Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Shaji Town.
Four men sat in silence in a room. A patterned goatskin sheet was spread out before them.
“Are we nowhere near subduing the Desert Wings? After spending half a year and most of our manpower and resources looking for the legendary Desert Wings, as described in the Lotian scriptures, we’ve finally found it, and still, we’re forced to hide from it every day out here in the desert… I’ve had enough of this! I’m sick of this accursed desert! When will the Desert Wings be ours?” grumbled a wizened old man in a blue robe.
“Patience. According to the information I’ve received, the Desert Wings seems to have finally let down their guard. They’re now coming to take a look at us.”
“What for?” said the old man in the blue robe, frowning.
“To decide on a worthy trainer,” said a golden-robed young man sitting on the left. “If there’s one among us who thinks it’s worthy of being their trainer, it just might come down here today to announce its decision.”
“Heh, ‘worthy’… Can the word of a monster even be trusted?” said the blue-robed old man with a sneer.
Fifty miles out in the desert, a huge monster could be seen slowly approaching the settlement. A couple of human figures could also be seen trudging along around it.
The sand behemoth stood at least 160 feet tall. Its wings were spread out like a sandstorm behind it, completely blocking out the sky.
A terrible wind blew across the desert, sending sand particles swirling in the air. A trail of disturbed sand lay in its wake, like a peacock’s tail plumage. The monster left a deep impression on the sand as it lumbered by. Endless streams of sand flowed into its body from the desert.
It would at times stop to scoop up a handful of sand and then stuff it into its mouth. Its lower jaw was always rising and falling, forever masticating the sand in its mouth as if it was eating porridge.
The monster’s pace was brisk. Due to its massive size, it was able to cover at least 65 feet across the sand with each step. It looked out serenely into the distance as it smashed through the sand dunes in its path.
Shouts were coming from outside the settlement. The four men in the room looked out the window with only one thing on their minds: is the Desert Wings here?
There was a panicked knocking on the door at that moment. “Apostles, the corpses buried outside have come alive and are now attacking us!”
Corpses? Alive?
All four men in the room looked at each other, clearly troubled. They could hear the sounds of an explosion coming from outside.
A reanimated Desert Winged Dragon corpse roared as it flew through the air. It then came down, smashing through one of the buildings below it.
Beneath the sun’s scorching glare, skeletons of all shapes and sizes dragged themselves out of the sand. The townsfolk would simply bury the remains of the monsters that they had captured in the sand in the desert after they were done relieving the monsters’ bodies of their meat and organs.
“Damn it. Whose bright idea was it to bury monster corpses so close to town?” shouted a Golden Hands combatant. These resurrected skeletons weren’t as strong as before, and they no longer possessed the arcane abilities that they wielded when they were still flesh and blood. However, there were just too many of them!
One of the more underhanded tactics employed by Ghoul-type monsters in combat was overwhelming their opponent with the sheer number of their undead minions, which they couldn’t be short of, considering that they could easily convert their fallen foes into allies. If there was one word that could describe such a tactic, it would be “disgusting.”
Absolutely disgusting.
“My fellow undead, our time of glory is upon us!” roared Dumby, the Soul Flames in its eye sockets burning fiercely.
It spread out its arms, letting its black robe billow in the wind. An ocean of skeletons that had clambered madly out of their sandy graves lay in front of it. At that moment, Dumby looked like a warlord proudly looking out over its undead army on top of a sand dune.
Dunes began rising from the desert like huge gravestones, from which sand flowed down like waterfalls.
A set of massive, ivory bones began pulling themselves out of the sand and putting themselves together. The newly resurrected skeleton then viciously plunged its legs into the sand. In its skull burned Soul Flames. Swishing its tail behind it, the skeleton glared at the settlement before it with much fury and hatred towards the living. The massive skeleton let out a roar, whipping up a small sandstorm with another swish of its tail.
“It’s the Giant Horned Lizard we just killed last month,” someone said.
It had taken most of the townsfolk to take down this Lord-tier brute a month before. When they finally managed to put it down, they carved out its scaly hide and even extracted a Lord-tier monster core crystal from its body.
And now they had to do it all over again!
The Giant Horned Lizard charged through the town’s familiar defense line like it was nothing, sending the defending familiars flying.
Aaaoooh!!!
A resounding cry sounded from the settlement. In the next second, a blue streak collided against the Giant Horned Lizard. A sound like thunder erupted when the two figures collided against each other.
Boom! The sound was dull and resounding, like a gong that had exploded from the depths of everyone’s souls.
The blue streak gradually settled into a more corporeal form. It was somewhat smaller than the 32-foot-long Giant Horned Lizard. However, standing at approximately 16 feet tall, it was still a head taller than the latter.
On the outside, it looked like a monkey. However, instead of fur, its body was covered with blue scales. It had four arms and a fierce look on its face.
[Monter Name]: Blue-Scaled Four-Armed River Ape
[Monster Level]: Level 44
[Monster Attribute]: Water
[Monster Grade]: Excellent
[Monster Ability]: Fortified Scales Level 2, Water Mastery Level 2, Explosive Power Level 1
[Weaknesses]: 1. Wood 2. It lacks lower body strength. It cannot bring out its full power when in midair.
[Description]: A monster that likes listening to light music. It prefers life by the lake or any other bodies of water. It likes eating Striped Prawns. It detests loud noises.
The Blue-Scaled Four-Armed River Ape’s trainer was nowhere to be seen. They must have been hiding somewhere.
“Found the source of our troubles. The one who’s summoning all these skeletons must be that… that guy over there, standing on one of the dunes to the east,” said one of the technicians behind a bank of screens, all of which were connected to every surveillance camera in town.
Behind him stood the apostles. To his right, a red-robed old man said in a low voice, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go get it before things go out of control!”
“Shouldn’t we try to capture it alive? Incredible as it may be, its reanimation ability might have a time limit to it. We could bring it in for interrogation, ask it about its limits.”
“They must be at least Lord-tier to be able to resurrect another Lord-tier monster. Red Apostle, I don’t think it would be safe for you to go out there alone. I’ll come with you and try to capture this creature alive if possible. If not… I guess we’ll just have to kill it.”
Gao Peng had no idea there would be so many monster corpses buried in the sand. Dumby’s mass-resurrection ability alone was enough to make everyone in the Golden Hands’ headquarters run around like a bunch of headless chickens.
However, he still needed more than Dumby’s undead powers to completely bury the Golden Hands. After all, there was a chance that the Golden Hands might have had more than one Lord-tier familiar at their disposal.
Just as Gao Peng was about to let the White Steel Bladed Beast help Dumby, a piercing shriek sounded overhead.
Two black figures were approaching Gao Peng at breakneck speed in the air. Both of them were flying straight at him, side by side!
