Versatile Mage c1-2021, page 210
Mo Fan could not believe his eyes when he saw the White Sand Giants in a total mess!
If they knew the White Sand Giants's intelligence was so astonishing in the first place, why would they spend so much effort trying to split them up and defeat them in groups?
After taking a closer look, Mo Fan discovered that the sand Zhang Xiaohou was traveling on was rolling like a tide.
Judging by the color of the sand, it must be Zhang Xiaohou's Earth Element Soul Seed: Flowing Mud. Mo Fan immediately came to a realization.
It turned out that it was not the White Sand Giants were brainless, but Zhang Xiaohou had cast Earth Wave with a large area-of-effect. The White Sand Giants were planning to stop when they approached the walls of their kin, yet Zhang Xiaohou had planned otherwise. He used the Earth Wave to continue pushing them forward, sending them right into their comrades.
The White Sand Giants were quite heavy, needing to slide a certain distance when they tried to come to a stop after running. Zhang Xiaohou had abused their clumsy movement and agilely used his Earth Wave to create a serious 'traffic accident'.
Imagine only the terrain not only being slippery, but also pushing you forward. The running White Sand Giants lost control of their bodies, and smashed a hole into the walls of the others!
"Once I cover the sand with Flowing Mud, the White Sand Giants aren't able to dive into the sand, and their movement becomes clumsy," Zhang Xiaohou said proudly, looking at his masterpiece with a smile.
Mo Fan raised his thumb to Zhang Xiaohou. It seemed like Zhang Xiaohou had learned a great deal from Zhan Kong in the army. He was no longer the same high-school kid that could not even handle a Servant-class demon beast!
"Come, time to charge forward!" Mo Fan shouted.
Zhang Xiaohou's brilliant performance had aroused Mo Fan's competitive spirit. The White Sand Giants in the Drifting Sand River was not as scary as they thought. It was not difficult to fight them once they found a way to deal with their numbers.
"Brother Fan, I'll cover you, give them all you've got!" said Zhang Xiaohou to Mo Fan.
Mo Fan felt at ease hearing Zhang Xiaohou's words. Like soldiers fighting in a war always said, this was a man he could entrust his back to.
Mo Fan did not have many friends like that, but Zhang Xiaohou was definitely one of them!
"Qianjun: Thunderbolt: Yaksha!"
Mo Fan simply closed his eyes, to avoid his channeling from being disturbed by the raging White Sand Giants. It allowed him to draw the Star Pattern at a quicker pace.
When his eyes sprang open, they were flickering with purple-black lightning.
A Rock Barrier with a slight arc sprang up from the ground, and the White Sand Giants slammed into it. However, a Rock Barrier strengthened by the Flowing Mud Soul Seed was not something that two or three White Sand Giants could break apart easily.
Meanwhile, Mo Fan had finished casting his Lightning Spell. The brilliant lightning bolt in the night sky was followed by a driving crack!
Unlike a Fiery Fist, the Thunderbolt would blast an enemy into ashes as soon as the lightning made contact with its target. There was no such thing as a deathbed struggle.
The five White Sand Giants were instantly disintegrated by the lightning, their life force vanishing.
Continue pressing forward, the two finally saw Zhao Manyan's figure hiding inside his Sacred Shield.
Zhao Manyan was aware that his goddamned rescuers had finally arrived. Knowing that his Sacred Shield could last a while longer, he immediately cast the Water spell, Rolling Wave. The fierce wave swept out in the direction of his rescuers.
The White Sand Giants were extremely heavy, and if there were more standing in the direction the wave was rolling in, it would not have had any effect. However, they had lost ground due to Mo Fan and Zhang Xiaohou's sudden invasion, so the Water spell, which was very effective at disrupting an enemy's formation, produced a surprising outcome: the tide knocked down all the White Sand Giants in its path!
The rest of the White Sand Giants were swept toward Zhang Xiaohou and Mo Fan by the tide. Zhang Xiaohou nimbly used the bodies of the White Sand Giants as stepping stones as he leapt forward fearlessly.
