The Beginning Of A Five Year Agony-Chapter 45: The Desert of Malice

Roar...

A low and guttural roar ripped through the silent crimson-red desert. Samuel

straightened his posture. His gaze swept across the sand-filled dunes, a landscape of endless red-colored sand stretching to a hazy horizon. He’d barely registered the sound when his eyes widened, locking onto an impossible sight.

Fins. Not of desert creatures, but of fish, cutting through the granular, red sand as if it were, the ocean...water... Their forms glinted wetly under the harsh red light, The air shimmered with heat, but the chill that ran down Samuel’s spine had nothing to do with the temperature...

In a horrifying flash, one of the larger fins launched itself from the gritty sandy surface. It wasn’t a fish... it was a shark, its powerful and fast body arcing through the air, jaws agape, a vortex of jagged teeth aimed directly at him. The attack was blindingly fast, a crimson red torpedo into the parched air.

"Faith-keeper!"

Samuel’s voice, sharp with urgency, cut through the silence. With a surge of will, he summoned his new shield. A burst of yellow light exploded from his hand, coalescing into a solid barrier just as the shark’s teeth snapped shut.

The impact reverberated through Samuel’s arm, a raw vibration against the adamantine defense. The shield pulsed, deflecting the lethal bite of the shark... with almost casual ease...

Before the momentum could fully dissipate, Samuel acted again. "Aegirion!" he shouted, the name a command rather than a mere utterance. From his skin... the blade materialized in his grasp...the blade of gleaming dark green energy...He brought it down with a practiced, sweeping arc, a single, devastating strike that slashed deep into the shark’s thick and leathery fins. A gosh of dark, viscous blood erupted, and the injured beast, its attack crippled, writhed briefly before plummeting back into the red sands, vanishing beneath the surface as if nothing had happened...

Samuel stood motionless for a while, his breath held, muscles coiled, scanning the seemingly sandy landscape...

Then he looked forward. The illusion of calm shattered. The entire desert, stretching as far as the eye could see, was filled with fins. Hundreds, thousands, of them, slicing through the red sand, a silent, predatory ocean of land-sharks. The sheer scale of it was overwhelming...

"Cry of a god!"

Samuel’s jaw tightened, a grim determination replacing the initial shock. A surge of sound erupted from him. A shockwave, invisible but devastatingly, ripped through the immediate area ahead. The red sand churned and flew outwards, debris...Nearby sharks, caught in the invisible blast, were hurled upwards, their bodies twisting grotesquely in the air like a ragdoll.

A predatory smile touched Samuel’s lips. This was a challenge he understood. In an instant, with a guttural "Boom!", he launched himself into the air, a human projectile soaring amidst the airborne sharks. His movements were a blur of motion, a dance of death. Aegirion became an extension of his will, a dark green flash of precision. He cut, he slashed, and he spun, dismembering and destroying every shark caught in his assault. No wasted movement, just efficient, brutal execution. Then, with a final, powerful kick, he sent Aegirion plummeting midair, down into the red sand below, a dark green energy... streak drilling into the earth...

As he began his descent, he activated "Hand of War." A surge of energy enveloped his blade, deepening its power. Just before his boots touched the ground, he dragged Aegirion through the sand, the blade carving a deep furrow, splitting the desert sand into two. The ground trembled, and any nearby fish-sharks caught in the path were ripped apart...

Samuel landed, his chest was beating heavily, gulping in the hot and dusty air. The initial roar, the one that had drawn him here, had not been from these sharks. They were mere scouts and small fry in a much grander and more terrifying scheme.

Then, without warning, a massive...colossal crab burst from the red sand directly beneath him, its immense claw, thick as a bus, slamming into him with bone-jarring force.

Samuel was caught by surprise, but he instinctively reacted faster than thought. He caught the monstrous claw with his bare hands, the impact shaking his entire ground but not breaking his stance...

His intense training in the "Dual Spectrum" had gifted him not more resistance, and a profound understanding of combat, a deep well of battle experience. Even Though he carried the memories of a God of War, these memories alone were like a blade... without the constant tempering of real conflict....it will get rusty...

