Totem beast - month moth Phoenix chapter

**Totem Beast - Moon Moth Phoenix** Is the 27th Story arc of the series.

### History

After arriving back in Shanghai, he meets with Mu Nu Jiao in their shared apartment and she tells him that he is still required to graduate in order to move up in the world and that simply getting a passing grade in the mage world simply doesn't cut it. At the head office, Dean Xiao is displeased that despite all of the accomplishments of mo fan, the school has yet to teach him a single thing. He explains that graduation in magic universities is done via a practical assessment and since mo fan is being so difficult in learning lessons, his assignment is to teach other students doing the practical assessment and mu nu jiao is to assist him.

Mo Fan waits in a classroom for his fellow students to arrive. While the students mistake him as a student as well due to them being the same age and all, Mo Fan interrupts them and presents himself and mu nu jiao as their supervisors. Mo Fan explains to them that they will be on security duty of Dean Xiao's new water barrier. He explains that the water source for the barrier has suddenly gone dry and that they will be investigating on why there is no water.

On the way to the source of water, the group finds a lake, although they can't anything wrong with the lake, it seems that the lake has a strange atmosphere until one of them realizes what is wrong, the lake doesn't give of any reflections. While the students want to investigate further, mo fan gets them out of there just to be safe, but one of the students, bai hongfei, younger brother of bai tingting, meets a rather strange lady named yi shishi. He tries to get her to evacuate but she refuses saying that she can handle herself and bai hongfei leaves sensing that something is out of order.

Later in the night, bai hongfei returns to the lake to find what is wrong with it and finds that there is nothing wrong with the lake at all, there is simply a large colony of blue moths basking in the moonlight on top of the lake and they suddenly all fly away. Bai hongfei turns around and finds yu shishi there and she suddenly grows wings out of her back and sheds pollen, causing bai hongfei to fall asleep and yu shishi calls out her moths to carry bai hongfei away. Later another student cao qinqin calls mo fan to report bai hongfei missing and he immediately rushes to the lake. Once he gets there, he hands over his 5-star master hunter badge over to cao qinqin and tells her to go to the local hunter outpost and recruit as many hunters as she can find to help find bai hongfei and that he is willing to pay anyone who helps with hunter points. He goes looking around the lake and runs into yu shishi and she tells him that she has seen bai hongfei wandering around the forest and that she will take him to the last place she saw him. When in the middle of the forest, yu shishi stands behind mo fan and pulls out her wings and bares her fangs, but before she does anything, mo fan finds bai hongfei in a coma and yu shishi quickly pulls her fangs and wings back in. When leaving the forest, mo fan finds the hunters that cao qinqin had assembled, mo fan quickly turns them away but assures them that he will pay the hunter points. But when bringing Bai Hongfei to the hospital, they find that he is not the only one in a coma.

They find that many young children have fallen into a coma as well and that the family members of the ill have taken to the streets to hunt down who is responsible. They manage to get their hands on yu shishi and try to burn her at the stake for poisoning their children. But it is stopped by bai hongfei who had woken up from his coma. He manages to get the crowd to dissipate and speaks to yu shishi. she tells him that she isn't responsible for the sick children but a nearby spider demon is and that this demon is also the reason why she dammed up the lake, to prevent its toxins from spreading. Bai Hongfei goes to investigate and finds all kinds of spider webs with moths tangled in them. He uses his fire magic to burn the webs and set the moths free. Later the Spider comes out and injures bai hongfei, but is saved by mo fan who kills the spider with 2 hits of his high-tier lightning and lightning claws. Mo Fan berates him for taking the word of yu shishi so easily and that he should have discussed it with someone else earlier on, to which bai hongfei apologizes. When they get back to town, they find that all the residents have fallen into a coma.

