Kyle reached the last hill, looking at all the crocodile corpses he left behind.
"What a waste," he commented. "Wish I could transport them."
"If you want to do that, you need to reach the Third Realm," Theodor said.
"Why? What's the difference?" Kyle asked.
"You get a Soul Space. A Soul Space is a compact space that you have control over. Things you put into it will shrink and lose their weight. If you had a Soul Space, you could transport all of these corpses without any issues."
"That's crazy," Kyle said.
'It's like I get an inventory from a game or something.'
"There's still a long way to go," Theodor said.
"Yes, yes," Kyle said as he looked into the distance.
The black pillar of smoke had become quite a bit bigger.
Luckily, there was another canyon.
This one wasn't as deep as the other ones, but it was better than nothing.
He ran towards the canyon and jumped inside.
Inside the canyon, Kyle saw a yellow goat with spiky hair.
The goat just looked at him for a moment before jumping to the canyon's walls and standing there.
The message was clear.
It didn't want to fight Kyle, but it also wasn't afraid.
Kyle didn't engage and just ran past the goat.
Funnily enough, he didn't find any other beasts in this canyon.
'Wonder if that's because of the goat.'
As he came out of the canyon, he found a crevice, which probably meant there was another Abyss Eye.
He managed to clear the two kilometers of flat ground to get into the crevice and quickly ran along the walls.
This one wasn't as big as the other ones.
Kyle also saw a couple of ore veins at the bottom, but he was already carrying too much.
If the Abyss Eye opened, he would just throw the corpse at it, and while it was busy eating, he would escape.
Luckily, the Abyss Eye didn't open.
Kyle jumped out of the crevice and continued running.
Sadly, there was only flat ground in front of him, but surprisingly, he also didn't see any beasts.
'That's a bad sign,' Kyle thought.
After running for around a kilometer, Kyle's instincts warned him of danger.
He jumped forward, and the next moment, a worm filled with teeth shot out of the ground.
It was four meters long and only about 40 centimeters wide, but its teeth looked intimidating.
"Run!" Theodor shouted.
Kyle punched the worm to the side before he continued running.
His instincts became louder and louder.
Three more worms jumped out of the ground.
Kyle hit one of them with his hammer and kicked another one away.
However, the third one touched his plate armor, and its teeth moved back and forth.
"RUN!" Theodor shouted again.
Kyle punched that worm away as well and resumed running.
He took a bite from the corpse he was still carrying with him.
That was when he heard a sizzling sound coming from his chest.
Kyle's eyes widened when he saw part of his armor turning bronze before cracking.
'Oh fuck! They have some kind of acid or something!'
BANG!
Three more worms jumped out in front of him.
"Fuck you!" Kyle shouted, throwing the crocodile corpse at them.
They all bit into the corpse and clung to it like leeches.
That was when Kyle saw ten more worms coming out from around the corpse.
'How many are there?!'
Seconds later, the corpse was buried beneath a tide of worms.
Fortunately, the worms seemed to prefer the corpse over Kyle.
"We're in a Sandworm Barrier," Theodor said. "I didn't know the Fire Coast had one."
"Less explaining and more telling me what to do!" Kyle shouted as he kept running.
"You have to run," Theodor said. "The quicker you get past the Sandworm Barrier, the better."
"Individually, they are not powerful, but they overwhelm their enemies with numbers."
For the next couple of seconds, none of the worms attacked Kyle.
As he threw another glance back, he noticed that the crocodile corpse had vanished.
And the worms were also nowhere to be seen.
"Just run," Theodor said.
Kyle did just that.
Some seconds later, worms started popping out of the ground around him again.
He jumped back and forth to avoid them, but he couldn't avoid all of them.
Luckily, his armor protected him from their weird acid.
'I want less action in my life!' Kyle thought.
'How many times has my life been in danger in the past months?!'
After avoiding the worms for more seconds, Kyle saw a couple of beasts in the distance again.
But this time, he didn't avoid them.
He ran right at them.
When the beasts saw the group of worms following Kyle, they immediately ran away.
"Come back here!" Kyle shouted.
However, the beasts didn't listen.
"Just a bit more," Theodor said. "You've already left their territory."
Naturally, Kyle didn't stop.
"Buddy, did you forget to bring corpses?"
Suddenly, Kyle heard someone shouting at him.
He looked over and saw two lean men carrying weapons.
They seemed to be amused at Kyle's plight.
"They are from the royal army," Theodor said.
Kyle had planned on running towards them in revenge, but when he heard that, he decided to change his approach.
"Do you guys know Mandrake?" Kyle shouted as he punched another worm away.
At that moment, they stopped laughing.
"You know Mandrake?" one of them asked.
"He's a friend of mine!" Kyle shouted as another hole appeared in his armor.
The two of them looked at each other.
Then, they charged towards Kyle.
In just two seconds, they arrived between Kyle and the Sandworms.
They used their weapons and pushed the Sandworms to the side without killing them.
Thanks to their help, the worms abandoned their pursuit, and Kyle could finally stop running.
He looked at his armor and saw ten holes in it.
'Well, that's gonna use up some of the Wasteland Metal I've accumulated.'
"Thanks," Kyle said as he looked at the two of them.
Surprisingly, the two of them just smirked deviously.
"No problem," one of them said with an eerily calm tone.
Kyle grew nervous.
tg://resolv?domain=StrongestHammerGod
The author's patreon. If he gets more than 1000€ per month, he will increase the number of words in the chapter.