The battle was slipping away from the Raksha Sect. Kazan's face contorted—hesitation, then sothing darker. His hand dipped into his storage pouch again. Dozens of small black nails shot out, aid at Nyx, Zay, Yak, and even one of his own disciples.
"Malicious Mother-child Nails!" The Raksha woman's scream was pure terror. Her shield dissolved instantly. The nails struck her face and body. She hit the ground screaming, her flesh rotting into a ghastly ss.
Nyx, Zay, and Yak never saw it coming. None of them expected Kazan to turn on his own people. Zay took the worst of it—his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. Nyx and Yak, hit multiple tis, coughed blood and were thrown backward, barely managing to sit up and fight the poison spreading through their veins.
Vicious bastard. Leo's jaw tightened. Kazan had just erased their hard-won nurical advantage. But taking his eyes off the fight cost him. A dozen wind blades ripped through the air, forcing Kazan into a frantic, stumbling defense.
Kazan hadn't known Leo was holding back. He'd panicked when his team was cut down one by one. Sacrificing his own disciple to even the odds had seed worth it—until the distraction cost him everything.
He barely dodged the wind blades. Before he could recover, the Black Flood Dragon Shears slamd his curved saber aside and ca down on his left shoulder. He twisted desperately, just enough to save his life. His arm hit the ground.
"Senior Brother Kazan!" The remaining Raksha disciples went pale. They knew what his defeat ant.
Kazan clamped down on the pain. His right hand grabbed the saber and brought it down on the shears in one savage stroke. The impact launched him backward a dozen ters.
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Leo frowned. Sothing felt wrong. Then Kazan, still stumbling, slapped his storage pouch. A pair of nearly transparent wings unfolded and attached to his back. He beat them once and shot into the air.
"Senior Brother—" The Raksha disciples stared in disbelief as their leader flew away, leaving them behind.
They didn't wait to see more. Cursing, they broke and ran. Bally and the others gave chase.
Leo's shears took down two more. A third was fast, plastered with talismans, pulling away. Leo could have chased—probably caught him—but he looked back at his wounded teammates. If another team stumbled on them while he was gone, it would be over.
"Pack up. Get Nyx and the others. We find a safe place to rest." Leo recalled the shears.
After that fight, no one questioned him. Even Di, still nursing his own wounds, had dropped his hostility.
The battle had cost them. Nyx, Zay, and Yak were poisoned. Di was still hurt from the earlier ambush. But they'd killed eight of ten Raksha disciples. The storage pouches yielded herbs, spirit stones, healing pills. So herbs were centuries old. When they divided everything, each person walked away with more than they'd started.
Leo took a Crimson Dragon Grass—a main ingredient for Rejuvenation Pills. His pulse quickened. If he could refine those, he'd have an extra life in any serious fight. He also traded for so of Lucid's Iron Thorn Vine seeds, planted them in his boundary space, and used spirit stones to accelerate the growth of a whole batch.
Days passed. Nyx and the others healed. The team moved on, hunting for herbs. They fought other teams, took so losses, but survived. Leo's caution kept them alive, and luck stayed with them.
Close. Ten days later, Leo sat under a thick tree, ditating. A spirit stone crumbled to dust in his hand. He opened his eyes and exhaled.
Luck didn't last forever. For a while, the team had gathered herb after herb with only minor setbacks and no deaths.
Then, hours ago, they'd stumbled into a sand dune infested with sandworms. Fast in the earth, thick as buckets, ters long. Adults were third-grade. They hunted in packs of hundreds. Leo had pulled the team out, barely, running for their lives. That's when two teams from the Ten Thousand Beasts Pavilion had blocked their path. No way through. Behind them, the dunes, still crawling with worms. Nowhere to go but back.
They'd retreated into the dunes. Yak and Nyx ran out of spiritual power. The worms took them.
Flint and Zay were caught by the Ten Thousand Beasts disciples. They didn't make it.
Luna, Bally, and a few others went with Leo into the dunes, but the worms scattered them. Leo fought alone, cutting down dozens, running for miles, faster than his pursuers could follow. He'd lost them.
He'd worked to beco team leader. Now, he was alone again. He hadn't seen that coming. His jaw tightened. Surviving this place just got a lot harder.
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