Yu shishi reveals herself as the mastermind of it all and said that the spider was simply her natural enemy and that it was the only thing hindering the progress of the moths. While bai hongfei tries to get all the sick people out of the vicinity, mo fan engages yu shishi in combat. While yu shishi unleashes a storm of moths, mo fan merges with yan ji and burns most of them down to a crisp. yu shishi quickly surrenders under the firepower of mo fan, but he is willing to let her go if she doesn't cause anymore trouble, on the count of everything being done for the moths. Later back at the university, bai hongfei thanks mo fan for everything and that the experience he had was worth much more than any grade he could have gotten from the university. Later, Mo Fan reports to the dean, who gives him full marks for everything that he has done and he takes him to the universities treasure room for his reward. When arriving he finds a shadow sitting on a chair, which was revealed to be the old man he got in an argument with on the first trip to Shanghai. While dean xioa goes to fetch something for mo fan, he finds the loach reacting to a shining feather on the side, which was explained to be part of the moth totem. Mo Fan takes the feather and is determined to find the moth totem in order to find more energy to feed the loach. Meanwhile Dean Xioa comes back with a shadow gauntlet, a gauntlet he says allows the wielder to change the element of any incoming magic attack, which mo fan's deems useful since his lightning soul allows him to absorb lightning and send it right back to the caster.

After that, the story cuts to Zhao Man Yan, who has miraculously survived, visiting his dying father in the hospital. His father reacts with joy to see man yan but they are interrupted by the surviving male assassin and man yan manages to get away without revealing his identity. Later he is found by Mo Fan who welcomes him back. But man yan remains depressed as his brother has managed to take over the whole family and man yan is in no position to change that. But mo fan promises to help the guy win everything back.

In the Mean time, Shao Zheng is in a meeting in Dubai, the home of the combined asian magic association, over what to do about the south pole since krakens are constantly pouring out from it. While Shao Zheng requests that all the asian nations work together to form a defensive line on the south coast, another member Sulu shoots the idea down and that every country needs to pull its own weight.

Back in Shanghai, Mo Fan asks mu ning xue on the progress of the setup of her own clan. She says that she has run into some trouble, the land she bought for settling was originally cleared by the government but suddenly it was deemed to dangerous. The both of them go to the local government office and the local head official says that although it was previously cleared, 2 monster nesting groups have moved in and that he finds the whole situation to dangerous for any non mage. Although mo fan is ready to attack the guy, mu ning xue stops him, saying that even if he is corrupt, he has a point. Mo Fan uses his shadow magic to sneak into a meeting with the corrupt official and what turns out to be members of the mu clan, promising them that he will do everything in his power to prevent the setting up of the clan.

Mo Fan reports what he heard to mu ning xue and mu shou yun. While shou yun and mo fan bicker over what he is and isn't allowed to do with mu ning xue, mu ning xue reveals the name of her proposed clan FanXueshan. While mu zhou yun immediately gets angry and mo fan instantly smiles, mu ning xue states in a tsundere manner that she only choose mo fan's name is because he is more famous than she is. She also explains that they will have to deal with the monsters themselves and that there some other matters to deal with. First they have to deal with the pre-occupying monsters, that is hiring a large army of mages to hunt them down or use a core of the earth if they could find one. Secondly a 5-star hunter or higher is required to sign of on the monster extermination, to which mo fan thought that ling ling could do it. And thirdly they need a method to permanently keep the area monster free, that is to either employ an army of mages full time or setup a defensive barrier, to which mo fan replies he has an idea. When mu zhou yun leaves, mo fan gets mu ning xue alone and tells her that he can get her a core of the earth but he demands a kiss from her in return. While she simply doesn't believe him, she agrees. Then mo fan simply calls up the military commander from the mutated desert bird invasion and asks if he can borrow the core of the earth for a little while and she agrees, saying that its currenty not being used and that he is allowed to have it for 3 days. After the phone call Mo Fan simply takes the kiss from mu ning xue and she immediately runs away blushing and flustered.

The next day mo fan hands off the core to mu ning xue and she shows a bright smile and then mo fan says that he will deal with the permanent barrier. On his way to see dean Xiao about his natural water barrier, he finds Shao Zheng waiting for him and mo fan immediately feels a chill. He says that he is ordering him to find the remaining totems in china to prepare a defensive line against the oncoming oceanic assault. Afterwards he goes to see Dean xiao, he says that he is willing to divulge the secrets of his barrier but that someone must go to class to learn it, to which cao qinqin volunteers on mo fan's behalf. Then when Mo Fan goes back to the fanxue clan, mu ning xue activates the core of the earth and places a tracker on every monster in a large radius, to the shock of the corrupt official and the mu clan.

