"Stick closer to the carriage and prepare some defensive means, use your Beast Equipment if needed, Ken you get in the carriage and protect sr. Gary", shouted Tanner as he jumped onto Gary's carriage.
The bald mage Uli was the first one to react, he moved closer to the carriage and took out a large sword with a red core embedded into its hilt.
The water knight Nolan too the other side, he changed his regular spear for a dark blue one with a sky-blue core in the tip.
As for the guy called Ken, that was the last mage and his Beast Equipment was strangely a cape, Gary heard Tanner's orders so he slightly opened the door and the caped guy jumped into the carriage.
Surprisingly, once the door closed again, the carriage blurred before it mixed with the environment.
From Daimon's point of view, it was a poorly made illusion, as it looked as if a piece of ground was moving, not to mention the borders were visible because Tanner and the glassed girl were on top of it.
But it indeed reduced the presence of those inside of the carriage, the Rock Vulture which had previously eaten the head of the girl with freckles, flew in circles above the carriage looking for an opening.
Which gave time to the glassed girl to inspect their surroundings, there was blood spilled on the carriage because of the girl with freckles dying, so it would be normal for more magic beasts to charge at them.
"This isn't funny… there is a second peak Lord rank beast coming our way, this time from below, this one is stronger, watch out Uli!", she shouted.
The bald guy pointed his sword at the ground, but the attack he expected didn't come, instead of that he heard a scream followed by the sound of bones breaking coming from the other side of the carriage.
"Aghhhh!", Uli reacted just in time to see his friend Nolan being swallowed and turned into mincemeat by the giant head of a sandworm.
"Nolan!", the bald guy roared and waved his sword which shot a stream of fire, burning half of the head of the magic beast.
Unfortunately, just as the bald guy was getting some relief out of avenging his friend, the ground below him exploded as another giant worm's head came from below, the sharp teeth filled mouth of the worm closed trying to swallow Uli just like Nolan.
But the bald guy managed to dodge, well, almost completely dodge, his arm was bitten off by the worm.
"Don't think the same is going to work you beast", shouted Uli as he pointed at the worm shooting a stream of fire from his palm, unlike the attack of the sword his own flames weren't as strong, so while he burned some patches of the skin of the worm, he couldn't destroy a part of the head, with a quick spell without any preparation.
Still, it gave enough time for the now one armed Uli to jump onto the carriage, landing next to the glassed girl, who he grabbed by her neck.
"Didn't you say it was only one magic beast you bitch, you killed Nolan!", he shouted on the face of the glassed girl, who was still in shock over what happened a moment ago.
"I-I couldn't only feel life signal coming at us, if that second one was able to avoid me then… it should be an Arch rank magic beast", said the glassed girl as she pushed Uli away from her.
"You!", Uli gritted his teeth, his sword could harm Arch ranked magic beasts, so what the glassed girl was saying could be true, but still his best friend just died so he was too angry, the job of the glassed girl was recognition, that's why she was given a relatively safer position in the formation yet she failed in her duty.
Tanner placed his hand on Uli's shoulder and kept him away from the glassed girl as he said.
"Enough Uli, it's not an Arch rank magic beast, but it's not far from advancing, it's a rare aggressive variation, a two headed sandworm, that's why June just detected one life signal, it's just one but with more then twice the strength of a peak Lord rank".
Uli clenched his fists, his eyes were bloodshot as he shook away Tanner's hand.
"You are just covering that useless woman, this is the first time I hear of a two headed sandworm and there is a nest of them near my town", he said making the glassed girl shake her head.
"In the records of our town, there are rumors about a two headed one appearing when the blood moon week is especially strong, it's a variation that supposedly happens when a sandworm takes a liking to cannibalism, instead of prioritizing humans like others, it eats its own species, I honestly thought it was just a rumor spread by a drunkard but turns out that wasn't the case…".
Tanner looked upwards and saw that the Rock Vulture was coldly glaring at them, but it wasn't attacking, as if it was waiting for something.
