As soon as the outside world was once again revealed to them, they saw how their elites were defending against 4 large black scorpions. Each of them was several meters tall, their stinger was dripping with vicious black liquid that instantly corroded the sand beneath them. The tail of the scorpion whipped towards the Exousians at incredible speed.
Luch and Sabi, the other Super Saiyan, were at the forefront in defending against the beasts but they couldn't prevent the scorpions from grazing a Saiyan from time to time. Kulaan was fighting one on one with a scorpion and they seemed to be evenly matched but only Broly and he knew that he wasn't actually trying and was only holding the scorpion back.
The venom with each sting was paralyzing and quickly killing the Saiyans, but fortunately the other races were functioning as medics and quickly pulled out the unfortunate ones out to heal them. With that they were able to prevent any casualties but a single healing capsules were only able to offset the venom.
Their numbers of people capable of battling were rapidly dwindling. After the days in the forests their teamwork was impeccable. Even though the enemy's attacks were vicious, they were able to hold their own.
The S-Fighters weren't trying to assist them and just watched the battle unfold. Broly coldly looked around the battle stage. He had already anticipated an attack once they, the strongest, moved inside the temple. In fact, he had already noticed that something was following them for a long time. The others were aware of it too and had discussed it with Broly telepathically.
Now they had lured them out, why didn't they attack? Broly knew that they were desperate for help, but he also knew that this was a perfect opportunity for the elites. So, even though they were already out, due to the fierce fight no one had noticed something after they had closed the temples door again.
The Exousians were being pushed back with every clash. It was clear that the battle would tilt for the scorpions any moment.
If they had fought in the forests, these beasts weren't a problem. Unfortunately, they were in the desert. The Exousians speed on the ground was significantly slower with the same effort while the scorpions were undisturbed.
Not only were they undisturbed by the ground they could dive into it like it was water, which made the fight several times more difficult than it already was.
It got even worse as Luch was grazed by the stinger and quickly lost a lot of strength as he had to fight off the venom with his ki. Suddenly another scorpion sprung out of the ground that was ten meters tall and was blood red. It directly bounced towards Luch who was weakened.
Seeing this two Saiyans that were covering for Luch intervened. One of them blasted a ki blast at the stinger and made it miss Luch's head by a few centimeters the other Saiyan stepped in and grabbed the snapping claws. Seeing that the scorpion focused on ending the one in his way first.
The Saiyan was rapidly pushed back as it held onto the claws. In the back was a huge sand hill and the Saiyan knew that as soon as they reached it, he would be pressed into the sand with nowhere to retreat.
Even now he was being pushed into the ground and was only able to hold himself above the ground by backtracking. In the struggle the Saiyan's aura was blinking golden until it turned into a golden flame. He looked like a divine aura fighting a beast straight out of hell but even with this new-found power he was no match for the scorpion strength wise.
Only a moment later a blur rammed the scorpion in the sides, but it wasn't enough to push it further than two meters until the red scorpion found his balance again. The blur was the Saiyan that had saved Luch with his ki blasts. After giving Luch a healing capsule, he quickly came to the rescue to the awakened Super Saiyan that was threatened to be torn into pieces.
Having effectively gained the attention of the scorpion, he was being slapped away by the tail. He fell heavily onto the sand but kept his focus sharp. He saw how a blur headed straight for his head and in a desperate attempt he tried to catch it. As his arms moved towards the blur his eyes turned green and his hair golden.
Against all odds he was able to catch the stinger just in front of his face. His golden glowing hands slowly turned black from touching the venom. The liquid dripped on his chest, corroding right through his armor. One could hear the sizzling sound of his ki trying to burn it all away.
The Saiyan was losing his strength in his poisoned arms and the sting was moving closer to his face. Luckily the Saiyan he had saved came in for his rescue and let him retreat to heal himself.
The other scorpions were constantly pushing the Exousians into a corner, but their counterattacks were just as fierce.
Unbeknownst to the elites Zangya had her hand outstretched, pointing at the red scorpion. No one was able to see the thin threads that were entrapping every limp around the scorpion. Even the scorpion was unaware of it, but it still lost tremendous amount of strength from time to time.
Broly had told her and the others that they weren't intervening with this fight and would let them handle it. Of course, he wouldn't want them to die, so he waited for the leader of the scorpions to come out and let Zangya help them from the shadows.
He wanted them to not depend on the other Super Saiyans all the time. Even the fact that they knew that they were nearby had gave them the sense of a safety net in the past. Now with them seemingly trapped inside the temple, they had to go all the way with no one in sight of possible help. They had to rely on themselves and on themselves alone. Well, that was how they perceived it anyway.
Numerous healing capsules were being used and although they had all started with 20+ each when they arrived on this island, their numbers were now decreasing rapidly.
Before they ran out completely, Broly and the others moved out and helped the Exousians clear the scorpions. Broly was satisfied with the result. The two Saiyans that helped Luch and another woman that was fending of a scorpion on her own after no one was able to fight anymore turned Super Saiyan.
They had Luch, Sabi who turned after Luch and now they had three additions: Mohr, Fel and Ana. Broly quickly assigned them a group and led them inside the temple. The statues didn't start moving again but the torches were still lit. They moved inside the hall and spent the night there.
In the next morning they had recovered from the fight the day before. Fortunately, no one had lost any limps and though they were severely poisoned, they were able to heal themselves with their medicine. They didn't need to build prosthesis which was a relief as they were still in the middle of a desert and had no access to wood.
They started walking again for hours and at one-point Broly ascended with Kulaan into the air and searched for another place to stay.
Broly frowned slightly as he now saw another temple not far away and several more in the distance. He looked around and saw numerous of these temple gates scattered around in the desert.
"At least we won't be sleeping outside." With that they headed for another temple. Like before the S-Fighters moved inside first while the other elites were guarding outside. With a total of 5 Super Saiyans they were capable of fending off most threats alone.
Everything inside was exactly built the same with the knights at the side holding torches in their hands. The only differences were that the knights didn't have legs but a long tail of a snake. They wore scale like armor. Broly squinted his eyes as he remembered the knights in the first temple. Their legs were slightly bigger than on a normal human that size.
It looked more like they had hooves and horns on their head. He had first thought that it was just the design of the knights' armor but considering that they were completely made out of stone, those things weren't supposed to look like armors to begin with but maybe represented creatures that looked like that.
The only thing that came close to the representation of those knights were Satyrs and those knights now looked like Lamias or Nagas. Broly couldn't be sure as he never saw those creatures and only roughly knew them through mythological stories.
After inspecting the knights, he headed deeper into the hall. The other S-Fighters seemed to notice that Broly had figured something out but now wasn't the time to ask.
Broly squinted his eyes as he looked at the creature in the middle of the hall. A statue that was depicting a beautiful woman with a long snake tail. Each of her hair strands represented a different snake. As soon as they entered, a gate fell down and closed their path outside.
The woman moved and she looked at Broly and company. Her eyes started glowing with an ominous light.