Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Every living creature knew that the endless desert was a dangerous place.

Even the monsters that lived in the desert were always careful and cautious.

Monsters as numerous as the grains of sand in the desert lived everywhere, and among them, many were monsters of Grade S danger level.

Most Grade S monsters had their own firm territories. Unless something exceptional happened, they did not leave their territories, but when they did come out for some reason, they overturned the desert.

Because of that, the monsters of the desert, whether strong or weak, never neglected to watch their surroundings.

The Crown Bison was one of those monsters.

On the head of the giant bison, whose shoulder height exceeded three meters, were horns shaped like a crown. That was why it was called the Crown Bison.

Originally, cattle were herbivores, but the Crown Bison was carnivorous.

In a world of nothing but desert, grass could not be found, so it had evolved toward eating meat.

The Crown Bison’s prey consisted of small monsters and insects.

In order to find prey hiding deep in the sand, it always moved with its nose buried in the ground.

The sun was high in the sky, but the Crown Bison paid it no attention and continued looking for prey.

To maintain its enormous body, it needed a great deal of food. Because of that, it had to diligently wander around from morning to evening and search for prey.

The Crown Bison, which had been searching for food in a frenzy, suddenly looked down at its forelegs. It had felt something strange.

CRUMBLE!

Sand was flowing down.

At first, it did not think much of it. But the speed at which the sand flowed grew faster and faster, and the Crown Bison’s body flowed down the sand dune along with it.

Moo!

Sensing an ominous sign, the Crown Bison hurriedly tried to escape from the sand. But the more the Crown Bison struggled, the faster the sand flowed.

In the end, the Crown Bison rolled down the hill together with the sand.

THUD!

With a heavy sound, the Crown Bison’s gigantic body slammed straight into the ground.

The Crown Bison shook its head and tried to rise. But the sand hardened and constricted the Crown Bison.

The more the Crown Bison struggled to escape the sand, the stronger the pressure became.

That was when it happened.

THUD!

A Sand Missile the size of a child’s forearm smashed the Crown Bison’s head apart.

“Nice! I won’t have to worry about food for a while.”

Someone rose from the sand nearby.

It was Zeon.

All of this was Zeon’s work.

He had dragged the Crown Bison from the top of the hill with shifting sands, then finished it with Sand Missile.

He had hunted the gigantic Crown Bison in an extremely efficient way.

Zeon took a dagger from his clothes and skinned the Crown Bison.

Its body was huge, but in truth, there were not many parts humans could eat. Only the chest area, and an extremely small part of it at that, had no demonic energy and could be consumed.

Zeon cut out the edible part with the dagger.

It was only part of the chest area, but it was as large as Zeon’s torso.

Zeon carried the meat and used Sand Walk.

Sliding over the desert, he arrived before a gigantic cactus.

Beneath the cactus, which was as large as a house, Deioden was sitting.

In front of Deioden lay a gigantic Mana Stone.

It was the Mana Stone of the Grade A monster Titanoboa he had hunted yesterday.

Titanoboa was a giant monster more than twenty meters long.

As befitting a Grade A monster, it possessed a powerful Skill, but Deioden hunted it far too easily.

Titanoboa had carried an enormous Mana Stone.

As befitting a Grade A monster, it was a Mana Stone containing powerful energy.

Deioden stabbed Crayon into the Mana Stone.

Crayon was glowing red-hot.

It was a phenomenon that appeared as it absorbed the energy contained in the Mana Stone.

Because the energy contained in the Mana Stone was so immense, even absorbing it took quite some time.

Deioden was focusing all his mind to help Crayon absorb the energy of the Mana Stone.

Zeon carefully sat down and began preparing the meat he had brought.

He cut the meat into small pieces and spread them in the shade.

The moisture soon evaporated, and the meat became tough and dry.

It had become jerky.

Zeon left only one piece of jerky and stored the rest in his subspace.

He put the remaining jerky in his mouth and looked at Deioden.

Perhaps because the absorption of the Mana Stone was now reaching its final stage, Crayon was emitting intense heat.

It had already been more than a month since they left the Black Forest.

During that time, Deioden had conquered two dungeons.

Both dungeons had been buried deep under the sand, and thanks to Zeon’s help, they had been able to enter them.

Titanoboa had been the boss of the dungeon they entered yesterday.

As the master of the dungeon, it boasted powerful majesty, but to Deioden, it was less than a mere earthworm.

‘It’s unreasonable. How does a monster like that exist?’

In Zeon’s eyes, Deioden looked less like a human and more like a monster.

In the past month, Zeon had also grown dazzlingly.

He had opened his eyes to how to use sand and could now hunt ordinary monsters easily. But even he did not dare compare himself to Deioden.

SSSSHHH!

At last, all the energy of the Mana Stone was stored inside Crayon.

The Mana Stone, having lost all its energy, became an ordinary stone.

CLACK! CLACK!

Then Crayon disassembled itself in midair on its own.

Crayon, separated into its individual parts, circled around Deioden, then combined into one again.

It had evolved anew by borrowing the energy of the Mana Stone.

The evolved Crayon emitted an even more terrifying sharpness. But Deioden’s expression as he looked at Crayon was not very bright.

“It is still not enough.”

Zeon, who heard his murmur, was dumbfounded.

Crayon, which had evolved again and again, could already be called the world’s strongest weapon. Yet he said it was still not enough, which left Zeon speechless.

‘What the hell is he trying to face?’

To someone who did not know him, it would look like the path of a madman, but Zeon, who had watched him up close, knew there was consistency in his actions.

Everything Deioden did was connected to becoming stronger.

Either he strengthened himself, or he strengthened Crayon.

Like a person suffering from an obsession, Deioden was fixated on becoming stronger.

