Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 28
Coordinated Combat
The deafening roar of the Blood-Eyed Frenzy Wolf slammed against the granite walls of the cavern, releasing shrieking acoustic shockwaves that threatened to rupture their eardrums.
Thick, foul black blood poured in torrents from the beast’s left eye socket, mingling with the stench of sizzling, charred fat left behind by Lin Feng’s Scarlet Flame. Yet the sheer agony did nothing to dampen the predator’s feral bloodlust. If anything, the searing pain stoked a manic madness that boiled through its veins. Four sickle-sharp talons gouged violently into the stone floor, kicking up fiery orange sparks alongside dense, swirling clouds of gray dust.
Lowering its massive head, the beast leveled the half-meter-long horn protruding from its brow—cloaked in a shroud of ominous, deathly miasma—and charged directly at Lin Feng’s chest!
Gales howled through the narrow confines of the cavern. The sheer speed of a high-tier Servant Beast launching a desperate, all-out charge far exceeded anything high school students could fathom. A distance of fifteen meters dissolved in a single heartbeat, shrinking to less than five paces. Its colossal frame, weighing over four hundred kilograms, carried devastating kinetic momentum—like an armored battle carriage hurtling downhill with severed brakes.
Several paces behind Lin Feng lay the dead end of the cavern.
There, Ling Bai was slumped pitifully across the damp gravel, shivering like a drowned dog. His expensive white suit was now smeared with muck and foul runoff. Hands that had only ever turned the smooth parchment of luxury magic tomes trembled so violently he couldn’t even press two fingers together. The Ice-element mana within his body had frozen solid in sheer terror, slipping completely out of his control.
“It’s over... We’re dead meat...”
Li Peng clutched frantically at Ling Bai’s hem, his teeth chattering in a rapid, hollow clatter.
A dark, spreading wet stain soaked through the crotch of his trousers, venting a sharp, pungent stench of urine into the suffocating air. Beside him, Xiao Min bit her lower lip until it bled. Both of her hands gripped a crude magical shortblade, but before the overwhelming, suffocating aura of the rampaging beast, the girl’s slender legs were rooted to the floor, incapable of shifting half an inch.
If Lin Feng stepped aside and ran, that razor-sharp horn would tear through the cavern and gore straight into the cowering group behind him. Not a single one of them would survive the catastrophic impact.
Yet Lin Feng did not retreat.
He stood resolute amidst the rancid gale lashing violently across his face, the hem of his Feng Lan uniform snapping wildly in the tempest. His pupils contracted into two icy black pinpricks, reflecting the razor-sharp horn tearing through the air at terrifying speed.
At this razor’s edge of life and death, Lin Feng maintained a deep, steady breath. Beneath his thin shirt, the black jade of the Primordial Dragon Pendant pressed against his skin, sending rhythmic pulses of pure warmth up his spine to keep his mind crystalline and lucid on the threshold of mortality.
Fleeing would only expose one’s back to the predator’s fangs. Confronting magical beasts, taking a single step back was a plunge into a bottomless abyss!
Four paces! Three paces!
The distance shrank so drastically that Lin Feng could clearly see every corded muscle rippling beneath the wolf’s coarse gray hide. He could smell the coppery reek of gore and the scorching, rotten stench puffing from its jagged, fanged maw.
Just as the tip of the horn came within two hand-spans of his chest, the commoner youth abruptly leaned half a meter to the side. Chest expanding, he unleashed a thunderous roar that echoed like a crack of doom:
“Fatty Hu! Cast Earth Wave—break its footing!!”
The resounding bellow crashed through the cavern, smashing squarely against the jagged granite boulder flanking the left wall.
Cowering behind that rock, Zhang Hu was curled into a trembling ball. Every ounce of fat on his burly frame quivered in time with the frantic pounding in his chest. Cold sweat drenched his forehead, stinging his squinted eyes as it streamed down his cheeks. Throughout all sixteen years of his life in the slums of South Street, the worst things he had ever faced were bruising brawls with street thugs or vicious insults from wealthy nobles. Never had he stood anywhere near a bloodthirsty monster like this.
