Volume 2: Shenzhou Academy & The Battle of Venice
Chapter 125
Military Reinforcements Descend, Renowned Across the Island
Violent sea gales roared across the jagged, razor-sharp cat-ear reefs, laden with the bitter tang of brine mingled with the nauseating, suffocating stench of demon beast blood.
At Sea Eagle Cliff, the apocalyptic tempest of magic had finally subsided, leaving behind a terrifying wasteland of scorched, ruined stone.
The colossal sacrificial altar, constructed from thousands of abyssal sea beast skulls, had completely collapsed. Under the devastating, interwoven fury of berserk violet-black lightning and the blazing crimson torrent of the Lieyan Dragon Force, the colossal bone pillars engraved with vile, ancient runes had shattered into heaps of smoldering black ash, tumbling down into the churning, boiling sea below. The arcane blood conduits channeling the sacrificial offerings had been severed in twain, their eerie crimson luminescence flickering a few times before guttering out into nothingness.
The enchanted vessel holding the Frenzy Blood Demonic Elixir had shattered into dust. The final dregs of that foul concoction evaporated into plumes of oily gray smoke under the extreme heat of the flames. Deprived of the catalyst fueling their maddened mana frenzy, the crimson tides crashing against the shores of Huanglu Island began to thin, slowly reclaiming the ocean’s natural deep-azure hue.
Out on the open waters, a radical transformation took place almost instantaneously.
Tens of thousands of marine beasts that had been charging ashore like suicidal moths to a flame suddenly ground to a shuddering halt. The bloodshot, crimson-veined eyes of the Gluttonous Demon Crabs and Poison Claw Sea Demons gradually cleared of their blind savagery. Agonizing pain and primal fear—instincts long buried beneath the drug-induced frenzy—surged back into their senses. As freezing sea spray lashed their broken, wound-riddled carapaces, the monsters snapped awake from their delirium. Unleashing muffled, guttural roars of terror, they trampled over one another in sheer pandemonium, wheeling around to flee desperately toward the lightless abysses of the deep ocean.
The nightmare of the beast tide that had beleaguered Huanglu Island for hours was finally broken at its very source!
Upon the solitary, barren reef, Lin Feng stood with his spine ramrod straight amidst acrid plumes of smoke drifting from the molten rock. The outer coat of his Shenzhou Academy uniform was shredded in several places from the savage clash, exposing a toned, muscular shoulder dusted with fine gray soot. He let out a slow, measured breath, calming the steady cadence of his chest.
Against his chest, beneath the thin lining of his undershirt, the Primordial Dragon Pendant was gradually withdrawing its profound, mystical azure brilliance. The residual evil souls devoured from the Blue-Robed Deacon and his three Black-Robed escorts had been thoroughly refined by the ancient pendant into the purest essence of mana, coursing directly into Lin Feng’s Sea of Consciousness to replenish the magical energy expended during the life-and-death struggle. The Lightning and Fire nebulas residing in his mental sphere had not diminished in the slightest; on the contrary, they blazed with heightened radiance, their star particles spinning at dizzying speeds, faintly manifesting signs of approaching the threshold of their next breakthrough.
Beside him, the Abyssal Thunder Wolf lowered its massive paws. Its sleek, ink-black coat of fur rippled softly, shedding the foul, coagulated black blood of the cultists. Its eerie azure-blue wolf eyes flickered with cold, predatory luster, its long steel tail sweeping across the cliff face with shrill, grating screeches. The imperious demeanor of a true Warrior-class overlord was such that not a single marine creature dared approach within a hundred-meter perimeter.
Beneath Lin Feng’s feet, a grim, gruesome spectacle lay sprawled.
Three Black-Robed escorts of the Nether Church lay lifeless in three separate directions. One had a charred, caved-in chest crushed by thunderbolts; another had his throat torn out by the spectral shadow-claws of the Abyssal Wolf. In the center lay the corpse of the mastermind—the outer barrier instructor of Shenzhou Academy and ruthless Blue-Robed Deacon, Zhou Zhending—sprawled in a pool of dark, congealed blood. His azure robe embroidered with a jagged crimson hem was more than half incinerated by the Lieyan Dragon Force, his pale, contorted visage still frozen in utter horror before drawing his final breath.
Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that a meticulous plot engineered to bury all three thousand prodigies of the Magic Capital—prepared over six grueling months—would be completely uprooted and ruined at the hands of a mere youth who had barely stepped foot through the academy gates!
Lin Feng leaned down, calmly drew a clean cloth from his pocket, and meticulously wiped away the fresh blood clinging to his knuckles and the short trench blade sheathed at his hip. He cast a glance at the deep blue storage ring resting on Zhou Zhending’s finger. With a subtle flick of his fingertip, an imperceptible wisp of Shadow mana silently coiled around the ring, plucking it straight into his palm before slipping it away into his own private dimensional space.
Right at this moment, the heavens across the horizon toward the Jinghai Megalopolis suddenly shuddered with violent tremors!
“BOOM—— RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE——!!”
A succession of deafening sonic booms erupted from above the nine heavens. The suffocating, dense shroud of black storm clouds that had blanketed the coastal skies was torn to shreds by a terrifying, colossal pressure bearing down from the upper atmosphere!
Lin Feng lifted his gaze skyward.
Where sea met sky, a radiant halo of light blazed forth like a second rising sun, utterly banishing the corroding salt mist and lingering sinister miasma. Accompanying that dazzling luminescence was the deep, resonant drone of arcane jet engines, solemn and commanding like summer thunder, vibrating the vast expanse of ocean below.
The coastal patrol fleet of the Jinghai Military District had breached the magnetic mana-interference field!
Spearheading the formation in the upper skies were three heavy armored mana cruisers, each spanning hundreds of meters in length. Their hulls, forged of mana-inscribed titanium alloy in silvery-gray hues, gleamed resplendently under the midday sun. Emblazoned upon their broadsides was the golden emblem of twin crossed swords entwined about an anchor—the illustrious insignia of the Shenzhou Magical Armed Forces! Azure plasma thrust erupted from the sterns, propelling the colossal steel behemoths through the stratosphere as they cleaved through cloud banks, surging toward Huanglu Island with breathtaking speed.
Flanking the three gargantuan cruisers were dozens of high-mobility arcane gunboats, alongside an aerial cavalry squadron mounted atop Lightning-Winged Demon Eagles—peak-tier Servant-class aerial demon beasts rigorously domesticated and trained by the military.
Yet, what caused the entire airspace surrounding Huanglu Island to freeze was not merely the scale of this iron-and-steel armada, but rather the figures hovering mid-air just ahead of the lead warship’s prow!
More than a dozen Archmages clad in resplendent robes embroidered with golden thread stood suspended in empty air, treading the wind without the aid of any visible vessels or flight gear. A boundless, violent aura resembling a rising tsunami emanated from their persons, blanketing and suppressing all living things within a radius of dozens of kilometers!
These were the supreme powerhouses of the Shenzhou Archmage Academy and the Coastal Military District—all of them at minimum Advanced Archmages, with even Super-tier Titans towering among their ranks!
“Insolent wretched beasts! How dare you sow chaos across Shenzhou waters—perish!”
A roar like crashing heavenly thunder exploded between the cloud layers. The speaker was a white-bearded elder draped in blazing crimson robes—the Dean of the Fire Element College at Shenzhou Academy!
The elder thrust aloft a magical staff crested with a ruby as large as an adult fist. The apex of the staff ignited with a colossal, intricate spell diagram so complex that the naked eye could barely discern its contours. Seven tiers of star patterns interlaced, forming a magnificent constellation of magic that shook the very foundation of heaven and earth!
“Heavenly Flame Descent —— Ninefold Firefall!”
“KABOOM——!!”
The distant vault of heaven over the outer sea seemed to tear open into a boundless sea of fire. Hundreds of flaming meteorites, each over ten meters in diameter and dragging dense plumes of black smoke, plunged from the upper atmosphere toward the churning waters below! Colossal pillars of crimson magma erupted hundreds of meters into the sky from the ocean floor, steam hissing violently like a colossal boiling cauldron. The fleeing oceanic beasts had no time to dive into the depths before being incinerated into ash; the resulting shockwaves smoothed the roiling sea completely flat in an instant!
Beside the crimson-robed elder, a middle-aged female mage draped in the snow-white mantle of the Light Element gently tapped a slender finger against the empty void.
