Chapter 234: Elemental spirits
Seeing the ruined nest before him, Mo Fan’s expression remained flat, but his mood turned sour.
The Water Elemental Spirit had escaped.
Zhao Manyan stared at the empty depths of the Merfolk den, his face slowly twisting as if someone had stabbed him in the heart.
“Gone?” Zhao Manyan said. “We fought through that whole damn monster tide, almost got eaten by some deep-sea ghost woman, and it’s gone?”
Mo Fan did not answer immediately.
The surrounding water was still stained with battle residue. Broken scales, torn fins, shattered shells, and fragments of Merfolk bodies drifted silently through the trench. The sacred den that should have held the Water Elemental Spirit was empty, leaving behind only faint traces of pure Water Element aura.
It had indeed been here.
But it had left before they arrived.
Mo Fan looked toward the corpse of the Sea Fiend Divine sinking slowly near the broken seabed.
“The only thing left is to check that thing’s memories,” Mo Fan said.
Zhao Manyan’s expression changed. “You can soul-search that?”
“I don’t have the Psychic Element,” Mo Fan said. “But its soul hasn’t fully scattered yet. Little Loach can collect the essence, and the Condensed Evil Bead can hold some of the corrupted memory fragments. I won’t get a complete memory, but clues should be enough.”
Zhao Manyan glanced at the grotesque corpse and swallowed. “That sounds disgusting.”
“It is,” Mo Fan said.
After resting briefly, Mo Fan’s spiritual world recovered a little with the help of the recovery resources he had prepared beforehand. His magic energy had dropped dangerously low after the deep-sea infiltration and the battle, but the resources were doing their job. The price was that several high-grade crystals and potions had already dimmed completely, their stored energy drained dry.
Mo Fan walked toward the corpse of the Sea Fiend Divine.
The Little Loach Pendant around his neck trembled slightly.
A wisp of essence, pale and ghostly like a cold moon, slowly rose from the Sea Fiend Divine’s corpse. It struggled faintly, as if even in death the creature’s soul still retained some twisted instinct, but Little Loach swallowed it without hesitation.
A complete Commander-level Essence Soul.
Mo Fan’s mood finally improved a little.
“As expected,” he muttered. “A Sea Fiend Divine specializing in spiritual power, nearly reaching Monarch level… the conditions for producing an Essence Soul were excellent.”
Zhao Manyan looked jealous. “You just made a fortune again, didn’t you?”
“A small one,” Mo Fan said.
“Your definition of small makes me sick.”
Mo Fan ignored him and crouched beside the Sea Fiend Divine’s hideous head. He took out the modified Condensed Evil Bead. The bead had already been stabilized by Old Bao, and after Feng Zhoulong’s adjustments, it could temporarily contain dark, cursed, and corrupted soul fragments without letting them leak outward.
Mo Fan pressed the bead near the corpse.
At the same time, Shadow Magic spread from his palm, while faint Light radiance protected his mind. The two opposing powers formed a thin boundary around his spiritual will. He was not truly soul-searching like a Psychic Mage. He was using the bead to drag out broken memory fragments, then filtering them with his own will.
Buzz buzz buzz!
The next moment, faces crashed into Mo Fan’s mind one after another.
Humans.
Demons.
Merfolk.
Strange deep-sea creatures that had no names.
Every one of them stared at him with hatred, fear, despair, or madness.
The Sea Fiend Divine had slaughtered countless beings and devoured their will and souls. Its memory was not a clean stream, but a rotten net stitched together from countless broken spirits. Reading it was like reaching into a corpse-filled swamp and searching for a single pearl.
A single mistake could twist a person’s soul.
But Mo Fan was no ordinary mage.
He had endured the presence of the primal Demon Element inside his spiritual world. He had also resisted the corrosive influence of the Condensed Evil Bead. These broken resentments were dangerous, but they were far from enough to shake him.
His expression remained calm as he sifted through the tangled memory fragments, searching for anything useful.
Very soon, Mo Fan uncovered something shocking.
His eyes narrowed.
“No wonder they attacked the Water Elemental Spirits,” Mo Fan murmured. “So it was preparation for invading the mainland.”
