18 Buried Sands

"Welcome to the desert!"

The gate opened once more to let Bai Li's group out. The heat of the desert finally baring down on them. The grainy sands piled in unison with protruding hills of the same color.

Nothing was left untouched by the harsh environment, explaining that before humans touched anything, these deserts had already gone through desertification without humans ruining the environment already. No matter where humans went, they would destroy the environment at any cost to make it barely sustainable to survive.

He remembered learning about the History of Colonized Planets and they once claimed a volcanic rock planet. They brought in foreign matter and a powerful being from the Third Gate to start freezing the surface. In matter of days, the whole environment became a barren snow land.

If they dug further they would eventually reach to the original surface, the snow and ice formed by the Third Gate was rumored to never burn, True Ice was used to do so.

He became a figure mostly everyone revered as the Permafrost Emperor.

His name was secret due to the government hiding their elite's identities as nobody knew where he would be.

Though usually the environment one felt at the Soul Realm was usually cold, the desert proved otherwise as they could feel the temperature rise. As of now, they barely scratched the 40.1 degrees Celsius as the entire party had no qualms about the heat.

Brother Axe breathed in a huge breath as he smiled brightly. He seemed to like the heat more than the cold usually felt in the city.

Everyone had equipment to battle the heat as the environment can play a key role in someone's survival, so they wore appropriate robes to keep their body in great condition before fighting in the heat. The robes were also created using a cold blooded snake's skin to regulate their temperature.

The more they moved in, the heat gradually rose in unison, inching away by 0.1 as they head deeper.

As of now, they had traveled for about 50 miles without any interruption from monsters as Bai Li felt the full impact of heat. His forehead was filled with condensed sweat as it glistened from the light from the sun in the Soul Realm. Golden Star Planet was located in a binary star system so two suns was appropriate as one saw one star a bit smaller than the other due to the distance. The Planet belonged to the Boreas Star Constellation System.

He had already used up all his credits to purchase rations, water, and attire to roam the desert. With what little money he had, he bought only the cloak so the majority of his body could be maintained.

Before they could hear each other's breathe as they went deeper inside but this time, everyone held their breath. Bai Li knew a monster was coming as the sound of crushing sand or the movement of the grains were becoming much louder.

The desert is a rather harsh place for any animals to live in naturally so only a few species could live here.

Insects, birds, and small rodents were usually found in the desert but others could be found in the savannah region in selected areas, where some bodies of water could be found so the life there was still arid but bearable.

"From the sounds from the way its crunching the sand, it is definitely an ant beast."

"Around twenty of them I hear."

Both Tomahawk and Fire Axe responded to the noise.

"Hmmmm"

Ju Dun barely communicates verbally but used a combination of grunts, groans, and weapon bashing to signal them.

Ju Dun was definitely the slower of the bunch but he made it up for his defense. He had found the carapace of a Copper Scarab Beetle found in the desert and it was extremely durable and large. After a few months of grinding it to his desirable size, he used it everywhere he go and had it strapped to his back. The carapace was extremely powerful in absorbing blows as it came from a Primordial beetle.

He had a small sword to use as well as though the offense capabilities of the shield was quite weak.

The sword was a Berat Sword but it was still black so it was definitely a low quality blade.

"Mmmmm."

He bashed his sword to the shield to attract their attentions beforehand and moved ahead of the group.

Fireaxe was much more different as he had no visible weapon holstered on him. It wasn't that he was unarmed, the weapon he had was a beast soul type weapon variant*.

It was from a wild boar found in the savannah region and was renown for the fact that it breathed small spurts of fire. If one was careless, they could be afflicted with burns immediately and die by the blazing horns it had. The beast was a Low-tier Saint-grade Crimsontusk. The weapon was a rather large axe with the edge of the blade red. Bai Li focused on the first beast soul he ever saw and tried to observe any information about it. The double edges of the axe was fashioned to outline the boar tusk as it charges through the enemy with the blade. The enemies struck by the blade would be easily cut with the heated blade or charred with a crisp if lodged inside as it sets aflame their insides.

It was truly the first beast soul he had ever seen and a Saint grade at that, he was mesmerized by its burning glory.

"Hey junior, watch this!"

"Stay in the back, if any of the ants come by through the line, stall them!"

"Grmmmm"

The all moved accordingly with Ju Dun in the front while Fire Axe close to him on the right. Tomahawk was furthest to the left and was much more back then the rest of them.

Ju Dun positioned his shield so it could precisely draw attention of the monsters on Tomahawk's side.

Fire Axe would receive much of the brunt but he was much stronger so it was needed.

After finishing their formation, the ants finally appeared. The ant were quite large, about the length of a crocodile with half the height of a human.

Their dark brownish color paired with some spikes stuck out from its exoskeleton with menacing two pincers on the front. Their antennas were quite large with two compound eyes protruding from the head.

