AZI Volume 3 Chapter 39

Raising the volume of their phones to its max, and picking out a single song from their playlist, the group of five all had a resolute look on their faces.

"Ready? On a count of three. Three."

"Two."

"One."

Simultaneously, everyone hits the play button.

Immediately, five different genres of music are played.

"Who the hell put on heavy metal?"

"Classical music at a time like this?"

"Hip-hop of all things?"

"Who's listening to electronica in this day and age?"

"Gufeng? Whose taste is this ancient?"

Disagreeing with each other's tastes in music, the five threw their phones in different directions—prior to breaking off into a run.

Before any cloud of dust can be kicked up, Li Xue is quick to grab Qing Yue by the back of her collar—while hurling her spear into the air.

Despite not knowing where the spear could have landed, Li Xue immediately activates its second ability of teleportation—causing both her and Qing Yue's bodies to be covered in a veil of blue radiance.

In the next instance, they vanished from sight.

Amidst the act of running, Yu Ji notches ten arrows, and fires them upwards—prior to notching another, and firing it off into a random direction.

*Boom!* as soon as the eleventh arrow lands, it explodes—throwing a number of sand piranhas into the air!

*Boom! Boom! Boom!* one after the other, the first volley of arrows land and detonates!

Putting his sunglasses on—to shield his eyes from the dust cloud, Long Hua mindlessly runs in a straight line.

In less than five minutes, he has already put more than half a mile's worth of distance between him and the sand piranhas; however—

"Damn, talk about stubborn…"

Seeing the sand behind him being parted through his divine senses, Long Hua clicks his tongue, as he refits his fishing rod with a blade-shaped hook.

"Hm?"

Spotting Yu Ji towards the right of himself, and is leading a pack that is getting smaller and smaller with every arrow—that the former is firing into the distance, Long Hua is quick to lean towards the former's direction.

"Surnamed Long!"

Seeing the massive sand piranha pack—that is being led towards her direction by Long Hua in a hurry, Yu Ji's complexion pales.

"D-Don't come this way!"

"Shut it and keep shooting!"

Closing in on Yu Ji rapidly, Long Hua grabs her by the collar of her cropped jacket, and proceeds to drag her with him as he continues to run.

The speed that Long Hua is running at—easily prevents Yu Ji's feet from hitting the ground.

"Ah whatever!"

Grinding her teeth together, Yu Ji continues to fire off her arrows, and at a gradual rate, the pack that is chasing after them shrinks.

As soon as the sand piranha pack becomes a manageable size, Long Hua slides to a halt before tossing Yu Ji aside, and turns towards the incoming enemies that remain.

"Surnamed Long, you-!"

Ignoring Yu Ji's complaints, Long Hua presses the red button on the black stick, and fully extends the fishing rod.

"Rise!"

Swinging the fishing rod, and casting its line outwards, the hook cleaves the area in front of Long Hua, and—

*Boom!* the force of this cleave readily throws all the remaining sand piranhas into the air!

Swinging the fishing rod wildly, as he would a sword, Long Hua ties up all the remaining sand piranhas, and with a final swing—that is performed with the rotation of his body, he smashes the bundled piranhas onto the ground!

*Boom!* as a pillar of sand is thrown up into the air, Yu Ji looks on with slacked jaws.

Pressing the blue button, Long Hua severs the line, and collapses the fishing rod.

Exhaling a deep breath of air, Long Hua walks over to the bloodied bundle, and opens his storage pouch.

"Uh? Where did yo-?"

Finally catching up with the situation, Yu Ji is just about to ask Long Hua where he had obtained his storage pouch from, but—

"I hid one in case. Surnamed Ye already knows."

Storing the pouch away, Long Hua takes a drink out of his calabash, and having done that, he moves onwards without looking back.

"Ah wait for me!"

"Hurry up then."

As there is no way to know if there are more of those sand piranhas below, Long Hua sees benefits in having Yu Ji accompany him.

"Ai."

Heaving a sigh, Yu Ji says—

"So much for being able to get a good night's rest…"

"With those things beneath our feet, don't even think about it."

Considering how she had actually managed to get a bit of rest, Yu Ji didn't see any right for her to complain about the issue, as she changes the topic, and asks—

"Surnamed Long, what are the odds of us being able to reunite with the others?"

"Hell if I know. It's all in fate's hands now. In any case, between the two of us with a storage pouch each. Our chance of survival is quite high."

Thinking for a bit, Yu Ji asks—

"Doesn't this situation—kind of make you think of entering into an MMO's instance area?"

"I really don't play those games, but now that you mentioned it… Yeah, it does."

...…

In other parts of the desert—

"Help me!"

"Aaahhh!"

"Dammit!"

Incidents of this nature had occurred to other groups as well—with most of them resulting in a complete wipe-out.

As for the few that did manage to survive—despite being cut off from the rest of one's group, being able to live through the first major incident could still be considered lucky.