!
So decisive!
Both Xie Zhan and Ding Yushan, hot with hatred for the Wind Fox, couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath.
My god…
“That’s just brutal!” Xie Zhan hadn’t even finished his sentence when Xu Wen raised his right palm and forcefully drove the hilt of the short, gleaming dagger deeper into the Wind Fox’s left eye socket!
With a sickening sound, the short sword sank to the very hilt!
The Wind Fox’s body went rigid as if struck by lightning; its limbs splayed wide, its bloodshot, crimson eye gaping in terror. It struggled to wrench out the blade buried in its brain, but the strength was already draining rapidly from its body…
Just to be safe, Xu Wen rolled backward and launched a fireball.
Boom!!!
The equivalent of twenty measures of fire-phosphor exploded with a force rivaling several kilos of explosives…
Xu Wen, curled up, was flung away like a kangaroo; Xie Zhan was also sent tumbling. Only Ding Yushan, protected by defensive magic, was left unscathed. Unmindful of the flames raining down, tears in his eyes, he walked step by step toward the charred, unrecognizably mangled corpse of the Wind Fox, which had finally breathed its last.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Several two-star magical beasts sped through the outer woods of the Blackwater Mountains, each bearing a mage in intermediate robes adorned with the Hortonklin family crest. They moved with the speed of startled hares, their gear and anxious faces marking them as a rescue squad stationed at the mountain’s periphery.
“Senior! The fire element up ahead is in utter chaos—must be where the explosion just happened!” said a young mage to the left, looking no more than twenty-five, with three stars on his chest and eight bold black stripes below. The other five bore similar crests.
Six senior three-star fire mages!
More than enough to guard the Blackwater Mountains’ outskirts.
“It’s been so long without any sign—could they all be…” someone on the left began, only to be cut off coldly by the leading nine-tier three-star fire mage:
“I don’t care who dies, as long as it’s not Elder Ding’s precious grandson. If something happens to that boy, we’ll be stuck here for life!”
“Hey?” At that moment, the mages all sniffed the air, their gazes sweeping the ground before their eyes widened in shock—the scent of fire-phosphor was unmistakable.
“Who the hell did this?”
“There… and over there, too… damn it, are these little bastards trying to burn down the Blackwater Mountains?”
“Leave someone to clean up the fire-phosphor. The rest of you, double-time!!” The leader snapped. Their mounts, the five magical beasts, let out low growls and surged ahead at even greater speed.
Seconds later…
On the battlefield, littered with debris and heavy with smoke, lay a severely comatose one-star fire mage, a two-star junior fire mage slumped with minor burns, and, in the center, Ding Yushan—the highest-ranked, a two-star intermediate fire mage—stood amid the mangled corpse of the magical beast. The only sound was the crackle of burning flames.
The scene was so eerily silent that even this rescue team, veterans of countless perilous missions in the Blackwater Mountains, found themselves momentarily stunned as they landed.