CHAPTER 21-DESERT OF PAIN
Brik had a lot of doubts racing through his head. Most of them were about his friend. X had told about the visions, how they randomly appear when he is in life-threatening situations, and how it usually shows unknown pictures, or himself clad in armor. There are also those times when he sees a pink world and a string connecting everyone to the sky. Brik dismissed most of them, since it seemed like some mad dreams. But now that he had seen those black flames, he started rethinking about the reality of those visions. When X destroyed those centipedes and almost attacked them, Brik felt true terror. He still could not get the sight of X rushing towards him with those blackish pink eyes, black flames billowing around him. One moment he was quite a distance away, the next he was almost in Brik's face, before he fell. X did not tell him what happened, and acted like nothing ever took place.
Brik looked around from the top of the Giant desert centipedes. They towered over every being in the region, and the large sand dunes now felt like pebbles on the ground. Brik saw X riding beside him, slowly muttering something to the centipede, and Aqua on the other side of X, looking as shocked as he was. He had somewhat bonded with her over these last few days, since only the two of them had to hear X's crazy stories. They formed a good team while fighting, but they were not exactly on the same terms. Still, right now he felt like it would be easier to talk to her than to talk to X. Not that he could talk to her while they were both riding large dangerous desert insects that were afraid of loud sounds.
Aqua saw Brik staring at her, and stared back at him before asking him what was wrong through sign language. Brik did not respond, so she repeated the action multiple times over before he finally realized that she was talking to him and replied. Using his fingers to convey his thoughts, Brik tried telling her that nothing happened. He twisted and turned his hands, but there was no use to it. Brik had just made a fool out of himself, and as if to express the same though and make him feel even more embarrassed, Aqua laughed. Her long blue hair swayed in the winds as she burst out laughing, since Brik's sign language was terrible. Brik turned around, and Aqua went back to continuing her pastime of staring at X's face.
His eyebrows were knitted together, his lips turned to form a slight frown. He must have been recollecting thoughts from the previous day, where he went on a sudden rampage and murdered all those creatures. The look on his face, that feeling of terror she felt when she stared at X, she would never be able to remove the sight of that from her memory. Even now, when she looked at his face, she suddenly saw a shade of the face she had seen before, cold and unnerving. The empty look in his glowing pink eyes with black streaks, the withheld rage under his calm expression, the neutral line of his mouth, the color of his hair darkening, and the black flames that billowed around him. Aqua was scared of the way he looked, and right now she could see similarities between the expressions. She realized that the reason why she felt so odd about that look was because excluding the eyes, that was a look X made on a common basis. Whenever he was frustrated, he would make a similar face naturally, but seeing the same face at that time was terrifying for some reason.
Aqua turned around, wanting to drive away all the thoughts of fear of X in her head, and looked forward. The endless desert stretched on for what looked like forever, the large sand dunes seeming small from the centipedes back. It looked like the ocean she was from, only that it was made of sand. She felt a sudden urge to abandon the mission and return back home, but she steeled her nerves. She remembered what her Father had told her, about how for most of the first missions occur in the Rahasan desert, since there was a silent agreement between the Kingdom of Europa and the tribes of the desert. Student are sent to the other continents to learn to survive in harsh conditions they are unfamiliar with, a group of weak demons are released by the native organization which are to be killed off by the students. This system helps the people from the northern continent to learn to survive in the hot desert, and the desert dwellers to survive in the cold. Therefore the demons they have to face would not be that powerful, and the three of them were exceptionally powerful compared to most other knight batches. They started off as Stage 2 knights, while everyone else began as Stage 1 knights.
A giant mountain was seen in the distance, a sand dune that reached up to the sky. The centipedes stopped for a moment, and immediately, X jumped off its back. The others followed suit, although they did not know why. X's memory was hazy, but he kind of knew the reason why. That large mountain was a member of the species that rules the desert. They were the masters of all the centipedes, and the reason for the feuds between the centipedes and scorpions. The large mountain slided down into the sand, slowly floating down like a snake until it disappeared. The centipedes rushed forward, not bothering to look bakc at the people who were sitting on their backs moments ago. They brought them so far to show gratitude for killing the scorpions, but their masters would not allow this. Aqua walked up to X, and whispered loudly
"What was that?"
"A sand worm."
Aqua's mouth did not close. She could not understand how such a large creature could live outside the ocean. Even the Emperor of Atlantis did not have such a large mount. Sea serpents were large, but they were slightly smaller than this behemoth. As she stood there, X and Brik walked forward. X had already expected this, and Brik was happy that he did not have to bother sitting on the hard centipede carapace again. It was much better walking. X felt the heat from the sand rising up, but ever since he used Immortal Tree, the heat always felt better. They walked forward in silence for a while, before X finally opened his mouth to speak. He closed it immediately. Even with his closest friends, it was hard to convey what happened the previous day. And it was harder to form words to speak the sentence. After a lot of mental deliberation, he finally spoke out
"Yesterday, I fell unconscious due to the heat..."
Before he could finish the sentence, a large sandstorm rushed towards them without warning. Screaming out to them that he will tell all of this later, X walks forward. He sees a silhouette of a person standing in the distance, taller than most people. X felt extreme heat, and his knees buckled under the force of the wind. He closed his eyes to avoid getting dust in them, and suddenly felt something brushing by his arm. Opening his eyes, he saw Brik charging forward like a barbarian running into war, screaming so loud X felt like his eardrums might break. The sandstorm stopped, and the creature standing in front of them became slightly visible. Light grey skin, similar to ash in color, with cracks all over them. A darkish red aura emanating out of those cracks. Sizzling heat that seemed to boil the atmosphere, condensed inside this creature alongside killing instinct and anger. A face morphed cruelly, lacking ears with tiny eyes and a massive mouth that was kept in a straight line. X understood why Brik rushed at this creature. It was a demon. Probably one of the strongest in Stage 2. If they were completely healed, they could defeat it with ease, especially if they worked together.
Brik rushed forward, and X sensed that something was wrong. He yelled loudly at Brik to step back, but the warning was not heard due to Brik's scream. Another sandstorm came out of nowhere, and captured Brik, attacking him with the winds of great velocity. Two more demons stepped out of the sides, mostly made of sand. They were trapped. The demon in the middle, the on with ash skin spoke in a commanding voice
"Soldiers, kill the trespassers. The fifth shield will rse again, and become the new king. All hail the Lord."
The demons rushed forward.