Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 36
Crimson Flame Bombardment
Deep beneath downtown Bian’an City, the central drainage conduit network lay smothered in perpetual gloom and suffocating dampness year-round.
The air hung thick with the nauseating stench of stagnant septic sludge and the pungent, metallic tang of rust seeping from massive mana conduit pipes suspended along the concrete ceiling. Filthy droplets condensing upon the vaulted arch dripped down in erratic patters, plinking into the pitch-black wastewater coursing violently through the central channel below. Along the narrow basalt ledge—scarcely a meter wide—flanking the channel, the pale, sickly yellow glow cast by the tactical mana headlamp mounted to Liu Biyu’s hunter helm flickered erratically with her ragged, panicked breaths.
“Watch out above!”
No sooner had Qin Kui’s frantic warning shattered the gloom than two gaunt, emaciated silhouettes tore through the shadows from an L-shaped bend along the vaulted ceiling, swooping down like a pair of black arrows!
Two fully mature Poison Claw Apes!
Though their frames were roughly the size of a ten-year-old child, their bony limbs were grotesquely elongated, covered entirely in matted, ashen-gray pelts plastered with rancid muck. Most terrifying were their monstrous, oversized fan-like ears fluttering without pause, and their scrawny limbs tipped with pitch-black claws spanning several inches—honed to a razor edge like rust-flensing daggers. Their sagging maws, bristling with needle-sharp fangs, dripped strings of viscous, foul saliva that hissed and sizzled corrosive steam the instant it struck the stone ledge.
Their target was none other than Liu Biyu—who had stepped back to prepare her supportive magic!
The distance between them was less than five meters! Within the subterranean tunnel’s cramped confines, the pouncing speed of these Servant-class beasts was blinding, leaving behind only two whistling afterimages. Liu Biyu’s face blanched stark white. Her leather combat boots slipped on the slick, slime-caked moss, sending her stumbling backward until her spine slammed hard against the damp masonry wall. The Water Star Path that had just coalesced three Star Cores in her spiritual sea snapped instantly, shattering into scattered flecks of fading luminescence!
“Get down!” Yang Zuo roared, hoisting his crude Rock Shield as he lunged forward to interpose himself before her. But the distance separating the squad members had been stretched thin by cross-bracing steel girders; there was simply no way he could make it in time!
The razor-sharp talons, reeking of putrid venom, were less than a finger’s breadth away from Liu Biyu’s pale throat. Her pupils contracted to pinpricks, her entire frame freezing in paralyzing despair.
At that hair’s-breadth instant between life and death, an ear-splitting, supersonic shriek erupted violently from right behind her!
WHOOSH——!!
A blinding flash of incandescent crimson radiance set the entire subterranean conduit ablaze with light!
A roaring sphere of crimson flame, spinning at terrifying velocity, tore through the air and grazed past Liu Biyu’s temple. The blistering thermal wash singed the delicate wisps of hair by her ear, curling them in an instant. Yet the trajectory of that magical projectile was astonishingly surgical—it did not graze a single millimeter of her flesh, screaming through the narrow gap directly into the space between the chests of the two diving beasts!
BOOM——!!
A crisp, concussive explosion slammed like a clap of thunder directly against the reinforced concrete vault!
A circular shockwave of blistering thermal energy erupted outward, blowing away the dense mist and fracturing the surrounding masonry. Before the two Poison Claw Apes could even snap their venomous talons shut, their ribcages were caved in and shattered by the violent impact of Crimson Flame. Flesh, bone, and matted pelts were incinerated into charred cinders under the extreme heat in the span of a single heartbeat. Scorched flesh and vaporized gore splattered violently against the damp, moldering walls, leaving behind smoldering black craters that hissed with greasy smoke.
Reduced to mangled lumps of charred carbon without so much as uttering a single dying screech, the two ape corpses dropped heavily with a wet splash into the pitch-black sewage canal, drifting along wastewater that boiled and bubbled from the lingering magical heat.
Liu Biyu sat sprawled upon the basalt ledge, her chest heaving violently as cold sweat soaked through her tactical undershirt. Trembling, she raised an arm to brush away the glowing embers that had settled on her shoulders, then turned her head with immense effort to gaze behind her.
