not even close

It didn't seem like the weapon had a catch like my previous one. Well, the catch with the previous weapon was that I had to sacrifice my blood to make it stronger, and due to the Aeon of Freedom's constant regeneration, it kept up with the weapon's needs. So would the new weapon have the same gimmick as the old one?

I waved it around and asked Pikola if it needed a sacrifice of some sort to use.

He said it wasn't necessary.

Then, when I threw it into my left hand, it became smaller. The blade thickened up and became darker. It morphed into a firearm, the spine of the katana became sights and the grip bent itself around my hand.

"Do I need some sort of ammo to use this?"

I looked around and saw that the blue things along the gun seemed the same as the katana. 

"Sooo… what do you think?" Pikola excitedly asked.

I switched it back onto my right hand and it turned back into a sword. I glanced over at Aylin and back at Pikola.

"What was her blood used for?"

"I don't know what upgrades her blood did, whenever I enhance swords or weapons with blood I don't know the ability of the weapon."

"So we gotta discover it by ourselves?"

"Exactly, pretty enigmatic and fun isn't it?"

"Do you have props or something I can test it with?"

Pikola pulled out some old rusty gear adventurers had left and installed them on a testing dummy.

"Go ahead."

I first wanted to test the sword, so I put it into my right hand. I gave the dummy a few nice wacks and nothing weird happened. Later I put it in my left hand. I aimed the dummy, but no bullets came out.

"Well, you are gonna learn how to use it anyways!" Pikola said, trying to cheer me up.

"Thank you for letting me work on this!" Pikola shouted as we left the shop. We went back to Devina's place and stocked up on supplies that would last us in the desert. We had dry foods and tons of water stored in cans. We also bought a lot of clothing to shield us from the sun. When we were all done packing up, I asked Aylin if she was ready and she nodded. With all the clothing and bags on us, Aylin's cheek glowed pink.

It felt magical seeing particles flying around me as Aylin channeled her Aeon. The ground started to glow and then. It all turned white for like half a second.

"With this wish, we want to go to Dragonspine."

The next moment, I heard birds chirping and something soft flying at my clothes, it was sand. We were near an oasis, the waters were pristine and clear and throughout the endless desert, only green showed here. A few animals were hanging around near the water, drinking. 

"Aylin, can you remember this spot? If we ever run out of water we can just teleport here?"

"I will," She said confidently, placing her arms on her hips.

"Okay… so, where do we go now?"

Aylin looked around, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. There was nothing but endless desert. 

"So we just gotta trust our instincts and head in one dire direction?"

There should be a better way, Zerstörer told me that he could locate Emovi because his fragment was inside of her. So if we could use that, we could go where Emovi is. 

"Aylin, can you wish for an item? I only need one thing."

"Sure, what is it?"

"Just a little bit of Zerstorer's body, hair, nails, his finger, whatever."

"Why?"

"Well, I thought that, if maybe we had a piece of Zerstorer, it would like, pull us towards Emovi."

"What if it doesn't work then?"

"If it doesn't work then, we are stuck in the desert," I winked at her, smiling.

With little of her remaining power, she teleports a piece of hair from Zerstörer and hands it over to me.

I put it inside a bag to make sure nothing falls out. Afterward, I try to make a connection between it and Emovi. 

"It isn't working!" I sighed.

"So we are stuck out here now?" Aylin asked.

While Aylin was a little frustrated not being able to find Emovi's location quickly, I realized something was behind her. The sand was somehow moving on its own.

"Aylin… I think we better run."

"Why?"

I point behind her and she sees the sand moving, but it wasn't the sand that was moving, it was something under the sand.

Something disgusting emerged from the sand. It didn't have a head, just a long body with spikes at the top, it was like a worm but more terrifying. It was at least 10 times the size of Aylin. But its body was still in the ground so it had to be longer. But then, the tip of the worm ejected something out, it became even bigger. But this time it had a mouth that had spikes all over it that was convulsing.

Aylin and I started running for our lives as it chased after us. But it was too fast and caught Aylin. I looked back and saw her in the air, with half of her body inside her worm's mouth. 

The mark of freedom sprouted roots on my cheek and I took out my weapon and put it into my left hand. I aimed at the worm and the Aeonic energy channeled into the gun, making the blue marks on it turn black, and when every blue line on the gun had been covered in black, a bullet fired automatically from the gun. But it wasn't like a normal bullet, it was like a line of black mass. That just created a hole in the worm's tip making it fall off its body. The worm squirmed around before high-tailing out of there. The mouth of the worm lay on the floor with Aylin still inside it.

I grabbed her by her feet and yoinked her out of its mouth. She was covered in some purple sticky liquid. 

"I don't wanna see that thing ever again," she whispered to herself repeatedly.