Chapter 339
"We need to follow where those guys came from," Gale said. "There's gotta be a base or something."
"Agreed," Rachel said.
"Makes sense," Kyle said.
"Let's go," Clyde said.
"Ok," Lily said.
Erin simply nodded.
Extending Presence Between's tendrils, Gale searched for the trail where the Jiuling operatives came from. Their scent was still fresh in the air, tangy blood with murky Qi. Their sweat had dripped on the sand, still giving off their scent.
Following it, Gale quickly led the way, moving through the terrain. The Fraedium filled spikes grew smaller and smaller behind them, replaced by rocky ground. Then, the rocky ground changed to sand dunes again.
Tendrils extended, following the trail the entire time, creating a scent map while also scanning for any signature that may be approaching them. The Jiuling operatives seemingly came from nowhere, fast.
After about an hour, no one talked as they kept moving. Then another hour, continuing on with the sand dunes. The only way Gale knew they were making progress was that the scent trail became weaker as the fresher scent left them behind.
"This doesn't make sense," Gale said.
"What doesn't?" Lily asked.
"We've been walking for over two hours. But those Jiuling guys showed up right after we started mining. How did they get to us so fast if the base is this far away?"
Everyone stopped walking, all staring at Erin.
"That's a very good question, our dear Dark Hunter," Kyle said.
"Very good question indeed, Hunter in the Dark," Clyde said, scratching his chin while staring at Erin.
"I had disabled all the arrays within the region. I made no distinction between what were traps and what were not. One of them may have been a transportation array."
Rachel groaned. "Ugh!"
"What's that?" Gale asked.
"Transportation array was its designation on the spell construct. A crude array for the purpose of enhancing speed exponentially on specific designated invisible road nodes."
"And you disabled it," Kyle said flatly.
"Your observation is astute. You are correct."
Kyle groaned. "Of course. Everywhere is just sand and we're about to continue walking to more sand. Great scenery."
"I think it's pretty though..." Gale muttered.
"Could be worse," Clyde said. "Could be raining."
The group continued to walk. And walk. And walk while listening to Kyle's complaint that Rachel didn't even have the energy to tell him to shut up anymore. It was a rapid fire of insults that Gale wanted to someday be able to replicate. The way the loud one had talked to people in a game called 'Call of Duty' was legendary.
After another thirty minutes, the scent trail led them over a particularly large dune. Gale climbed to the top and looked out at what lay beyond. In the distance, there were rock formations that looked to be caves that the trail led directly towards.
"Found something," Gale said. "But we should eat first. Been walking for hours."
"Finally," Kyle muttered. "I'm starving."
Gale reached into his space storage and pulled out the worm dog he had killed earlier. The creature's body materialized in his hands, still limp and slightly bloody green from where he had crushed it with his bare hands. The smell of frog hit his nose again. Yummy yummy.
"I bet this tastes like chicken," Gale said. "Frog tastes like chicken."
Rachel's face contorted. "I am not eating that."
"Rachel! Trust me! It's tasty!"
"Pass me an MRE"
"BUT IT'S TASTY!"
"No."
Gale materialized an MRE and tossed it over to Rachel who caught it while shaking her head. Looking at the worm dog in his other hand, there was a problem. No trees around meant no wood. No wood meant no fire. No fire meant no cooking.
Unless...
"Rachel," Gale said. "Can you use your fire to cook this?"
"No."
"BUT RACHEL!"
"No."
"PLEAAAASE!"
"Absolutely not."
Kyle, Clyde, and Lily all let out sighs of relief at the same time.
"I know I said I wanted to try it, but it did NOT look that appetizing anymore," Kyle muttered.
"Same. Beast meat ain't for me," Clyde said. "Maybe if it looked like a cow or a sheep though, like that sheepball."
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"I'd rather eat cute than that thing..." Lily muttered.
Gale grumbled, dematerializing the worm dog back into space storage. He'd cook it later and have everything himself. It even had more meat than frog. Much bigger than a frog too. And he'd let them have a taste, and they'd like it, and then he wouldn't give it to them because they think it didn't taste good, but maybe if Rachel asks for some, maybe she could have some if she admits to her crimes against the worm dog frog meat.
That's it. That was the plan.
Pulling out MREs for everyone, he tossed them to Kyle, Clyde, and Lily. Lastly, he looked at Erin.
"You want one too?"
Erin looked at the MRE packet in Gale's hand. Her expression remained blank, as always. "I will take one. It is the only source of sustenance available."
Gale tossed her the MRE.
Everyone found spots to sit on the sand dune, opening their meal packets and activating the heating pouches. After a couple of minutes, they started eating.
Gale's was beef stew. Very good and very salty, which meant good energy for this desert heat, even though they didn't sweat that much.
"Hey," Lily said. "I've been thinking."
"Dangerous," Kyle said.
"Shut up." Lily glared at him. "Should we really just keep killing the Blood Blade members? Gary seemed like a nice guy. What if the others are like him?"
"Gary was lucky," Gale said. "We chose to leave him alive for interrogation. That's the only reason he got to talk. If they come at us with intent to kill, we should too."
"Right, makes sense," Lily said.
"It's kill or be killed." Gale swallowed his food. "If someone attacks us, we defend ourselves. That's how it works. But if someone surrenders? Then we don't have to kill them. We give them a chance. Like we did with Gary and his Costco dreams."
Rachel nodded. "I agree with that."
As they continued eating, the group went into a lull of chewing and swallowing noises. Everyone was too focused on eating the MRE After walking that far for most of the day, most of them were famished by now. A single MRE pack was about 2200 calories. Enough for a single meal for an Awakened.
