58 Sanuwharl

"...Where?"

He finally asked after what seemed to be a minute.

"I can see something over there, like a hole."

In the desert, not only it is full of sand, but there are also rocks and small twig branches. There were also dried up trees that were white and hollow that it can't even be said how long they've stood and withstood nature.

There was a certain boulder that was shaped like a curved pillar, like some kind of end of a cliff. It looked as plain as any other boulder or stone that also littered everywhere, but I used my Origin Sight to check the surroundings.

We were somehow surrounded by a purple mist that was so transparent, where I had to pump up more Origin in my eyes to make it more visible. Any additional Origin in my eyes didn't make my sight better, so I called for the boy to check as he might have also some kind of technique to sense irregularities.

"...Well spotted." With a small sigh, he flew near the place and only stood for a few seconds before going back towards us.

"Well? How is it?" Aunt asked the boy, and he promptly replied while his eyes still wandered around.

"Everyone gather, I can break us in."

Since everyone has trust in this kid, and seeing how cooperative he is, I doubt he'll try to pull off some kind of malicious idea.

We all gathered near him, and then he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them once more.

The projection of a blue star somehow appeared above him, and he held his hand in front. Blue and violet wisps of light gathered on his hands and a spherical barrier formed around us.

I instantly moved towards Three and held her as I said, "Hold on tight."

It was only by instinct, but I experienced already what he was doing, and I wasn't sure if Ellie would be safe or not so I only felt assured the moment I got closer to them.

The surroundings blurred again for a moment, before everything went to normal. His barrier dispersed as if it wasn't there in the first place, and what I saw was a large sky-blue dome on the distance.

"Here we are. Welcome to Oasis."

The boy went behind us once more and returned to his usual habit of just watching our movements.

"Huh? Oasis?"

"This place is called Oasis. Very few know about it, and El and I have only reached this place once. This place brings back memories."

I took a glance at Mom and her eyes were like looking at something important. I wonder how'd they reach this place, and what they did at this place, but it would be probably best to not ask for now.

Not until Ellie's safe.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Aunt exclaimed and everyone got hyped up. I could even see the only other boy in the party faintly smile.

It wasn't that too far from our current location, so it barely needed a few minutes for us to fly over.

There was something that stopped us in our flight, though.

It felt like the air suddenly heated up, and the temperature slowly rose.

Below us, I saw the sand falling towards a central point like the top part of an hourglass. Winds were gathering towards the place and then I heard people shouting from somewhere further in front of us.

"You can take care of this, right?"

"Yeah. Take care of Ezzie, please."

He mentioned us from the start of his appearance, that he was sent by his master to focus on protecting the child that we're currently taking care of, which is my sister, Ellie.

Everyone besides me flew towards the dome, and once they were about a hundred meters away, the thing below the desert finally showed its form.

A screeching howl that I couldn't identify pierced through my ears, and the sand flew around everywhere. Some of it even went towards me, but I put up a layer of barrier to block the sand. If I just let it hit me, it might hit my eyes and that would be bad.

I also took out a piece of fabric and used it to cover my nose and mouth, as I could already feel the sand within the air.

Suddenly, a large screen of sand and smoke permeated the surroundings, and I couldn't see anything anymore. I could try to fly higher, but it might chase the others instead, so I stayed within the area and waited.

Spreading Soul Control, I could only feel sand and dust everywhere...

*haanshnk*

The sound of something sweeping from above came in, and I sent a swirl of Origin to wash away the sand a few meters around me. The skies were suddenly covered by something massive, and it slowly covered the two suns as it enlarged itself while falling towards me.

"What the heck?..."

One of the legendary beasts that existed within this world, a whale.

*Uooooooonggghhhh*

The winds it generated blew everything away and revealed its actual form.

The whales that I knew from my previous world weren't anything like this one. It had a single purple eye on the front and middle part of what seemed to be its head. There were also three long horns that were almost half as long as its whole body, located at above its eye, and two on the slightly sides which was about fifteen degrees apart.

If it wasn't called an abomination, then I don't know what to say.

Its upper body was colored dark yellow, and its lower body was colored slightly brownish white.

The large head looked like it was a small town that was now currently crashing towards me.

"I said I'll deal with it but I wonder if I could even damage this thing..."

I could only bitterly smile as the incoming potentially comparative to a nuclear projectile was so near that even the wisps of Origin that I was gathering was becoming affected by its wails.

"For now I'll have to dodge you. It's not like I can't block your attack, okay!?"

With all of my might, the Four Swirls quickly formed and instantly accelerated from my back, making me traverse about two hundred meters towards the side. I also injected Origin on my eyes just in case I missed something, and it turned out to be a good decision.

As my body started to propel, I suddenly saw small little flickers of white light that emanated from the whale's large fins, and then those lights came towards me as they transformed into thousands of small fishes. Since my sight can clearly see in detail, what seemed to be fishes were actually miniature sharp scales that screeched and tore through the air as it went.

The school of fishes danced and spun first before they finally launched themselves on me, which made my back cold with sweat.

"Are you kidding me?..."

"Careful kid!"

I was about to release the Four Swirls into four Origin Screws once more, but I got distracted and dodged the fishes for now instead.

Behind me, there were a group of people which had light clothing and showed more skin than usual. They also had a skin color that was almost as dark as Mom's, but Mom is a bit more brown than them. Their headdresses that were made of scales, various tattoos, piercings on the ears, and the few accessories they had looked scary for me, but seeing as they gave me a warning instead, I considered them as allies for now.

"You did well dodging the Sanuwharl. Did you just try to fight it just now?" One of the more taller guys in front asked me as he looked at me from head to toe.

