Desert Sun

***** Author's Note *****

For those who are caught up to the newest chapter, I've made a small revision to the end of the previous chapter. I had described the desert as 'brutally hot', but I had forgotten that it was currently late at night and the Begaritt Desert was described as frigid cold at night. I corrected this small detail which you'll find is important for this chapter, but thought I should clarify so readers don't get confused and think there was a timeskip

***** End Author's Note *****

"Eris! Wait! That's not even the right way!"

Eris stopped in her tracks. She turned around towards me and smacked her fist into her palm.

Her expression was easy enough to read. I'm pretty sure she was thinking, 'Oh yeah, that's right! I have no idea where I'm going!'

The problem is, I don't really either. My only experience navigating the desert was being guided through it by Elinalise. There were basically no landmarks in the desert. Looking off in the distance you could only see the black outlines of sand dunes. The illumination offered by the starry night sky only offered so much visibility.

How did Elinalise know where she was going back then? We knew we needed to head north but there are no apparent landmarks to guide us? I've heard elves are naturally skilled in keeping their sense of direction. Do they have some sort of internal compass? Maybe it's as simple as following a guiding star or some sort of celestial navigation?

"Which way are we going?", Eris asked.

"We need to head due north."

"Which way is that?"

Apparently she doesn't know either... Guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

"Uh... I'm not quite too sure, to be honest."

"What?", Eris shouted impatiently. "Then why were you telling me I was going the wrong way!"

"You were just running straight out from the door! It's been a long time, but I remember it wasn't that direction at least. I think it was to our right, but I'm not completely sure..."

"You've been here before?", she asked curiously.

"It was a long time ago." 

"Then lets go to the right! We'll never find your teacher if we just stand here!"

"Hold on! Wait!", I urged her to stop. "We need to be absolutely sure we're heading in the right direction. The labyrinth is more than a month's journey away for a normal traveler. We could get there quicker, but only if we know where we're going. If we spend days or even weeks going backwards it would be a disaster."

"What are we meant to do then?"

"Hmm... Wait here for a moment. I have an idea."

Using the [Earth Lance] spell, I conjured a stone pillar to propel myself upwards like a makeshift elevator. I lifted myself further and further into the air until I completely lost sight of Eris, the temple, or anything else on the desert floor. I was so high up, in fact, that it was getting difficult to breathe. I supplemented my oxygen intake using some wind magic to create a bubble of air around myself and warmed it with the [Heat Hand] spell.

Getting this high up should allow me to see far enough in the distance to find our way. The problem is that everything down below just looks black due to the dark of night. Thankfully, I had a solution for this in mind as well.

I reached my hand above my head and began to conjure an elementary level [Fireball] in the sky above me. The fireball grew larger and larger as I continued to feed more mana into it at a steady pace. In my mind, I imagined the sun itself as I spent ten minutes continually feeding the spell more mana into the [Fireball]. I focused mostly on the size, heat, and sustainability of the spell while also increasing the launch velocity by several orders of magnitude.

The purpose of increasing the temperature of the spell to its very maximum was to make it as bright as possible. The purpose of increasing the sustainability was to delay the fireball's explosion for as long as possible to allow the projectile enough time to travel far enough away to avoid catastrophic damage from the explosion. The purpose of this spell was to temporarily light up the desert like an artificial sun, not to cause a huge explosion, although that would be an inevitable after-effect. At this point, this spell simply contained far too much mana for me to disrupt it with [Disturb Magic] before the detonation.

After another five minutes of feeding even more mana into the spell, the heat emanating from the fireball was beginning to reach unbearable levels for me, even through my magic armor. It was also so close at the moment that the light it emitted was blinding enough that I had to keep my eyes closed. Therefore, I decided this would have to do and finally fired what had to be the single most powerful spell I've ever cast.

A loud boom crackled from my position as the immense ball of fire shot into the sky at supersonic speed. The intensity of the heat and light emanating from the ball seemed to ease as it traveled further and further away from me. Once the temperature became bearable for me within my magic armor I re-opened my eyes.

The expansive desert revealed itself to me in full view. I was so high up that the desert looked flat and barren as I couldn't see the individual sand dunes or monsters, with the exception of two behemoths I saw off in the distance. From this high up, even they looked small. Looking around, I eventually found what I was searching for.

Off in the distance I could see a flat-topped rock shelf. I could barely make out the blue and green hues of something behind it, but I knew what that was. It was the oasis town of Bazaar, built around a lake, smattered with green vegetation.

'So it was to our right, after all...'

I turned to face the direction of Bazaar before dropping down the stone pillar back to ground level. Even now, the vast desert was lit up by my [Fireball] as though it was the middle of the day.

"Eris? Where'd you go?"

'She didn't run off on her own, did she? I don't see any footprints in the sand indicating she did so...'

"Are you trying to kill me!?", I heard her yell from the stone temple. "You made it so hot I had to hide in the bottom floor of the temple by that big magic circle!"

*Clang*

She smacked my helmet on the backside of my head only to shake her hand after hitting something so hard.

"Oh... sorry. I thought I was high enough up that it wouldn't be too hot for you."

'Maybe my magic armor is better at blocking the heat than I expected...'

"Whatever", she muttered in frustration. "But still.."

Eris looked up to the sky in awe while shielding her eyes from the light as she looked up at my spell. At this point the fireball was far enough away that it was small enough to look like just another star, albeit a very bright one.

"I knew you were strong... the strongest even, but this... I can't believe you can cast a spell like this. It's like I'm looking into the sun."

"Normally I wouldn't do something like this, but these are extreme circumstances. Speaking of which, we should probably take cover."

"Huh? Why?"

"It's going to explode"

"Wha-!?"

I picked up Eris and carried her back into the stone temple beside us as we watched from just inside.

Moments later, the freshly made star in the sky erupted into an even brighter light. Rings of energy slowly pulsed from the center. The light faded and the desert was once again enveloped in an eerie darkness.

"That's it? I thought the explosion would be bigger", Eris said in surprise.

"It was very far away", I answered her.

As if in response to my answer, the remnants of the blast wave finally reached us. The powerful winds struck the desert floor shooting sand far up into the air as far as the eye can see.

*Cough Cough*

Eris began coughing a little as sand shot into the temple as well. I cleared the air using a [Wind Blast] spell. A couple seconds later, an incredibly loud booming sound echoed through the night. It sounded like roaring thunder only louder.

Once the thunderous boom subsided, I looked outside to see that the visibility was near zero. The spell had knocked so much sand into the air that it was almost like being in a sandstorm except that the sand was slowly falling back down like a gentle snow.

"Hmm... that was a much bigger explosion than I anticipated", I admitted.

Eris just stared at me like I was insane. Maybe I was. Then again, who would be in their right mind knowing that their wife's life is hanging in the balance.

By now most of the sand had settled back down. It was clear enough to at least see where we were going under the natural starlight.

"It should be safe to leave now. I'm going. Roxy is due north."

I said that as I pointed in the direction that I saw Bazaar and then stepped outside and began to run off in that direction. Eris shook off her shocked expression and ran out after me.

As Eris followed Rudeus into the cold desert night, only one thought lingered on her mind.

'Does he really need me after all?'