Dah'ren Mohran

"If the caravan leader's here, that caravan hunter should be aboard too."

Li Le picked up his telescope and continued watching.

But after looking for quite a while, he saw no one on deck besides the crew.

"Maybe they're resting in a cabin..."

"Ah, meow! A Delex jumped onto the deck!"

Kaluo shouted.

Li Le turned around.

An ugly, fishlike creature with bloodshot eyes and a pointed crocodilian snout was thrashing and darting about on deck.

Clack~ Clack~

The Delex kept opening and closing its jaws full of fine, needlelike teeth, as if trying to bite something and carry it off the Sandworm.

The Felynes scattered, fetched weapons, and surrounded it in a defensive standoff, ready to gang up on it at any moment.

Squelch!

A golden sickle claw pierced down, pinning the bleeding fish head to the deck.

Another Delex leaped up outside the sandship's bulwark, saw this, twisted in midair, and jumped back into the sand.

"Good job, Sisi! Get a pot and start a fire! We're eating fresh!"

At noon two days later, the sun blazed fiercely.

Every sandship in the traveling formation had been coated in the color of sand.

Li Le picked up his telescope and looked toward the sandship carrying the caravan leader.

"The black-haired receptionist with glasses and a green shawl, the tall Wyverian hammering a shortsword on an anvil... I already saw those two caravan members the night before last. We're almost at Val Habar, and the caravan hunter still hasn't shown up. Could they not be aboard that sandship?"

Just as Li Le was wondering about this.

Several shadows of outstretched, gliding wings fell over the speeding sandship convoy.

Kaluo, who was on lookout duty, tilted his head up to observe.

"A flock of Remobra is approaching from above, meow!"

After confirming this, Kaluo ran to the stern to keep watch.

An immense gray sandstorm with no visible end was surging toward them from behind at high speed.

"Circling, trailing Remobra and a huge sandstorm-both signs have appeared, meow. That means..."

After a brief moment of shock, Kaluo ran to the bell on deck, gripped it, and shook it furiously while shouting, "Dah'ren Mohran is nearby, meow! Sandworm, prepare for battle!"

Inside the cabin, the Felynes resting between shifts jolted awake.

They put on goggles to shield their eyes from windblown sand and hurried onto the deck.

They secured safety tethers made of fine insect silk around their waists and immediately went into action.

Clang! Ding-clang!...

Throughout the sandship formation, all sorts of warning clangs rang out.

The previously scattered sandships quickly shifted into an orderly formation.

The large, armed sandships moved to the outside of the convoy on their own.

Small sandships like the Sandworm moved to the safer inner area.

Rumble~ Rumble~...

As the vibrations in the decks beneath their feet rapidly intensified, everyone looked toward the sand beside the convoy.

Boom! The sand erupted.

A spike-shaped "mountain," lying horizontally in the sand and sliding along at high speed, gradually surfaced.

"Dah'ren Mohran doesn't seem to have noticed the mountain ahead, meow. We might have a chance to escape!"

The shocked Kaluo quickly resumed his duties as lookout and called out the warning.

"No, it doesn't need to notice at all... Everyone, get down and take cover!!!"

After speaking, Li Le tightened the insect silk around himself a little more, then dropped flat where he stood.

Seeing Dah'ren Mohran for the first time, Sisi was still staring intently at it.

Li Le immediately shouted a reminder, "Stop looking, Sisi! Get down!"

Sisi turned and saw the human and cats lying flat all over the deck.

Sisi followed suit, drawing in all four insect legs and bending down flat.

Without swerving or dodging, Dah'ren Mohran drove its enormous conical horn straight into the mountain ahead.

Crack-boom!

The mountain split, sending chunks of rock flying.

After Dah'ren Mohran passed through the fissure, the entire mountain broke apart and collapsed.

Bang! Bang!...

Flying rocks and billowing dust surged toward the sandship convoy.

Clang! Clang!...

There aren't even any cannons mounted aboard, so where's that metallic banging coming from?

Lying flat with his hands over his head, Li Le craned his neck to look.

He discovered that the sounds came from rocks striking Sisi.

"Bear with it, Sisi..."

As Li Le spoke, he suddenly noticed a shadow on the deck.

Seeing it expand rapidly, he jerked his head up.

An enormous boulder was hurtling down toward the Sandworm from above.

I don't know if I can withstand that... Whatever!

Li Le rose, took down his bone staff, and prepared to try smashing it.

Clang-clang-clang!

A rapid succession of sickle-claw taps rang out.

Sisi rarely acted this urgently, so Li Le guessed it was a signal.

Turning to look, he saw Sisi staring at the boulder while extending and adjusting both claws and tail, and immediately understood the intent.

