On the twenty-third day after entering the Great Desert, your backpack had already slimmed down to just over thirty jin. Over the past three days, you had stopped traveling in great sweeping strides, and with the cacti, desert animals, and other supplies gathered along the way, the food in your pack had barely decreased... though the varieties had changed quite a bit.
It was dusk. You planned to travel a little farther before stopping to rest for the night. You would spread out the cowhide sheet to sleep on, then set up a simple warning device around the outside using thin cords and bells.
But as you walked, you noticed that beside you—more precisely, beneath your feet—sand scorpions had gradually begun to appear. Their jointed legs scraped against the yellow sand with a rustling hiss. These scorpions, the smallest no bigger than a palm and some even the size of infants, were all crawling in the same direction.
This group of sand scorpions did not seem particularly aggressive. You reached out to grab one about five or six inches long, but it twisted its body and escaped through beneath your crotch instead.
"Interesting. My hand was already reaching for it, yet it still didn't attack. Is the stinger on that tail just for show?"
Your interest was piqued. You followed the scorpions in the direction of their march. A few hundred meters later, more and more sand scorpions surrounded you. Some attacked you, but you kicked them flying. The others did not swarm forward to avenge them.
Because they had another enemy—the Desert Worms!
Desert Worms resembled earthworms, only much thicker. Their bodies were covered in hard reddish-black shells, and they wriggled section by section using the connective tissue between their rings. As they traveled through the sea of sand, they were like fish swimming through Green Lake.
And now, desert scorpions and Desert Worms were waging a war spread across hundreds, perhaps thousands, of meters—a war into which countless members of the Insectoid Race had thrown themselves!
You saw several sand scorpions over ten centimeters long tear apart a worm with their sharp pincers. You also saw a worm nearly a meter long and as thick as a wrist swallow a small sand scorpion whole. Its mouthparts formed densely packed inner spirals. At least several hundred sharp teeth exerted force together, grinding the scorpion in its mouth into pulp in an instant.
Night had fallen. The two races had eyes only for their enemies, and most regarded you as nothing more than a moving rock. By moonlight, you watched the show peacefully for half an hour. Your horizons broadened, but you had also had your fill, so you prepared to leave.
Then, you suddenly saw a mass of sand scorpions crowding toward the heart of the battlefield. They quickly parted, revealing the one they had been surrounding: a Giant Sand Scorpion whose body, tail included, measured a full two meters long!
The Giant Sand Scorpion showed no sign of age. It brandished its massive pincers, and even great worms as thick as wrists were no more than wriggling Spicy Sticks before it. For a time, this desert tyrant dominated the battlefield!
Your steps, which had been about to carry you away, halted. Such a spectacular insect battle was a rare sight—an ordinary person might not see one even a few times in their entire life! How could you possibly give it up now?
More than ten minutes later, right before your eager gaze, one patch of desert ground bulged upward to an astonishing extent. Something like a giant worm seemed to be writhing forward beneath the yellow sand.
A small area collapsed into a pit. Then, a gigantic worm as thick as an adult's thigh emerged halfway from the sand pit. The head that was nothing but mouthparts made no sound, but the mere turning and collision of its thousand sharp teeth within its ring-shaped maw produced a spine-chilling clattering.
"Worm King showdown!" you cried in delight within your heart. To witness a battle like this, staying up all night without sleep would be worth it!
The Scorpion King raised its pincers and lifted its tail. Its stinger shot forth like a lightning-fast sword, instantly impaling a worm two feet long and lifting it up. Its two pincers snapped shut, cutting it into three sections. The three pieces of worm writhed on the sand, spraying bodily fluid.
The Worm King was no less willing to yield. It targeted a sand scorpion a foot long, leaped from the sea of sand, dragged that scorpion into the yellow sand, and devoured it clean. You also made out its full length—just over one zhang, nearly three and a half meters!
Seeing the two insect kings only thirty or forty meters apart, you looked forward even more eagerly to their passionate collision.
Then... the Scorpion King killed another worm, while the Worm King swallowed and shredded yet another sand scorpion, and then the Scorpion King snapped another scorpion worm in half...
You waited eagerly for half an hour. The two insect kings just kept bullying the weak, and not only had the distance between them not shortened, it seemed to have grown slightly.
Yun Shou: "...You two damn actors!"
Though he could only see a text simulation, he had been looking forward to an insect king battle too, all right?!
You felt deceived. There would be no insect king battle after all. These two giant bugs both followed the principle that kings did not meet kings—but you did not.
A blazing saber light shot skyward, illuminating dozens of meters around you. The light-sensitive worms cried out in pain and burrowed into the sand one after another.
Holding your long saber aloft, you drew a blazing white curtain of light across the Great Desert night. In an instant, you cleaved straight through the Worm King, whose head had only just ducked a few centimeters into the sand!
The worm's green blood and the fragments of sand scorpion inside its body splattered across the ground!
Your hair tips and cheeks were stained green. With a single strike, you had cut the Worm King into two hollow semicylinders. When you turned to look at the Scorpion King...
The Scorpion King fell silent for a moment. Its legs scratched at the yellow sand. It turned around, then put on full speed and fled.
"Hmph, trying to run?"
You leaped in a single bound, crossing the ocean of scorpions and worms. In the blink of an eye, the Scorpion King was beneath you. Force Qi erupted, immediately halting your flying momentum, and you plunged down with the force of Mount Hua splitting in two!
"Sunlit Dawn Slash!"
At that moment, everything within ten meters beneath you shone as brightly as day. Scorpions large and small abandoned their king and fled, while the Scorpion King raised its pincers and tail in despair, already doomed beyond any hope of survival!
With a thunderous boom, yellow sand erupted like mist. The Scorpion King had been cleaved alive into two halves, yet your Force Qi saber light still did not dissipate. It skimmed another three meters over the sand before fading, leaving behind a trench in the yellow earth.
The rulers of two desert races, seemingly majestic and commanding their own kind—when all was said and done, they were merely two big bugs. Any Second-rate Martial Artist could have taken down the pair of them.
After you killed the two rulers, the remaining sand scorpions descended into chaos. Few took the initiative to avenge them, while most of the worms could not endure the radiance of your Force Qi and burrowed into the sand, pushing and wriggling about beneath its surface.
You did not leave immediately. Instead, you dissected their shells on the spot and carved out their meat. Though the Scorpion King looked savage, its body was packed with protein. As a mutant far larger than the average size of its race, eating it would surely provide a Foundation enhancement effect!
You took some meat from the Worm King as well, planning to roast it and see how it tasted.
On the thirtieth day after entering the desert, you found a small canine beast. Excitedly, you followed behind it. In the end, you did not leave the desert at all, but arrived at a Desert Tribe. The people of the tribe were rough and savage; the first thing they did upon seeing you was raise their spears.
Facing the spear hurled at you, you caught it in one hand. The stone spearhead was crushed to powder in your palm!
Desert Tribe: "That was our tribe's special welcoming ceremony just now. Did you like it?"
(?▼_▼)
Before you continue