"How long should we expect to be chased?" Sun Hang asked again.

"The longest is a few minutes, the shortest is about ten seconds." Candle Dragon gripped the steering wheel tightly, his expression serious. "The speed of the sandstorm keeps changing, and it's impossible to estimate accurately."

"How far are we from the stone forest?"

"Just ahead!" Ya Qiaoxi gritted her teeth and said, "We'll be there soon!"

The speed of two cars had already reached two hundred and forty kilometers per hour, the limit of controllable range on this road. Any faster, the ground bumps alone would be enough to fling the whole car away.

Ten seconds later, a fairly large stone forest appeared right ahead in sight, and simultaneously, the sky suddenly darkened.

Sun Hang and Xue Yue turned around at the same time and looked back, only to see a sky-covering sandstorm coming towards them like a thousand-foot high wall, surging like mountains and seas!

Candle Dragon glanced at the rearview mirror with the corner of his eyes and drove silently, his hands gripping the steering wheel with bulging veins, as a vague chill permeated the car interior.

"We're alive!" Ya Qiaoxi shouted, as her motorcycle dived into the stone forest, did a 360-degree tailspin, and stopped.

Accompanied by a harsh tire screeching sound, the off-road vehicle barely stopped less than a meter away from the motorcycle, the massive inertia pressed Xue Yue firmly onto the back of Sun Hang's seat.

Sun Hang jumped off the car and looked around—generally speaking, it takes hundreds of millions of years for natural stone forests to form, starting with limestone sedimentation, then through tectonic movements lifting the limestone to the surface, exposing it, and finally enduring thousands and thousands of years of rain, wind, and sand erosion to create this peculiar landscape.

But this stone forest was not; it felt to Sun Hang as if a plant that looked like stone, grew from the ground.

The stone forest's rock texture was markedly different from the surface rock layers, not only that but at the roots of these stone pillars and stalagmites, noticeable cracking was visible. The surface rock layer in this area should have been a whole, but during the stone forest's "growth," it was forcibly crushed by huge forces, becoming what Sun Hang saw now. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The sandstorm did not continue chasing but turned a corner five hundred meters away from the stone forest.

The sand whipped by the sandstorm even started hitting the outermost stone pillars of the stone forest, producing a dense and chilling noise, but ultimately, the sandstorm did not invade the stone forest's area.

"See that?" Ya Qiaoxi raised an eyebrow at Sun Hang after removing her helmet. "The stone forest is the sanctuary for those of us surviving on the Gobi Desert."

Sun Hang circled the nearest stone pillar, he could feel a slight meme fluctuation inside the pillar—relative to the sandstorm that seemed eager to overturn the sky, the meme response of the stone forest appeared quite restrained.

High emotional intelligence calls it restrained; lower emotional intelligence would say it saves a word: weak.

"I'm curious, why is the meme response of the stone forest so weak, yet the sandstorm avoids it?" Sun Hang pondered. "The world of supernatural entities is different from the natural world we know, but I imagine the rule of the strong preying on the weak remains unchanged... From the sandstorm's sudden brake and turn behavior, it seems rather afraid of these stone forests."

"One thing subdues another." Candle Dragon gently patted a stalagmite that had just "grown" from the ground, already taller than a person. "Though meme strength can represent hard power of supernatural entities to a certain extent, there are many peculiar relations beyond hard power between supernatural entities..."

"Like?"

"Ah, if I could figure out those relationships, I wouldn't be a Hunter." Candle Dragon sighed and laughed, "Wearing a lab coat and doing research in the lab is safer than risking life out here."

"Why bother thinking about all that?" Ya Qiaoxi glanced at Sun Hang. "Supernatural objects can be both good and bad, but these eerie stone forests have never harmed humans up to now, and have even saved many lives—for this alone, I believe they are among the 'good supernatural entities'.

"True." Sun Hang glanced at Xue Yue intentionally or unintentionally.

Xue Yue, wandering among the gaps in the stone forest, then shook her head at Sun Hang, "Can't feel... Can't feel any trace of emotions."

"It's normal not to feel it. The stone forest is a dead thing... The vast majority of non-biological supernatural entities lack self-awareness, so naturally, there's no emotion." Sun Hang said.

Xue Yue nodded and moved beside Sun Hang, whispering, "I still feel a bit uneasy... after all, these things are supernatural."

Sun Hang couldn't help but find it amusing, Ya Qiaoxi, an ordinary person, wasn't afraid of supernatural entities, yet Xue Yue, with her BUG-level ability, was scared of other supernatural entities...

It's like a lively person seeing Ox Head and Horse Face without fear, but King Yama's illegitimate daughter is scared stiff by a hanging ghost by the roadside.

Sun Hang secretly decided that he should try to train Xue Yue's courage when he gets the chance... But then again, fear, tension, timidity should all be negative emotions in human terms, rounding off to Xue Yue's little snack. But when Xue Yue herself feels afraid, Sun Hang sees no negative emotion turning into shadows around her...

Is this what "physicians cannot heal themselves" means?

"Can we go out now?" Sun Hang asked.

"No, we can't." Ya Qiaoxi shook her head. "If you leave the stone forest now, there's a high chance the sandstorm will turn back to chase you."

"Does this sandstorm have an auto-targeting feature?" Sun Hang was slightly surprised.

"Haven't you noticed? You haven't seen any living creatures along the way, whether animal or plant." Ya Qiaoxi replied.

"Now that you mention it, indeed I haven't... This Gobi Desert is excessively barren, the kind that is utterly devoid of life." Sun Hang nodded.

Throughout the journey, he hadn't seen even a wilted shrub.

"Do you know what nickname Dragon City's mercenaries and Hunters gave this sandstorm?"

"Gobi Cleaner?" Sun Hang said.

"You're aware of this, so why ask so much?" Ya Qiaoxi glared at Sun Hang.

"I just read that from your mind." Sun Hang muttered inwardly.

"The supernatural sandstorm has a trait, being attracted to life on the Gobi Desert." Candle Dragon explained for Ya Qiaoxi, "Once it generates on the Gobi Desert, it automatically searches for the nearest life forms within sensing range. The higher the life strength, the more likely to become the sandstorm's priority target."

"Then why doesn't it attack Dragon City, despite all the people?"

"Dragon City has an intricate shielding system that blocks the sandstorm's perception of life within the city." Candle Dragon continued, "Moreover, when a supernatural sandstorm approaches Dragon City, all gates close immediately, prohibiting anyone from leaving until the sandstorm departs."

"What about Yumen? Yumen doesn't even have stationed troops; surely it doesn't have a shielding system like Dragon City's?"

"Yes, Yumen doesn't." Candle Dragon nodded.

"Then what happens when the sandstorm arrives?"

"Hide in a nearby stone forest or flee separately... The sandstorm only chases the group with the highest life strength, others are naturally safe." Ya Qiaoxi shrugged and said nonchalantly, "And the group with the highest life strength are usually skilled individuals, they'll lead the sandstorm away from Yumen, then find a way to hide in some stone forest... Of course, if they can't make it into the forest in time, they can only hope for better luck in the next life. In the slang here, we say 'when the sky collapses, the tall ones will hold it up for you.'"