“Lightfall Heavenly Court —— Sacred Sword of Demon Cleansing!”
Tens of thousands of pure blades of light, condensed from the most pristine light elements, cascaded down like a torrential midday downpour. Each radiant sword pierced through seawater hundreds of meters deep, pinning the colossal sea monsters hiding beneath the coral reefs and purifying every last remnant of resentful miasma and tainted blood.
Within a mere thirty seconds!
Under the devastating sweep of these Advanced Archmages and Super-tier powerhouses, the entire ocean surrounding Huanglu Island—previously stained crimson with blood and crawling with monsters—was thoroughly purged! White-capped waves rolled once more, and the sky turned crystal-clear without a single trace of evil miasma.
Such a magnificent and world-shaking display of power left the thousands of freshmen huddled in defense along the rocky crags and sandy shores of Huanglu Island completely awestruck.
Then, in the next breath, cheers mixed with weeping erupted from every corner of the island:
“Reinforcements! The reinforcements are here!”
“We’re saved! The deans and the military have come to save us!”
“Goddammit, we survived! Heavens above!”
Hundreds of students threw down their magical implements onto the sand, collapsing to their knees and sobbing uncontrollably from exhaustion and the overwhelming wave of relief after having stepped one foot into the jaws of death. Rescue skiffs and arcane gunboats rapidly touched down along the coastline. Platoons of military medics bearing medical trunks and disciplinary enforcement instructors scrambled ashore, dispersing across the terrain to bandage wounds, administer emergency first-aid, and erect field triage tents for the wounded freshmen.
Yet, amid this frantic rescue operation, the high-ranking leadership of the relief force did not show the slightest hint of a smile.
At the prow of the central cruiser, a tall, imposing figure stood like an unyielding mountain, his ocean-deep eyes brimming with frigid, concentrated killing intent. This was none other than the Executive Vice Dean of the Shenzhou Archmage Academy—Gu Tianya!
“Vice Dean Gu, the magnetic mana-interference barrier blanketing the entire island was just shattered from the southeastern shore! The intensely vile fluctuation radiating from Sea Eagle Cliff also abruptly vanished three minutes ago!” A Wind Element disciplinary instructor flew over, respectfully reporting with urgent breath: “According to our arcane positioning data, that was precisely the post manned by Zhou Zhending, the instructor assigned to oversee the outer perimeter barrier!”
Gu Tianya’s resolute face darkened, the blue veins at his temples twitching subtly:
“Zhou Zhending... As expected, a traitor embedded within the academy’s own ranks! Follow me to Sea Eagle Cliff at once! Remain on highest alert—anyone who dares incite a beast tide of this magnitude in broad daylight is by no means an ordinary adversary!”
“Understood!”
Four college deans alongside ten elite disciplinary instructors channeled their mana immediately. Magnificent pairs of Wind Wings and Light Wings unfurled and flapped forcefully, transforming into more than a dozen streaks of light that tore through the air toward the island’s southeastern promontory at blinding speed.
In every heart hung a heavy stone.
They knew all too well: once a heretical cult poured its full strength into establishing a Frenzy Blood Altar, there had to be at least one Blue-Robed Deacon presiding over it, flanked by a cohort of battle-hardened, fanatical Black-Robed deathsworn guards. Confronting such a ruthless squad of fallen mages, if any freshman had unwittingly stumbled upon that location, their fate could only have been gruesome death without a complete corpse remaining!
In less than a minute, Gu Tianya’s party swept over the crowns of the devastated pine forest and landed directly upon the open ground before Sea Eagle Cliff.
The instant their boots touched the earth, the instructors’ defensive spells flared to life, elemental radiance enveloping their figures, primed for the fiercest life-and-death clash.
However, as the billowing dust settled, the scene greeting their eyes froze all dozen seasoned Archmages dead in their tracks.
There was no protracted standoff.
Nor was there any sign of a ferocious brigade of cultist mages deployed in battle formation awaiting their arrival.
The pungent stench of charred flesh and the foul iron tang of black blood assaulted their nostrils. Before them, the colossal altar of vile beast bones lay crushed into a sprawling heap of ash and rubble. Three mangled, black-robed corpses lay contorted in strategic defensive positions, each felled by decisive, brutal strikes accurate to the millimeter.
