The journey through the Great River of Gold was more harrowing than expected, Rex was literally living a horror life throughout this journey.
In the day, he was affected by the extreme heat despite countermeasures that he already employed against them and the powerful beasts that roamed the desert at this time.
In the Great Desert, the apex predators were the giant Sand Worms which every desert traveler feared.
With their gigantic sizes that could dwarf ships, and with their capability to freely manipulate the desert sand, they were extremely dangerous beasts.
Having learned of their ways and patterns, Rex also had to give special attention to them every minute of the day to avoid attracting their attention.
In the past 3 days as he traveled through the desert, he already met these apex predators on 2 occasions as they hunted other travelers and beasts.
On both occasions, none of those at the receiving end were able to withstand the wrath of these apex predators as they were all devoured without mercy.
Having witnessed such scenarios already, Rex respected what he learned about these apex predators more. Taking care not to attract and anger them ranked at the very top at his list of priorities.
What angered him more than the Sand Worms though was literally every other beast, the frequency at which they attacked him was just too much.
It was so much that even at night, he was afraid to sleep since he was not sure when a Desert Fox would come and nibble at his face.
Unknown to Rex, this was a result of the Desert Queen's orders. On her orders, literally every type of beast in the island obeyed as they started hunting him down but the island was too big for all beasts to swarm in one direction.
The gigantic size of the island was originally supposed to be a limitation to Rex who was traversing it, but now, it became his saving grace.
As the days counted, Rex understood more about the beasts which aided his survival a lot. He now had much more specific methods to counter specific beasts.
Today again, just an hour into his journey and he encountered another nuisance. Rex was annoyed but for his life, he had to fight this group of sand snakes.
He recently entered a territory that he deemed to be snake territory due to the abnormal dominance of snakes here.
With Berserker, his other tricks, and his transformed beasts and warrior, he was able to keep the horde of snakes at bay as he hunted them one after the other.
Rex vented his frustration and anger on these beasts as he slaughtered them, the slaughter continued until well, their alpha finally attacked from its hiding spot.
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You have been affected by a Dust Illusion!
You have been attacked by an extremely dangerous predator: Dust Snake!
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As Rex fought against the snakes, the next moment, he seemed to be detached from this specific desert as he suddenly saw himself in another entirely different desert that was filled with dust.
The dust was so thick that he could barely see a meter ahead.
It was in this thick dust where Rex saw a massive pair of red eyes appearing, followed by the body of a snake that seemed as big as the world.
The body of this snake was so gigantic that it seemed to encompass the whole desert, without a doubt, this was the king of this fictional desert.
"All trespassers shall die!"
As soon as the gigantic snake declared this, Rex felt like a massive hammer just hit him in the head as his brain experienced a sharp spike of pain.
At the same time that the headache came, his eyes started bleeding as the massive pair of red eyes of this massive snake glowed like the sun.
Rex was shocked by everything that was happening but he already understood what was going on. Throughout his short journey as a mystic warrior, Rex had experienced a lot of things including illusions.
And with his system notification, everything became clear to him as he was able to confirm that this was an illusion ability.
He knew how to break out of illusions, the most paramount factor that would determine his successful break-off was the strength of his own mystic energy.
Rex tried and in no time, he discovered that the snake's mystic energy was stronger than his own. He did not despair yet though since there was another method of breaking off, the only other way was through external stimuli.
Almost instantly after Rex thought of it, he felt the pricking sensation of a pair of teeth digging into his flesh as a snake ruthlessly bit him.
The lethal poison of desert snakes was injected in his bloodstream but at the same time, the pain jolted him back to reality.
Once Rex's eyes snapped open, he first felt the painful sensation before he saw himself already surrounded by an army of snakes with one of them already tying him up and was the culprit who bit him on the neck.
Grey and Storm were preoccupied with fighting the snakes, Ambition was nowhere to be seen, while the king of snakes casually watched from a sand dune.
Rex recognized this snake after seeing it. If the Sand Worms were the apex predators of the Great Desert, then Dust Snakes were the apex predators among all the snakes of the Great Desert.
The Dust Snake was responsible for drawing him into the illusion.
Dust Snakes were one of the rare beasts that had 4 mystic affinities. They had control over sand and dust, over the wind, over fire, and over illusions.
Dust Snakes were notorious and known for their ability to carry more than one type of poison. Through their special poison gland, they could secrete different poisons to infect their enemy for different battle scenarios.
At this moment, the Dust Snake was content with attacking from a distance while he let his subordinates finish the job because of its danger instincts.
Though its enemy was already surrounded, the pure bloodline snake still felt its danger sense tingling, like its enemy still had a powerful hidden trump card.
"Hiss!" "Hiss!"
With every hiss from the Dust Snake, the army of snakes attacked Rex in a more frenzied manner even as the poison seeped deeper into his bloodstream.
Grey and Storm were already injured, Rex himself was injured.
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You have been affected with a Paralysis Poison
>For every 5 seconds that you hang on fighting the poison, your body will keep on getting paralyzed until you become completely paralyzed<
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On seeing this, Rex was able to confirm his truly dire straits.
Out of options, he could only resort to his trump cards as he activated both his Affection Necklace and his Bear-man form that finally enabled him to put up a resistance against the army of snakes.
With his other skills, he tried to fight and pave a way of escape for himself.
He was only able to put up a resistance though, he was unable to escape the horde of snakes as they kept on nibbling at his defenses.
About an hour later, the Paralysis Poison finally finished the work that it was released to do as Rex was completely paralyzed.
Both Grey and Storm were also in dire conditions as their bodies were covered by snakes from every side, the same thing with Rex.
The only difference was that his transformed beasts still put up a resistance, while Rex was paralyzed already. On seeing the state of its prey, the proud Dust Snake finally slithered down the sand dune where it mounted previously.
It slithered proudly towards its prey to show who was the boss here.
Halfway through its slithering though, the sand beneath it loosened slightly as the dangerous bite attack of another snake came.
The Dust Snake was stunned for less than a second before it reacted. It sprang up with such speed like it was a spring, but this was not the end as 5 more snakes that were originally its subordinates launched an attack on it.
The Dust Snake proved its prowess as with its different mystic affinities, it was able to fight all the snakes off but it soon focused too much on the snakes.
With its focus on the betraying snakes, the real culprit of this attack finally showed up. With its soul snatcher skills, precisely the soul lock skill, Ambition was able to temporarily lock the Dust Snake's soul for a second.
Having used his Beast Tamer skills on the 5 snakes, they were now on his side. Now with the second bought, he was able to jump up and grab the Dust Snake before diving back into the desert and disappearing out of view.
All the snakes and Rex were shocked by what happened.
Before they could understand what happened, sounds of collision came from underneath the sand, clearly the Dust Snake was already fighting with Ambition.
The other snakes were stunned for a few seconds before they all turned, leaving Rex, Grey, and Storm as they went after their leader and the new enemy.
Once all the snakes left, Rex's Vampire Hunter constitution enabled him to briefly fight the poison as he mounted Storm's back and ordered the massive Kamaitachi to escape. Storm ran despite its heavy injuries as Grey trailed behind.
As soon as they started escaping, Rex saw the signs of a massive dust rising in the air from afar off, his eyes widened. "A Sand Worm!"
He turned back to look one last time. "Ambition, survive, please!"
With that, he and his 2 contracted beasts escaped, leaving Ambition's fate to luck. Rex had no other choice on his hand, he had to escape to save his life.
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