Somewhere else on Ansel...
The bright blue sun was shining brightly today so the temperature was especially hot in the desert, seventy-four degrees to be specific.
But, at this temperature where liquid was supposed to evaporate the moment it touched the sizzling hot sands, everything was in a perfect balance.
In a way that even a drop of water would take up to a minute before turning into vapor. After all, even the little things like the boiling and vaporization point of water had been increased.
By all ways, to the super humans who would pass through this desert, the temperature was warmer at best…
BOOM!!!
…assuming a sane human would even dare walk through one of the forbidden zones on Ansel.
ROAR!!
A creepy red haired werewolf like beast roared into the sky as it charged towards another monster.
This other monster looked like a spiky worm with a long and thin mouth that made it resemble a peg, but with an extension. It's mouth resembled a crocodile's, but was fixed sideways, so it could only opened horizontally.
The large worm dug itself into the ground, and from beneath the sand, drilled towards the red furred werewolf.
Seeing a large lump in the ground heading it's way, the wolf struck hard with its two arms on the sand, blowing everything in front of it away, and creating a mini sand tsunami.
Alas, the worm dug deeper into the sand, quickly evading the attack and making it fruitless.
BOOM!!!
From beneath the werewolf's feet, the floor suddenly sunk as if the ground was being drained from underground. The ground turned into a sand vortex.
The wolf was caught by surprise, but that wasn't all there was to come.
For at almost the same instant as the sinkhole appeared, a tornado rose up from within, shooting the furred beast straight into the sky.
The wolf was rolled and hit around by sand and wind, mercilessly within the tornado, but as it looked down at the worm like creature, staring at it from the bottom of the twister, what it felt wasn't pain, but the intent to kill.
The werewolf roared and stretched its arms to its sides, collecting every grain of sand it could from within the tornado.
Soon it's body was surrounded like a cocoon made of thick dust, and it suddenly started shooting downwards like a meteor.
The worm screeched in fear and shock as the ball of sand practically teleported down to it's head.
BANG!!!
The shockwave created by the large sand sphere burst the tornado apart from the inside and made a very large crater in the ground.
Jumping out of the sand sphere, the werewolf turned it into a cone and forced it deeper into the ground.
*Scree*
The worm writhed in pain as it was struck in the middle of it's body by the sand drill the werewolf had just created.
After letting it suffer for a while, the werewolf pushed the ground apart with its claws and pulled the worm from inside the ground.
However, as soon as it rose the worm up to it's face...
"Stop."
...an irenic female voice commanded.
It was at that moment that both the worm and the werewolf froze in place, as if time itself had stopped around them.
From a hundred meters away, a woman stood with her arms outstretched to the fight between beasts.
Her silhouette looked delicate, and the sharp outline her technical wear clothes created around her body left no doubt as to what gender the shadow beneath her feet belonged to.
From both of her outstretched hands, one of each moved, and brought life back to the two beasts in front of her.
The red werewolf bit down on the worm's head and the worm struck it's stinger into the werewolf's chest. Their actions were devoid of any feelings whatsoever, it was as if they were puppets in the hands of a skilled puppeteer.
And that, they were.
The ten strings attached to each of the woman's fingers glistened under the sun as they got straightened. And at her command, the worm and werewolf finished their fight.
[You have slain the rank 6 beast: Venomous Wind Molgera.
Gained 10,000 EXP]
[You have slain the rank 6 beast: Dune Red Howler
Gained 10,000 EXP]
Seeing the messages flashing in front of her, the woman pulled back her slender arms and the transparent strings on her fingers disappeared.
She turned around and started walking off in the opposite direction.
"Whoo! I told you the Red Howler was stronger."
Sitting atop an incredibly tall sand dune, a young man clad in a white coat cheered as he watched the end of the battle.
Beside him, there was another man in a slim fitted sleeveless top that emphasized the beautiful build of his upper body.
"Whatever~" This man said in a dreamy state, as he watched as the black and purple haired woman walk towards the mountain of sand they were sitting on.
"Tch." The man in white scoffed at his friend's unrestrained behavior.
"You know she has a boyfriend right?" He asked.
"Oh please, that's just a fable. She's been saying that for years and we haven't seen this so called 'boyfriend'.
Besides, she's a beautiful wild flower, and I doubt anyone would be able to handle her intensity as much as I can. It's only a matter of time before she also fall for me."
"Intensity?" The white coated man repeated. He looked at the woman walking towards them and soon agreed that it really would be hard to impress and keep up with her compared to most women.
But on the matter about Enzo being the one to be able to do all that, not quite.
