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...
Li Zhu tightened his mental grip, his Sound and Mind magic vibrating at a frequency that turned the Fox's brain to mush. "Now! Sever the Ninth Tail!"
Li Han didn't hesitate. He channeled his Plant mana into the vines already impaling the beast.
"Plant: Thorns of Judgment!"
The green vines suddenly grew massive, jagged spikes that erupted outward from inside the Fox's body. At the same time, Li Han used Earth magic to raise a jagged pillar of stone directly under the Fox's chin, forcing its head up.
Lin Yao provided the execution.
"Light: Solar Executioner!"
He condensed his Light element into a singular, blinding spear. He thrust it forward, the beam of holy energy cauterizing through the Fox's throat and incinerating the last of its tails. The Nine-Tailed Phantom Fox let out one final, gurgling whimper before its translucent body shattered into silver dust, leaving behind only a glowing, high-quality Soul Essence.
....
On the other side of the clearing, the Storm-Crested Jade Serpent saw its partner fall. It let out a roar of pure grief, its jade scales turning a violent shade of red as it tried to enter a "Berserk" state.
"Don't let it breathe!" Zhao Feng commanded. He used Space magic to "Blink" directly above the Serpent's head.
"Space: Gravity Collapse!"
He intensified the gravitational pull in a ten-meter radius, slamming the Serpent's head into the dirt with the weight of a mountain.
Mu Bing (Old Man Mu) capitalized on the immobility.
"Poison: Heart-Wither Mist!"
He exhaled a cloud of deep purple gas that was sucked into the Serpent's flared nostrils. The beast's frantic struggling slowed as the toxin began to liquefy its internal organs. To ensure it couldn't recover, Mu Bing finished with:
"Ice: Absolute Zero Coffin!"
A massive block of black ice encased the Serpent's entire head, cutting off its oxygen and freezing its brain solid.
Xiao Yan delivered the final blow.
"Lightning: Dragon-Slaying Bolt!"
He gathered every spark of his Lightning and Wind mana into his fist and punched the frozen skull. The ice shattered, and a massive bolt of electricity traveled down the Serpent's spine, exploding out of its tail in a shower of jade scales and scorched meat.
The valley suddenly went quiet. The thousands of Servant and Warrior demons, seeing both their Monarch-level leaders annihilated in minutes, fled into the deep forest in a blind panic.
Yuzi stood among the Mid-level mages, his chest heaving as the last glowing traces of his Fire Star Path flickered and vanished. The immediate threat was gone, but the field was a graveyard of scorched earth and shattered ice.
Once the dust settled, I walked toward the massive corpses of the two Sub-monarchs. The Phantom Fox released a shimmering, high-grade Soul Essence, its silver light pulsing with leftover psychic energy. On the other hand, the Jade Serpent only yielded a Soul Fragment, but its body produced a Mutated Poison Fang—a rare material perfect for forging high-level poison-type magic tools.
[Sub-monarch Level Kill Confirmed: Nine-Tailed Phantom Fox]
10x Multiplier Activated...
[Received: 10 Sub-monarch Soul Essences!]
[Sub-monarch Level Kill Confirmed: Storm-Crested Jade Serpent]
10x Multiplier Activated...
[Received: 10 Commander soul Fragments! 10 Mutated Poison Fangs!]
Once the remnants of the demon horde were cleared and the materials harvested, we set up a temporary camp in a wide, open clearing. The flickering campfires cast long shadows against the mountain walls.
I looked at the Sub-monarch Soul Essences swirling in my mental space. A single Essence of this grade was a treasure, but ten of them was a fortune. I decided then to forge them into a Galaxy Magic Tool. While a Star-Sea Magic Tool would be a legendary asset, these essences would be most effective when refined to support the mana capacity of High-level mages; for a Super-level mage, the boost would be negligible.
But victory came at a price. The smell of victory was tainted by the scent of charred remains—both demon and human.
"Count the number of our fallen comrades," Brother Li Shen said, his voice heavy as he stared into the dark forest. "Note down every hunter's name that we have hired. Their families deserve compensation and to know they died standing their ground."
I looked around the camp. There were empty seats at the fires where laughter had been heard just hours ago. In the world of mages, every "Great Victory" was written in the blood of those who didn't make it back.
Mages moved through the wreckage with flickering sadness, identifying those who wouldn't be going home. While we knew the Monarch was occupied expanding its territory to the west, the absence of the "King" didn't make the loss of our friends any easier to swallow.
The rest of the camp fell into a rhythmic silence. Mages sat cross-legged, closing their eyes to enter a deep meditative state. We needed to recover our mana—refilling our Magic Nebulas and Star Seas was the only priority now. In this wilderness, an empty mana pool was as good as a death sentence.
.....
After an hour of somber silence, the report was brought to Li Shen.
"Sir," the lead scout whispered, his voice cracking. "The count is finished. We started with forty-five High-level mages, but three were lost to the Serpent's initial strike, leaving us with forty-two. Out of our hundred Mid-level mages, fourteen fell when the Fox's mental domain broke the line, leaving eighty-six still standing. Our total force has dropped from one hundred and forty-five down to one hundred and twenty-eight."
"Seventeen," Brother Li Shen muttered, closing his eyes for a brief moment. "A heavy price for two subordinates. Everyone, enter a state of deep meditation. We move at dawn toward the West."
I found a spot away from the flickering fire, sitting cross-legged on the cold earth. I closed my eyes, sinking my consciousness into my mental space. Inside, my Fire Star Path was dim, the orbits sluggish and drained. Beside it, the 10 Sub-monarch Soul Essences pulsed with a terrifying silver light.
These were the keys to the future. Even though I wasn't a forger, I knew that if these reached a Master Forger, a Galaxy Magic Tool would be born—one that could potentially push the some of the forty-two High-level mages to peak of High level in two or three years.
As the camp fell into a rhythmic, meditative hush, the only sound was the crackling of the fire and the distant, ominous rumbling from the West. The Monarch was out there, expanding his kingdom, oblivious to the fact that his "Eyes" and "Wings" had been clipped.
I began to circulate my mana, pulling energy from the surrounding atmosphere to refill my empty reserves. We were one hundred and twenty-eight mages now—tired, bloodied, and fewer in number—but the hunt wasn't over.
To Be Continue....
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