The bell kept ringing.
Dong.
Dong.
Dong.
Every strike of the metal rang through Bo City like some bored god was knocking on its coffin lid.
Mo Fan punched another wolf in the face. Fiery Fist exploded, sending the beast and half its friends into a smoking pile at the edge of the courtyard. The flames washed over the tiles, turning rainwater into clouds of steam.
He could barely see.
He could still hear everything.
Students crying.
Hunters roaring.
Buildings collapsing.
Wolves howling like the end of the world was the best party they had ever been invited to.
"Everyone move to the inner gate!" one of the remaining instructors shouted, voice cracking. "Protect the civilians first, the academy second!"
A wolf jumped up and ripped his throat out.
Mo Fan's jaw tightened.
More wolves surged through the gap in the wall, claws tearing trenches across the stone. Their eyes glowed with that same crazed light. They did not feel pain. They did not feel fear. They felt hunger.
Great. The city is dying, and the menu is us.
Mo Fan spun, lightning gathering along his arm.
"Lightning Strike!"
The bolt blasted into a wolf mid-leap, sending it flipping backward. Another lunged in from the side. Mo Fan met it with a blazing fist, Fiery Fist detonating point-blank.
He did not stop to watch it fall.
He just kept moving.
Beside him, Xu Mang's lightning drew narrow, precise scars across the battlefield. Every time a wolf tried to reach a cluster of students, it dropped twitching in the mud. Lu Jun's water crushed another wave, Metal Slash carving through anything big enough to be a real problem.
It still felt like trying to empty the ocean with three spoons.
"Front line falling back!" a hunter cried. "Too many on the east side!"
No kidding. The east street looked like a river made of fur and teeth.
Mo Fan took one look and ran straight toward it.
"Mo Fan, where are you going?" Xu Mang yelled.
"East side!" Mo Fan shouted back. "If I die, put 'died punching wolves' on my grave!"
"Write your own epitaph!" Xu Mang snapped, but he adjusted position anyway, covering the hole Mo Fan left.
Mo Fan vaulted over a collapsed section of roof, flames swirling at his heels. The eastern street yawned open, flooding with wolves that had breached another section of the inner wall. A handful of hunters and three exhausted students were trying to hold them.
Trying being the important word.
One girl's Fire Burst fizzled out mid-air. The flames sputtered like a cheap lighter before disappearing. A wolf saw the opening and launched itself at her.
Mo Fan hit it first.
"Fiery Fist!"
The explosion threw the wolf away and knocked the girl flat on her back. She stared up at him, wide-eyed, like he had just dropped out of the sky.
"Why are you still here?" he barked. "Run!"
She scrambled up and fled with the others. Good. One fewer ghost to haunt him later.
The wolves closed in from three directions now.
The smart thing would have been to pull back.
Mo Fan planted his feet.
Intermediate Fire burned in his veins, a furnace begging to be opened. Lightning crawled over his skin, eager and wild.
He raised both arms.
"Come on then," he muttered. "Let's see how many of you I can send back to respawn."
Fire surged around him. The closest wolves lunged.
"Fiery Fist—Blazing Impact!"
His fist smashed down, and the street erupted. Flames roared outward in a ring, hurling bodies away like toys. Wolves shrieked as fire devoured their fur.
The ones in the second row didn't hesitate. They leaped straight through the burning corpses of their own pack.
Nice. No self-preservation instinct. Perfect.
Mo Fan's eyes narrowed. Lightning stars spun behind his eyes, the Intermediate pattern forming with a snap.
"Thunderbolt!"
Violet light ripped down from the sky, slamming into the center of the street. The explosion of electricity turned the next wave into a tangled, convulsing mess. For a moment, nothing moved but the flickering afterimage of the bolt.
Then the surviving wolves stepped over the twitching bodies and continued forward.
Of course they did.
"Mo Fan!" a voice shouted from farther back. Student voice. Not dead yet. Good sign. "The inner evacuation route is open! We have to fall back!"
"Go!" Mo Fan yelled, punching another wolf so hard its teeth flew out. "I'll catch up if I'm not dog food!"
The student hesitated.
"Move it!" he snapped.
They moved.
He kept punching.
The bell kept ringing.
Dong.
Dong.
Dong.
The sound matched the rhythm of Zhan Kong's fight somewhere deeper in the city.
Every time the bell rang, Zhan Kong hit something, or something hit him.
The Greater-Commander shattered another row of houses as it lunged, claws ripping through stone like wet bread. Zhan Kong skimmed along the air with Wind Trail, a streak of green light dodging the crushing blow. Wind Disc flashed, carving another bloody line across the beast's hide.
The commander's roar shook water off every wall in the district.
It swiped again.
He dodged again.
The ground broke again.
He was bleeding. His right arm did not bend quite correctly anymore. Breathing made his ribs hurt. But he still moved.
Because if he stopped, that thing would head straight for the evacuation routes.
He could not let that happen.
