Chapter 423 - The Strong Remain 1

"Hurry, we have to take shelter from the sandstorm...over at that sand dune. We'll start digging over there!"

"C-captain, I just lightly scanned the area ahead, there aren't any monsters there..."

"Okay, thanks Kira, but you should refrain from using many for these kinds of things. Remember, we might need it for a more serious situation," Gabriel said.

"Okay, captain."

Kira nodded at his words and the 3 rushed ahead to the dune they picked out.

Angelia sent out her Oroboros to bore through the dune and had Mao begin digging. Her large monster had followed after her inside the ruins when they were first dragged in here and luckily, they weren't separated.

She remembered her first day here. She and Mao had been thrown into an empty plain and it took them a few days of walking through the plains and arriving at a forest before they met up with Kira.

Kira had been able to traverse the plains by avoiding all of the monsters by using his particularly good senses and scans to stay hidden whenever any monsters came by. He was stuck near the forest only because he couldn't hide from the monsters any longer.

The 2 were able to team up and complete the first and second stage but were stuck on the third stage's hellfire area. Maria didn't want to summon her hydragon while completing the stages and wanted to rely on her own strength because was rewarded for completing each section of the stage.

She had thought of the trials as some sort of game where if she did well, she would be rewarded. It wasn't until the third stage when Kira was nearly burnt alive did she summon her Nessie. They were able to escape from their dire situation, but they were stuck. The hellfire stage favored fire element monsters and Nessie, being a water elemental monster, was at a disadvantage.

What more, there were hordes of monsters on this stage who relied on their environmental advantage to put Angelia's Nessie at a disadvantage. The monsters couldn't kill the hydragon, but Angelia and Kira couldn't advance.

Angelia also couldn't summon a few of her monsters. She had brought her Skeleton Champion,

Mao, Chi, Nessie, Jewel, the 3-headed golden snake, and a few others, but she couldn't summon them.

Other than Mao, Jewel, and Nessie, all the others including Chi couldn't be summoned. Chi was in her small bird form, but it was like she was asleep. No matter how hard Angelia tried to connect with her or call her out, Chi wouldn't respond and just remain asleep.

It was the same for all her other monsters, so Maria thought that the trials had placed some sort of restriction on her ability to use them. With no way forward, the two kids could only wait and hope someone would rescue them.

They didn't know how many days they waited before Gabriel reunited with them. Their sense of time inside this place was skewed since night and day didn't change so it was hard to keep track.

After they reunited with Gabriel, the trio was able to pass through the third stage by means of stealth and quickly picking off any monster that detected them. With Gabriel's skillset, it was easy to take down a monster swiftly and stealthily.

There were a few close calls, but they were able to pass through the stage after 'assassinating' the stage's guardian monster.

The next stage was somewhat easy since they had Nessie, the fourth stage was an ocean stage so it was naturally the place where Nessie could show his worth.

The stage was only somewhat easy because there were other absurd ocean monsters that when grouped together gave even Nessie a hard time to deal with. The fights would normally be between Nessie and those monsters, while Gabriel, Angelia, and Kira were in a supporting role.

None of them had Cecil's long-ranged wide-scale mana attacks so it was hard for them to help Nessie when the monsters they were fighting were those that had half his size or more. Not to mention the monsters came at Nessie in droves and they had a hard time just dodging the monsters' large-scale attacks.

They didn't know how long they spent on this ocean stage but when they finally found the transfer gate to the next stage, they were suddenly besieged by the guardian monster that was so much more powerful than Nessie.

It took so much effort to just barely escape from this monster. Fighting back wasn't an option since no matter what kind of attacks they sent the guardian monster wasn't fazed one bit.

After rushing through the transfer gate and getting sent to the next stage they arrived at the manaless desert stage. The stage they were currently struggling in because of their low mana levels.