Less than ten paces away, a tall, slender silhouette stood planted firmly upon a dry concrete outcrop.
The youth was clad in a high-collared, pitch-black combat mantle, his hood drawn low over his dark hair. The upper half of his face was shielded by a matte-silver metal mask etched with ancient beast motifs, revealing only a chiseled jawline and tightly pressed, thin lips.
Beneath the narrow slits of the silver mask, his pitch-black eyes were deep and fathomless as an ancient abyss—cold, detached, devoid of even the slightest ripple of emotion in the face of the gory carnage that had just unfolded. His right hand remained casually suspended in mid-air, crimson embers swirling at the tips of his fingers before gently dissipating into the damp air.
This was “Fan Shen”—the enigmatic rookie who had joined the Azure Wind Hunter Squad just that morning!
Five meters away, Qin Kui stood with his magical broadsword lowered halfway, his jaw hanging so slack it nearly grazed the floor:
“H-Holy shit! How the hell could a strike be that accurate?!”
Catching his ragged breath with one hand propped against his earthen bulwark, Yang Zuo stared wide-eyed at the deep, blackened scorch mark gouged into the conduit wall:
“That release speed... under a second! How... how did he manage to lock onto moving targets in such an enclosed angle with centimeter-level precision?!”
Early that morning, when Yang Zuo posted an urgent commission at the Hunters’ Union seeking a long-range Fire Mage to bolster their firepower for investigating the missing municipal workers in the drainage system, this silver-masked youth had strolled into the guild hall. Seeing his slender build and the mask concealing his identity, the Azure Wind veterans had privately assumed he was merely some pampered scion from a wealthy clan sneaking out for some field thrills. They had agreed to take him on only as a rear-guard backup on minimum payout.
Yet that shot of Crimson Flame just now... from the firing angle and the lightning speed of his Star Path connection to the utter, chilling calm required to skim a teammate’s temple without a tremor in his hand—this was unmistakably the prowess of a battle-forged magical marksman who had walked through hell and high water!
However, the subterranean fiends had no intention of granting them leisure to marvel.
“SKREEE... SKREEE-KREEE-KREEE——!!”
Piercing screeches like hundreds of needles stabbing into human eardrums erupted simultaneously from every shadowed recess of the vaulted ceiling!
Beneath the flickering gleam of the tactical headlamp, along the reinforced concrete ceiling, behind rusted conduit pipes, and within pitch-black auxiliary drainage alcoves, dozens of blood-red eyes snapped wide in unison!
A teeming horde of Poison Claw Apes!
No fewer than twenty beasts! Rather than driving them into terrified retreat, the scent of fresh gore and the charred stench of their kin only inflamed the savage, flesh-hungry ferocity native to these subterranean predators. They swarmed across the ceiling vault, their razor talons grating against the concrete in grating, hair-raising screeches as chunks of moldy moss and masonry rained down into the water.
“Damn it! We’ve stepped right into their nest!” Qin Kui’s complexion shifted violently. He gripped the hilt of his broadsword with white knuckles, blue veins bulging on his forehead. “The tunnel is too narrow and the ceiling is too low—we don’t have the safe distance needed to chant! Captain, we need to fall back now!”
“Fall back my ass! Four of them have already sealed off our retreat!” Yang Zuo bellowed, blood vessels webbed across his eyes. He stomped his combat boot hard into the basalt bedrock: “Earth Wave: Displace!”
The muck and bedrock beneath their feet surged and undulated like ocean swells, violently hurling back two apes that were slithering down the tunnel wall. Yet in that very breath, five more Poison Claw Apes coiled their hind legs, kicked off the rusted iron conduit pipes, and plunged downward like poisoned arrows, their talons aimed straight at the skulls and throats of Yang Zuo and Liu Biyu!
In such cramped quarters, an ordinary Basic Mage required at least two to three full seconds to incant and link their Star Path. In those two seconds, the talons of these Servant-class monsters could rip out a human throat several times over!