"I don't want to believe it, but those two beasts seem to have reached a mutual understanding, the sandworm is way stronger but the Vulture has the advantage of flying, they will be attacking at the same time next".
And as the saying goes, when it rains it pours, the sandworm managed to mess up with the floor of the carriage and one of the wheels had started to fail, it wasn't going to last too long, especially at the speed at which the carriage was moving.
"Ken, come out, we need all the hands available right now", said Tanner as he tapped his foot on the roof of the carriage a couple of times, the door of the carriage opened and the caped guy came out of it.
"Uli, the next time you lash out at June, I'll kill you", said the caped guy, both he and the glassed girl were from the closest town to Tiria, and though they belonged to different hunting teams, they have known each other since they were children.
The bald one-armed Uli clicked his tongue and then swallowed a dark green pill, his wound closed on the spot and his flesh started growing at a visible ratio, but it was going to take some time before it finished healing.
"If you have the time to fight between yourselves, prepare one of your advanced spells and martial arts, if we take out the Vulture the sandworm won't attack us, it used the Vulture to test us out, before making its move, so it values its life, probably the same reason as to why it chose to eat others of its kind instead of humans".
From afar, Daimon was observing the whole thing with interest, for beasts that hadn't unlocked wisdom, to order other races, was something he hasn't heard of, normally they only submit to a strong member of their respective race, all the non-rational magic beasts move in packs after all.
"Let's see how much can that guy play dumb", casually said Daimon as he placed his fork on the table, just to see the crazy girl "accidentally" dropping hers and then try to use his, which he of course prevented it by sending the fork to the inventory.
"Your intentions are written all over your face you know", said Daimon, which made Sarah giggle.
"You want me to eat with my hands, or maybe you want me to eat just with my mouth like an animal, ah, as expected of my fated one~".
"Don't do that damn it, here, if you drop this one, I won't share my food with you again", he said as he handed her a clean fork.
Sarah happily accepted it and continued to eat, she had now learned how far she could take things without pissing Daimon off, that being said nothing prevented her from imagining what she would have liked to happen.
Seeing the crazy girl getting lost in her fantasies, Daimon wondered if maybe he should throw her out to bait that sandworm.
Leaving that aside, things at the other side of the caravan had gotten pretty tense, the four remaining peak Lord ranks were standing side by side watching each other backs as they prepared for the next assault.
"It's coming, above at my left, distance of one kilometer!", shouted the glassed girl, making Uli grit his teeth.
"You better not screw it this time, otherwise I'll push you into that things mouth!", Uli roared and then swinged his sword in the direction mentioned by the glassed girl, shooting a pillar or fire of six meters wide from the sword, making the core embedded into the hilt to explode.
"Screee!", that sword wasn't supposed to launch such long ranged attacks, so the core broke before it reached the original number of uses left, but the attack resulting of that, was devastating.
As a result, the Rock Vulture which was diving to catch them by surprise like before, was trapped by the pillar of fire and burned alive, making it scream in pain, which helped Uli get some satisfaction over avenging his friend to a certain extent.
"The sandworm didn't abort its attack, Ken, Tanner, it's coming behind the carriage!", shouted the glassed girl.
"Rock Impact!".
Tanner was the first one to act, the spell he had prepared activated and the ground behind the carriage exploded, making the worm be completely exposed.
"Humph, a beast is ultimately a beast, now that your subordinate is death, you should have runaway, Lightning Cannon!", turns out that the previously caped mage had lightning affinity.
But unlike Aisha who focused on extreme speed as well as close and middle ranked combat, Ken fully focused on long range fighting.
With his chant, blue electricity gathered in front of him and then a lightning was shot towards the exposed head of the worm, immediately burning a hole through it to then make it explode in pieces of burned meat.
The previous might have taken some time to describe but it all happened in a matter of seconds, the glassed girl was about to smile since they defeated a magic beast that was a step away from becoming an Arch rank, an incredible feat for them, since none was there yet and now there were only four left.