The fight—no, the escape from the guardian monster left everyone in the party low on mana. This included Angelia's monsters as well. Nessie was severely injured during the escape and was still trying to recover from his wounds, but due to his lack of mana, his natural recovery took a hit.

Inside the hole that Gabriel, Angelia, and Kira dug, the three were currently huddled together while watching the sandstorm blow over them. Angelia had the small Mao placed on her lap while Nessie was wrapped around her arm and waist. She was still tending to the visible wounds on his body.

Angelia felt quite frustrated that the wounds which would normally take a few hours to heal still weren't fine even after they were disinfected and bandaged for 2 or so days. Honestly, she couldn't tell how many days it has been.

She only remembered that they had to take shelter from at least 4 sandstorms so far and she slept through most of it. There was no indication of night and day, it was hot throughout the entire time and it was seriously uncomfortable to even rest.

Resting outside in the hot desert where the heat directly assaulted you was a no go, but it wasn't any better resting inside a hole dug in the middle of a sand dune. Angelia felt like she was being slowly cooked alive in the hole, but they didn't have any other choice but to stay in here because of the sandstorm.

Kira had his eyes clothes and was profusely sweating due to the heat but he suddenly snapped open his eyes.

"C-Captain...d-do you feel that?"

"What's wrong, Kira?"

"B-Below us...I felt a vibration below us..."

"Quickly check!"

"Yes!"

Angelia looked over at Kira when she heard his words and she quickly pulled out her weapon and readied it.

"Th-this—Captain we have to—AHH!"

Before Kira could even continue saying anything, the sand under Kira began shifting and he was sucked under.

"KIRA!"

"KIRA NO!" Gabriel quickly tried to grab his hand but he was pulled down along with the boy.

Angelia was just about to jump towards her brother, but the sand around her suddenly collapsed on top of her.

Outside, the hole that the 3 had dug suddenly began caving in on itself and with the sandstorm blowing over it, the sand dune returned to its natural state, as if nothing and no one was there before.

******

Down at the first stage's transfer gate, Cecil and everyone from his group had been able to successfully climb up the stage's last mountainous section and arrive here.

They had lost a few people, but a majority of the group was able to live and arrive here. Every faction lost a few people but only the Silvaria Kingdom's forces remained intact. This was naturally due to Cecil's assistance.

Even when they were about to die from a fatal wound, he was able to pull them back from the dead using his Healing Arts.

At this time, he still wasn't aware that someone or something was eyeing him, but he felt something weird whenever he connected with the Guide, the small black crystal that was hovering above every participant's heads.

When they had arrived at the transfer gate, it was still shut off so the earlier groups that had arrived were waiting near it.

Cecil looked around and began counting. He counted at least 8 groups and 3 individuals who didn't belong to any of the groups.

He noticed that these 3 were all near the Mana Perfection stage just like him. He didn't detect any Ki present in them so it was safe to say that they weren't stronger than him.

Cecil was intrigued by these 3 people because he noticed that their ages weren't too far from his. Of course, he was still younger than them by a few years, but being able to reach the Late Mana Core stage at their age showed how much talent these 3 individuals had.

"They're separated from the other groups and each other, but I wonder if they know each other? I'm not quite familiar with Midgard's factions yet. I also heard that it's much more complex than Urrugdrasil's factions—"

"Is there something you'd like to know, brother-in-law?" Celestina asked him after hearing his mumbling.

"...You have some sharp ears, sis-in-law..."

"Thank you."

"Well, since you've offered, I might as well ask, who are the 3 people over there?"

Celestina had already been following Cecil's eyes from the start so she knew which 3 people he meant.

"The red-haired fellow is from the Devil Slayer Sect, the sleep-deprived looking one is from the Corpse Collector Guild, and the last one is from the Xuanwu Family."

"What? Xuanwu?"

"Mhmm, have you heard about them before?"

Cecil looked at the Xuanwu person and couldn't help but think, 'I've heard it before, just not from this planet...'