[Chapter=1]

The dunes of white sands were blown by the harsh scorching winds, across endless miles of nothing but sand.

The blistering heat near the horizon's edge can make one's vision distort and blur, as the endless stretch of desert sunlight gave no mercy to any unfortunate being who could not reside in its harsher environments.

The probability of an animal unsuited for living in a desert, much less a human, is close to zilch...

But the famous saying goes: 'There's always that one person...'

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Within a discreet cavern, deep within the desert, therein lies a man sleeping on the floor.

Long-growing black hair flowed down, not as a smooth, royal mane like a lion, but like a unkempt nest for pigs.

His clothes were the definition of weathered until it was no more: badly tattered tank top shirt that used to be a two-layered sweater, ripped discoloured baggy pants the length of short shorts, and boots that would be mistaken for sandals.

In his sleep, he mumbled and grumbled, until he felt the hot air and grains of sand brush his face.

His internal clock forcing him awake, the messy man slowly got up and stretched, getting all the knots and cracks out of his body.

Standing up on his two feet, he finished up the stretching from the cave grounds he was resting in.

Walking to the nearby cavern oasis he was residing inside, he leaned over, cupped his hands, and taken a big sweet slurp of its refreshing water.

"Auhhhhh..." His throat moisturized once more, the man did a few more last minute stretches, his body trying to regain his posture from sleeping on the ground.

Thankfully, he was used to it for the longest time, with no bad cramps to last him a lifetime.

Looking at his makeshift camping area, the man only stared at it in a despondent manner.

It was kind of like a home, made for bums, but that was how he had to survive for the longest time, and he sadly did not have the time to change that.

"Another day to train, another way to occupy my time…" He declared to himself, the same thing he has been declaring to himself for the longest time.

With that said, he began to strut out into the light, his hands brushing against the wall.

All over the wall were countless tallies, marking how many days has he been in this desert (he lost count after reaching the thousands).

Packing himself his supplies, like water, a carved walking stick made of ironwood, and a cloak, he began to venture out into the white-hot desert, breathing in the same scorching air that has filled his lungs for years, seeing the same environments, and fighting the same mobs that were at least numerous levels higher than his was.

Yep, same ol' routine for Naofumi Iwatani in the infamous Desert Prison, where one can lose their way for all eternity. In other words: a slow and painful death.

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The desert heat was second nature to his unaffected skin, as he trudged through with no problem.

Despite his aloof and eyes trained forward, he was quite alert, listening hard, feeling the shifting sands gently moving around his feet like a sea of sand.

The footsteps behind him disappeared behind him, the sand gliding in the wind filling the spots.

It wasn't very long, before he felt a shift and a rumble, but he wasn't panicking.

In fact, he smirked, expecting the company, as he readied his stick.

A slight rumble later, an explosion of sand erupted around Naofumi, who smirked even wider as teeth appeared all around the man from the sand.

Soon, the jaw snapped shut, with the man inside, as a giant sand worm launched itself out into the air, satisfied with the prey it has captured… until it felt abhorring pain within its system.

Suddenly, its neck was sliced off, and blood and worm innards gushed out of both sliced ends, with a blood-covered Naofumi jumping out of its mile-high body.

The stick he was holding glowed, as he was holding it like a blade, and then disappeared when Naofumi landed on his two feet.

"Gotta try harder than that! I've slain so many of your brethren, it's easier to kill you than breathe!" He laughed, rolling his neck, almost like it was a game to him.

The worm, of course, did not respond, as it just flopped to the ground, unmoving. Sniffing the rancid blood, the man smirked, feeling the earth quake underneath him.

"Here they come!" From the smell of blood, many more monsters came out from the sand, or galloped their way towards the slaughter, from sandworms, gryphons, giant scorpions to even ancient golems the size of kaiju monsters.

All of them looked at the little Naofumi, who smiled viciously at the game that rushed in.

His stick manifested into a white flaming shape of a sword, much like a Swordsman. "COME AT ME!"

The worms came at him first, all of them jumping him all at once, and a resounding crash and explosion of sand appeared.

Their target was not in their grasp however, as Naofumi was in the air, creating an even bigger collision on the sandworms, resulting in a large shower of blood erupting.

Some of the worms had various cuts appeared on them, but many others were simply sliced up into dead meat.

Their bodies falling onto the ground, their titanic sizes causing massive dust clouds to form.

Landing on one of their corpses, Naofumi noticed the air shifting as a giant foot of stone appeared, ready to stomp on the man.

Shaking his head, the man began to wind up his 'sword' swing by spinning it around, but suddenly, his 'sword' began to change shape into a Warrior's 'two-handed axe', held in one hand.

Right as the golem's ginormous foot landed on the man, he gripped his 'axe' and swung The golems looked up and brought their arms together, firing ancient runic magic towards him, but the man dashed left and right in the air, before bringing the axe down.

Immediately, the golem was cleaved in two after a second of momentary silence.

"CMON!" He made a battle cry as he dashed from golem to golem, spinning like a hurricane of steel, cutting up his stony opposition into dust.

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