“It’s over...” Liu Biyu bit her lip till it bled, the jet-black silhouettes of hurtling talons expanding in her vision.
Yet right in that suffocating instant on the brink of slaughter, a low, frosty voice cut through the chaos like a blade:
“Stay where you are.”
A dark silhouette flashed!
Rather than retreating, Lin Feng surged forward! His boots planted firmly upon the slick, moss-covered basalt as if rooted into the very earth. Lowering his center of gravity slightly, his frame poised at an angle, his chest expanded in an uncanny, measured rhythm—eerily still, unnervingly precise.
Within Lin Feng’s vast spiritual cosmos, the scarlet Fire Stardust roiled like a blazing purgatorial furnace!
Seven fiery Star Cores did not drift haphazardly like those of ordinary Feng Lan high school students. Under the command of the formidable spiritual force tempered by the Primordial Dragon Pendant, they streaked across their predetermined trajectory like guided shooting stars.
One... three... seven!
Star Path completed!
Elapsed time: exactly 0.8 seconds!
“Fire Burst: Crimson Sparks!”
WHOOSH!
No lengthy charging, no spoken incantations! The instant Lin Feng’s right index finger snapped forward, a blazing crimson orb coalesced instantaneously, shrieking upward through the air!
BOOM!
The Poison Claw Ape lunging toward Yang Zuo took the flaming projectile squarely in the center of its face! Its cranium shattered mid-air as the raging magical flame forced its way into its open oral cavity, detonating from within! The beast’s head ruptured into a burst of incandescent gore before its headless carcass dropped limp onto the stone ledge, twitched twice, and lay still.
Second breath: 0.8 seconds!
Lin Feng pivoted half a turn on his heel, his left hand tracing a flawless arc through the air. Another streak of Crimson Flame ignited!
BOOM!
Another ape slithering along the conduit wall toward Liu Biyu’s exposed flank took the blast directly in its ribs. The concussive blast hurled its scrawny frame violently against the concrete masonry; its scorched internal organs ruptured through fractured ribs, smearing down the wall in a thick, steaming smear of blackened gore!
Third breath: 0.8 seconds!
Fourth breath: 0.8 seconds!
Everyone present within the subterranean tunnel was frozen in stunned, disbelieving silence at the spectacle unfolding before their eyes!
This was not a mage engaged in combat; this was a mobile magical fortress unleashing sustained, maniacal artillery bombardment!
With every breath that passed, crimson brilliance flared anew from Lin Feng’s fingertips. Spheres of Crimson Flame were launched in an unimaginable, unrelenting barrage, obliterating the damp vapor and subterranean gloom. Each projectile traced a trajectory calibrated down to the millimeter—not a single shot missed its mark!
Any beast diving from the vaulted ceiling was blasted into airborne fireworks, scorched flesh raining in all directions!
Any beast scrambling along the conduit pipes had its talons pulverized, its entire body engulfed in roaring flame before plummeting into the boiling canal!
Any beast attempting to scurry into the shadowed bends found the flames tracking it like guided missiles, smashing through its skull in the dark!
BOOM! BOOM! BANG! CRASH!
A continuous symphony of explosions reverberated through the tunnel, rattling eardrums and shaking the earth! The subterranean passage was saturated with the acrid reek of singed fur, roasted flesh, and pungent sulfur. The wastewater beneath their boots, superheated by the terrifying thermal energy, billowed with dense plumes of white steam.
Yang Zuo stood rooted in the middle of the ledge, his arm channeling Earth magic hanging limp at his side. He watched in dumbfounded stupor as the silver-masked youth purged an entire ferocious pack of monsters relying solely on Tier 1 Basic Magic!
“Mother of god... What kind of freakish level is this rapid-fire artillery?!” Qin Kui stammered, the broadsword in his grip trembling violently. He was a veteran hunter who had weathered the frontier for a decade, having witnessed countless Fire Mages from Basic to Intermediate tier in life-or-death battle, yet never in his life had he seen anyone unleash Crimson Flame with such blistering speed and uncanny precision!
0.8 seconds to complete a Star Path!