Zhao Manyan immediately leaned closer. “What did you find?”
Mo Fan’s expression became heavier.
The Sea Monster Empire’s full invasion was still several years away, but the signs had already appeared. The Pacific Ocean was vast beyond measure. The Sea Monster Empire was not the only powerful force within it. Before launching a true invasion toward the human mainland, they had to eliminate all hidden threats behind them and clear every possible obstacle along their route.
The Merfolk Tribe, unfortunately, happened to lie directly along one of the Sea Monster Empire’s expansion paths toward Japan.
During peacetime, this might not have mattered. Passage could have been negotiated, or both sides could have avoided conflict. But during war, even the slightest chance of obstruction had to be resolved in advance.
Assimilation.
Submission.
Or extermination.
The Water Elemental Spirits had made the worst possible choice for the Sea Monster Empire.
They refused.
They were a race that revered peace. Their chieftain, a Quasi-Monarch-level Water Elemental Royal Spirit, had directly rejected the invitation from one of the Sea Monster Empire’s overlords.
And so, the purge began.
All around the world, Water Elemental Spirits were being hunted.
Zhao Manyan’s face slowly darkened.
“They’re hunting them because they refused to join?”
“Not only that,” Mo Fan said. “A race with powerful control over the Water Element, and one that can even fuse with human mages, is too dangerous to leave alone. If humans gain their support, they could become a serious obstacle to the Sea Monster Empire’s future invasion.”
Zhao Manyan clenched his fists.
The ocean was far more brutal than the land.
The number of demon species in the sea surpassed those on land by dozens of times. The four great oceans held countless ancient races, hidden tribes, elemental spirits, and terrifying overlords. The Water Elemental Spirits were not solitary beings like Little Flame Belle’s lineage. Their reproductive and social habits were different. Because of the sea’s brutal environment and abundant resources, they lived in groups and stood united against external threats.
At regular intervals, these spirits would migrate collectively, spreading out to warm, resource-rich sacred water zones to cultivate. After depleting the resources of one area, they would move again.
The Water Elemental Spirits that once resided in the Merfolk Sea had already received word of their race’s crisis.
They had urgently boarded the deep-sea currents and escaped.
As for where they had gone, even the Sea Fiend Divine did not know. It had only just begun preparing to round them up, but by the time the sea monsters broke through the Merfolk defenses, the spirits were already gone.
Mo Fan continued searching through the broken memories.
Then he saw something else.
A trace of the Void.
The Water Elemental Spirits had not simply fled through normal ocean currents. Their chieftain seemed to have used some kind of ancient boundary route, briefly touching a dead space beyond ordinary dimensions. It was not true teleportation, but closer to slipping between the folds of the world.
The Void was an extremely dangerous place.
It was connected to dead space, a region where even light could not escape. Ordinary life could not survive there. Only beings made from the Space Element, or creatures born from dimensions themselves, could frequent that kind of place without being torn apart.
Spatial Spirits.
Dimensional Spirits.
They were so rare that they were almost nonexistent in this world, and perhaps in other worlds as well.
They were also a type of elemental being, but unlike Fire, Water, Lightning, or Ice spirits, Spatial Spirits existed within boundaries. They controlled the edges between dimensions, the cracks between worlds, and the invisible laws that separated one space from another.
If someone could obtain the recognition of such a spirit, or tame one, they could theoretically travel between dimensions, cross impossible distances, and perhaps even touch the river of time.
After all, true Spatial Spirits did not only control Space.
Their authority touched Chaos, Gravity, Time, Dimension Summoning, Vibration, Sound, and other dimensional branches. Those elements that humans treated as separate systems were, in ancient times, only fragments derived from a greater dimensional source.
Mo Fan’s expression became darker as the memory fragments unfolded.
Humanity’s ability to use dimensional elements had a cruel origin.
Long ago, previous generations of human mages had luckily captured an infant Spatial Royal Spirit. It was not mature. It did not understand human malice. It was a newborn elemental royalty, a being that should have grown with the world’s dimensional laws.
Humans experimented on it.
They studied it.
They exploited it.