Back at Daimon's carriage the crazy girl stretched her body after she finished eating, and then leisurely accommodated on the comfortable sofa, originally, she wanted to sit on Daimon's lap, but she couldn't arrive on time before Daimon dodged, so she instead chose to accentuate her curvy figure.
"And it begins now", said Daimon, ignoring Sarah as he looked at the area in front of Gary's carriage where the burnt corpse of the Rock Vulture was about to land.
"Booom!", the ground suddenly exploded and a perfectly fine worm head came out of it, this one was twice as big as the previous two, the mouth of the sandworm was more than twenty meters wide.
Under the horrified eyes of the glassed girl, the sandworm swallowed the bird in a single go.
"D-Don't let it return to the ground, use everything you have to kill it!", she shouted.
Unfortunately, Uli's sword which had the strongest offensive power was already used, Tanner casted a spell but the spikes of rock that appeared couldn't do more than slightly pierce the thick skin of the worm, as it had earth affinity and thus a great resistance against it, not to mention a high defense.
Ken did react on time, he turned around and pointed his two hands at the sandworm, his body exploded in blue lightning, as a ring with a small core in his left hand glowed, producing black clouds above the worm.
"Tempest!", he didn't hold back and casted a wide area spell using his second Beast Equipment, which amplified lightning affinity attacks, why hasn't he used it until now you might ask, because it is a one-time thing.
"Booom!", the lightning that was shot from Ken's body combined with the lightning that the black clouds shot, producing an explosion of electricity that made the head of the sandworm explode.
The leftover part of its body collapsed on the ground, blocking the path of the carriage, as it had more than sixty meters of length, and that was just what was exposed, as there was more of the sandworm buried into the ground.
"J…June check it out, are there any signs of life coming from it?", asked Ken who was gasping for air, he used more than 40% of his mana reserves into that attack, the fact that Daimon can spam continuous spells or martial arts with high energy requirements doesn't mean everyone can do it.
Think of it like this, what would happen if you were at your peak condition and then you suddenly lose almost half of your reserves, your body will suffer due to the sudden change, of course this can be solved with continuous intense training.
But still using too much mana in a single go put a lot of stress on the body, and that's why Ken was covered in sweat, still it was worth it since he killed an unusually strong peak Lord ranked enemy, the core and materials of such a beast would be way more than enough to buy ten of the rings he used and since he killed it, the higher share of the money they would get from the sandworm's corpse would be his.
"I can't sense any signs of life coming from it", said the glassed girl feeling a light headache, spreading her mana sense at large distances didn't tire her out though it consumed her mana per second.
But accelerating her reaction time and sharpening her senses like she did before, to be able to follow the rhythm of the Rock Vulture, overloaded her brain so she felt as if her head was being hit by a hammer right now.
Ken nodded in response, he patted the roof of the carriage and the caravan stopped a couple of hundreds of meters away from the corpse of the sandworm.
He then jumped out of the carriage and walked towards the corpse, followed by Tanner who was the only one in a not so bad state.
"Damn beast, to think it had three heads, at least it will fetch a really high price, maybe the City Lord of Tiria will be interested on buying it, that would be amazing", said Ken as he walked a few meters ahead of Tanner, he might have to share the money but not the credit.
The city of Tiria didn't have any direct deals with the towns of the wasteland, the merchants that lived there did commerce with the towns, but nothing official.
Tanner shook his head, how could he not understand what Ken was thinking, but honestly right now he didn't care, three peak Lord ranks died, one was wounded and two were basically out of mana, the situation was really dangerous.
"Just hurry up and retrieve its core, so that the guards can help you butcher it, I doubt there are more peak Lord rank magic beasts near, but even fighting with small fries is going to be hard like this", said the heavy armored man.
Ken nodded and then took out a sword to dig out the core of the worm, but then time seemed to slow down for them as a huge pressure made them kneel on the ground.
Tanner activated the effect of his shield but he was still one step too late, the ground below Ken opened and he was sucked in by a worm's head that emerged.