A wave of helplessness and dread threatened to drag him into a dark abyss.
Yet Lin Feng’s roar struck like a sledgehammer, violently shattering the shell of cowardice encasing the chubby youth’s heart!
That was Lin Feng! His brother who had shared stale, moldy bread with him during the bitterest winter days of South Street! The very same friend who had stood alone against the towering might of the Ling Clan to preserve the dignity of the impoverished! And now, Lin Feng was standing on the deadliest front line, entrusting his life and his back to him!
If you hide here, Feng will die!
A voice screamed furiously in Zhang Hu’s head.
In a fraction of a second, fear was incinerated by the roaring flames of rage and brotherhood! Fatty Hu’s squinted eyes tore wide open, bloodshot veins spidering across them with feral intensity. He ground his teeth so violently that blood welled from his gums, flooding his mouth with a salty, metallic tang.
“You goddamned beast, keep your filthy paws off my brother!!”
Unleashing a throat-shredding roar, Zhang Hu vaulted out from behind cover!
Throwing his full weight forward, he slammed both feet hard into the rugged stone! Deep within his Sea of Consciousness, seven earthen-brown Star Cores—ordinarily sluggish and lazy—blazed with dazzling brilliance under the frantic compulsion of his survival instinct. Thick currents of mana surged like the silt-laden torrents of a swollen river, flooding through his pathways to link each star into a complete, flawless Earth Star Path!
Never in his life had Zhang Hu completed a Star Path so swiftly! In less than a single second!
“Earth Wave—Quicksand Sink!!”
Zhang Hu slammed both rough, calloused palms violently against the cavern floor!
BOOM!!
An ochre shockwave erupted from his palms, tearing across the bedrock in rippling earthen tremors. The primal power of the Earth element plunged deep into the geological structure right beneath the charging wolf.
Directly where the beast’s front claws descended, the solid granite floor abruptly liquefied, softening into churning mire before collapsing downward by more than a foot!
A swirling vortex of quicksand opened in an instant!
HURGH—!!
Barreling forward at top speed with all its mass committed into its forelegs for the lethal pounce, the demon wolf suddenly found the ground vanishing from beneath it!
Both razor-sharp foreclaws plunged helplessly into the swirling quagmire, sinking in up to its elbows!
The colossal momentum of its four-hundred-kilogram bulk did not stop; instead, it transformed into its own most punishing backlash. The demon wolf’s massive hindquarters were violently flung upward by the sudden stop, sending it careening off balance. Its colossal horned skull was wrenched sideways at a forty-five-degree angle, grazing past the hem of Lin Feng’s sleeve by mere inches!
CRASH——!!
A deafening detonation tore through the cavern!
The razor-sharp horn drove straight into the solid granite wall beside them!
The sheer violence of the impact fractured the massive rock, radiating a spiderweb of deep fissures. Stone dust and fist-sized rock fragments sprayed in every direction like shrapnel, pattering noisily against the stone walls. Sinking nearly a hand-span deep into the rock, the horn became hopelessly wedged within the granite crevice!
The beast howled in agony. Its thick neck was twisted at a grotesque angle, all four limbs clawing madly at the walls and floor in search of purchase. Yet with its horn pinned tight between the fractured slabs, it had no way of wrenching itself free!
Flawless coordination!
A single Quicksand Sink from Zhang Hu had transformed the high-tier Servant Beast’s devastating charge into a self-imposed prison!
“Brilliant work, Fatty Hu!”
Lin Feng did not waste this once-in-a-lifetime opening.
The instant the monster’s massive body brushed past him, he harnessed the swirling slipstream to pivot his center of gravity. His footwork was fluid and swift across the jagged scree, slipping past the beast’s bristling flank like a phantom to circle directly behind the nape of its neck!
