The beast was chewing on some beasts it just killed, completely distracted.
Its black jagged fangs bit and tear at the beast.
Emma looked at the scene and used her Magic Core and senses to probe the beast without alerting it.
"It's a 3 Spark beast."
Lelia and Lucas nodded and turned to each other to talk about a plan.
"I will stay behind and attack from afar, Emma should attack first to grab the beast's attention after our surprise attack, and Lucas will be the killing-strike."
"Who will be defending you?"
"I guess you until your turn, Lucas."
"Got it."
Lelia took a few steps back and got her weapon out while Lucas went up to Emma and told her the plan.
Emma slowly moved towards the beast while moving in a strange way.
She would jump at times or stomp, run or walk, sometimes even staying still for several seconds. Her movements where trying to mimic that of sand in the wind.
If Emma had walked like normal towards the beast in the sand, then it would have noticed her a long time ago with its habitat affecting its senses.
Having gotten 4 feet away from the beast, Emma saw its forowsiness up close.
Many battle scars in the shape of claws or cracks were on the surface of the shell.
There was a cluster of them on the top of its head, making an opening near the Beast Core.
It seems that the sand scorpion fought some quite similar in strength with it, which weakened it significantly.
Emma aimed her sword towards the cracks and strikes at it with full force.
The scorpion felt its shell breaking many times over with pain and moved towards what had cause it.
Seeing that it was a human, the scorpion had now considered Emma as prey out of hunger and anger, dropping and forgetting about the meal it was just eatting.
Now that Emma had the beast's attention, it was time for the battle to begin.
Pulling on her bow, Lelia shot out a few arrows covered in wind to increase it's speed.
The arrow tips hit through the shell into the muscles.
The scorpion tried to find out who had done the attack but was too distracted by Emma's constant advancements.
Arrow after arrow hit the beast, some missing while some others hit bullseye.
The scorpion swung its tail towards Emma in hopes of stinging her to discrete poison into her, but failed from Emma's dodging skills.
This went on for a while before something happened.
**TUACK**
one of the claws of the beast smacked Emma on the side, making her tumble across the desert a bit.
It would take sometime for her to recover but it was exactly what they had been waiting for.
With Emma being far, the scorpion went to get her when suddenly a portal appeared infront of it.
Though the portal, a sharp spear tip went the other side of the portal and hit the scorpion's exposed muscles on the head while hearing a cracking sound coming from within the beast.
**CRACKK**
Hearing that Lucas hit the Beast Core, the group was ecstatic about it.
Lelia almost relaxed when the scorpion moved it tail towards Emma as a last ditch effort to take down her with them.
But she wasn't weak and easily dodged the incoming attack.
After using its last bit of energy on struggling, the beast's movements came to a stop and gone limp.
Emma used her sword to chip away at the shell and cut through the head to get to the Beast Core.
Beast material was valuable but not as much as a Beast Core.
She picked up the Core covered in blood and guts and put it in the bag that they had brought before and left on the ground.
Lucas came up to Emma and put his hand into a high five
She looked at the hand and didn't do anything.
"Hahahahhh…"
He put his hand down seeing that Emma didn't respond back and picked up the bag from her hands.
"Let's go look for more beasts now."
Emma nodded while Lelia ran over to join them.
*****
….
….
….
Roseline walked for a while under the sun's heat, slightly sweating.
'Maybe it wasn't a good choice.'
She was starting to double guess her decision as it seemed like the ring could only help for a little bit.
But she still wasn't going to lose this chance of finally being able to go out.
She increased her senses to the highest to see if she can spot any beasts to fight.
But after walking for so long, she had encountered none.
'That's strange…'
She thought about stopping and going back but in the end continued forward.
A small change started to happen with the sand as its color turned gray the more she moved.
Roseline didn't know how far she was or even if the teachers might be able to intervene when it gets dangerous.
But it was as if something was calling out to her.
Opportunity.
Opportunity was calling out to her.
Singing it's beautiful song and alluring Roseline to continue on her lonely journey.
Deep within the darkening desert, a giant canyon can into view.
Clouds as dark as the night sky shook with lightning dancing up and down from the heavens and earth.
Dark gray rocks and mountains cover the area, giving the atmosphere a gloomy and mysterious feel.
Unlike in the desert, it was humid as if in a swamp, making it harder for Roseline to move constantly.
Though the fact that there wasn't a sun anymore helped her more.
Looking at the canyon, Roseline felt a cold shiver go up her spine.
Her instincts were telling her not to go there, not matter what.
But it's as if the dark canyon had casted a spell on her, unable to leave it behind.
'I should probably return and come back tomorrow… This place must have something special if the surroundings are like this.'
Turning her head, she saw the familiar sight that she had gotten use to after a month.
——— SYSTEM ———
Explore the dark canyon.
Reward: +1,000 XP and ???
Defeat: Death.
——————————