And right at the heart of that wreckage, the body of Zhou Zhending lay sprawled in a pool of blood that had begun to coagulate. His chest was caved in by a scorched, gaping hole, while a deep gouge torn open by lightning scarred his forehead, his lifeless eyes staring vacantly into the blue sky.
Standing less than three paces from Zhou Zhending’s corpse was a tall, lean youth clad in a black shirt torn in several spots.
The youth stood calmly leaning against a slab of gray granite, one hand tucked casually into his trouser pocket, the other unhurriedly wiping away the final traces of blood from the back of his hand with a cloth. Beside him crouched a colossal, ink-black shadow wolf, its body crackling with arcs of dark lightning as it rested its paws, its razor-sharp eyes casting a languid glance toward the newly arrived party.
The clearing was so quiet that only the sea breeze whistling through rock fissures could be heard.
A single freshman youth... a single summoned war-beast... and at their feet, the bodies of four notorious heretical cultists alongside an utterly flattened altar of dark sorcery!
“Heavens above... What... What on earth happened here?!”
The Dean of the Wind Element College—an elder renowned for his unflappable composure—could not help but blurt out in sheer shock, his eyes bulging as he stared at the corpse on the ground and then back at Lin Feng. “Zhou Zhending... is dead?! Who killed him?!”
Two disciplinary instructors swallowed hard, cautiously advancing a few paces before crouching down to turn Zhou Zhending’s body over. When the shredded hem of the azure robe was pulled back to reveal a metal medallion engraved with a blue demonic skull beneath the chest skin, one of the instructors gasped in disbelief:
“Reporting to the Vice Dean! It really is Zhou Zhending! He bears the soul brand of the heretical faith and the Blue-Robed medallion of the Nether Church! He is the mole code-named ‘Night Butterfly’ whom coastal intelligence has been hunting for three full years!”
As soon as the words left his lips, an icy shudder ran down the spines of every instructor present!
Night Butterfly! A notorious, ruthless Blue-Robed Deacon who possessed peak-tier Intermediate cultivation across three elements: Earth, Water, and Shadow! He had repeatedly slipped through the dragnets of high-tier hunter squads, yet today, he had perished in an isolated corner of this desolate island!
Gu Tianya’s gaze immediately shifted from Zhou Zhending’s corpse to the youth standing before him.
The dignified Vice Dean took slow, deliberate strides forward. His eyes, deep as an autumn lake, swept across the scorch marks of Lightning and Fire etched into the surrounding crags, before coming to rest on Lin Feng’s youthful yet eerily composed face.
“Lin Feng...” Gu Tianya spoke in a low, resonant voice, not loud, but carrying an immense, imposing weight. “Everything that occurred here... was done by your hand alone?”
Facing the razor-sharp scrutiny of this academy titan, Lin Feng did not flinch in the slightest. He tucked the cloth into his pocket, straightened his posture, and bowed slightly in accordance with the proper etiquette of a student before a dean:
“Vice Dean Gu, when the beast tide erupted, I detected the source of the Frenzy Blood poison seeping from this promontory and tracked the trail here. Upon arrival, I discovered Zhou Zhending and his accomplices continuously infusing demonic elixir to incite the beast tide, scheming to drown Huanglu Island. With thousands of lives hanging by a thread, I had no choice but to risk my life in an ambush, destroying the altar to save my fellow students.”
Lin Feng’s explanation sounded entirely reasonable and modest on the surface, but every single word left the instructors behind Gu Tianya staring at one another in dumbfounded disbelief.
Ambush? Risking his life?
An eighteen-year-old freshman, no matter how extraordinary his summoning talent, going up against a peak Intermediate Blue-Robed Deacon and three battle-hardened Black-Robed deathsworn... and he managed to cleanly annihilate the entire cadre in an “ambush” while suffering nothing more than a few tears in his outer shirt?!
Looking at the spiderweb fissures half a meter deep torn into the granite bedrock by violent lightning, and the vast slabs of rock melted into glassy slag by incinerating heat, the deans were all seasoned battle veterans—how could they fail to recognize that this ground had just witnessed a head-on, earth-shattering elemental clash!
