After finishing their preparations, Clyde, Samuel, and Leyan approached the glowing portal in the center of the Fortress.
Samuel held up his amulet, its dark green gem shimring faintly as it resonated with the portal’s energy. He then inserted it into the portal. The air rippled, and the swirling vortex revealed the image of another part of the destroyed world.
"Ready?" Samuel asked, glancing at the others.
Without hesitation, Clyde and Leyan nodded. Samuel stepped forward, followed by Clyde and Leyan. The portal enveloped them, and in a blink of an eyes, they erged into a vast desert landscape.
But this wasn’t any ordinary desert.
The ground around them was in a state of chaos as if the very earth had rebelled against its natural order. Massive chunks of land and towering sand mountains had been wrenched free and now floated in mid-air, casting long, jagged shadows across the shifting dunes below.
The sky above was fractured with deep cracks glowing faintly with an eerie greenish hue.
They start to walk. The air itself shimred with heat. The oppressive and relentless kind of heat, far beyond the natural warmth of any desert.
Beads of sweat ford on their foreheads almost imdiately, but the intensity of the heat wasn’t rely physical, it was magical and gnawing at their stamina and focus imdiately.
"This alone would kill a normal human," Samuel muttered, wiping his brow but keeping his pace steady.
"Right," Clyde replied with flat tone. He didn’t hide his hate for the oppressive heat that makes his body sweaty. "Let’s just hurry up and find that anomaly."
The three of them then broke into a run, their was quick and precise despite the uneven terrain.
They leaped across the floating chunks of land, navigating the bizarre and ever-shifting geography with the agility granted by their enhanced abilities.
Every now and then, grotesque creatures that looks like distorted hybrids of desert beasts with bigger size erged from the cracks in the ground or dropped from the floating masses above.
Clyde dealt with them quickly. His Elderglass Sword flashed and cutting through their twisted forms.
Samuel’s magic enhanced spear lit up the battlefield, bursts of energy scorching monsters where they stood. Leyan also attack using his ranged magic ability to take out enemies before they could close in.
It didn’t take long for them to notice the telltale sign they were looking for.
Ahead of them, the air itself seed to ripple and distort, threads of black and green energy weaving together like an intricate web. The threads floated and pulsed almost looked that they are alive, as if tethered to an unseen force.
The sight was familiar. It was an unmistakable marker of the anomaly.
"There it is," Samuel said, his voice tense but resolute.
Clyde narrowed his eyes while gripping the hilt of his sword tightly. "Stay sharp. It’s going to releash strange monsters like before."
Just as before, they had prepared themselves to face the monsters guarding the anomaly. When they find the marker, they need to brace for the monstrers, and fight their way.
But sothing was off this ti.
Clyde’s gaze flicked to the sky, scanning for the shadow of the airborne creature that had appeared in their last encounter.
Yet there was nothing. No hulking silhouette moving behind the fractured clouds. No deafening roar.
"That’s... odd," Samuel muttered. His eyes darted around, searching for any sign of monsters. "Where’s the monsters? It’s supposed to show up by now."
"Maybe it’s hiding," Leyan suggested.
Clyde’s jaw tightened, and he scanned the shifting sands and floating landmasses. His gut told him sothing was wrong.
"Just stay alert," Clyde said.
Their curiosity turned to alarm as the ground beneath them began to quake violently.
Samuel’s eyes widened. "Below us!"
In an instant, the sand split apart, revealing a writhing mass of black and green flesh.
Grotesquely large tendrils thatt pulsating with an strange magic, erupted from the ground. They twisted and lashed out with terrifying speed, resembling the tentacles of a colossal octopus but with a sickly strange texture.
"Move!" Clyde shouted and leaping backward just as one of the massive tentacles snapped toward him.
The others reacted just as quickly. Leyan sorsaulted away, his lithe form gliding through the air before landing gracefully on a floating chunk of rock.
Samuel pivoted to the side while thrusting his spear outward to block a tendril that ca too close, the weapon glowing brightly as it deflected the fleshy appendage.
The tentacles didn’t stop. They slamd into the ground, tearing up chunks of sand and stone, then coiled and lashed out again, faster and more coordinated than before.
"These things can see us!" Leyan yelled, sending a blast of fiery magic arrows toward a cluster of tendrils.
The flas engulfed them but the black-green flesh didn’t burn easily, the fire dimming as the tentacles writhed again.
Clyde landed on a floating platform, gripping his sword tightly. The Elderglass blade shimred with faint blue and white light as he prepared to strike. "They’re part of the main anomaly creature!"
The three of them launched into action. Clyde leaped forward, his blade slicing through one of the tentacles with a sharp clean arc.
The severed piece flopped to the ground, twitching violently before dissolving into a pool of black-green ichor.
Samuel followed suit, charging the base of another tendril. He drove his spear deep into the ground, releasing a burst of energy that sent shockwaves through the tendrils connected to it. The vibrations caused two of the tentacles to writhe uncontrollably before retreating back into the earth.
Leyan supported them from above, raining down precise blasts of magic arrows to weaken the tendrils’ grip on the terrain. Each attack caused the ground to crack and shudder, forcing the anomaly to reveal more of itself.
But the anomaly wasn’t done. The tentacles began to converge, twisting and rging until they ford a single colossal appendage.
It slamd into the floating platforms, sending shockwaves that nearly knocked them off balance.
Clyde gritted his teeth and jumping to a higher ledge just in ti to avoid the massive strike.
Massive chunk of land erupted, and they saw an enormous eyes.
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