"I know" Cairo answered Kira before fixing himself with the intent to go out. "Where are you going?" The woman asked and as usual, Cairo gave a simple answer. "To hunt some magic beasts"
As the town is prospering now and money started circulating, Cairo finally had a way to earn money by himself. And that is through hunting magic beasts to sell their bodies
It was dangerous but it serves as both training and a 'living' for Cairo. Besides, when he is fighting and risking his life, Cairo always received huge improvements than just sitting in a safe place and passively cultivating
"Again?" Kira said with a frown. "If you need money, I can give you some"
Cairo was interested in the offer but he still shook his head. He wants to be independent, in that way, even after Kira and the others leave him, he'll still be able to do things on his own
Cairo exited his house and saw numerous people outside. Unlike before, the town is quite loud now with different people talking with each other
It made Cairo miss the town's state months ago. It was calm, peaceful, and not crowded. But of course, Cairo is still thankful that the town becomes like this. If not, how would Cairo even have a way to earn money?
----
In an area not that far from the town, Cairo can be seen fighting a group of three scorpions as tall as an infant. Even though he was outnumbered, Cairo still has a calm expression on his face
There is no John or Kira around to protect him but Cairo is confident in himself or more like, he needs to be confident. If a mage is timid and dependent on other people, they won't be able to reach higher heights
"[Sand Magic: Explosive Sand ball!]" Cairo condensed sands to his palms and threw it towards two of the three scorpion
The scorpions with their simple mind use their stingers to destroy the sand attack. What they didn't know was that it has the ability to explode
As soon as the sandball made physical contact with their stingers, the balls immediately exploded. It didn't completely destroy the scorpions' stingers but it was still injured and bled
Cairo also didn't expect that to happen, what he wants to achieve was to at least disable the poisonous and venomous stingers of these scorpions. Cairo doesn't have the ability to cure poison yet and it would be bad if he was poisoned
As for the third scorpion, it shot a spray of poison to Cairo and he immediately controlled some sands to block it. As a result, the sands gained a large purple patch and Cairo simply discarded them
"[Shadow Magic: Shadow Clone!]" Two figures completely identical to Cairo's appearance formed one in each of his sides and they charged at the scorpions
The clones do not really have the ability to harm anyone. They were just figures that looks exactly the same as Cairo that does not have any attacking power but they were enough. The scorpions have simple minds, they would think that those clones are real enemies and that will give Cairo enough time to use more magic
"[Sand Magic: Sand Bullets!]" With a wave of Cairo's hand, tens of small sands floated around him and he fired them to the scorpions that were focusing on the shadow clones
The clones arrived at the scorpions first and the latter made balls of sand to attack. When the sands hit the clones, they just turned into black specks and vanished
That enabled Caizher to land a direct hit with the scorpions. Cairo tried targeting their eyes and to his luck, he actually succeeded and his enemies are now blinded
Scorpions already have low visibility and the destruction of their eyes made them completely blind
A dagger instantly appeared on Cairo's hand and he focuses his eyes on one of the scorpions. The blood in Cairo's hand starts to boil as he stimulated it with magic
Cairo's arm received a boost in strength and he threw the dagger with full power. It penetrated the scorpion's hard carapace and he successfully killed his 'prey of the day'
Cairo heaves a sigh of relief after he succeeded and another dagger appeared in his hand. He did the same thing he does to the first scorpion and killed the other two almost effortlessly
Sometimes, to defeat an enemy, just being smart is enough as long as the disparity in strength was not that far apart
Cairo wiped the sweat that formed on his forehead because of the hot sun above and the tension from the fight. It might look and sounds easy but in every fight, Cairo is a bit tense. After all, one wrong move of him can spell his death
He was about to take back his spoils of war to the town when Cairo's danger sense sent shivers throughout his whole body. When he looked in front of him, he saw some sands approaching him and the town from afar
"What is that?" Cairo asked no one in particular and he entered a state of dilemma. The sands were approaching him at a fast speed but he doesn't know what to do
Cairo's body was urging him to run but the thought of his effort in killing the scorpions will be wasted was stopping him from doing that
However, soon, Cairo saw some features of the thing approaching him and he doesn't like what he saw
Cairo saw human-like figures but their bodies are black in color and their movements were quite stiff. They looked exactly the same as what attacked the town before after the gang's elder turned into a lich and the corpses started moving
With this, Cairo's second thoughts vanish and he ignored his prey as his own life is more important
"[Blood Magic: Boiling Blood!]" This time, Cairo stimulated all the blood in his body and his speed exploded
Sands were literally sent flying because of how fast Cairo was running. He doesn't care about anything else, all he wants was to enter Blood Sand Town where Kira and the others can protect him
Cairo doesn't like being protected but in cases like this, depending on other people is the only thing he can do. Cairo wants to be independent but he wasn't stupid. If the lich really came back, Cairo doesn't have a chance of defeating him
Too bad that Cairo was already spotted by the enemy. Several balls of fire flew in the air, aiming for his life
"[Sand Magic: Sand Guard!]" Cairo controlled the sands around him and he blocked the fireballs with them. His sands immediately made sizzling sounds with some smokes coming from it but he ignored all of that
Cairo continued running but more fireballs were fired at his position. As usual, Cairo's mind was working hard to find a solution
If he doesn't find a solution then he might really die today. The town is just near and it would only take a few minutes of running. Cairo doesn't need to buy himself a large amount of time, a few minutes will already save his life
A fireball larger than the others suddenly flew out and Cairo doesn't have a choice but to further stimulate his blood. He knew that doing this will put a strain on his body but he doesn't have a choice
With the speed provided by his blood magic, Cairo barely dodged the large fireball. However, he can still feel a burning sensation in his back
Tears came out of Cairo's eyes as the pain was really high but he can't stop because of that. He needs to continue running or there would be no more hope for him
After a few seconds, Cairo stops stimulating his blood. If he continues his reckless actions, what happened before with the eagle might have a second part today
The least that Cairo needs was to lose all of his body's strength. Too bad that stopping his blood magic lessened his speed a lot and more fireballs were fired at him
"If only, I can stimulate my blood a few more times" Cairo thought and the human experiments surfaced in his mind. If he has that blood serum, Cairo wouldn't be in this condition
Ten times! That is ten times of blood stimulation. If Cairo can really boil his blood ten times, it would be easy for him to save his life
Too bad that he didn't make that serum. This made his heart to be instantly filled with regret
After some time, one of the fireballs manages to hit Cairo and he was thrown away in the air while a burning sensation spread out from his back
Cairo landed in the sands below him. He wants to stand and continue running but he can't. This time, the pain was really too much to handle
Cairo's whole back was literally in pain and is screaming to him to do something about it. Too bad that he's powerless to do anything now
"Is this how my life will end?" Cairo was unwilling. He became powerful in the past months but an even more powerful enemy suddenly appeared
Cairo still has a lot of dreams to achieve, he was too unwilling to die. Too bad that sometimes, even if a person is unwilling, without personal strength, it wasn't enough
Another round of fireball attack approach the kid and the heat they were emitting can be clearly felt by his body
That sent goosebumps all over Cairo as he can feel death approaching him and he gripped the sands below him tightly
"No! I won't die!" Cairo ignored the pain and turned his body to use the sands around him to save himself
However, even with Cairo defending himself, his magic was still destroyed and a fireball was approaching his face when...