It was then a water cup sitting on the sand started. Gale noticed it and held it by its tip to hold it off from falling. But as he thought it wasn't just an earthquake, the rumbling grew stronger and stronger until his tendrils caught onto something massive. A giant object moving inside the sand that held the quality of a Mystic signature. Its length was about a football field and its mouth was as tall as a mid-rise building.
"Giant sandworm!" Gale shouted. "RUN! TO THE CANYON!"
Before anyone could take a step, Erin raised both hands above her head. A magic circle formed around each of their hearts. They spun once, pulsed once, then disappeared.
Gale felt his own signature weaken, but it was not gone. When he tried to feel for the signatures of others, theirs was completely gone. His tendrils could touch them and feel them, but it was as if they were not even mundanes, signatures completely gone from his senses.
A blue outline formed around each member of the group. They all lifted up from their positions, dropping their M.R.Es to the ground. Suddenly, Erin whooshed them forward towards the canyon as the sand dunes below blurred. Behind them, their food was left in place while the sandworm emerged from the sand.
It burst from the sand like a breaching whale, eating up everything where they had been previously. Its massive body arced through the air before crashing back down. The creature's mouth was exactly as large as Gale had sensed. A mid-rise building could fit inside that gaping circular spinning maw without touching the sides. Rows upon rows of teeth lined the interior.
"My MRE!" Gale shouted. "Noooooo!"
The sandworm's body went back into the sand and started heading off into the distance with its sand cloud.
It was this day that Gale made a vow. I promise that today will be the day I will remember this debt you, sandworm, have made with me. Your meat shall be mine in the future.
"That's a divine beast," Rachel said.
Kyle whistled. "Mystic divine beast, eh?"
"How much you think mystic meat would sell for?" Clyde asked.
"Is money the only thing in your minds?" Lily asked.
"Yes," Kyle and Clyde said simultaneously.
To their front, where Erin moved them to, the canyon grew closer. Rocky orange-rough-granite-like walls rose from the desert sand. She guided them towards the top of the nearest cliff and softly placed them back on the hard ground.
The moment Gale's feet hit the ground, he knelt. The debt must be returned.
Kyle snapped to Erin. "Why didn't you do that in the first place?!"
"We walked for like three hours! You could have flown us the whole way!" Clyde said.
"Your line of questioning has already been answered before," Erin said. "I am the supervisor. My methods are what your culture calls 'off hands'. It is to allow the children to develop their own independence."
"That's ridiculous. This is a rift raid!" Kyle shouted.
"Due to the sandworm's stage, it posed an extreme risk to the group. Hence, I intervened. You may thank me at your most leisure time."
Everyone looked at each other, shoulders drooping one by one.
"Thanks, Erin," Gale said.
"Thanks," Rachel said.
"Thanks," Lily said.
"Thanks," Kyle muttered.
"Thanks," Clyde added.
Erin nodded. "Your gratitude is noted, however, irrelevant as I merely did my role as the supervisor."
"Then why did you make us thank you?!" Rachel asked.
"Gratitude need not be said, child," Erin said.
In the distance, the sandworm was moving away from them. Its massive body left a trail of cloud of sand as it burrowed back beneath the dunes.
"Looks like it doesn't wanna go through the rocky areas," Gale said, watching the giant worm retreat. "It's staying in the sand."
"Good," Kyle said. "But I'm still only half full. That thing ate my lunch. I want a refund."
"We still have more MREs," Rachel said. She turned to Gale. "But we're at our destination now. What's next?"
Extending Presence Between's tendrils into the canyon below, Gale felt the cave systems carved into the cliff faces. Most were natural formations, but some were definitely human made as they were too smooth inside.
And inside those caves were signatures.
"Cave systems throughout the canyon," Gale reported. "63 signatures total. 42 Attuned. 20 Resonant. 1 Harmonic."
"That's not good. That's a whole company of Jiuling operatives," Lily said, pulling one of her deagles out.
"Maybe it's best we just find out what they're doing and record it," Rachel said. "Report everything to the authorities."
"The authorities outside are getting hammered. Elias and his knights were barely holding off a dozen Blood Blade operatives when we found them. If we dump another 63 on their plate, they'll get overwhelmed," Gale said.
"So what?" Lily asked. "We can't fight that many people head on."
"We could be strategic about it."
"How?"
"The only real problem is the Harmonic," Gale said. "We can handle Attuned. Resonants might be tougher, but if we don't catch them all together, we could probably get them. Sneakily."
"Sneakily..." Kyle muttered.
Rachel shook her head. "That's reckless. The Jiuling are known for being very hard to sneak up on. Their whole history is built on sneak attacks against each other. They've had centuries to develop countermeasures."
"She's got a point," Lily said. "Blood Blade might be a bottom-tier sect, but they're still Jiuling. Their whole culture is about not getting sneaked up on."
Gale turned and pointed at the retreating sandworm. The small dust cloud was still retreating away from them.
"What about that?" Gale asked.
"What about it?" Lily asked.
"The sandworm. We could probably use it somehow," Gale said. It's not like he hasn't fought stuff way stronger than him before. The Eclipsed reminded him that there was a strategy called 'make them fight against each other'.
"It might work... if you're thinking about what I'm thinking," Lily said.
"What are you thinking?" Rachel asked.
"Make the idiots fight the sandworm. Somehow," Gale said.
Kyle and Clyde exchanged glances.
"It might work," Kyle said.
"Definitely might work," Clyde agreed.
"Ok. I trust you," Rachel said.
"Fine, I guess, me too. Might as well," Lily said.
"But before that, I need Erin's help," Gale said.
"State your request."
"Can you hide the signature of the sandworm? Like you did with us?"
"Your request is approved," Erin said. "I may assist you in solving this problem using my spells for non-lethal utility purposes."