The beast suddenly changed angles. Instead of going for him, it surged toward the side street where fleeing people had gathered, following the scent of fear.
Zhan Kong's eyes went flat and cold.
"Not there," he said.
Wind spiraled around him, forming a rushing torrent.
He threw himself straight into the monster's path.
"Wind Wings!"
He shot forward like a green spear, slamming into its chest with enough force to leave a crater. The impact knocked the commander sideways, skidding across the flooded street, demolishing another row of buildings.
The people in the alley stared, frozen in terror.
"Why are you still here?" Zhan Kong said without looking at them. "Run."
They ran.
The commander got back up.
Of course it did.
Blood dripped from its mouth. Its eyes glowed brighter, deeper, tainted with Black Vatican corruption. The red haze around its claws thickened.
On a broken balcony overlooking the fight, one of the masked priests clicked his tongue.
"Stubborn," the priest murmured. "But all animals break eventually."
He raised a hand, sending another pulse of twisted energy into the beast.
The commander shuddered, muscles contorting, wounds sprouting new, raw flesh. Its body swelled slightly, veins bulging beneath the skin.
Zhan Kong felt the change and grimaced.
"Great," he muttered. "You were not ugly enough already."
The commander roared and charged again.
He went to meet it.
The collision cracked the main road and sent shattered stone flying across the district like shrapnel.
Mo Fan felt the impact from blocks away, stumbled, caught himself, and grimaced.
"If the captain dies," he muttered, "I'm making those freaks in masks regret being born."
As if the universe had been waiting for that line, a group of Black Vatican lackeys stepped out of a side alley right then, cloaks dripping rain, masks gleaming faintly in the firelight.
One of them tilted his head.
"Target confirmed," the priest said. "Lightning and Fire dual-element. Capture if possible. Kill if not."
Mo Fan stared at them for half a second.
Then he grinned, even though his clothes were shredded, his arms were bleeding, and he was standing in the middle of a city-sized graveyard.
"Guess I'm popular tonight."
They raised their hands. Sickly-red energy gathered across their fingers, forming twisted spell patterns.
Curse magic.
Black as oil with a red sheen.
Lovely.
Mo Fan's response was simple.
"Fire Burst!"
The explosion blew the closest priest off his feet, mask flying into the air. Underneath was just a very ordinary face twisted in surprise and pain.
"Sorry," Mo Fan said. "No autographs."
He dashed in, lightning flaring under his feet, closing the distance before the rest could adjust.
One priest unleashed Mist of Fear. A black haze rolled toward him, whispering with the sound of a hundred wrong choices.
Mo Fan ran straight through it, fire blazing hotter around him. His heart pounded, but he had no time to be afraid.
He had already chosen.
He was staying in this city until he could not stand.
He smashed Fiery Fist into the priest's chest. Bones cracked. The man vomited blood and collapsed.
Another tried to cast a curse circle. Lightning Strike cut him off mid-chant, sending him rigid and smoking to the ground.
The last one turned to flee.
A bolt of violet light from the side hit him first.
Xu Mang jogged up, breathing hard, rain plastering his hair to his forehead.
"You really cannot stop picking fights, can you?" he said.
Mo Fan shrugged. "They started it."
Lu Jun appeared a second later, water swirling faintly around his hands, eyes scanning the street.
"The evacuation is in chaos," he said. "We have to pull back to the central route. They're guiding everyone toward the southern gate. Zhan Kong is still fighting the commander near the middle district. If he fails, this all becomes pointless."
Mo Fan looked toward where the roars were shaking the night.
"Then we make sure it's not pointless," he said.
"Right now," Xu Mang replied, "we make sure people live long enough for it to matter."
He was right, which was annoying.
Mo Fan exhaled, knuckles still buzzing with leftover lightning.
"Fine. Retreat it is."
They turned and ran, not away from the battle, but along it. Wolves rushed down intersecting streets. Spells flashed around them as scattered hunter squads tried to shepherd civilians toward any path that was not already filled with teeth.
They cut down anything that got too close.
Water Shield wrapped around groups of children.
Lightning Strike cleared leaping wolves from above.
Fiery Fist carved burning gaps in the flood.
Bo City screamed and bled and burned.
The inner wall finally shattered in three places at once.
The bell kept ringing.
The evacuation routes bottlenecked, and people sobbed as they pressed forward.
At some point, no one could tell where the rain ended and the tears began.
Hours later — or maybe minutes, time had lost its meaning — the order finally came through the hunter lines like a whispered curse.
"All units, fall back. Zhan Kong is holding the last sector alone. Full retreat!"
Mo Fan stumbled to a stop.
"What?" he demanded.
A blood-streaked hunter grabbed his shoulder. "He's staying behind. He's the only one that can keep that thing busy. If we stay, we just throw our lives away."
Mo Fan's throat felt tight.
He wanted to argue. To say he could help. To say they could win if they all stayed. To punch something until the world gave in.
Instead he looked at the hordes still spilling through the streets. At the commander's roar echoing from the heart of the city. At the civilians stumbling toward the southern gate, too exhausted even to scream.