The Dean of the Fire Element College walked over to a pool of molten rock, lightly resting his hand near it to gauge the residual thermal signature. His expression shifted repeatedly:
“This potency... The purity and explosive burst of this flame far exceed ordinary Primary Fire magic—it has even crossed the threshold of a tier-two qualitative mutation! Lin Feng, Summoning is not your only awakened element, is it?!”
Lin Feng replied calmly:
“Dean, I was born with a peculiar soul disposition. In addition to the Summoning element, I was fortunate enough to awaken both Fire and Lightning. In the life-and-death struggle just now, the Abyssal Thunder Wolf fought desperately to pin down Zhou Zhending, while I exhausted every mana stone I had saved and unleashed all my hidden reserves to strike his vitals while he was preoccupied sustaining the altar’s barrier.”
He deftly admitted to possessing multiple innate elements while concealing his true cultivation at the Dual-Element Intermediate stage, along with the existence of his Shadow element and the Primordial Dragon Pendant. In the world of magic, a genius keeping a few hidden trump cards up their sleeve was completely natural; in fact, the deeper one kept them hidden, the more it demonstrated a terrifyingly mature and steady temperament.
Gu Tianya regarded Lin Feng deeply. He made no move to expose the ambiguities in the youth’s recounting. On the contrary, an unmistakable flicker of admiration and astonishment surfaced in the depths of the aged vice dean’s eyes.
Whatever methods this youth had employed, the indisputable truth lay right before their eyes:
Zhou Zhending was dead!
The Frenzy Blood Altar was obliterated!
Three thousand freshmen of Shenzhou Academy had been delivered from the brink of total annihilation!
“Good! Excellent!”
Gu Tianya suddenly burst into hearty laughter, clapping a heavy, forceful palm down upon Lin Feng’s shoulder. The force carried the genuine, unvarnished excitement of an elder seeing a brilliant junior:
“Neither arrogant nor boastful, unfazed in the face of peril, possessing extraordinary valor! Lin Feng, you have not merely performed an unprecedented merit for our academy—you have preserved the future of an entire generation for the Magic Capital!”
With that, Gu Tianya turned toward the naval district’s arcane communications officer and barked in a ringing, authoritative tone:
“Broadcast island-wide! Connect to every magical wristband worn by all students and faculty! I want every soul in Shenzhou Archmage Academy to know exactly who saved their lives today!”
“Understood, Vice Dean!”
Seconds later, mana-amplified sound arrays mounted aboard the hovering cruisers boomed across the sky above Huanglu Island. Gu Tianya’s resolute, solemn voice echoed through every ravine, forest, and beach, ringing directly in the ears of all present:
“Attention, all freshmen and faculty of Shenzhou Academy! The mastermind behind the oceanic beast tide calamity—the traitorous instructor Zhou Zhending, a Blue-Robed Deacon of the Nether Church—along with all heretical remnants at Sea Eagle Cliff, has been thoroughly eradicated! The Frenzy Blood Altar has been razed to the ground!”
“The one who discovered, single-handedly thwarted the heretical conspiracy, and executed the Blue-Robed Deacon is: Freshman of the Summoning College —— LIN FENG!”
The broadcast repeated three times.
With each repetition, the atmosphere across the entire island shook all the harder.
On the western shore, where hundreds of students lay strewn across field triage stations, everyone froze in stunned silence.
Bai Wei was seated on a boulder while a military medic bound his fractured arm. When the name “Lin Feng” struck his eardrums, his entire body convulsed as if struck by lightning. The cup of mana water in his hand slipped through his fingers, shattering onto the sand.
“Lin... Lin Feng?! Slew a Blue-Robed Deacon of the Nether Church?!”
Bai Wei’s face was drained of every drop of color, his lips trembling violently. He recalled how, before setting foot on the island, he had arrogantly declared that he would use this wilderness trial to crush Lin Feng beneath his feet and reclaim the prestige of the Bai Clan.
Yet now... while he had nearly ended up as food for Servant-class demon crabs, weeping and begging for salvation, Lin Feng had ventured alone into the den of heretics and severed the head of a peak Intermediate Blue-Robed Deacon—a monster whom even veteran instructors held in dread!
This gulf... was not merely between heaven and earth!
It was an abyss ten thousand fathoms deep separating an ordinary mortal from a soaring dragon ruling the nine heavens! The haughty pride of the Bai Clan’s young master collapsed completely in this instant, shattering into dust, leaving not even a shred of courage left to harbor envy or jealousy!
