Chapter 169. Heat and bones

Southern Continent.

South of the Eldorath Empire and Cyrenthia Empire.

Near the Karha Desert.

A young man with black hair and blue eyes, dressed in a hoodie, walked out of a forest.

Aiden was greeted by winds sweeping across the desert. The winds carried sands with them, sweeping across the forest.

The temperature rose to insane heights.

Because there were no trees on the desert, no tree canopies existed to block the direct, scorchy rays of the sun.

A bead of sweat trickled down Aiden’s face the moment his feet greeted sand.

Aiden’s gaze scanned across the desert. There were only rocks, winds, and sands.

His eyes turned crimson. He narrowed his eyes as his enhanced vision scanned distances far and wide. But nothing came into view.

"The closest city near this forest is Rustwater town? I was expecting to be able to pick up on the location of the town with my enhanced sight but... it seems I will have to move across the desert for a while before I get there," Aiden said.

He tuned up his sense of smell and hearing.

When he scanned the terrain with his enhanced sight, he didn’t notice any chaotic beasts in the locality his scan had covered.

He wanted to use his smell and hearing to pick up on any animalistic sounds and smell so that he would know how to navigate the terrain.

Eventually, Aiden picked up on some hissing sounds across the terrain. The sounds were spread across different places across the terrain.

His sense of smell also picked up an abnormal scent from several places beneath the desert sand. There was no way this smell belonged to humans.

Also, the hissing sounds belonged to chaotic beasts.

"Either sandworms are lurking beneath the sand, or snakes are lurking beneath the sand. Unfortunately, they are probably hiding so deep in the ground that I cannot determine their ranks," Aiden thought.

"I should fly across the forest covertly and avoid them," Aiden decided.

Blobs of blood appeared at his back and transformed into tiny crimson wings that attached themselves to his back in his hoodie.

Aiden flew across the desert. Because he had marked the places he heard the sounds and smells of the creatures from, he managed to covertly avoid stepping at places that would trigger the attention of the creatures lurking beneath the sand.

As he flew across the terrain, he came across certain humanoid skeletons. Some of them were half buried in the sand and others lay completely bare above the sand.

The winds blew sand across the place, causing his black hair to billow in the wind.

Aiden looked at the skeletons.

"Good thing I was careful. The snakes or sandworms hiding in the ground must have killed them."

He continued scanning across the terrain.

Very soon, he squinted his eyes.

He saw a group of humans in battlesuits heading in his direction; some creatures were chasing them. They were a long distance away from their current location.

Giant sandworms. The creatures burrowed in and out of the desert sand. Their mouths were completely open. They were spewing sand balls at the humans. But the humans were evading the creature with skilled precision. Clearly, they were experienced. They had probably been hunting across the desert for a while and knew the movement patterns of the creature.

"Legendary rank 1 warriors. Saving them from the legendary rank 1 sandworms will be beneficial to me. They can guide me to Rustwater town."

Aiden had initially thought of locating the town himself. But it was proving difficult. Had he known it would have been this hard, he would have kept the lady he killed earlier alive and allowed her to guide him there. When they neared the town, he would just eliminate her.

But what had happened had happened.

Fortunately, he had encountered these fellows.

Ahead, the group of legendary rank 1 warriors were terrified.

"Shit. I’m almost out of worldly energy reserves!" a lady cursed.

"Seriously, how the hell did we encounter this many of them? We simply wanted to hunt just ten, right?" a tall dude added.

"We had no choice. We need to pay our taxes. Damn it. Rustwater town is a real shit hole. If we didn’t step out, we would have been killed anyway. As for those of us who are women, we would have been raped and turned into sex objects or worse," another lady chimed in.

"It’s like that all across the Kahra Desert. Even if we go to the other towns it’s like that. Also, the tax collectors from the cities arrive in towns with vehicles to carry along only those in the towns with enough money to afford going to the cities. The tax collectors from MadCity won’t be here till a month from now. In our case, we will rot in Rustwater town forever. We don’t have money to pay for the transport to go to MadCity," a guy said.

"But what’s the point? Why are you guys talking about all this now? We are all gonna die!" another dude said.

He didn’t even finish when one of the sandworms neared him. Its serrated teeth closed in around him.

The creature gobbled him up. His dying screams echoed across the place.

A glint of voraciousness flashed through the sandworm’s eyes.

The other legendary rank 1 sandworms didn’t want their colleague to overtake them.

They also had to kill these tiny creatures.

"Shit. Marcus is dead!"

"Use everything you’ve got to escape!"

The group manifested their affinities around them, and used aerial maneuvering to propel themselves forward, attempting to widen the gap between them and the creatures.

The group looked towards a particular direction as they tried to figure out a way to lose the creatures.

Suddenly, they squinted their eyes.

Someone was flying towards them. A black-haired fellow in a hoodie. The person was pretty close by.

He didn’t have any affinity manifesting across him. So how was he flying? Only rank 4 warriors could fly without using their affinities.

This guy was definitely not a rank 4 warrior.

This was because they noticed the crimson eyes of the person and deduced that the person had most likely used their affinity to fly.

But they just couldn’t see it or something.

All sorts of strange affinities existed after all. This fellow was definitely using aerial maneuvering.

"He must be someone strong. Maybe he can help us?"

"Yeah, with the way he has managed to maintain aerial maneuvering for long, he must be at least a beginner rank 2 warrior."

Glints of hope flashed through the eyes of the group.

Aiden listened to their conversation from afar.

"They are also from Rustwater town alright. Also, it seems I will have to wait for a month till I can leave Rustwater town. As for money to go to MadCity, I have a lot," Aiden thought. "Anyway, I shouldn’t delay saving these guys any longer. They are my guide to Rustwater town."