Afterwards Mo Fan grabs Zhao Man Yan and ling ling to go investigate the totems. On the way they find members of the chinese magical research society looking for yu shishi as she could be a valuable research specimen. Mo Fan tells them that he let her go and all the magical researches get mad. They start a fight with mo fan but are easily defeated due to them being researchers and not warriors, but they vow vengeance. Later they arrive at the ancestral village of the snake totem and go analyse the murals Mo Fan saw back when he first met the snake. They find that the symbol of the wooden fish is superimposed on the symbol of the totem snake. Zhao Man Yan explains that the totem snake and the world turtle are actually brothers, but that they can't stand one another and that the world turtle doesn't care about humanity and only let himself go quite recently. Right next to it mo fan finds another symbol and finds it to be quite similar to that of the feather he found in the vault of the university. Mo Fan finds that the feather only bears part of the symbol on the mural and thus there are another 2 totems in china. While ling ling goes to do some research, Mo Fan heads towards the academy, but is intercepted by yu shishi.

Yu shishi claims that she is on the run from the research society and that she is willing to help mo fan and mu ning xue with their defensive barrier in exchange for sanctuary. Although Mo Fan likes the idea, he requires a demonstration. Yu Shishi takes mo fan into a forest where they see 2 demons fighting over a mate. Yu Shishi spread some powder and flew over to the demons, not only did they not see her, they immediately fled the scene. Amazed by this, mo fan introduces her to mu ning xue. Yu Shishi agrees to continually add spores to the defensive barrier of fanxue but in return demands safe haven both her and any of her moths, which mu ning xue agrees on.

Later on large flames appear on the mountain, mu ning xue tells everyone to calm down as she had dispatched mo fan to yu shishi to burn away any plant that the moths might deem harmful or inedible, until she realizes that the flames are golden color, not mo fan's brown-red. What had happened is that the members of the research society had come back with backup and are burning away the moths in order to get yu shishi to surrender. Mo Fan arrives and uses void magic to teleport yu shishi away and begins fighting the members until mu ning xue arrives. When mo fan believes he has the upperhand, the chinese research society's dog-god arrives and uses a combination of curse, summoning and undead to summon 2 commander level hell hounds. While mo fan keeps 1 busy, mu ning xue manages to freeze the other and mo fan manages to deal heavy injuries with his lightning claws, which forces dog god to retreat along with his hell hounds.

Mo Fan asks why they are after her, to which she explains that she knows where the moon moth totem is hidden and that in its current state it is very vulnerable. While Mo Fan goes to ling ling to see what she has figured out in regards to the moon moth and while quoting the work of jaing shaoxu's brother, mo fan receives a call from mu ning xue, the research society has found the moon moth.

Mo Fan hitches a ride with the nighthawks, a unit that answers to ling ling's sister leng qing and travels to a remote mountain range. There the research society finds the moon moth in a massive cocoon suspended in a spider-like web on top of an entire lake. In order to break it open, the society starts burning all the ropes but mo fan and mu ning xue arrive to challenge them. While the nighthawk pilot engages the rest of the society, mu ning xue and mo fan focus on dog god. Dog god immediately calls out 3 hell hounds but then he starts a ritual that fuses the 3 hounds into one three headed big commander. Both of them engage but find that they are doing only minor damage. While mu ning xue needs time to freeze the cerebus, mo fan tries to hit it from the sides, but the cerebus uses his three heads to gaze into the soul of mo fan and freeze him with a curse before attacking. Mu ning xue manages to snap him out of it and he teleports them both away. In order to buy time, mo fan summons his frost wolf, which is then strengthened by mu ning xue's ice field in order to buy enough time for mo fan to rip apart its side and mu ning xue's ice enters the open wound and the creature eventually grinds to a halt and dies and mo fan collects 3 complete commander souls. Later on the rest of the research society were all killed by one of them and he subsequently comitted suicide, saying that death is preferable to failing Sulu.

