The yellow sand rolled as the army set out.
Beneath its polished surface, the rot could not be hidden. One piece of bad news followed another along the way.
First, the Scout Camp was discovered by the enemy, and the two sides clashed fiercely. Dozens of bodies were left forever along the road.
Then the city where the army had planned to make camp fell into enemy hands. The enemy slaughtered and looted, leaving corpses strewn everywhere.
Even the blazing sun could not dispel the waves of Yin Wind rising from the bodies.
Without food, there was no strength, no Spiritual Power. People could not meditate, and the river of magical energy ran dry, its riverbed exposed.
Countless people collapsed. Some, driven mad by hunger, turned their blades on their own comrades, their eyes filled with a ravenous desire for meat.
In a single night, more than a hundred people perished.
To prevent a mutiny, the general-in-chief made a snap decision: he changed the strategic plan from a long-distance expedition to a siege, determined to retake the city at any cost.
It was a simple order, but countless lives were spent carrying it out.
On the Magic Plane, the gap in difficulty between defending and attacking a city was immense. The enemy mages stood high atop the walls, their magic cascading down like waterfalls.
Meanwhile, their own troops were exhausted and starving. Faced with such a fierce barrage of magic, few could strike back.
The siege showed little hope of success, so the general-in-chief personally entered the battle, hoping to blast a gaping hole in the wall with his unstoppable Heavenly Flame Funeral.
But he walked straight into an enemy ambush and was dragged into their Night Ruler. When the formation finally vanished, all that remained where he had stood was a pile of bones.
After one failure after another, and with their commander dead, the army—which had become nothing more than a rabble—inevitably collapsed.
"Xu Fang" became a bandit too, taking his personal guards and occupying a hilltop.
Looking down from the sky, Xu Fang felt deeply moved. This "Xu Fang" might not have had all his flashy attack techniques, but his raw strength was certainly impressive.
Yet even a warrior this powerful was like a praying mantis trying to stop a chariot when faced with the relentless machinery of war.
It was as though someone had hit fast-forward. Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, the enemy surrounded the hill below.
His loyal guards fell one after another, until only "Xu Fang" remained.
His eyes bulged with rage, and his fury erupted.
"Is that... a Golden Star Seed?"
In that instant, Xu Fang's point of view shifted from high above into "Xu Fang's" body. As he looked within his Spiritual World, the Golden Star Seed in the Star Dust grew restless and wild.
"Wait, isn't the Light Element supposed to have originated with Edison?"
But everything before his eyes was undeniably real. The ancient "Xu Fang" had awakened the Light Element.
Reason told Xu Fang that this was nothing but an illusion. Yet his instincts kept telling him that everything he was seeing seemed real.
Golden light poured out in streaks from "Xu Fang's" body. An incomparably violent surge of energy battered his mind.
"ROAR——!!!"
Xu Fang's mind went blank. Before he blacked out, he vaguely saw the tens of thousands of enemy soldiers surrounding him vaporize beneath a blazing light as hot as the sun...
"Gasp!"
His consciousness snapped back. Xu Fang opened his eyes and realized he was back on the city wall battlefield. The Military Mages around him were staring at him like he was a monster.
What the hell had this guy just done?
He'd had the worst luck imaginable, falling into an illusion created by Yin Soldiers and getting the kind of treatment usually reserved for mid- and high-level mages.
And now he was acting like nothing had happened?
"Are... are you okay?" A Military Mage closest to Xu Fang couldn't help raising his right hand and holding up three fingers. "What's this?"
Xu Fang said, "Fingers."
"He's really not an idiot. Incredible!"
It wasn't as though no one had ever broken free of a Yin Soldier's illusion before. But without exception, they had all passed out on the spot and only awakened after being carried back.
According to them, falling into the illusion was like eating poisonous mushrooms: the scene before their eyes warped and twisted, while dizziness and nausea surged through their minds.
But Xu Fang seemed to be doing just fine?
Just how terrifying was his Spiritual Power?
——However, they were all too busy staring at Xu Fang to notice that the Commander level Yin Soldier who had cast the spell on him earlier was twitching on the ground, dissolving into gray mist beneath the unending rain.
A Spirit Essence appeared where it had been. As if guided by an automatic navigation system, it flew straight to Xu Fang and fused into his Spiritual World.
Xu Fang devoted part of his attention to looking within his Spiritual World.
Buzz, buzz, buzz!
The Spirit Essence merged with the last Star Seed. In an instant, this Star Seed, which had been smaller than its companions, swelled rapidly and became the largest of them all.
The seven Star Seeds circled together, sending out waves of strange and powerful energy.
Initial Level, fourth tier. Achieved!
As all the Star Seeds grew stronger, Xu Fang's control over them increased as well.
He didn't need to test it. The information about his new skill had already flooded into his mind.
"Exists in the form of flames, locks onto targets automatically, and draws in magical energy to replenish me?" Xu Fang frowned slightly. It seemed to overlap with the special function of "Radiance."
He refused to believe that after all that trouble, he'd ended up with something so useless.
Xu Fang turned his gaze back to the Yin Soldiers. His eyes flickered, and Star Track flashed past almost imperceptibly.
A cluster of transparent "ghost fire" appeared in his palm, swaying gently from side to side. It looked utterly harmless.
But the instant Xu Fang opened his hand, the flame shot out like a sword, bursting into countless smaller flames in midair.
Amid the dazzling barrage of magical light, the transparent flames seemed insignificant.
The Yin Soldiers kept attacking, unaware that they had become an all-you-can-eat buffet for a certain little flame.
Energy streamed into Xu Fang's Star Dust, but the Yin Soldiers remained oblivious.
Crash!
One Servant level Yin Soldier after another failed to withstand the flames draining them and crashed heavily to the ground, inexplicably dried up.
Meanwhile, with more magical energy than he could hold, Xu Fang had no choice but to convert it into magic and unleash it.
More Yin Soldiers were killed. Before their bodies had even gone cold, the ghost fire came swarming in and drained the last drop from them.
As they weakened, he grew stronger. My magical energy was mine, and your magical energy was mine too.
I used your energy to hit you—and I could keep it up the whole time. The emptier my magical reserves got, the faster I absorbed energy.
Unless an opponent could kill Xu Fang right at the start, there was simply no way to win.
The time he'd been surrounded while trying to save He Ming had become a thing of the past. If it happened again, Xu Fang would teach them how to make terracotta warriors.
"Freaking awesome!"
This was way more useful than Radiance!
Thinking it over, Xu Fang had gained four combination skills since his awakening.
The first was Crimson Light Fire Array, a map-wide attack that seized Spirit Essences to temper his Star Seeds. Inside the light array, everyone was equal, with no distinctions of rank or status—only those who needed replenishing and those who didn't.
The second was High Temperature Core, a powerful charging skill that let him take on foes above his level. Give it just one minute to charge, and even a mouse could beat a cat until it cried for its mother.
The third was Solar Flame Light Bullet, a powerful single-target attack. No matter how hard you were, it could pierce your defenses. A gun was faster beyond seven steps, but within seven steps, it was both faster and more accurate.
And now he had the ghost fire...
Xu Fang couldn't help feeling that his skills were charging headlong down a path of making his opponents miserable, with no turning back.
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