"We've tried to repel this whale beast for many years already, and now we also find a demon kid?" A guy on his side also commented without letting me even reply.

"Who're you guys?" I asked in a fraction of a second, before a woman suddenly went near my side and widely grinned, which gave me a few goosebumps.

"He's so cute, can I hug him?"

"Stop it, Esir. Focus on the whale!"

The man behind all of them entered the scene and prepared what seemed to be a wooden shield.

The moment he talked, every single one of them coordinated as if they practiced a lot of times already. Their shield were joined in a diamond formation as they floated, with their leader at the center.

"Get out of the way, kid."

I wasn't planning on getting between you guys and the whale anyway.

I instantly flew towards behind them and also prepared the four screws as they looked like they were gathering power. From the other guy's words from earlier, I assumed they already know how to deal with this guy.

Not wanting to disturb their ways, I made my way above the whale and dodged the various fishes that tried to attack me.

"Kid!"

"What is he doing!?"

"Leave him be. Focus!"

The man once more gathered their attention and I can saw the various different colored lights converge into that one shield at the center, then they all took out identical spears.

As for me, I focused on the whale more and flew up high enough to see how it thoroughly looked like.

It stopped chasing me anymore, but I could see that its mouth was opening, and it was also gathering white light towards its opened mouth, while the fishes now reached the group and tried to attack them from all side.

Strangely, even though the shields were only located at the front, there were hexagon-like transparent barriers all around them that protected them from all directions.

Above the whale, I could see the blow hole and I stealthily landed on its side.

"Did it sense me?"

I waited for a few seconds to see if there would be attacks incoming, but due to luck or some discovery, there weren't any threats.

Looking closely, its skin has a cracked spiral pattern everywhere, and it was probably what made its dark yellow color from afar. The gaps between the patterns were the same as its lower side after all, and I could only assume that it works as its protective armor.

Testing if I could do any damage, I unsheathed my Origin Blade and tried to hit it with a force that was neither strong nor weak.

*clang*

"Looks like constructs won't work huh? How about this?"

I gathered white light on my hands and condensed it into a small orb, filling it up until it was partially becoming purple. Upon reaching the right ratio of white to purple quality of Origin, I transformed it into a little bird before I dropped it into the blowhole.

"I'm not sure where its source spirit lies, but it would find it anyway."

As I waited for the chick's effects to happen, I took off its back and glanced back towards the group below.

Just in time for me to see, the whale's charged attack imploded. The air sucked into itself, then the blast converged towards the group as if the explosion that happened was contained within a single area.

The surrounding dust and smoke was even blown away, and every particle suspended in air as if time had stopped.

On its tail side, there were streaks of light incoming as if absorbing everything within a single point, and logically speaking, it must be gathering the natural energies within the atmosphere to create this continuous beam of attack.

"Why does it look very familiar?..."

If I didn't probably dropped that chick from earlier, things would have been worse. But I know what it does and probably what effects it might do even for something that's on the same level as a god, and it took about three minutes of waiting time before I finally saw the fruits of my labor.

The whale's pupil suddenly narrowed, and its attack slowly stopped.

The sands somehow gathered towards it and a whirlwind occurred, as if creating an artificial sandstorm.

The winds sucked everything towards it, and I could see the whale slowly shrinking in size as it tried to escape towards the massive crevice in the ground from where it came from.

"It's already escaping?"

"What happened?"

"Heeeeey! Cutiieeeeee!"

"Ren, what happened?"

"It seems like the whale encountered a major problem which made it unusually retreat. If it weren't for that, we might have been forced to use more of the Ninth Harp's power which would be probably the last."

I was slowly making my way towards them and heard what they were talking about, but I didn't mind about it and glanced at the woman that flew towards me in a hurried manner.

Seeing that woman go over my side made the others look and also followed. Their leader held the woman's head, and he was smaller than the others yet no one dared to defy him.

"It looks like you've helped us, am I right?"

I waved my hand in front of me as I replied, "It's a small thing. I only needed some distraction, and you guys performed very well. I hope no one got injured, though." I frowned a little bit as I'm really concerned about what happened when they received that kind of attack.

Even from more than a hundred meters, I'm sure that I've felt the air quake, which I haven't felt for quite a while already. Such force that could make the heavens tremble is by no means any sort of joke.

"Since you've come to Oasis, let us welcome you and your friends."

They must be referring to Mom and the others.

"Ah, they're not friends. They're actually family. I hope you don't mind us visiting this place."

"Not at all, not at all! I'm even glad that you came---" The girl replied instead, but their leader once more held her face and tossed her to the side as if he just picked up some kind of cat and flung it away.

"There are few who come to Oasis, firstly because of the dangers... This isn't the right place to have a conversation so why don't we move in the city instead? Since the Sanuwharl was present, the barriers might have been fortified and your family must be still outside. Let us have you as our guests instead, if that's alright."

Their offer wasn't bad, and I also helped them so I didn't mind.

The leader led the way and had a few topics he talked about, which struck me as unusual since he was just cold as ice earlier where now he's like talkative like this. The other guy that also looked like he hated me went towards my side and told me that the leader's just like that when he acknowledges someone in a positive way.

Well, we are unknown guests, after all.

It didn't take long for us to reach the edge of the dome, and I saw the others just staring at it.

"Kaff!"

Aunt probably sensed me and hastily flew towards my direction and enveloped me in her embrace once more.

The others also glanced towards me and we all finally regrouped.

"Ehhhh... who's this fat chick?"

I can't really see who that woman's referring to, but from how Aunt's grip suddenly tightened, I could only guess what's currently happening.