With a grunt of effort, Samuel twisted his body, leveraging the crab’s own momentum against it. He unleashed a devastating blow, a concussive strike that sent the massive and colossal crab flying backward, tumbling end over end across the sandy dunes.

"Compared to a Black Knight, this is child’s play," Samuel muttered, a grim satisfaction in his voice. The Black Knights were truly formidable creatures of pure, unbridled malice and strength. This crab, massive as it was, paled in comparison...

"Faith-keeper!" Samuel activated his shield again, a radiant barrier of yellow light solidifying around him.

Then, with an explosive "Boom!", Samuel vanished. In a flicker of his movement, he reappeared instantly at the back of the reorienting crab. Before the creature could even his presence, Aegirion flashed. With a single, perfectly aimed strike, Samuel sliced its massive head clean off. A geyser of black blood erupted, spraying everywhere, coating Samuel in the vile, tar-like fluid...

More erupted from the red sand. Many more. The desert floor pulsed then fissured, as dozens of massive crabs, each as large as a small tank, clawed their way out, their chitinous bodies glinting menacingly...

Samuel looked up at the red-hot sun, its light a mocking glare on the landscape. He allowed himself a sigh...

"I hate seafood," he declared, the absurdity of the situation bringing a dark humor to his lips.

Three of the crabs moved with surprising agility for their size and rushed toward him simultaneously.

Samuel moved with fluidity, a movement of evasion and offense. He shifted sharply to the left, narrowly avoiding the crushing grip of the first crab’s claws.

With a lightning-fast counter, he sliced it clean off, the segmented limb thudding heavily into the sand. As he did so, the other claws of the same crab swung wildly, forcing Samuel to jump onto its thick, armored body.

He began running across its body, using it as a living platform. The other two crabs, seeing him perched precariously, attempted to hit him down, their massive claws swinging in wide, and destructive arcs. Samuel, with his supernatural agility, dodged every incoming attack, using the first crab’s body as a shield. The frantic and uncoordinated attacks of the other crubs resulted in friendly fire, as their claws slammed into their comrade, cracking its shell and sending tremors through its massive form...

"Aegirion!" Samuel shouted, his voice resonating with urgency. "Take the other one! And I’ll take the two in front!"

With an almost sentient intelligence, his blade, Aegirion, levitated from Samuel’s grasp, its dark green form shimmering as it zipped toward the third, previously untouched crab. It moved with high velocity...

Meanwhile, the crab Samuel was riding, finally got enraged by the friendly fire and then bucked violently, sending Samuel flying off its back. He somersaulted through the air, momentarily disoriented...

Then, something extraordinary happened. "Faith-keeper," Samuel’s shield, which had remained active, began to glow with an intensely bright yellow light. The essence surrounding it grew hotter, almost radiating a heat that warped the atmosphere around it...

With a concussive "Boom!", the shield exploded a beam of light rays directly at the remaining two crabs that had sent Samuel flying. The beam was not a focused laser but a wide one, obliterating wave of energy that vaporized the entire front group of crabs. Their bodies disintegrated in seconds, leaving nothing but smoking craters in the red sand...

Samuel’s eyes widened, filled with disbelief at the sheer, destructive power unleashed by the shield... It was extremely lethal, far beyond what he had expected. The shield, he realized, had been charging with kinetic energy... accumulating and storing every impact, every blow it had endured throughout the entirety of the fights, releasing it all in one catastrophic burst of beam...

Aegirion returned, materializing back into Samuel’s outstretched hands... after having cleanly dispatched the third crab, its blade now dripping with black blood...

Then, the soil beneath Samuel’s feet rippled violently... Before he could react, the red sand erupted upwards. A massive, immeasurable wide mouth, lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth, surged from the ground...It was a whale, but not of the sea...a monstrous, crimson-red whale of the desert. Its sheer size was staggering, a living canyon of flesh and bone. With terrifying speed, it swallowed Samuel whole...

He plunged into darkness, the metallic smell of blood and the suffocating pressure of being engulfed and eaten alive... But even as he fell, Samuel brought his blade to bear. He began to cut deep into the whale’s throat as he was pulled further down, a desperate attempt to wound the beast from within...

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