Reign and the others slowly made their way toward the rock formation. The desert was hot and looked the same everywhere around them, if not for Beast leading them towards the eagle, they would have never been able to find their way to the rock formation.
"I do wonder how the other teams are doing, Elijah and the others are definitely having a tough time, they have to move and fight in this heat, not to mention the fact that they don't have someone like Beast who was able to use his eagle to scout the surroundings and lead to where we want to go." Reign said as everybody nodded in agreement.
Without Mia and Beast, this challenge would have been many times more difficult. Not only would they not be able to find a location as easily as now, but the heat and lack of water would pose a grave threat to them, both of those were luckily solved by Mia.
As for Mia and the angels, they had similar thoughts. They wouldn't have to bear the heat and they would have water thanks to Mia's ability, but the problem was that she simply couldn't fight at her strongest since the desert was one of the worst possible places to use an ice ability at.
Not only that, but finding their way would also be very hard since they had no tamers amongst them, even with one, they figured that it wouldn't matter much since they had never heard of a tamer doing what Beast did.
Not only did he have such powerful monsters with him, but he was able to actually share his senses with them, making him incredibly good at numerous things, including scouting and espionage thanks to his snake.
The party didn't have a peaceful trip to the rock formation, however. They were attacked multiple times during their journey, sometimes it would be an attack from monsters that had managed to spot them from a distance, while other times it was an attack from scorpions or other similar creatures that hid in the hot sand of the desert.
For some reason, it was difficult even for Reign to sense them sometimes and they had no other option but to always have their guard up. The monsters weren't very powerful, however, as the strongest amongst them was a level 80 scorpion which was quickly dealt with by Wolf and the others.
For Wolf, this kind of environment was incredible. Not only was the temperature in the desert high already, but he was able to use his flames more effectively and they were more powerful as well.
That would be gone by nighttime of course, but since Mia would have her strength restored to almost her peak at that time, it would be fine, not to mention the fact that Wolf's ability probably wouldn't even be weakened at night, just back to its normal state.
…
"Damn, this really is something," Shadow said as he stared at the rock formation in front of them. The rocks were incredibly tall and wide and they formed something akin to a hill in the desert.
Not only was this place what they were looking for, but it was even better than they expected. Upon nearing the rock formation, Beast summoned the eagle back and let him rest, there had been no monsters that the eagle had seen in the area, which meant one of two things.
Either this is an area with a sparse monster population, or something is keeping the other monsters away. Knowing just how weird it is for no monsters to be present, Reign and the others had a hunch that the latter theory is the right one.
Reign couldn't sense any monsters nearby, however. Sensing mana allowed him to sense most people and monsters, but there were some times when he simply wasn't able to. Monsters that were good at hiding their mana could manage to avoid his senses and there were even times when the environment helped the monsters out, like in this desert.
The scorpions were good at hiding their mana, but not enough for Reign to not sense them, it was thanks to the sand that somehow weakened Reign's senses that they were able to ambush them a couple of times.
That's why Reign couldn't be certain that there was nothing here, he was trying his best to sense anything, but he could feel nothing. He observed the ground with great focus as he didn't want to miss a thing, even the slightest tremor would make it known to him that something was below them.
In the case of the Tier II monster they had narrowly avoided back at the beginning of the challenge, it was mostly thanks to the monster's great size and mana that Reign was able to sense it.
It didn't even try to hide its mana that much and Reign was able to spot it, not to mention the fact that Tier II monsters had much more mana compared to any Tier I monster, making it easier to spot any that wasn't actively hiding their mana.
As Reign stared at the ground, he was able to pick up something. Even though it was subtle, he could see the grains of the sand slightly moving and vibrating.
"Everybody!" Reign suddenly shouted out.
"RUN!" It was at this moment that Reign was finally able to sense the mana of monsters, unfortunately for them, the monsters were all below them, and were getting closer fast.
The tremors became more powerful and everybody could easily sense them now. As they ran away from their previous position, something burst out from the ground. To be more specific, multiple monsters did.
"Of course, it would be this, we're in a desert after all." Said Reign as he glanced back to see the monsters that had shown themselves.
Their slimy body wriggled in the air as about 2 meters of their body was visible from the ground. Their mouth was half a meter wide and was filled with over a hundred razor-sharp teeth that could easily cut apart a human.
"Are those worms?!" Shadow shouted as he looked back at the giant worms that had slowly gone back into the sand. Their massive bodies were much, much larger compared to normal worms that could be seen in the world before the game started.
"How many are there?!" Wolf shouted as they all ran without looking back.
"I don't know, there's over a hundred of them below us, god knows how many more of them there are." Reign said as they all continued running.
The angels paled after hearing his words, the worms weren't that powerful, but the fact that they were in the ground below them made them terrifying.
Attacking such monsters was very difficult to do, and the sheer numbers they possessed made it almost impossible for them to kill them without being heavily injured at the very least.
Most attacks won't be able to reach and kill the worms while they were in the ground and one needed to attack them after they came out, which meant that one needed to stay as bait before moving out of the way and attacking a worm.
It was a plausible plan when the number of worms wasn't high, but right now that would be impossible since the number of worms was staggering.
The worms kept erupting from the ground as the two teams ran with all their might. Some of the worms even erupted sideways and launched themselves at them, only to die thanks to a couple of attacks that were aimed at them.
"They're mostly level 60, monsters that have such a level are nothing for us, but we can't get a good hit on them." Reign said before the two teams jumped and got on a large rock that was in front of them.
The worms couldn't dig through the large rock and kept bursting out from the ground around them, trying their best to propel themselves to Reign and the others and kill them.
They now had a slight advantage over the worms, but it wouldn't last for long. They were outnumbered and more of the worms were coming here, it was only a matter of time before they were overrun.
"Shit, we need an attack that can deal a lot of damage to its surroundings, but also one that can blast the worms below us as well, none of us have su-" Reign started talking and cursing before suddenly stopping as Greenie raised up a hand.
"Ummm, I can stomp them."
"Stomp."
"Mhm."
"Right, that skill, yeah, it should work." Reign said as he looked at Greenie with a bloodthirsty grin on his face.
"Alright, they're yours, Wolf!" Reign suddenly shouted at Wolf who came to him.
"Come here, lift Greenie with me, on the count of three, we launch him in the air with full strength." Wolf looked at Reign and Greenie with slight confusion but did as he was told.
Wolf held Greenie's left leg, while Reign held the right one.
"Alright, 1."
"2."
"3!" The two suddenly used everything they had and launched Greenie high in the air before Reign shouted to the others.
"Guys, prepare to jump, channel every bit of mana you can to your legs, the second I tell you to jump, jump!"
Mia simply glanced at Reign and nodded at him as did the rest of the angels. As for Greenie, after reaching the peak of the throw, he stopped for a moment in the air before lifting his right leg and stomping down.
He immediately started falling down, aimed straight at the center of the rock. Reign looked at him and got ready.
"Get ready!"
"Almost!"
"Just a little bit more!"
"Now, jump!" Everybody jumped high in the air as Reign finished his sentence.
Greenie came down and hit the rock with his skill, shattering it immediately. The power behind the stomp was so great that the area some 100 meters around him was destroyed, the sand was blown away and the whole area had caved in about 2 meters.
As for the worms, the stomp didn't only destroy the area, but the power of the skill also traveled down, all worms in the surroundings were either heavily injured or died.
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