A total of five Purple Shelled Scorpions leaped out of the dunes. Only one of them was a Beta-rank, and this slightly came as a relief to Aileen. Yet, she didn’t dare rejoice.
Just like White Phantom Snakes, these scorpions carried dangerous toxic which has no cure. Not to mention, in the desert-like setting, the scorpions were at a natural advantage.
Aileen glanced at her young miss - Sophia - who has knocked out the leader of a low-level mercenary group. The other mercenaries were terrified and had expressions of pure horror, but Aileen didn’t care about them.
All she wanted to do was protect her miss. But the hot desert environment made her feel it would be a tough job.
They didn’t have any vehicles so it would be rather hard to avoid the scorpions once the chase starts.
Bringing vehicles inside the core region, whether it was an aircraft or a car, was next to impossible. After all, before arriving here, they would need to carry the same vehicle through Desolate Blood Forest. There were countless dangers involved and the chances of vehicle getting destroyed were high.
Th1s chapter is updated by n)ovel/\bin/\
It wasn’t like they could carry them in some spatial storage device. It has to be known that storage items were rare, and the space inside most of these devices wasn’t enough to store a vehicle.
This was why only a few vehicles approached the core region, and even they were outside the entrance.
"Young miss, I will hold them off," Aileen said resolutely. "You have to leave now!"
"No, we would leave together," Sophia disagreed.
"Miss! This is no time to argue!" Aileen shouted but just then, the Beta-rank scorpion whipped its tail forward.
Aileen’s pupils flashed and she stretched her hands out. Ripples of water energy surged out, and as the tail slammed forward, the ripples transformed into waves of water.
The waves carried a momentum of an ocean, and a clashing sound ringed out as they crashed on the scorpion tail.
The tail was pushed back, but Aileen’s eyes constricted. The poisonous stinger shot out of the tail just as the water waves disappeared.
The stinger’s speed and movements were like a bullet. Poisonous fluctuations enveloped the air, and the sand rose up as the stinger rushed forward.
Aileen retaliated with a water blast to ward off the bullet, and without looking at the result, she jumped up.
Below, the stinger cut through the water blast but much to her surprise, it twisted its direction and turned towards her. The Beta-rank scorpion pounced in the air as well.
Aileen’s expression turned serious and she covered her hands with orbs of water...
At the same time, Sophia fought a level II scorpion. Streams of energy enveloped her fist as she slammed it on the body of scorpion, and cracks appeared on its shell, but before she could kill it, the scorpion rushed into the sand, disappearing.
Another scorpion jumped on her from behind, and she turned around and punched out like a typhoon. Sand blasted out, and the scorpion released a tragic cry as it was sent flying.
Sophia’s young eyes flickered with killing intent as she sensed more scorpions approaching her. She arched her back and snapped her head up as two stingers shot past her, barely missing her.
She has just dodged the two attacks when the sand below her feet parted. A tail pierced towards her feet, and the stinger glinted with a purple toxin.
Sophia knew the danger the toxin carried. It was not something that she has an antidote of.
Not only her, but even the elders in her family were the same. After all, these scorpions were rare existence that one might encounter in the central zone of the core region, and that too only if luck was too bad.
No one has met them just after leaving the starting point. This made it difficult to acquire toxins for research purposes.
"Get lost!"
Sophia snapped her beautiful teeth in annoyance. The pendant on her chest flashed, and the next moment, a red flash shot out.
The red flash slammed into the stinger just as it was about to pierce her. The scorpion wailed as it sensed its stinger ripping to pieces.
Followed by the stinger, its entire tail imploded.
From above, using the distraction of the tragic scorpion, another scorpion pounced on her. Its pincers opened up to crush her into a bloody paste.
Swoosh~!
Sophia didn’t show any fear and she jumped up as the scorpion rushed at her.
Under the disbelief eyes of the scorpion, Sophia twirled her lean and slender body through the slight gap between the pincers, and then shoved an elbow on the hard shell of the scorpion.
BANG
Violent fluctuations rammed out and the scorpion blasted into pieces. As Sophia landed back on the sand, there was no relief on her face.