Mo Fan activated the power of the Blood Tabi and mimicked Zhang Xiaohou's action of jumping on the bodies in the water. Even though he was not as smooth as Zhang Xiaohou, he still managed to reach Zhao Manyan.
Zhao Manyan was extremely touched when he saw Mo Fan and Zhang Xiaohou arriving like airborne reinforcements.
"How do you feel? You still can fight?" Zhang Xiaohou glanced at the miserable Zhao Manyan.
"Of course, I'll handle the defense. I'll write my name backward if they manage to touch even a single strand of your hair. All you need to do is wipe out these assholes!" g.r.o.a.n.e.d Zhao Manyan who had been holding back his grudge for quite some time.
Mo Fan and Zhang Xiaohou both put on stern faces when they saw this rare reaction from Zhao Manyan. They immediately focused their attention on the White Sand Giants surrounding them!
The White Sand Giants were relentless too, showing no fear at all. They moved like they would drag whoever trespassed into their territory into Hell, even at the cost of their whole army.
Just in time, too; Mo Fan was hoping to rely on the White Sand Giants to collect the Soul Remnants for his fourth-tier Fire Spell. Every legendary Magician had gone through the same journey of killing demon beasts and stacking up their corpses in piles as their stepping stones toward the sacred altar!
With his unique Little Loach Pendant, not only would fighting the demon beasts give him experience to grow, he was more interested in their filthy Soul Remnants, which served as the building blocks to strengthen his Spells!
Each of the White Sand Giants' Soul Remnant was equivalent to three ordinary Servant-class Soul Remnants; there was no better place to collect Soul Remnants!
"Houzi, you'll handle those guys. I'll split a shadow to bait those in the left away, and once they split up, Zhao Manyan, you and I will eliminate the White Sand Giants in front of us," ordered Mo Fan.
Compared to the White Sand Giants, whose figures were like walls, each holding a giant saber with menacing expressions, the three young men surrounded in the middle were rather tiny, like three lambs that had stumbled into a pack of wolves.
However, the three were counting on one another, with no signs of fear on their grim faces!
Chapter 473 - Clearing the Giants
Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
"Fleeing Shadow: Illusion!"
Mo Fan used the dim light of the night to cast his Shadow Spell. As his body disappeared into the shadows, it swiftly split into another dark lump of human-shaped shadow, and moved into the distance across the ground.
When the White Sand Giants saw someone trying to escape in the shadows, they raised their sabers and chased after the shadow without hesitation.
Meanwhile, Zhang Xiaohou quickly headed in another direction, branching away from Mo Fan's illusion, and brought another group of White Sand Giants with him, easing up the party's burden.
"Time to do some cleaning!" Zhao Manyan smiled when he saw the clumsy White Sand Giants following the script.
"Right away!" Mo Fan's figure was engulfed in flames.
With Zhao Manyan in charge of defense, Mo Fan did not need to worry at all. He could simply cast Spells and draw Star Patterns.
The simple, violent Fiery Fist: Nine Halls was still the best attack against these White Sand Giants. As the energy was gathered at the tip of his fist, the punch could easily overwhelm any White Sand Giants within a hundred meters with burning lava!
The fiery pillars sprang up from the ground, and their flames immediately spread across the White Sand Giants that were shattered into pieces previously.
The White Sand Giants that initially resembled a white wall had now crumbled to the ground, forming a pile of debris!
"You sure are the violent one!" Zhao Manyan exclaimed when he saw a third of the White Sand Giants get eliminated in an instant.
While everyone else in the party only had two Elements and four Spells, Mo Fan's four destructive Spells were incredibly precious, without a doubt. The firepower he had was equivalent to a whole team, utterly ridiculous!
Zhao Manyan did not just stand there and watch. His hand was holding an ethereal sword that glowed a soft gold. It was one of the few attacking moves he had, an expensive Deathstrike Magic Equipment!
Aiming to vent all the grudges he had swallowed into his stomach, Zhao Manyan waved the golden ethereal sword at the White Sand Giant in front of him!