The nape of a demon wolf was its deadliest vulnerability. And right there, cracked open by its violent collision with the granite, the protective bone plating had shattered, exposing a ragged crimson gash where the pulsing spinal cord met the base of its skull.
The hot, coppery reek of blood assaulted his senses.
Current distance: Zero paces!
Lin Feng’s right arm drew back high into the air. Five fingers splayed wide, his muscles primed with explosive force.
Deep within his Sea of Consciousness, the crimson fire of his Fire Stardust blazed more furiously than ever before! Seven brilliant ruby Star Cores danced in dazzling harmony, snapping into a blinding linear alignment beneath the millimeter-precise command of Lin Feng’s intent.
A brilliant crimson Star Path emerged!
Casting time: Under a second! A flawless condensation of magic without a single wasted motion—instinctive and carved into his very marrow!
“Scarlet Flame—Spark Drill!!”
Lin Feng uttered each syllable with icy finality, the words ringing out sharp and merciless like a death sentence pronounced upon the savage beast.
WHOOSH——!!
A roaring crimson inferno flared to life in Lin Feng’s palm!
Yet this fire did not billow outward into a diffuse sphere like the standard spells cast by students in the practical classes. Under the iron grip of his potent mental strength and the steadying resonance of the Primordial Dragon Pendant, Lin Feng clenched his five fingers tight!
The raging thermal energy was forcibly compressed into a single, needle-sharp focal point at the knuckles of his fist!
The scarlet flame spun at blinding speed, emitting a high-pitched shriek like grinding steel. In an instant, it transformed into a blazing miniature drill of fire, condensing temperatures exceeding thousands of degrees. Blinding light radiated outward, scorching the surrounding air into shimmering, warped heatwaves!
“Die!”
Lin Feng’s arm struck downward like a sledgehammer swung from the heavens!
The crimson fire drill, packed with unbridled destructive power, plunged directly into the exposed wound at the nape of the demon wolf’s neck!
SPLAT——!!
The sickening crunch of tearing flesh blended with an ear-splitting sizzle!
The fire drill bored through the thick hide, fracturing the cervical vertebrae to drive straight into the creature’s spinal canal! The extreme heat instantly vaporized every surrounding blood vessel, turning spinal fluid and neural tissue into acrid plumes of black smoke that billowed violently outward!
SKREEE—AWOOO——!!
The Blood-Eyed Frenzy Wolf unleashed a bloodcurdling shriek unlike anything heard before! It was no longer the arrogant roar of a nocturnal predator, but the unadulterated agony of every single nerve fiber being burned alive!
Its massive frame convulsed violently as if struck by tens of thousands of volts. Claws raked frantic gashes into the stone, its tail whipping through the air with concussive cracks. In its frantic thrashing, the wedged horn snapped cleanly in two, tearing free from the stone cleft.
Yet once the searing Scarlet Flame breached the spinal column, nothing in this world could extinguish it!
The infernal heat surged through its spine, utterly obliterating the beast’s central nervous system. Its screams dwindled into ragged, wet wheezes choked with phlegm and bloody froth. Its remaining eye glazed over, the feral crimson light fading into dull gray.
THUD!!
The massive, four-hundred-kilogram bulk of the demon wolf collapsed heavily onto the cavern floor, skidding several paces across the quicksand before lying completely motionless. Its hulking muscles twitched weakly once or twice by reflex, then fell into eternal silence.
The suffocating stench of singed fur, boiling fat, and roasted meat permeated every corner of the cavern.
The space plummeted into absolute silence.
Lin Feng took two paces back, his chest rising and falling in measured breaths. Faint dying embers flickered from his right palm, crackling as they fell to the floor. He stood tall amidst the drifting gray smoke, gazing coldly down at the carcass of the slain monster.
On the other side, Zhang Hu was slumped on the ground, his trembling arms propped against his knees as he gasped for air in ragged gulps. His worn shirt clung damply to his back with sweat. Seeing that the beast had drawn its final breath, the chubby youth wiped the blood from his lip, a foolish, ear-to-ear grin spreading across his face:
“Feng... I... I did it! Holy shit, I actually fucking did it!!”