That meant his mastery over seven Star Cores had reached the realm of sheer bodily instinct! Within the magical community, this sublime state was known as: Basic Instant Casting!
Only old monsters who had immersed themselves in magical arts for decades, or peerless prodigies from the grandest noble clans, could ever approach near-instant casting speeds like this. Yet the youth standing before them, judging by his voice, could not be older than sixteen or seventeen!
“SKREEE... KREEE... AAAAACK!”
In less than two minutes, over fifteen Poison Claw Apes had perished under Lin Feng’s brutal, merciless carpet bombardment.
Blackened, shriveled carcasses drifted upon the surface of the sewage canal, foul demon blood dyeing stretches of the dark waters crimson.
The seven or eight surviving Poison Claw Apes clinging to the ceiling were thoroughly terrified out of their wits! Their colossal fan-ears flattened tight against their skulls, their bloodshot eyes bulging in unadulterated horror. Predatory instinct screamed into their primitive minds that the figure before them was no succulent, flesh-and-blood prey, but a harbinger of death wielding purgatorial flames of destruction!
Not a single ape dared swoop down again! Unleashing wretched, frantic shrieks, they scrambled over one another in sheer pandemonium, their four limbs clawing wildly against the masonry as they fled for their lives back toward the deep darkness of the main conduit trunk.
The entire subterranean conduit suddenly descended into a suffocating, heavy stillness.
All that remained was the murky trickle of wastewater, the sizzling of scorched meat sloughing off the stone walls, and the ragged, heavy panting of the three Azure Wind veterans.
Lin Feng remained rooted in place. Slowly, he drew his right hand back, tucking it into the wide sleeve of his black combat mantle.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the instant the ape pack was slaughtered, a sudden, radiant warmth flared against Lin Feng’s chest!
Beneath his thin undershirt against his skin, the ancient dragon-shaped pendant—the Primordial Dragon Pendant—trembled in rhythmic resonance, radiating imperceptible, ethereal ripples of energy that permeated the entire conduit.
Through the unique spiritual vision exclusive to Lin Feng, from the charred ape corpses drifting in the wastewater canal and plastered across the masonry walls, faint specks of pale-blue luminescence detached from the physical remains, drifting upward into the mid-air gloom.
Servant-class Soul Remnants!
Under normal circumstances, when demonic beasts perished, their souls crumbled into mindless remnants that dissolved into nothingness within dozens of seconds. Unless a mage possessed top-grade Soul Collector magical tools worth millions—or even tens of millions of mana credits—there was virtually no method to harvest such priceless cultivation resources.
Yet at this moment, the Primordial Dragon Pendant resting against Lin Feng’s chest was like a ravenous, bottomless black hole!
Whoosh... Whoosh...
A formidable gravitational vortex quietly erupted! All fifteen motes of pale-blue Soul Remnants hovering in the air had their trajectories violently warped. Like moths drawn to a flame, they transformed into fifteen ghostly trails of light that streaked through the darkness, slipping through the seams of Lin Feng’s mantle and plunging straight into the Dragon Pendant!
The Dragon Pendant hummed softly—a crystalline vibration audible solely to Lin Feng’s conscious mind.
The fifteen pure Servant-class Soul Remnants were instantly pulverized by the pendant, refined into a stream of warm, primordial energy that poured back into his spiritual sea. The Fire Stardust within his mind surged with invigorating vitality; the seven scarlet Star Cores, deeply nourished by the influx, flared with an even richer, deeper crimson brilliance, shimmering like flawless, top-grade rubies!
Beneath the silver mask, the corner of Lin Feng’s lips curved into an imperceptible smirk.
Fifteen Servant-class Soul Remnants!
If he gathered a few dozen more, the Dragon Pendant would automatically condense a complete Soul Essence. When that day came, he could utilize that Soul Essence to nourish his Star Cores to the Fourth Tier, elevating the destructive yield of his Basic Crimson Flame to rival Intermediate Magic! This sewer excursion was already turning out to be an unexpected, massive windfall.
“B-Brother Fan Shen...”
The hesitant voice snapped Lin Feng from his internal contemplation.