Although the ethereal sword was only a transfiguration of the Light Element, its sharpness was comparable to many outstanding weapons. The slash alone cut the White Sand Giant in half, and more shockingly, it fired a slashing arc forwards, which cut all the White Sand Giants in a straight line ahead of it in half. The White Sand Giants that were relatively lucky only had their arms or limbs severed instead!
The power of the sword was shocking. Zhao Manyan had purposely slashed in the line where more White Sand Giants were standing, and the outcome was better than he had expected.
However, he somehow felt it to be a pity. If it weren't for the fact that his cultivation was not strong enough, he would have brought some stronger Deathstrike Magic Equipment at home. The Hundred Shadows Sword in the shape of a fan could easily wipe out the White Sand Giants with a single blow!
"I knew you would have some trump cards still," teased Mo Fan when he saw Zhao Manyan attacking violently.
"Another group is coming in your direction, focus!" Zhao Manyan was clearly not in the mood to be surrounded again.
Mo Fan glanced at the White Sand Giants that were stepping into the remaining flames. These creatures were rather special in terms of how fearless they were, as if they knew nothing about death.
That being said, he was more than happy to take all their souls.
Before he was aware of it, another Servant-class Soul Essence was refined, like parts continuously being fed into a machine, refining them into useful stuff. Mo Fan did not mind that the White Sand Giants kept on coming to die.
"Maybe I can come here and farm endlessly when I'm stronger, I bet I won't need much time to achieve the fourth-tier Fiery Fist," mumbled Mo Fan to himself as he was casting his Spells.
The souls here were better, and even though the creatures were harder to kill, it was not a death trap, based on what the party had experienced today. After learning the creatures' patterns, and with a certain strength, he could easily cash in the White Sand Giants that were charging in his direction!
"Brother Fan, I'm bringing them to you, it's your turn to shine," Zhang Xiaohou's loud voice came from the communication device.
Mo Fan turned around and saw Zhang Xiaohou bringing a huge group of White Sand Giants toward him, a huge trail of dust behind them.
"Are you out of your mind? They will simply trample us into minced meat if they continued to run at us like that!" screamed Zhao Manyan wildly.
On the other hand, Mo Fan was extremely calm. His eyes were burning with blazing red flames. Zhang Xiaohou had clearly disrupted their formations, which led to the White Sand Giants knocking into one another while running at a disorganized pace. They were on the verge of pushing one another over.
As Zhang Xiaohou was bringing them toward Mo Fan, a Rock Barrier suddenly rose from the ground.
The Rock Barrier blocked the White Sand Giants, like a bunch of running bulls suddenly slamming into steel gates.
"Fiery Fist: Nine Halls!"
Mo Fan threw his fist into the ground. The scorching fire pillars immediately appeared among the White Sand Giants, who had totally lost any discipline.
The Fiery Fist: Nine Halls was a large area-of-effect Spell to begin with. Zhang Xiaohou had totally displayed his talent at 'aggroing' the mobs, allowing Mo Fan to eliminate them all with his Fiery Fist: Nine Halls effectively.
The Soul Remnants flew into Mo Fan's pendant. He could vaguely remember how he killed hundreds of Giant Lizards at Dongting Lake with one single swipe of his claw when he was demonized, but that was not a power he could control, after all.
Meanwhile, he was enjoying teaming up with Zhang Xiaohou and Zhao Manyan. If he had such power and reliable teammates during the calamity of Bo City, there was no need for him to be afraid of the One-eyed Magic Wolves, no matter how many there were. He could have lowered the number of casualties during the disaster greatly...
---
Some distance away, Lingling, Xinxia and Chen Yi had already regrouped. Chen Yi was initially in a pinch, yet for some reason, the White Sand Giants in her surroundings had slowly disappeared, as if they had all headed for Zhao Manyan, Mo Fan, and Zhang Xiaohou.
The three girls basically did not need to do anything. They were simply observing the battle from the distance.
One of the three men had agility and speed to kite the enemy and disrupt their formation; one was an expert on defense and holding ground, preventing the demon beasts from getting closer; and one was full of destructive Spells, a pure offensive Magician!