He swallowed the fire down.
"Fine," he said.
They withdrew.
Bo City burned behind them.
The last things Mo Fan saw as they left the northern district were:
Zhan Kong, half-covered in blood, still standing.
The Greater-Commander, still roaring.
The sky, split open with wind and lightning.
Then the streets curved.
The buildings thickened.
The retreat swallowed them.
Bo City's fate was sealed.
It fell.
Time did the rude thing it always did and kept moving.
Days later, the survivors were no longer residents of Bo City. They were refugees in a temporary settlement, clustered near a transit hub that smelled like damp clothes, boiled rice, and unspoken grief.
Mo Fan sat on a crate, staring at nothing.
He did not talk much.
He did not need to. The silence around him was loud enough.
Lu Jun sorted through a stack of papers near a folding table, expression calm in that annoying, serious way of his. Xu Mang leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, eyes half-closed, listening to announcements echoing across the station.
News of Zhan Kong's "heroic sacrifice" had spread.
The details were vague.
They did not need detail.
Everyone understood what it meant.
After a long stretch of silence, Xu Mang finally spoke.
"So," he said, voice dry, "Bo City is gone, the Commanders are feasting on rubble, Black Vatican is still out there, and we are… standing here pretending this is fine."
Mo Fan snorted. "You got a better idea?"
"Yes," Xu Mang said. "Several. None of them are legal, affordable, or sane."
Lu Jun looked up. "We do have to think about our next step."
"Oh, that's easy," Mo Fan said, forcing a grin. "I get stronger, go to Pearl Institute, and beat up every idiot who thinks I only have Fire."
"Ambitious," Lu Jun said mildly. "Not a bad plan, though."
Xu Mang pushed off the pillar. "Good. You two have your trajectories. The plot will drag you where you need to go anyway."
Mo Fan frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing," Xu Mang said. "Just that I'm taking a different train."
Mo Fan stared at him. "To where?"
Xu Mang smiled, the kind of smile that meant trouble.
"Imperial City."
Lu Jun's eyes narrowed. "The Mu Clan?"
"Mm." Xu Mang stretched his arms overhead like he was not casually announcing he was walking into the jaws of one of the strongest families in the country. "They have something I need. A technique. One that can strip an innate talent, polish it, and graft it onto someone else."
He watched their faces carefully.
Mo Fan's brows shot up. "Talent stealing?"
"Talent forging," Xu Mang corrected. "Stealing is rude. I prefer 'redistribution'."
Lu Jun stared. "You are going to break into the Mu Clan's internal research division and 'redistribute' their taboo technique."
"That is the general outline, yes."
"Do you have a plan?" Mo Fan asked.
"Of course," Xu Mang said. "Step one: get to Imperial City. Step two: improvise."
Mo Fan rubbed his forehead. "Why do I suddenly feel bad for Imperial City?"
Lu Jun sighed. "I'll leave for Pearl Institute early like we planned. Set up a foothold. Mo Fan will follow later. You… are going to go poke a sleeping dragon."
Xu Mang shrugged. "Someone has to. If we want to change anything in this world, we need more than hard work and luck. We need tools. The Mu Clan has one of the sharpest tools in existence."
"Is this for you?" Mo Fan asked quietly.
Xu Mang paused.
"No," he said. "It's for later. For all of us. For people who should not stay weak."
He glanced at them, eyes serious now under the familiar lazy tone.
"We saw what Bo City looks like when ordinary people are thrown into a disaster they cannot resist. I do not intend to watch that happen again without stacking the deck first."
Silence settled between them.
Then Mo Fan grinned faintly.
"Fine," he said. "Go steal their secret. But don't die. If you die, I'm reviving you just to kill you again."
"I appreciate the faith," Xu Mang replied.
Lu Jun folded the last of his papers. "I'll send word once I secure a place at Pearl. Try not to start a clan war before then."
"No promises," Xu Mang said.
Announcements blared across the station, calling passengers to platforms. People pushed past them, carrying bags and boxes, eyes heavy.
Xu Mang picked up a simple backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and turned toward the outbound platforms.
Mo Fan watched him go.
"Hey," he called.
Xu Mang glanced back.
"When you see the Mu Clan," Mo Fan said, "tell them Bo City says hi."
Xu Mang's lips curled.
"I'll do more than that," he replied. "I'll make sure they remember it."
He turned away and walked into the crowd.
The world outside was bigger than Bo City.
Darker.
Stranger.
Imperial City waited far to the north, wrapped in stone, ice, and politics sharp enough to cut bone.
Somewhere inside its walls, the Mu Clan guarded its forbidden research on innate talents, buried under layers of secrecy and arrogance.
Xu Mang smiled to himself as the train doors slid shut around him and the carriage began to move.
A whole city of aristocrats, ancient techniques, and dangerous secrets.
Perfect.
He cracked his knuckles, feeling the faint echo of lightning in his bones.
Time to see how hard the world could be bent before it broke.