Yang Zuo approached with heavy, measured steps, having already dismissed his rock shield. The weathered, middle-aged veteran looked upon Lin Feng with an entirely transformed gaze—no longer the condescending tolerance of a senior humoring a greenhorn, but profound awe and cautious reverence reserved for a genuine powerhouse:
“Thank you... If not for your staggering firepower suppressing them just now, Biyu would have certainly lost her life, and our formation would have been torn to shreds.”
Liu Biyu struggled to her feet, her cheeks flushed with a mix of embarrassment and profound gratitude. She stepped forward and bowed deeply before Lin Feng:
“Thank you, Big Brother Fan Shen... I was useless back there and nearly dragged everyone down.”
“Don’t worry about it. My assignment is rear guard and neutralizing long-range targets. I was merely doing my job.” The voice issuing from beneath the silver mask remained low, slightly raspy, and stripped of all superfluous emotion.
Qin Kui ambled over at that moment, using the hem of his combat jacket to wipe the rank gore from his blade. He chuckled heartily, though his eyes could not conceal his burning curiosity:
“Little Brother Fan Shen, be honest with Old Qin here—which prominent noble clan are you a direct scion of to be out here slumming for field experience? That rapid-fire 0.8-second Crimson Flame barrage... mother of god, in all my years I’ve never seen a freak like you at the Basic tier!”
Lin Feng offered no reply, merely giving a slight shake of his head as his gaze remained fixed on the cavernous darkness of the conduit ahead.
Noting Lin Feng’s reticent demeanor, Qin Kui tactfully shut his mouth. Professional hunters were well versed in the unwritten rules of the trade: never pry into another man’s background or secrets, especially someone who donned a mask to conceal their identity.
“Alright, the immediate danger has passed. Clean up the battlefield quickly, harvest the talons of these Poison Claw Apes for the bounty submission, and then—” Yang Zuo leaned down, drawing a tactical dagger to harvest the carcasses, when the words suddenly choked in his throat.
The wastewater beneath their boots... had stopped flowing!
The subterranean space plunged into a spine-chilling, dead silence.
The gurgle of running water vanished. The whistle of draughts snaking through conduit pipes ceased. Even the condensing droplets clinging to the ceiling vault seemed suppressed by some invisible, terrifying force, frozen in mid-air.
The ground beneath their feet began to tremble!
At first, it was merely subtle ripples disturbing the surface of the stagnant water. But in the span of a breath, the multi-ton slabs of concrete beneath their soles began to shudder violently, as though a herd of subterranean mammoths was thundering through the earth!
THUD... THUD... THUD...!!
“W-What is happening?!” Liu Biyu stumbled, nearly losing her footing as she frantically grabbed hold of a rusted steel brace along the masonry wall.
Deep within the three-way junction of the main conduit—the very direction where the routed ape survivors had just fled—a wall of black wastewater surged forward like a catastrophic flash flood!
Pitch-black foam churned violently. Debris, sludge, and the mangled carcasses of the recently slain Poison Claw Apes were swept along by a towering, two-meter wall of black water that slammed relentlessly against the concrete walls!
And riding atop that violent, filthy deluge was an overwhelming aura of terrifying bloodlust!
The pungent reek of blood, rotting filth, and a deathly chill ten times more suffocating than the entire ape pack combined swept through the tunnel like a toxic hurricane. The invisible, crushing weight of tyrannical mana compressed the atmosphere, causing the tactical headlamp on Liu Biyu’s helmet to violently sputter before its bulb shattered with a sharp pop!
Darkness swallowed them whole!
Amidst the suffocating gloom, illuminated only by the faint, flickering runes of Qin Kui’s magical blade and the dying embers clinging to the masonry, a guttural, terrifying roar tore through the blackness, reverberating straight into their skulls:
“ROOOOOAAARRRRRR——!!”
A concussive acoustic shockwave carrying violent kinetic force tore through the conduit, shattering decaying concrete from the ceiling that rained in cascades into the churning, turbulent waters below!
And deep within the shadowed abyss of that surging flood, two colossal, blood-red orbs the size of washbasins, radiating apex predatory malice, slowly rose above the churning waters!