They all crawled out the hole the first few ants burrowed and began charging to them.

They charged towards Ju Dun since he was the first one they saw and it would be much more easier to take on the front.

They both charged at one another with Ju Dun being pushed back due to the footing of sand as he slid. But before anything much could happen, Ju Dun slashed down at the ant and managed to create some damage as it bruised the left side of the head. It was still moving but the strike definitely struck its brain as its movement was slowed. This gave himself more time to strengthen his second strike aimed directly to the center and brought down enough force to slice through.

With the shield mainly focusing on Fire Axe's side, both faced a force of about 24 ants.

Fire Axe wa having a better time dealing with the ants than the others. His swift horizontal strikes could strike damage to anything it hit and could maneuver the strike to place most of its force on a downward slash. It could perfectly sever the head of the ants with a clean slice. In one sweep, he had managed to kill at least 5 ants before killing another with a forward downward swing. Though the movement of an axe was extremely limited, he was using most of its capability in the battle as a demonstration. But the most notable of the battle than the straightforward power was Tomahawk.

Bai Li had his attentions on Tomahawk as he was the one who used an extremely similar style of Bai Li.

His body was sturdy and small but he held two small tomahawks. Both were Berat axeheads fashioned over wood, their simplistic designs made for an ordinary sight but the movement of his axes were superb.

He focused primarily on his speed and controlled the small crowd of ants he compiled. In total it would be about 9 ants.

He would decisively dodge to the side when two came in for the pincer attack and sliced directly at the body where the exoskeleton was needed to give its movability.

After being severed in half most of the time, the ants would be unable to fight directly and were sitting ducks.

He aimed precisely over the weak points and controlled the situation with his speed. He was a role model to Bai Li. He immediately gained thoughts to use some of his movements into his when he comes to fight monsters.

At that point, the group of ants were dwindling at rapid rates and their fervor was lost. One of the ants began retreating. They would commonly not use the same hole where they came out of since they could potentially lead them to their nest. It began moving forward and passed the line of defense.

They all noticed its intention but were focused on dealing with the remaining ants and corpses of them which gave them a disadvantage of movement.

It was heading straight towards Bai Li, as it felt as if he were weak and an easy target to bring down for food for the ant queen.

Tomahawk took notice of the ant but was still a distance away.

Bai Li quickly saw the ant and prepared his blade.

The ant shifted its legs towards Bai Li as it charged forward.

Bai Li saw the same movements earlier when they fought Ju Dun so he knew of the moveset of the ants. They would charge and grab with their mandibles and immediately began pummeling them to the ground, causing them to be crushed and die.

He knew this and kept his stance quite high.

The moment of truth came and the monster came with its powerful mandibles.

He used the blade to confront head on but kept at the distance to the right.

He positioned the blade to counter the powerful mandibles as it tried to grab the blade to either crush or disarm his opponent, but failed as it slid right at the last moment.

At that point, they were positioned where the ant was still recollecting from the charge it did and Bai Li to the right. He immediately struck down on the two legs out of the three on the right side and fell back.

The monster squirmed and was restricted of its movement.

It tried to face Bai Li as it failed and he cut off the two other legs on the other side. They were much easier to cut compared to the rest as it had more crevices for one to strike to allow agile movement.

With its movement restricted, he managed to position himself near the Petiole and placed all his strength on his descending slash. The strike proved with worth as it was quickly seperated from its main body.

The ant lost most of its blood and quickly died.

He felt extremely tired and was relieved. He had slain his first monster and it was a Low-tier Ordinary Monster.

If he were to sell the body, he would gain quite a gain of credits. He had killed a Warrior Level monster at his level of power. He had exhausted his current pool of his soul energy where he had only about 15 drops currently.

"Nice work!"

"Yeah, you did well!"

Ju Dun groaned with an uplifting tone.

"We need to get a move on, first, take only the exoskeleton. The meat has a distinct pheremone that allows other ants to follow in their wake."

The Academy didn't care about the monster corpse but only their accomplishments of the students who were mostly novice leveled. Proof of him killing the ant alone was an accomplishment all by himself. He would still receive his credits which meant he was closer to his goal already, not even a week of his internship. He was content.

They began scrapping the exoskeleton and placed it in their packs.

All monsters slain outside of their work would be kept to themselves and based on contribution.

Bai Li had killed the monster himself so he gained it all and didn't have to give a part to anybody.

"If you wish to join us, I'd accept you anytime!"

That was a joke as most mercenary parties were limited at three, four was an unlucky number and most tactics could not bare with four people efficiently in killing monsters. They both shared a good laugh as they recover some lost strength, primarily aimed towards Bai Li. The pheremone would definitely attract the attention of the ants so they hurried on. Inching closer to the Bareback Sand Valley.