The plasma lake beneath the breach in the wall quickly cooled, solidifying into metallic lumps.
Marco watched the melted and dried steel perimeter wall grimly, his whole body slick with sweat from the waves of heat.
He glanced inside and saw two people sprawled across the plaza. One was a muscular man, his body covered in blood.
The other had lost most of his body, leaving only his head, half a shoulder, and one arm—and he was still burning.
Suddenly, Marco saw the "dead man's head" move.
"What? He's still not dead?" Marco cried in shock.
That "dead man's head" was Musa. He struggled to open his eyes, moved his only remaining arm, and pressed his earpiece.
This was an emergency communications channel, and his emergency contact was his best friend of the past decade, another Nirvana Adept, Luo Yan.
"Musa, emergency communications? What happened to you?" A languid voice came from the other end.
"Phoenix Group... has a mole... the newly appointed Instructor..." Musa said with difficulty.
He no longer even had lungs, and was forcing out the last breath lodged in his throat.
"Hm?" Hearing how difficult it was for Musa to speak, Luo Yan immediately realized that something was wrong.
"How did you get hurt this badly?"
Musa rasped, "The hidden faction... the wand..."
Luo Yan hurriedly asked, "Who killed you?"
Using the last of his strength, Musa rasped, "Mar—co!"
Luo Yan memorized the name. He wanted to ask for more information, but Musa could no longer make a sound.
He quickly analyzed the situation. It was probably the Ambition Faction that had made its move. Musa had said there was a mole within the Phoenix Group, which meant that faction's involvement ran very deep.
They had seized the wand and killed Musa!
"Are my glasses still