Not far away, Ling Bai and the others remained petrified.
Ling Bai’s jaw hung slack, his eyes bulging as if they might burst from their sockets as he stared at the demon wolf lying dead at Lin Feng’s feet. His fingers clawed into the rough ground, nails tearing and bleeding without him even noticing.
Taking down a high-tier Servant Beast?
Through the coordination of an Earth-element fat slob and a penniless Fire-element pauper?!
Without an Intermediate Mage to protect them, without expensive defensive magic artifacts, relying solely on two Tier 1 Basic spells: Earth Wave—Quicksand Sink and Scarlet Flame—Spark! One executed flawless crowd control at the most critical juncture; the other delivered a ruthless, millimeter-perfect execution!
What kind of monstrous combat prowess was this?!
Compared to Lin Feng’s icy composure, the spectacle of noble heirs like himself and Li Peng cowering on the floor and wetting their pants was nothing short of a humiliating disgrace! A toxic mixture of burning envy and creeping terror welled up within Ling Bai’s chest, choking his throat and leaving him completely speechless.
Leaning against the cavern wall, Xiao Min’s chest heaved violently. Her clear eyes stared fixatedly at the commoner youth’s back, waves of turbulent shock crashing through her heart. Was this truly the impoverished student whom the entire school had mocked as a backdoor charity case? This courage, this decisive lethality... even the seasoned bounty hunters patrolling beyond the fortress walls could scarcely match it!
Buzz——
While no one was watching, a pea-sized mote of fluorescent green light gently drifted up into the air from the carcass of the Blood-Eyed Frenzy Wolf.
A Soul Remnant of a high-tier Servant Beast!
Normally, once a magical beast perished, its Soul Remnant would dissipate into the world within a few short seconds unless captured by an expensive soul-reaping vessel. Yet at this precise moment, the black dragon jade of the Primordial Dragon Pendant resting against Lin Feng’s chest gave an imperceptible shudder.
A peculiar gravitational pull emanated from the pendant. As if caught in an invisible vortex, the green mote shot through the air, slipping beneath Lin Feng’s shirt to fuse directly into the pendant’s inner domain!
Within his Sea of Consciousness, the Dragon Pendant glowed softly, swallowing the Soul Remnant into its ancient crucible and radiating a gentle stream of pure energy that replenished the mana Lin Feng had just expended.
A faint, satisfied smirk touched the corner of Lin Feng’s lips. A high-tier Servant Beast Soul Remnant in the bag! Once he gathered enough soul remnants, he could begin strengthening his first Star Cores!
“Pack your gear, harvest the magic ore, and let’s get out of here,” Lin Feng said, turning around to warn the group in a low, solemn voice. “The reek of blood is too thick. It will quickly attract—”
Yet before Lin Feng could finish his sentence!
SHREEK—— SKRRR——!!
A terrifying sonic shriek tore through the air, echoing from the cliff tops outside the gorge!
The bone-chilling sound was like a fighter jet diving straight out of the cloud deck, bearing a suffocating pressure ten times heavier than the dead wolf at their feet! Stone dust rained down furiously from the shuddering cavern roof, peppering everyone below.
At the same time, a foul, viscous stench—like a corpse bloated in water for weeks—surged through the cavern entrance, choking the air and making every breath an agonizing struggle.
A colossal silhouette blotted out every last sliver of twilight filtering into the cave mouth!
From the gathering darkness, twin crimson eyes glowing like lanterns of stagnant blood emerged, accompanied by a guttural, earth-shaking roar that set all of Luyuan Valley trembling:
“GRRAAAOOOOWWW——!!”
Lin Feng’s expression darkened, his lowered fist instantly clenching tight once more.
It wasn’t a solitary beast... This is the den of a pack, and the true sovereign of this gorge has just returned!