Sisi's telling me to get down!

After saying this, Li Le dropped flat again.

Squelch!

Insect silk shot onto the boulder's surface, and the sickle claws on either side wound it in alternately, quickly pulling it taut.

Then Sisi spun, forcibly dragging the boulder off its falling course and making it land ahead of the sandship.

Bang! Bang!...

But as the taut silk swept across, it tore away the wooden bulwark along half the ship.

A few insect cages also fell into the sand.

Faced with a crisis that could have destroyed the ship and killed the cats, losses of this extent were entirely acceptable.

Yet two faint flashes of red appeared in Sisi's purple compound eyes.

Creak~

The insect silk neither came loose nor broke, but tightened once more.

Sisi continued turning.

Crack!

The deck beneath the insect legs splintered, and the Sandworm tipped heavy at the bow and light at the stern, shifting into a diagonal slide.

The enormous boulder that had landed in the sand swung up.

To avoid sweeping into the mast, Sisi swung it through only half a circle before hurling it away.

A round opening burst through the dust-filled sky.

Crash!

The boulder struck Dah'ren Mohran's back, smashing an attached layer of rock to pieces and exposing a dark red outer shell embedded with various glittering mineral veins.

Seeing that the counterattack had had no effect whatsoever on Dah'ren Mohran, Sisi froze.

With its enormous conical horn blocking the front of its head, Dah'ren Mohran had extremely poor vision.

But this also meant its round eyes could observe movements on either side.

Amid the shroud of gray dust, just as it locked onto a certain sharp golden gleam, that gleam suddenly vanished.

Aboard the Sandworm, behind the bulwark.

A human and an insect were hiding flat on their bellies.

"Hopefully it didn't notice you... Didn't yesterday's little lesson focus specifically on Dah'ren Mohran? Don't attract its attention."

Since this Elder Dragon had already been confirmed to be active nearby, Li Le would certainly make a point of introducing it to Sisi.

Sisi lowered that head and tilted it toward the other side, looking at the deck where the bulwark had been swept away, clearly unwilling to let it go.

"I'm upset too that the Sandworm we worked so hard to modify got damaged, but if you want to survive for long in this harsh ecosystem, it's important to know when to yield and when to stand firm. Besides, even if you really can't take it anymore, you can call in teammates and work together to find an opening to strike."

Li Le offered this guidance.

Sisi tilted that head in thought; without drawings on the drawing board and demonstrations through gestures, the content seemed somewhat difficult to understand.

"If that's something you find confusing, then this trip to Val Habar was the right choice."

After speaking, Li Le leaned his shoulder against the bulwark and closed his eyes to listen.

The dust stirred up by the collision with the mountain dispersed as they raced onward.

Bwooo~ Bwooo~...

Deep horn calls echoed around them.

Bang! Bang!...

A volley of cannon fire rang out, immediately followed by the whistle of heavy ballista bolts.

Behind the wooden bulwark, the human's and insect's heads slowly peeked out in unison.

Dust flew over the sand ahead.

Several large sandships laden with weapons raced alongside Dah'ren Mohran, unleashing fierce fire into its flank.

"Sisi, this is what cooperation means. Never mind throwing a boulder back at it now-even if you climbed onto Dah'ren Mohran's back to mine ore, it wouldn't have time to deal with you."

Li Le pointed ahead as he explained.

Sisi understood: the counterattack itself had not been the problem; the timing had been wrong.

After a brief moment of shock, Sisi drew a circle in the air with a sickle claw.

"All of this was my plan... Well, not everything went according to plan. After all, the plan for fighting back if we encountered it had already been settled before departure."

Li Le explained with gestures.

The purple spots of light in Sisi's compound eyes all gathered in their centers, as though Sisi was convinced Li Le had planned everything.

"Then what job were our small sandships assigned, meow?"

Kaluo asked curiously.

The large sandships provided escort and fought to hold off Dah'ren Mohran.

Though the small sandships lacked decent armaments, they ought to be able to serve some purpose at least.

"Sigh~ The job of our small sandships is actually..."

Before the sighing Li Le could finish, a crash rang out ahead.

Dah'ren Mohran had drawn close and rammed sideways with the pillar-like spikes of hard shell covering its body.

A large sandship failed to dodge in time and shattered with a crash.

With the hull itself broken apart, the safety tethers naturally became useless.

The Delex in the sand and the Remobra in the sky.

They seemed to have been waiting a long time for this scene, and swarmed toward it in droves.

"Rescue them!"

As Li Le spoke, the Sandworm did as the other small sandships did.

It broke away from the center of the convoy and moved directly behind the battle with Dah'ren Mohran.

