A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

This time, Erik and Naeku were moving across the desert, with nothing but sand dunes stretching in every direction. They were now in former Somalia, the most eastern sector of the Enkare Nkai kingdom. In this area, the desert was expanding, rather than the jungle.

The sun burned hotter than it had any right to, and even Naeku felt the heat. These areas, where the desert became ever harsher since the awakening, were actually some of the few places where Naeku's people would usually willingly move away from.

It wasn't that their traditions and ancestral, usually nomadic, ways were less important to them, or that they were any more pragmatic than the villages that persisted in the jungles, but rather that the desert was simply becoming increasingly unlivable, even for Arcanists and Runebound.

Previously, there were still some oases scattered throughout and even the occasional rainfall, but all of that gradually ended over the last eight years. Oases had gotten buried under the sand, and rain simply never fell anymore. Not to mention that the scorching heat was hard to handle for mere first rankers.

Basically, life was becoming excessively hellish. Many of the desert villages or nomadic tribes had already decided life here wasn't worth keeping to their traditions and accepted the Bastet-Seti's offer to move into the bigger cities.

But not all of them. Right now, they were on their way to a fishing village by the coast, which was stubbornly clinging to existence. Just as they were starting to get close, Erik suddenly halted and frowned. Tilting his head to the side, he seemed to listen intently to something.

Naeku was surprised, but she could recognize what he was doing and didn't distract him with questions.

"We might be too late on this one," he suddenly growled, before moving like a whirlwind. Picking Naeku up, he threw her over his shoulder and sprinted ahead.

"Ah!" Naeku yelped in surprise. Yet, she was more concerned with his words than his actions. "What do you mean?!"

"They're already under attack," he quickly answered. His speed quickly started picking up, and buckets of sand were tossed in the air with every leap forward. After the first few steps, he had already turned into his werewolf form, and his speed increased even more.

It took only a few seconds for Naeku to hear the same as Erik had just before: terrified screaming. "Oh no," she muttered from Erik's shoulder. Worry and concern appeared in her eyes as she wished Erik moved faster, despite the wind and sand that were already whipping her face.

Even at Erik's immense speed, it took another half a minute before the ocean and the village, Bacaad, finally came into view. And what they was quite a mess.

Tornadoes and fountains of both sand and water were raging in the middle of this small village of stone houses. They could see small forms running in between the destruction, either trying to get away or trying to fight back… but they were obviously losing.

Yet, surprisingly, they weren't losing as badly as they really should be… because the water and sand appeared to be in conflict with each other.

"What the hell…?" Erik muttered when he noticed a massive water jet compete with a localized sandstorm. From his shoulder, Naeku looked no less confused.

But the situation finally became clear when they got closer: the village was being attacked from two sides, by two different types of beast. One, akin to a fusion between a lizard and a jackal, the other more like a mutation of a centipede and a deep sea fish.

And both hordes had third-rank representatives…

"Dammit!" Naeku cursed from Erik's shoulder. "Those sand creatures are the Dhashur, and those sea things the Baqum. I can't believe we got lucky enough to reach the other villages before anything bad happened, but now we get two at the same time?!"

"It's not so bad, actually," Erik yelled over the whipping winds as he continued moving closer. "Since they're fighting each other now, the villagers are going largely ignored, and just ending up as collateral damage."

"Oh yeah, fantastic!" Naeku snarled sarcastically. Erik simply stayed silent, knowing she didn't mean it. And, as expected, it took no longer than a second before she muttered an apology, "S— Sorry, you're right, of course, it's just…"@@novelbin@@

"I know, I know," Erik nodded with understanding. "Let's just go see what we can do."

Naeku nodded, and Erik closed the last bit of distance between them and the village. Within moments, they started coming across the first groups of battling beasts, but since they saw no humans there, they simply ignored it and rushed past them.

The beasts, terrified by Erik's aura, actually broke off their bottles and quickly scattered. But even if they didn't encounter any living humans, they already found several corpses strewn across the ground, causing Naeku to grow increasingly angry and sad.

Another few seconds later, they finally encountered some villagers, locked in a desperate struggle with a group of lizard-like jackals, the Dhashur. Screaming and yelling echoed as they fought at the entrance to an old church with a mixture of races.

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None of these beasts exceeded the second rank, and so the clash between them and the humans was actually going well. Yet, they weren't the main problem. Over at the village's centre, two third-ranked, two or three-meter-long versions of these beasts were raging against each other, and as soon one of them won, the villagers knew they'd be next.

The two clashing sides at the church were far too distracted to notice the newcomers at first, but that quickly changed when Erik seemingly instantly appeared in the middle of the Dhashur, surrounded by crackling lightning, with Naeku still over his shoulder.

For a moment, time appeared to stand still. Both Dhashur and villager halted their movement. The Dhashur's lizardly eyes turned to him as their whip-like tails whipped the air. Meanwhile, the steadfast villagers looked at them with wide eyes.

Erik took one moment to look around… and then snorted dismissively. "Hmpf." Instantly, a storm of icywhite lightning raged around him and shredded the Dhashur to pieces as he activated his newest Runebound skill.

The villagers looked on in utter shock…