When Mo Fan returns to shanghai, Yan Ji's health suddenly takes a turn for the worse. Ling Ling says that Yan Ji is going into rejection, that her body isn't capable of handling 2 different soul species at this point and that mo fan will have to buy atleast 2 non-domain fire soul species for her to advance to a point where she can handle it. She also states that in the mean time she has made some progress on information on the moon moth totem. Apparently it once fought in a major battle up north and someone who was around at the time is someone familiar to zhao man yan's cousin who went with them to first contract Yan JI. She also says that this region is home to a rare species of trees, where the golden leaves of certain branches of this tree can yield between 200k-500k each and that they will have plenty of money to earn.

On the way north, man yan, mo fan and ling ling stop at the cousins house, who's aunt rock has been there for a long time, but she refuses the trio's questions and they take the cousin to find the awnsers themselves. When arriving at the entrance of the forest, they suddenly faced with an entire mob of hunters and ling ling realizes that they have been had. The entire area had been plagued with monsters, but rather than clean it up themselves, the local government leaked the information about the golden leaves and attract entire armies of hunters, who would clean up the mess all by themselves free of charge. When they reach the bridge leading into the forest, they are stopped by the military to confirm whether or not the group is capable of handling themselves, since the entire area has grown quite restless since the local monarch is dead, but since mo fan is a high tier mage with a 5 star hunting rank, the group is let through.

Once in the forest, ling ling tells everyone that a special type of grass grows in a decent circumference around said special trees and by finding the grass one can find the tree. They manage to find one of those trees and as they are prepared to climb up and grab a few leaves, they suddenly hear screams and the team leaves the tree to investigate. They find halve a hunting team who says that they are missing a few members after hearing calls for help. Mo Fan goes to investigate and finds that 2 hunters had been opened up while still alive and had all their internal organs ripped out and the third was currently being cut in halve. Mo Fan wastes no time killing apes that did this and tries to save the girl that has been ripped in halve. While Mo fan manages to bring the girl back while she is still alive, he asks for a healing mage but finds that said girl is the healing mage. Mo Fan immediately calls out his frost wolf and tells hims to use his sense of smell to track down any hunting team he could find. They finally manage to find one after the frost wolf almost scares them away due to it being a commander. They manage to convince the healer to join their team. But the rest return back to the bridge and inform the military that hunters are being tortured and killed in mass.

After tracking further eastwards they find an entire region filled with 2-3m plant shoots but they decide to track forward as ling ling tells them that her information regarding the moon moth leads them in the right direction. After about an hour of walking, man yan breaks out his light wings and flies upwards to look out ahead and sees nothing but tall plants until he catches a faint whiff of purple leaves in the distance on top of a mountain and suddenly realizes, all of these plants are actually the special grass that grows around the special tree, ling ling tells everyone that this specific tree is called the god tree. After coming back down, he decides to take a leak but is ambushed by grey apes and while he cleans up and flips the bird with 1 hand, he casts high tier magic with the other and cleans house. The rest find themselves surrounded by over a thousand grey apes but Mo Fan unleashes his mid-tier level 5 lightning boosted by a factor of 12 and begins to rapidly grind down the enemy numbers. But when they reach the tree, Mo Fan is somehow incapable of hitting an enemy.

Ling Ling explains that the apes have a hive mentality and that they are dodging mo fan's attacks similar how groups of fish dodge predators collectively and that they must be under the leadership of a commander class ape, a copper ape. Mo Fan summons the frost wolf to fight the commander but is defeated until it was frozen by ice magic. But now that the apes have appeared behind the group, the group has no choice but to climb the tree. Seeing that the apes are climbing faster than the humans, mo fan uses teleportation to shuttle the rest of the group much higher while he stays behind to fight, although he is significantly injured, he manages to break into the 5th spiritual level and pushes the entire ape army back with the use of void magic. At a much higher level of the tree, the group encounters a sleeping 4 life panther, a creature that has a high level self healing abilities, but can only use it 3 times in a short while. While the group hides in a hole in the side of the tree, one of the apes sacrifices himself to wake it up and it starts attacking the group. While the panther attacks the group while sustaining massive damage, it manages to heal itself. Ling ling deduces that the 4 life panther's ability comes from sacks of blood stored in his body and the cousin freezes the panther solid to prevent it from regenerating and the apes retreat down the tree.