"N-No way, it advanced!", Tanner's eyes widened, as he was covered in a light brown capsule, that was the ability of his shield creating a personal barrier around him.
"Roarrr!", the worm roared and then tried to crush the light brown capsule to eat the human inside, but the thing actually grew rock spikes so the worm spat it.
"Crash!", the brown capsule clashed against the ground almost three hundred kilometers away from the head of the worm, exploding in many rock pieces making Tanner vomit blood due to the impact.
He landed right next to the carriage, where the glassed girl and Uli were in shock, since the pressure they were feeling clearly belonged to an early-stage Arch rank beast.
The worm was horribly strong previously, they already used almost all their Beast Equipment, as only the glassed girl had hers available, and there was only three of them left.
It was safe to assume that they were all dead, especially because the ground in a circular area of more than one hundred meters around the caravan exploded as the sandworm encircled them with its gained larger body.
Coincidence or not, the encirclement ended exactly a meter away from where Daimon's carriage was passing exactly right now, needless to say but they didn't stop, since they weren't going to lend a hand.
At least that was the plan until the door of Gary's carriage opened, the captain of the guards came out with a banner that had a yellow sword and a blue shield on it, at the same time the communication array on Daimon's carriage activated and Gary's voice could be heard coming from it.
"Young Gabriel, I would like to ask for your help to deal with that magic beast".
Naturally Daimon wasn't going to move just because Gary asked him to, so he first messed with him a bit.
"You didn't have any Arch rank goods in your store, so what are you going to give me in exchange for killing that Arch rank beast, not to mention is an incredibly aggressive and smart variation?", he said.
"…"
After a moment of silence, the voice of a woman was the one that answered him.
"I'm Gary's superior, the first daughter of the Valleris family, Reyne Valleris, it's a pleasure to speak with such a strong youth, who doesn't ask "how" to beat an Arch ranked magic best but "why", despite being a Lord rank, I would be more than charmed to offer the best hospitality at the Tiria city that my Valleris family rules, as a thanks for Lord Gabriel's help", said the woman with a warm voice.
Daimon smirked behind his mask, there was only one non-combatant woman in the caravan and that was Gary's "secretary", in other words that average looking woman in her thirties, which of course Daimon noticed on the spot was disguised.
After all, why would a merchant who should value profits, practically suffer loses in every possible way, to arrive at Tiria as soon as possible, during blood moon week, there was obviously more than what met the eyes there.
'I already expected it, but to think that this kind of situation would appear even without me accepting any mission', he thought before saying.
"Deal".
In the meantime, the crazy girl had a dangerous glow in her eyes as she mumbled.
"Bitch".
Of course, the communication array was still on, so the other party heard her, luckily, she was talking in a really low voice, so it was quite hard to understand what she said.
Daimon raised an eyebrow at her, just to see the crazy girl playing dumb as if she didn't do it on purpose.
"Let's not reveal too much, come but don't do anything okay?", said Daimon as he jumped out of the carriage.
"Sure~", happily said the crazy girl, they both then flashed appearing next to the giant sandworm which was slowly but surely closing the circle to crush those in the center, in other words the whole caravan.
But the movement of the thing stopped on the spot when a black sword was stabbed into its body.
A large magic beast without high mobility was just a free meal for Disaster, despite the large body of the sandworm, it was turned into a dried mummy in less than a second, the capricious sword didn't really devour the vitality and mana of the sandworm as "food", it just stored it for later usage, as the first was reserved to those things it liked to "eat".
This time the sandworm collapsed for good and then turned into a pile of ashes, that being said, Narasha managed to keep the core intact and Rita retrieved it with an invisible shadow thread.
Daimon observed the core for a few seconds, it was an Arch ranked one, like the ones embedded in the Ismael and Hal's equipment, but this one was not only heavier but almost twice larger, being the size of a bowling ball.
Naturally Daimon pocketed the core and then he walked towards Gary… no it would be more accurate to say the carriage of that woman from the Valleris family.
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