When everyone in a party was so outstanding that they could resemble a whole team of Magicians, their combined strength was a lot more shocking!
The White Sand Giants were split up into many groups, and even if they gathered together, unless they could break through Zhao Manyan's defense in one go, or kill Zhang Xiaohou who was running around like a monkey, it was only a matter of time until Mo Fan blasted them to pieces!
Chapter 474 - Assaulting the Beauty at Night
Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
"Maybe they donn't even realize that they have cleared almost every White Sand Giant in the area..." Chen Yi was still immersed in shock, staring at the battlefield in disbelief.
The battle had lasted for quite some time, and her help was no longer needed. She believed that her joining the battle would not make any difference, either.
The trio learned how to better utilize each other's strengths as the battle continued, resulting in better teamwork. In the beginning, they had to slowly fight their way out of the surrounding White Sand Giants. However, it felt like the White Sand Giants had become the prey instead, as Zhang Xiaohou, Zhao Manyan, and Mo Fan took the initiative to eliminate them in groups!
The waves of sand that had previously rolled across the entire Drifting Sand River could only be seen around where the trio was now. It was only a matter of time until the place quieted down, as the White Sand Giants no longer posed any threat to the party.
"It seems like our journey ahead is going to be a lot easier," said Lingling.
The White Sand Giants lost the battle as she finished her sentence. The trio went on to do some cleaning...
They had discovered an efficient way to deal with the White Sand Giants from this battle, so the creatures no longer posed any threat to the party despite their numbers.
The Drifting Sand River was intimidating, but it was not a death trap. The real experts who were bold enough could still cross it.
----
It was late at night, but the place was not completely dark.
The white sand on the ground had turned into an empty background, with brilliant stars decorating the beautiful night sky. One could only see such majestic yet elegant scenery with their own eyes here at the Dunhuang region...
After the epic battle, the Drifting Sand River fell silent.
Xinxia was casting her gentle Healing Magic to treat the men's wounds. Her Psychic Element energy was limited, but her Healing Element energy was abundant. She could continue to replenish the trio's energy as long as hers was not fully expended.
"Nice, I never had such an experience killing demon beasts before!" Zhao Manyan grinned, about to burst out laughing, except the wound on his face split open.
Zhang Xiaohou nodded in agreement. The battles he had fought with his comrades in the army were not as pleasing as this one.
Mo Fan placed his hands on the back of his head and laid down on the soft sand, staring into the beautiful night sky. He was enjoying the aftertaste of eliminating so many demon beasts, while counting the number of Servant-class Soul Essences he had acquired from the battle!
After including the first two Soul Essences, it turned out that he had refined five in total. If he could sell them, they would be worth twenty-five million RMB, an incredible sum!
Mo Fan did not overthink it. He immediately used the three Soul Essences to refine his Fire Element Stars.
In addition to the seven he had strengthened before, ten more of his Fire Element Stars were improved. Even though he was still a great distance away from strengthening all forty-nine Stars, he was confident that he would eventually level up his Fiery Fist to the fourth tier one day!
Mo Fan knew the journey to becoming an Advanced Magician was a long one. If he managed to improve his Fiery Fist to the fourth tier prior to leveling up to the Advanced Level, the power of his Fiery Fist would be half that of an Advanced Spell, and together with the Spells from his other Elements, even an Advanced Magician would have trouble defeating him easily!
And in addition, the purpose of their adventure was to find the Flame Belle! If he could get himself a Flame Belle, his strength would further improve!
"You seem to be wearing it all the time," Xinxia's gentle voice came from his side.
Mo Fan turned his head slightly and saw Xinxia sitting down beside him after she finished treating the wounds of the others.
As he was lying on the ground with his collar loosened up, the Little Loach Pendant, which had been hidden on his c.h.e.s.t, was revealed. The observant Xinxia immediately noticed it.
"Yeah, although I have no idea where it came from, I think it's able to bring me good luck," Mo Fan replied with a smile.
"It's special," Xinxia observed, also smiling. Her magic sense was a lot sharper than other Magicians due to her Psychic Element, hence she could detect a special power inside the pendant, but she could not explain in detail.