From that infant spirit, they obtained many principles behind dimensional elements and gradually created the foundations of Space, Chaos, and Summoning systems.
But before they could extract more, the infant spirit died.
Because of that, Time and Gravity were never truly founded as complete human magic systems.
The truth had been buried by the same people who invented the dimensional elements.
Mo Fan’s fingers tightened slightly around the Condensed Evil Bead.
The same thing had happened to other Elemental Royal Spirits.
They had been eaten, refined, dissected, exploited, and used as materials. Their numbers dwindled until they were almost nonexistent. Spirits were beings born from the elements themselves. They were nature-friendly existences, necessary for the world’s balance.
Yet in the current generation, true elemental royalty spirits had nearly vanished.
The world itself was slowly losing elemental richness because of human greed and inhumane experiments. New spirits born from pure elements had become increasingly rare, almost to the point of extinction rare, almost to the point of extinction.
Zhao Manyan saw Mo Fan’s expression and asked quietly, “What else did you find?”
Mo Fan was silent for a moment before saying, “The Water Elemental Spirits didn’t only run because of the Sea Monster Empire. They’ve been running from humans too.”
Zhao Manyan froze.
For once, he had no joke ready.
Mo Fan looked at the empty den.
The Water Elemental Spirit clue had slipped away, but now he understood why.
To those spirits, humans were not necessarily safer than sea monsters.
“Still,” Mo Fan said slowly, “their situation is dire. A large number of them have already died. The survivors are being relentlessly pursued, and their Quasi-Monarch ancestor is being hunted and blocked by multiple Monarch-level generals dispatched by one of the Sea Monster Empire’s overlords.”
Zhao Manyan’s face tightened. “Then doesn’t that mean…”
“It means this species may really be wiped out,” Mo Fan said. “And your chance to form a contract with one may disappear with them.”
Zhao Manyan lowered his head.
He had come here hoping to find a Water Elemental Spirit and strengthen his Water path. At first, it had been excitement, greed, and expectation. But after seeing this battlefield and hearing what Mo Fan had found, his mood became much heavier.
This was no longer just about obtaining a treasure.
It was about a race being hunted from both sides.
Sea monsters wanted to erase them.
Humans had once exploited beings like them.
“The Sea Monster Empire…” Mo Fan muttered, his eyes cold. “Truly despicable to the core.”
He sighed inwardly.
Knowing all of this did not mean he could change it immediately.
The Sea Monster Empire was gradually expanding and absorbing everything in its path. The future Magic City War would prove that clearly. Emperors like the Mediterranean Lan Devil Jiao, the White Spider Emperor of the Demon Ruins, and other terrifying beings from around the Pacific would eventually come under the unified command of the Sea Monster Overlord.
Compared to that kind of force, Mo Fan’s current strength was still far from enough.
Staying here any longer would be pointless.
Mo Fan helped Zhao Manyan recover enough to move, then stirred the surrounding tides with Space Magic and Zhao Manyan’s remaining Water control. Their bodies slowly rose from the Merfolk Sea.
As they ascended, Zhao Manyan kept looking back at the empty trench.
“Mo Fan,” Zhao Manyan said after a long silence.
“What?”
“If we find them later…” Zhao Manyan paused. “I don’t just want to force one into a contract.”
Mo Fan glanced at him.
Zhao Manyan scratched his head, looking unusually serious. “I mean, I still want one. Obviously. But… if they’re really being hunted like that, then recognition matters, right? If Water accepts, protects, and endures, then maybe I need to prove I can protect too.”
Mo Fan smiled faintly.
“You’re finally starting to sound like a real defensive mage.”
“Hey, I was always a real defensive mage.”
“You were a rich turtle.”
“Damn it, can you not ruin the mood?”
Mo Fan said nothing more.
When they finally reached the upper sea, Mo Fan looked westward through the misty sea fog. In the distance, a towering seawall faintly emerged from the horizon, stretching like a majestic mountain range across the coast.
Not long after, the two returned to Japan’s Sea Battle City.
By then, the tide had receded enough to reveal even the First District. The Japanese mages stationed there murmured among themselves, clearly confused.