On another hillside, Xie Zhaoyuan heard the loudspeaker and leapt three feet into the air. Paying no heed to the gash tearing open along his thigh, he bellowed at the top of his lungs:
“Boss! It was Boss Lin who did it! Hahaha! Dammit, I knew it! What kind of godlike figure is my Boss?!”
From within the crowd, two graceful figures hastily parted the throngs, running through the encampments.
Ye Qingwan’s robes were stained with grime and mud, her long hair somewhat disheveled, but her phoenix eyes shone bright as nocturnal stars. Beside her was Gu Xiaowei, wiping away lingering tears with her sleeve as she dashed forward, muttering under her breath: “That monster... I knew he wouldn’t die so easily!”
When the two girls reached Sea Eagle Cliff and saw that familiar dark-clothed silhouette standing proud beside the colossal black wolf under the blazing sunset, their hearts clenched tight before bursting into an indescribable surge of emotion.
Ye Qingwan halted a few paces away, her chest heaving as she gazed fixedly at the youth. In her eyes was not merely the pure admiration of a peer prodigy, but a profound tremor of the heart before a pair of shoulders broad and sturdy enough to bear the weight of a collapsing sky.
“Lin Feng!” Gu Xiaowei could no longer restrain herself. She charged forward and gave his chest a light thump, laughing through her tears: “You maniac! Do you have any idea how worried we were about you?! If you ever dare charge into death’s door alone like that again, I... I’ll never cook for you again!”
Lin Feng smiled softly, the frigid chill that had lingered in his eyes when facing his enemies melting away, replaced by his familiar warmth:
“Don’t worry, my life is tough. A pack of sewer rats isn’t qualified to take it.”
By this time, hundreds of students from surrounding squads were also surging toward the foot of the promontory.
They beheld the shattered ruins of the altar, saw the corpses of the enemies that had terrified them to the bone, and then looked up at the youth standing against the wind atop the high crag. Within every chest, the terror of death had been utterly supplanted by reverence and boundless gratitude.
A student pumped his fist toward the sky, roaring with all his might:
“LIN FENG!”
That shout was a spark tossed into a powder keg. Instantly, thousands of students packing the slopes and beaches thrust their fists into the air in unison. Their thunderous chants merged into an earth-shaking wave of sound that parted the clouds:
“LIN FENG! LIN FENG! LIN FENG!”
The deafening roar drowned out even the crash of the ocean surf, reverberating off the granite cliffs and echoing across every corner of Huanglu Island. The name of this eighteen-year-old youth from a small border city had, on this day, been permanently etched into the minds of the entire elite generation of the Magic Capital!
Amidst the sea of wildly chanting students, Gu Tianya stood beside Lin Feng and tilted his head slightly. The smile on the Vice Dean’s face gradually receded, replaced by a rare solemnity. Leaning close to Lin Feng’s ear, he lowered his voice so that only the two of them could hear:
“Lin Feng, your slaying of Zhou Zhending has resolved the immediate peril facing the academy. But his storage ring... I know you took it.”
Lin Feng paused slightly, his eyes darkening, but he remained silent.
Gu Tianya let out a soft sigh, a trace of deep-seated concern surfacing in his gaze:
“Do not be tense. That item is your rightful spoil of war; the academy will not confiscate it. But you must be careful. Zhou Zhending was merely a minor pawn. Within that ring lies an encoded roster of the Nether Church’s moles planted within the great clans of the Magic Capital. By killing him, you have officially entered the crosshairs of those lurking in the shadows.”
The Vice Dean paused for a beat, his gaze boring into Lin Feng’s pitch-black pupils:
“Once this field trial concludes, the academy will convene the grandest Commendation Ceremony in its history to reward you. That reward will grant you entry into a domain every mage dreams of... but at the same time, it will thrust you into a vortex of bloodshed ten times fiercer. Are you mentally prepared to face it?”
The sea wind whipped the torn hem of Lin Feng’s shirt. He looked out over the boundless ocean ahead, where the blood-red twilight dyed the horizon in brilliant crimson. The corner of his mouth curved into a cold, razor-sharp smirk, his voice as steady and unyielding as bedrock:
“If they dare to come, I dare to bury them.”