The purple worm's body lies on the desert floor, and it doesn't move forward at all.
Other than its mouth opening and closing with rows of teeth churning and grinding against each other and the Demonic Essence leaking out, the monstrosity stays eerily still.
The creature has made its way entirely out of the black Abyss, showing off its full body's length of just over 200 meters. Black refined energy oozes out from between its scales, floating up into the air and dissolving while the flickering purple flames begin to die down to conserve its energy.
A sight even stranger to my wandering eyes appears. There are small rips in its flesh that are starting to form. The scales curl at their edges, and some even dissolve entirely, falling off to the desert floor. It looks like holes in burning paper as the sun's rays shine down on it.
From the growing breaks in its skin, more and more of the black ooze leaks out and floats into the sky, while the desiccated bits drop to the ground.
Not only is refined energy dissolving in the air, but raw unfiltered energy also flows upward, being released from its insides too. The purple flames are hardly visible now.
Once the reaction starts, it only speeds up from there.
It looks similar to the wolf that I defeated outside of the Abyss earlier. The remains of its body are dissolving along with the energy inside of it.
As the reaction continues to get worse, it begins to finally move again, writhing in agony. A deep, mind-numbingly loud roar escapes its maw. The refined energy that leaves its body doubles in an instant, and a shock wave of matter pulses from the creature's core.
The desert floor shakes as it attempts to manipulate the sand, but the more power it uses, the faster the dissolving rate increases. More pulses of black energy shoot out from its body.
My eyes and mouth stay wide open at the sight before me.
The worm's head curls up in the air, and its tail end does too. The massive movement lifts immense amounts of sand over 100 meters into the air while it shakes the entire desert to turn its body a full 180 degrees to face the Abyss.
Huge portions of its scales and body mass fall off and dissolve into the air. Other portions are left to depreciate on their own in the open desert as they fall off the creature's now mutilated body.
It lurches forward to crawl back into the Abyss, but its skeletal structure begins to show beneath the decaying body.
A near A-Rank monster, impossible for me to defeat, is being killed by the sun.
Or so it seems...
Maybe it's just the open air or the lack of Refined Demonic Energy in the atmosphere.
Whatever the cause of this phenomenon is, it saved me from certain doom.
As the 4 glowing eyes of the worm creature plunge back into the darkness of the Abyss, the reality of the situation hits me.
The gut-wrenching feeling following my lapse in judgment and crazed battle sense finally catches up to me. The monster in front of me is an opponent I have no chance of defeating.
If Demonic Creatures can get this strong, then so can mana-based monsters. If mana-based monsters can, this only leads to the conclusion that there are surely hunters capable of subjugating them.
This is Sector 4 after all, the weakest of all the Dark Continent Regions.
I only scratched the outer edge of the Abyss.
If a beast like that roams nearby without a team of A-Class Hunters on standby to kill it, that only begs the question: What could possibly be more dangerous than this that they're busy with...?
Then again, there could be no one else with the ability to wield and perceive Demonic Energy like me. Maybe they don't even know what possible world-ending threats are lurking so close nearby.
It's a reassuring thought. However, I doubt the powers above me are that oblivious.
If they can hide the simple fact of mana control from the general public, I'm sure an even deadlier power source can easily be hidden away and only used by those who can wield it.
So many questions start racing through my head, and it begins to make me sick.
As I watch the back half of the Demonic Worm start to disappear into the darkness, my clenched jaw and tightened fists begin to relax a bit.
I let out a long sigh as the tip of the monster's tail completely vanishes into the void.
The only remnants that remain are the enormous pieces of decaying flesh and scales.
They too dissolve entirely as I stare into the crater left behind by the monstrous force I narrowly escaped from by the skin of my teeth.
I gulp. Then, drop to my knees and deactivate my demonic vision.
Letting the hot sun beam down on me feels very relaxing. I lie on my back and let out a relieved sigh.
For the next half-hour, I stay in the same spot atop the tallest dune, switching from my Demonic Vision back to my mana senses over and over to make sure the Worm has really left. In the meantime, I eat some food from my item storage and try to heal up as best I can.
After that scare, and immense use of Demonic Energy, my body is very fatigued. My mind is a bit rattled as well. It may be from the accelerated forced activation of energy while running away, or it could just be the craziness of the last few days finally catching up to me.
Either way, until I don't have any other responsibilities, I won't face the unknown monsters in the Abyss again.
My entire plan to pick information from the Inner Circle and find the links to the Association, along with saving Lydia, was almost ruined completely by my blind curiosity.
"There is one last thing I need to check..."
I hop down from the dune and activate my All-Seeing Eye along with Advanced Earth Summoning.
All of the Worm's fragments are long gone and dissolved, but I'm hoping I'll be able to find something that I left behind. Even in a damaged state, it'd be nice not to waste nice things.
I sift through the sand near the Edge of the Abyss from a safe range using my elemental earth summoning skill until a glossy black glimmer catches my eye.
The dagger that managed to make a chip in the monster's tooth floats toward me from over 50 meters away as I use my telekinesis to bring it near.
After a quick examination with both my Demonic Vision and Mana Sense, I come to the interesting conclusion that it's completely undamaged...
Also, the blade leaked out all of its remaining energy stores on its own; there isn't a hint of power remaining in it. If I'm not constantly feeding it energy, the blade becomes dull.
"Good to know..."
Airstepping away from the Abyss, I place the dagger back into my Item storage while pondering its origins. The fact that the High Orc I faced in the Abyss had similar weapons and gear, but couldn't imbue energy into them, piques my curiosity.
On top of that, to stand up against a creature with A-Class strength and not chip or crack at all? It's another baffling thought. Although it didn't do much damage back to the monster either, I'm still impressed at the raw strength my new blade holds.
I fly through the air while keeping my distance from the darkness on my left side; meanwhile, a thin smile grows on my face.
At least I learned some valuable information from my experience with an overwhelmingly powerful entity. It's better to be happy I didn't get a major setback, rather learn to step with more caution in unknown environments moving forward.
The sun will set in a few hours, so I still have plenty of time to do a check-up on the village and observatory before heading back to Soloara.
Over an hour passes as I make my way back.
Once the vacant desert huts and white dome atop the cliffside come into view, I activate all my perception skills to do a full detailed sweep.
I pause my flight path in mid-air and activate stealth as 2 unfamiliar mana-based enemy readings pop up on my radar.
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