There was only one conclusion Zeon could reach.

Deioden was preparing for war.

He did not know who the opponent was, but it was clearly something burdensome even for the current Deioden. That was why he was desperately trying to become stronger.

‘Damn it! Did I make a mistake saying I’d follow him to the end?’

He regretted it slightly, but he had no intention of going back on his decision now.

Zeon threw one of the pieces of jerky he had made earlier to Deioden. Deioden chewed the jerky without saying a single word of thanks.

“Let’s go!”

After eating all the jerky, Deioden rose.

Zeon nodded and swallowed the rest of his own jerky.

Deioden had already gone far ahead. Zeon hurriedly used Sand Walk and followed Deioden.

The direction was east again.

He wondered what in the world lay at the end of this path.

‘I heard there used to be a sea this way.’

The sea.

He had only heard of it in stories passed down by word of mouth. There were almost no people who had actually seen it.

Only someone who had lived as long as Deioden would have seen the sea. Unfortunately, those born after that had never been given the chance to see it.

WHOOOM!

A strong wind blew.

Zeon closed his robe.

The robe made by the elves was light and easy to move in, but its protection was inferior to the robe made from Sand Angler skin. Because of that, he had to fasten it tightly just to block the wind.

‘Will another Sand Angler not appear?’

This time, he was confident he could catch it without being bewitched.

It was when Zeon was grumbling to himself and walking.

Deioden, who had been walking ahead, suddenly collapsed.

BANG!

Immediately afterward, a gunshot rang out in the middle of the desert.

“What the hell?”

Zeon hurriedly flattened himself against the ground.

He created a sand barrier around his body and prepared for gunfire. Fortunately, a second gunshot did not ring out.

“Where did it come from?”

At least within the range of Zeon’s senses, he could not detect any living creature.

It was clear someone had sniped from a great distance beyond the reach of Zeon’s control.

That was when it happened.

Black shadows appeared on the distant plain.

They were humans.

And not just one or two of them.

Even at a rough count, there seemed to be more than a hundred.

They were riding buggies, commonly used in the desert, and driving toward this place.

“Scavengers?”

Zeon focused mana into his eyes.

Then he could clearly see the humans approaching from far away.

“Those people?”

As Zeon looked at the buggy running at the front, he discovered familiar faces.

It was Jang Yong-beom’s party, who had saved him from the Sandworm.

Jang Yong-beom, Aiden, Mountain, and Giselle were riding in the same vehicle.

Behind their vehicle, around twenty buggies were following.

What Zeon focused on was the buggy following right behind Jang Yong-beom.

On top of the buggy, he saw a man holding a gigantic gun.

Judging by the white smoke still rising from the muzzle, it was clear that he had sniped Deioden.

“Is he a Magic Bullet Marksman?”

They were extremely rare, but among Awakened, there were those who used firearms.

People who could successfully snipe with a hundred percent chance, no matter how far away they were.

They did not display much power against giant monsters or monsters with force fields, but against humans, they were killing weapons that held an absolute advantage.

Neo Seoul made firearms combining Magic and science for them.

The sniper rifle created to snipe from outside an Awakened’s detection range had a range of more than ten kilometers.

When combined with Hawk Eyes and refined senses, the traits of a firearm Awakened, it displayed absolute power.

Just like now.

The one who had sniped Deioden from a full ten kilometers away was Rio Palona.

Rio was a sniper belonging to Numbers, the execution squad directly under Neo Seoul’s mayor.

The mayor of Neo Seoul held absolute power and operated an execution squad to remove political enemies.

CLACK!

“I was a little nervous because they called him the Massacrer, but he was nothing special.”

Rio smiled as he ejected the shell casing.

It had been a snipe from a full ten kilometers away.

No matter how remarkable an Awakened was, sensing a bullet flying in from that distance was impossible.

Then Jang Yong-beom, who was riding in the vehicle ahead, said in a loud voice,

“Do not let your guard down. The opponent is Deioden. He is a mad old man.”

“Heh-heh! What is there to be tense about when the old man is already dead?”

Rio mocked Jang Yong-beom.

He was certain Deioden was dead.

It was almost embarrassing that they had brought so many other Awakened along in preparation for danger.

“Anyway, there was one more bastard.”

Rio muttered as he loaded a bullet into the sniper rifle.

This sniper rifle was excellent in every way, but its drawback was that it could only fire one shot at a time.

Because of that, there was a delay between snipes. However, Rio was not particularly worried.

There was still a considerable distance between him and Zeon, and at that range, his sniper rifle was enough to deal with him.

He searched for Zeon and brought his eye to the scope.

Beyond the magic scope, he saw something writhing and rising.

The moment he confirmed the image in the scope, Rio murmured without realizing it.

“That’s impossible! I definitely aimed for the head.”

The being who had wriggled and risen was the old man he had successfully sniped moments ago.

SSSSHHH!

White smoke was rising from Deioden’s forehead, where the bullet had struck.

“Heh-heh!”

Inside the scope, Deioden was laughing.

Deioden pulled his arm far back, then swung it with all his strength.

SHAAAK!

At that instant, a terrifying tearing sound rang through the desert.

Jang Yong-beom hurriedly shouted,

“Everyone, watch out!”

CRASH—!

No sooner had his words ended than the vehicle Rio was riding in exploded.

A gigantic longsword was embedded in the exploded vehicle.

It was Crayon.

Jang Yong-beom hurriedly looked for Rio.

When he confirmed Rio’s whereabouts, Jang Yong-beom’s face twisted.

Rio had been pierced through by Crayon and was stretched out like a frog.

There was no need to check whether he was alive.

He had clearly died instantly.

Jang Yong-beom’s mouth twisted.

“You monstrous old man!”