“How strange… the sea monsters are actually quiet today.”
“No new attacks?”
“Did something happen farther out at sea?”
Mo Fan smiled faintly but said nothing.
The battle he and Zhao Manyan had stirred up in the Merfolk Sea had wiped out a large number of sea monsters there, at least temporarily. That disruption had spread back toward Sea Battle City as well, causing the assault to stall and giving the city a brief moment of respite.
But with the ocean currents still moving, cannon fodder sea monsters would eventually pour in again.
It would not be long before they regrouped and returned.
Not long after Mo Fan and Zhao Manyan left the shoreline, the Japanese mages at the scene cried out in shock.
A tide of faint red seawater rolled in from the distance, carrying with it the corpses of countless sea monsters.
“Looks like a major sea monster battle happened in the distant sea,” an experienced old hunter said in astonishment.
On the other side, Mo Fan ignored the unusual phenomenon at Sea Battle City.
Upon returning to their temporary residence, Zhao Manyan collapsed onto the sofa like a dead fish. His face was pale, his magic energy nearly empty, and his usual lazy arrogance had been beaten down by the deep sea.
Mo Fan sat nearby, his brows still furrowed.
The Water Elemental Spirit had slipped away.
Now, they could only wait and see whether the Zhao Family had other clues. Hopefully, they could locate one before the entire race was hunted to extinction.
Thankfully, this trip had not been a loss.
Quite the opposite.
They had gained immensely.
Not to mention the Essence Souls and remnants of sea monsters Mo Fan had harvested, the information alone was priceless. The truth about the Water Elemental Spirits, the Sea Monster Empire’s early movements, and the hidden cruelty behind elemental royalty spirits gave Mo Fan a clearer understanding of the world’s deeper’s early movements, and the hidden cruelty behind elemental conflicts.
Zhao Manyan had also gained something.
He had not obtained a Water Elemental Spirit, but his understanding of the Water Element had changed. After struggling through the monster tide, protecting both himself and Mo Fan under crushing pressure, and witnessing the fate of the Water Elemental Spirits, his Water path had become clearer.
Water was not only a shield.
Water endured.
Water guided.
Water protected.
If he truly wanted recognition from a Water Elemental Spirit in the future, he could not rely on money or defensive tools alone.
He had to become someone worthy of being trusted.
Mo Fan leaned back and closed his eyes.
His own gains were also substantial. Little Loach had obtained a complete Commander-level Essence Soul from the Sea Fiend Divine, and many scattered soul remnants from the battlefield had been harvested along the way.
With enough resources, Feng Zhoulong might be able to improve the cursed-bead system further. Old Bao could stabilize dangerous materials, but Feng Zhoulong was the one who could turn them into structured tools. Whether for Mo Fan’s Demon Element, Mu Bai’s future darkness path, or Zhang Xiaohou’s future undead path, these materials would eventually become useful.
Just thinking about it made Mo Fan impatient.
He needed to return to China when he had the chance and let Feng Zhoulong examine the new materials.
But before that, a phone call came from one of the National Team mentors.
Mo Fan answered lazily.
“What is it?”
The mentor’s voice was serious. “Mo Fan, since you are still in Japan, there is a matter on the western coast. Some Blue-clothed Cardinals of the Black Vatican are fleeing through that region. If you can intercept them, do it.”
Mo Fan’s eyes opened.
Black Vatican.
A cold smile slowly appeared on his face.
“How many?”
“The more you kill, the better,” the mentor said.
Mo Fan stood up.
Zhao Manyan, who was lying on the sofa, immediately opened one eye. “Don’t tell me we’re going out again.”
“You can rest,” Mo Fan said. “This one is my personal hobby.”
Zhao Manyan shivered.
Whenever Mo Fan used that tone, someone was definitely going to suffer.
Mo Fan walked toward the door, Shadow spreading beneath his feet.
The Water Elemental Spirits had escaped, the Sea Monster Empire was moving, and the secrets of the Void and Elemental Royal Spirits weighed heavily on his mind.
But the Black Vatican?
That was simple.
No need for patience.
No need for negotiation.
Only slaughter.