After explaining, the black clothed man jumped off the hundred meter tall dune and easily blew it apart by only using the strength of his feet.
"Hey!" The other man yelled as he started to fall with the dune's dispersal.
But the wind suddenly blew in unnatural manner, preventing the white coated man from getting touched by even a single grain of sand.
The man slowly floated till his feet landed perfectly on the ground.
"I'm fine by the way!" He yelled again, this time with sarcasm, but the other man was clearly not listening.
As the black clothed man landed quite softly in front of the woman, he gave a courteous bow.
"That was a beautiful performance, my lady." His smile was dazzling, enough to beguile countless women, but Enzo only wanted one.
However, that one woman just gave him an indifferent glance and kept walking. "It was training, Enzo, not a theater show."
Enzo, the man in black stood straight and walked behind her.
"Yes, but you must know, the way you move your beautiful fingers is like ten thousand chariots pulling at my heartstrings."
"Ooo, cheeky line bro." The white coated man suddenly appeared behind him and wrapped his arm around Enzo's shoulder.
"No it wasn't." Enzo refuted the man's teasing, with an annoyed look.
"Yes it was. Hey Yenn, was it cheeky?!" He called out to the woman who was now standing a few meters ahead.
"It was." Yenn gave an answer as she ran through her system screen.
"Hehehe." Getting the answer he wanted, the man laughed provokingly.
"Get off me Jiten!" Enzo pushed the other man's arm away, clicking his tongue.
"By the way." Yenn took her head away from her screen. "Do any of you two know if he's done yet?"
"He took the other half of the desert on his own but, I'm sure he should be done by now." Enzo answered.
"Oh right. Didn't he say to send him a message when we're done?" Jiten raised.
"Oh yeah I'll —"
"No!"
Before Enzo could try contacting the person they were talking about, Jiten suddenly stopped him.
"Texting is boring, no?" He said. "Why don't you just make 'fireworks' to signal him."
Enzo turned to look at his friend, like Jiten was stupid.
"Come on~ It'll be fun!" Jiten pushed as he asked with a cute face.
Enzo sighed.
"He might be too far away for him to see my 'firework' show. Plus..." Enzo pointed to the two dead beasts way back. "Those guys are too skinny for it to possibly work well."
"Aww." Jiten's shoulder slumped in disappointment.
However, no sooner than when a sigh came from his mouth than they started hearing loud and menacing footsteps.
ROAR!!!!!
Catching the sudden mighty bestial roar, and seeing the sheer size of the animal approaching them, Jiten's eyes glistened with happiness.
As the other two looked behind them, they saw a 100 foot tall elephant like beast trumpeting its way towards them.
Its trumpeting sounded so loud and blaring one could mistake it for the signal of judgement day, and the force of its stumps were such to leave a person wondering how the ground could still hold its weight.
No doubt, with the amount of tremors this beast was making, the three knew they had just encountered the king of this desert.
[Level 6.5: Quake Oliphant]
"Damn you!" Enzo suddenly cursed at Jiten for some reason.
"Hey, what did I do?" Jiten put on an innocent expression.
"Pft." Enzo spat in irritation and started walking towards the beast.
After a few more giant steps, the enraged beast rose one of its legs up to stomp the little pest beneath it.
But this little pest just happened to bear the title, "Lord".
As the elephant pushed it's leg down...
Pang!
...it struck a strange barrier.
Looking around, the elephant suddenly found itself inside a translucent black sphere that had some parts stuck underground.
Enzo clenched his raised palm with a rather calm look on his face, and at the same instant, the sphere shrunk down into the size of a tennis ball.
Enzo caught the ball as it fell from the sky and handed it to Yenn. "My lady."
Yenn took the ball that was now filled with red without minding Enzo.
She pointed it to the sky and soon the ball shot out of her palm, faster than any bullet.
BOOM!!!!!!
The sphere around the ball vanished and the red inside burst with a crimson bang of fire, causing a nuclear explosion like blast in the sky.
For a while, the blue sky was dyed in red and Jiten just stared upwards with glistening eyes.
"Beautiful." He muttered.
"You think he got the message?" After the 'firework' show, Enzo turned to ask Yenn.
"It's too conspicuous to not notice a message like that."
No sooner had Yenn said that than they suddenly heard an explosion as loud as the blood ball's.
Looking at the now pink sky, they could make out a white line descending down on them like a shooting star.
Yenn smiled while the two boys with her ran in panic, away from the landing spot of this object.
"Hi..." She waved at the falling body of white, her face depicting a bright smile that deeply contrasted her previous indifference.
"...Bro."
The object landed.