Instead, her face fell.
The dune was filled with corpses of the mercenary group. Not a single one of them survived. But this wasn’t what made her mood sour.
The reason was scorpions.
She has just killed a few, and yet as far as her eyes could see, there were over a dozen more!
"How is this even possible?" Sophia was shocked.
Some distance away, Aileen has just defeated the Beta-rank scorpion, and just like Sophia, her face was filled with shock.
"These scorpions are supposed to be rare!"
She couldn’t believe her and Sophia’s luck could be this bad.
Aileen felt a chill down her spine as she read the aura reading on her watch. There were three scorpions which were on Level IV!
"Three Betas?!"
For Aileen, this was no less than an earth-shattering event.
Alphas were no less than an endangered species, and as such, Betas were considered as the most powerful.
They were equally rare and few, and yet, three Betas have come out of nowhere.
How were they supposed to handle so many?! Then there were the other Gamma-rank scorpions!
Aileen got no time to think further as two scorpions dived at her. Sophia was equally surrounded, and unlike before, she was facing ten scorpions, out of which one was Beta!
"Damn!"
Sophia gritted her teeth as she saw so many scorpions lunging on her. The stingers and pincers were rushing at her like scythes of death ripper.
The pendant she carried was a protective charm created from nanotechnology. While it has terrifying powers, she didn’t want to use it freely as its energy was limited.
"There is only one choice," Sophia thought of summoning Life & Death Gate. But this option was also something she didn’t want to use.
Ever since she fought Kiba and the words he spoke about her ability, she felt his warning about Life & Death Gate were not just empty words.
While she didn’t entirely trust him, but as a precaution, she didn’t plan to use this ability until she reached the central zone.
But now looking at the countless scorpions closing into her, she knew she had no choice.
She raised her hands up, and streams of black and white energy surged out. Just as they transformed into two fishes, Sophia heard something.
Not only her but even the scorpions were the same. There was intense vibrating sound coming from the sky, but as they were already pouncing on Sophia, and thus in mid-air, they couldn’t turn around and check what was causing the sound.
Whoosh~!
Sound of air sliced apart reverberated as ten black beams burst through the sky. Through the slight gap between the pouncing scorpions, Sophia could make out the black beams.
The black beams were absolutely dazzling and almost blinding to the eye. Sophia noticed that instead of light particles, the beams were made of a viscous, glistening liquid!
Even before she could make out what those beams were, they landed on the scorpions. They were instantly absorbed by the scorpions without any trace.
This bewildered Sophia, but the scorpions, on the other hand, were terrified. The blood mass inside them was rapidly contracting and expanding.
In less than a second, under Sophia’s shocked gaze, the scorpions imploded. But instead of flesh and blood, there was only a glistening black liquid. As the liquid splashed down, it evaporated into black vapors even before it could stain Sophia or the sand around her.
"What?!"
Aileen was dumbfounded.
She has seen Sophia surrounded, and so without caring about her own safety, she has rushed towards her.
In the process, she gained a few wounds from the Beta-rank scorpions. Luckily none of them were life-threatening and nothing which she couldn’t recover from as long as she has some time.
Just as she closed in to help, she saw the scorpions around Sophia imploding. At the same time, the two Beta-rank mutants also caught up with Aileen, but just like her, they were struck on the spot in total disbelief.
For a moment, they forgot their job of slicing Aileen and Sophia. All their attention was on the black vapors which were the only traces of the over ten scorpions’ existence.
"Just what happened now?" Aileen felt her throat turning dry. Even if she went all out, she couldn’t destroy so many scorpions with such ease.
Sure, the scorpions were caught off-guard by the black beams, but still... this was too much! They were instantly wiped out of existence!
Sophia was also thinking on similar lines. She raised her head towards the sky to see the source of black beams.
Far away, a black hovercraft was racing towards them.
Even before she could blink, the hovercraft has already arrived next to her, floating just a few meters above the sand.
"Get in!"
Sophia felt a familiar voice coming out of the hovercraft.