The Felynes picked up various tools and reached them into the sand.

Long-handled insect nets, looped ropes...

The small sandships' low hulls and ample maneuverability were put to full use at this moment.

"Hey! Don't loop that around my neck!"

A crew member cried in terror.

"Sorry, meow!"

The Felyne loosened the rope and extended a long-handled insect net for the crew member to grip and pull against, helping them onto the deck.

Rumble~ Rumble~...

The ground shook with increasing frequency as Dah'ren Mohran lowered its head into the sand, opened its enormous mouth, and began swallowing sand and earth.

Warning gongs rang incessantly, and all the large sandships attacking alongside it began rapidly withdrawing.

Dah'ren Mohran turned its head sideways and opened its abyss-like maw.

Whoosh! Boom!

An enormous pillar-shaped blast of air swept across the sand, crushing everything in its path.

Two large sandships caught in it instantly disintegrated.

Hunters and crew, Felynes and Melynx, crates and barrels, broken masts-all drifted through the air.

Injuries from falling here might not be too severe.

But with Delex and Remobra hunting ahead and a huge sandstorm close behind, their chances of survival were slim indeed without timely rescue.

"There are too many in this wave. You're up, Sisi."

As Li Le spoke, he dragged an enormous net woven from insect silk over from the stern.

Without hesitation, Sisi immediately used insect silk to stick to it and connect it.

Whoosh!

The net plunged into the sand, tightened, and rose as Li Le and the Felynes dragged several people out.

They cast it in again and hauled it up.

Like a master fisher, Sisi kept scooping batches of people and Felynes out of the sand.

"Secure the wounded with silk first so they don't fall again! If there's no room, guide everyone into the cabin for now. That side of the deck has no bulwark, so stay away from it..."

Under Li Le's guidance, the chaos soon settled.

At this point, perhaps because of severe exhaustion, Dah'ren Mohran's advance slowed noticeably.

"Uh... I guess we just barely made it through."

Looking at Dah'ren Mohran's enormous, immovable bulk, Li Le let out a long sigh.

Boom! Boom! ...

The cannons sounded again as the large sandships engaging it alongside them began rotating out.

"That's the Caravaneer's sandship!"

Li Le immediately turned his attention to it.

After all, if something really went wrong, he could still attempt a rescue from here.

Wearing an orange cowboy hat, the Caravaneer still stood calmly with his arms folded before Dah'ren Mohran, continually directing the crew in battle.

One young male crew member in shorts stood out in particular.

Not only was he extremely fast at carrying and loading cannonballs, but his expressions and movements were also much calmer than those of the other crew members.

"Could that be the caravan hunter... No, wait. I don't think he started out as a sailor."

As Li Le muttered, he remembered the terrifying fare for taking a sandship to Val Habar as a passenger.

Although, judging by the current situation, it was more than worth the price.

But for a one-star hunter, it was truly hard to afford.

"So that's it. My bro must've become a crew member to save that money. What a genius idea..."

Boom!

Dah'ren Mohran's charge missed, sending huge clouds of sand billowing up.

The powerful blast blew the Caravaneer's hat into the air.

After tumbling several times, it caught on the tip of a rock pillar on Dah'ren Mohran's back.

The Caravaneer, who had remained calm all this time, now panicked, as though that cowboy hat was extremely important to him.

To Li Le's surprise, the Caravaneer did not order anyone to try retrieving the hat.

Judging by his gestures to the helmsman, he was having the sandship draw as close as possible.

"So that bro isn't the caravan hunter?"

Just as the Caravaneer braced both hands on the bulwark and prepared to leap out.

Several crew members came forward to stop him and talk him out of it. Clearly, climbing onto its back was far too dangerous.

Whoosh~

A fishing line whipped out, its hook catching the brim of the hat precisely before swiftly drawing it back.

The person holding up the fishing rod behind the bulwark was none other than the crew member Li Le had been watching.

The Caravaneer was astonished, and the two began discussing it.

Crash!

A large sandship farther ahead shattered under an impact.

Li Le had no time to keep watching and once again directed the rescue efforts.

Before long, signal flares of various colors suddenly burst above the sandship formation.

They served both to warn Val Habar that Dah'ren Mohran and the great sandstorm were approaching and to request more support.

"Sisi, the crisis will be over soon."

Li Le spoke excitedly.

Sisi looked at the colored smoke circling in the sky, not quite understanding.

Wooo~ Wooo~...

Clang~ Clang~...

Not until the low calls of horns and the clanging of gongs came from afar.

Sisi finally understood that another wave of allied reinforcements was about to arrive.

"Remember this scene. As long as we hold on a little longer, victory will come."