Meanwhile back at the bridge. The forest is starting to be evacuated and a battalion of mages tallying over 300 is assembled, including a girl named yu yu. The captain of the battalion orders them to split up into 7 platoons, each one to be headed up by a sound mage including himself and yu yu as they are only ones able to navigate the tall grass around the god tree. While the rest of the platoons engage the apes in combat, yu yu's group is at the flanks. They are suddenly attacked in the front by a group of apes and yu yu herself drives the off, but she is suddenly attacked from behind by another group of apes that managed to sneak up on them, as sound mages can only detect monsters if they try to look for them specifically. yu yu is injured but the apes retreat after reinforcements arrive, yu yu tells them to chase after the apes and that she will be fine. The retreating apes suddenly dissapear and they when the mages return, they find that yu yu has been taken.

While Mo Fan is on patrol on the tree, he spots a large crowd of apes gathering at the bottom and goes to investigate. He finds yu yu heavily injured and surrounded by estatic apes ready to tear her apart. Mo Fan kills the apes and saves yu yu, but they are suddenly jumped by a commander level copper ape, which mo fan kills outright with his lightning claws multiplied by a factor of 12. Yu yu states that she knows who mo fan is, she said that after this she was going to go down to fanxue and challenge both him and mu ning xue to increase her own prestige, but now she doesn't excatly like her chances. After Mo Fan brings her back to the group, the group looks down and see that the battalion of mages have reached the tree and are battling the apes. But Mo Fan observes that the apes are deploying the formation that they used against mo fan's lightning. Ling Ling infers that they are going to have to go down there and kill all the commanders leading the army of over 3000 apes. While yu yu states that she can track the copper commanders, ling ling warns mo fan that something isn't right and that they will be retreating back to the bridge.

While on the bottom, Yu Yu tracks the commanders to a group at the side, likely to setup and ambush the high tier mages leading the attack on the apes. While one of the apes goes out and attacks the leader of the battalion, mo fan kills one with several rounds of high tier magic and helps yu yu deal with another. After the commanders are all killed, the remaining grey apes are starting to get slaughtered and the captain approaches the pair. He thanks them for their help but says it was obvious that the commander he faced was much tougher than the one that mo fan killed, which yu yu silently objects too, as she sees that the fangs on the one that mo fan killed are much bigger than the ones on the head of the copper ape that the captain brought back.

As mo fan, yu yu and the rest of the MC's group leave, the apes are starting to get cornered against the tree and suddenly a large swarm of brids swoop down and start attacking the birds from behind and help the military defeat all the apes. After all the apes are defeated however, the birds then attack all the mages and all the mages are quickly being killed. The captain starts singing his burial song and most of the attacking birds are killed but the captain dies due to the recoil. When mo Fan hears this, he goes to investigate while the rest of the group keeps going. He finds that all the soldiers have been killed and that he now has become the new target for the surviving birds. While the rest of the birds are killed. The tree itself starts to rise out of the ground and starts to see a massive face on the tree facing him. Mo Fan deems this monster a supreme monarch, not inferior to either the totem snake or the mountain corpse. As the tree launches tree branches at high speed towards mo fan, suddenly a mountain jumps out of the ground to take the hit. This was magic cast by rock, who was revealed to be a half forbidden curse mage. While Mo Fan runs for his life, rock casts multiple star palaces simultaneously to fight the demon tree.

While catching up to the group, mo fan runs right past them, saying that they need to hurry and that all the military mages were killed by a supreme monarch. While disbelieving at first, they see all the magical violence over the horizon and they all decide to just run for it. But when almost leaving the area, they see mu ning xue and yu shishi riding the totem moon moth and everyone hops aboard to charge towards the god tree. But when they arrive they see that the tree has already fallen and rock has been mortally injured. She says that 30 years ago, she was the original guardian of the moon moth and she had led it along with an army of mages in battle against a large army of demon eagles near the demon tree. But as they were winning the battle, the moon moth suddenly started producing pollen over the demon eagles near the demon tree. The military thought that the moth had switched sides and decided to kill it, not knowing the dangers of the demon tree. After believing the moth was killed she fell into despair for 30 years but she is now overjoyed to see the moth still alive and passes away in peace.