703 Strong-Willed

Scarlet's situation was exactly that. Although she had some potential, she was a far cry from the others here. Laura and the others probably did not expect that to happen.

Not only had her limbs and body functions been frozen, but even her consciousness seemed to have slowed. And that was merely the beginning. The power of absolute zero was infinite; it could capture and freeze all sorts of materials that passed through this patch of cold, and nothing could escape.

That included the mind and soul.

Maybe that was death. She truly tried; she wanted to be closer to Wang Zhong. In fact, Scarlet already knew that Wang Zhong would definitely have a different future from ordinary people — one she would never be in. Emotions were irrelevant in her case. Ever since humans discovered the Dimensional World, the strong became unstoppable in terms of dimensional mysteries and natural talent determined one's life. She just wanted to see — as much as possible — how far Wang Zhong could go, and what his final destination would be.

However, it was a sliver of extravagant hope.

Scarlet couldn't help it. The people around her slowly disappeared, satisfied. Soon, she was left alone. Death was waiting for her, instead of evolution.

The same situation had happened in the Dimensional World before. The reason why the Federation did not use this on Wang Zhong was that they knew that if Wang Zhong was allowed to enter, he would be the first to experience an epiphany instead of dying.

It would feel awesome to watch a movie in the golden desert while eating popcorn. But for someone dying of thirst, it would be a nightmare.

The yellow sand began surging as a mutated lizard, around the size of a palm, poked its head out of a sand hole after it noticed the scent of fragrant meat. It may have been a small piece of meat, but for any species which lived in the desert, all edible things were not to be wasted. Its pair of green eyes started to rotate, looking around vigilantly.

Everything was calm and peaceful. It then spotted a Sand Scorpion around its size which had died quite some time ago. After being left under the scorching sun and on the dry sand, even the outer shell had curled up.

The small mutated lizard seemed a little disappointed. The Sand Scorpion was definitely the most disliked thing in the desert. Although they were not huge in size, most mutated Sand Scorpions had terrifying venoms. Moreover, there wasn't much flesh on them, and the shell was extremely hard. Their flesh had a very sour, rotten taste and contained a certain degree of toxicity as well. As the returns obviously did not match the effort, other species mostly avoided them. As for such an old carcass, that bit of flesh it originally had was probably long gone.

After confirming that there was no danger, the small mutated lizard eventually decided to come out to take a look, hoping that there would be remnants of flesh remaining in the carcass so that it could have a snack.

But as soon as it climbed out of the hole, a sense of danger hit it. A pair of human hands suddenly came from above and caught it.

Si si si si si!

The small mutated lizard squealed in fright. Although it was young and had never encountered humans before, it knew that it was impossible for the other party to have good intentions.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

Following the squeals of the small mutated lizard, the layer of sand underneath suddenly began to shake.

"Be careful. A big one is coming!" Sister Hong leaned on a sand dune dozens of meters away. She chose to stand farther away to avoid causing more trouble for the others. Anyways, with her collapsed Soul Sea, she would definitely be unable to help with catching their food.

Not long after, the yellow sand tumbled and a huge mutated lizard — around two meters in length — charged out of its hole as it bellowed loudly. It had a huge body shaped like a crocodile and a very thick external skin. The yellow mutated crystal on its forehead was casting light on its dark green eyes, making them look extremely scary.

Wang Zhong, Gong Yi, and Reynolds were in place long ago, lying in ambush around the area.

Just then, Reynolds began to attack, wielding his large runic blade. By the time the mutated lizard looked up as it sensed danger, the sharp blade had already been stabbed into its neck. While Reynolds grew exhausted from that attack, he unexpectedly failed to kill the lizard as the blow was resisted by its thick hide.

Fortunately, Wang Zhong had already come out from the side and held the thing's neck with sheer brute strength. At the same time, Gong Yi stabbed the eyes of the huge lizard with his dagger. The mutant sand lizard screamed as it frantically struggled. With its exuberant vitality, it tumbled around more than ten meters with Wang Zhong still holding on to it. As Reynolds and Gong Yi both joined to subdue it, all four were caught up in a tangle.

To survive, they followed the laws of nature.

Eventually, the mutated sand lizard convulsed on its back before finally taking its last breath. They then stopped to observe their catch and saw a yellow mutated crystal on its forehead; it was merely a 2nd rank mutated beast! In normal times, Wang Zhong wouldn't even need to flick a finger to kill it, but now, the three of them were exhausted dealing with just one.

However, everyone was not disheartened. This was already a gift from God; they had food and something to quench their thirst. As Sister Hong's injuries were the most severe, their only source of water was given to her. Gong Yi and Reynolds immediately deskinned the lizard with their daggers as everyone sat around it.

Their mouths were filled with blood as they feasted on their kill directly.

It may be fate if a group of people gathered together, but if they remained together in desperate times, it definitely showed character.

It was already the 10th day in the desert. They started going north, but they had not encountered a single oasis, city, or person.

The huge geomagnetic changes made it difficult to tell the directions near the equator. They also found out that — at a location this deep — even the sun in the desert could no longer be used as a directional reference. After all, with a strong layer of radiation above, the sun was often refracted, making it just like a mirage. A few days ago, they realized that the sun had actually risen from the west. In a particular afternoon, the sun had already deviated to the west side of the mountain when it was just overhead a few minutes ago; making it impossible to judge direction with common thinking.

Wang Zhong and Gong Yi felt that they probably wasted the previous few days as they had judged north according to the direction of the rising sun in the morning. Since the position of the sun had been constantly changing, it was very likely that everyone had been walking around in circles.

It was a terrible thing to not know the cardinal directions in the desert. One could only depend on one's feelings to decide on a single direction and push through all the way. It was no longer important whether it was east, south, west, or north.

Even with the worst of luck, going all the way to the southern part of Tutankhamun would be better than being stuck in the desert and eventually dying. No matter which direction one went, as long as one did not walk around in circles, there would definitely be an end.

Obviously, they had to have sufficient energy, then they could last until the end. That little bit left in Sister Hong's bag was almost completely depleted, making the lack of supplies their biggest problem. As for food, they could occasionally hunt for things like lizards, sand foxes, or sand scorpions. They undoubtedly displayed the tenacious vitality of humans, but the water scarcity issue was rather difficult to handle.