United in Belief

The wind came again, stronger and fiercer than before.

Elon lay by the edge of the pool, no longer having even the strength to push himself up.

Sand and dust piled up around him, covering him layer by layer. From his ankles to his calves, and then to his waist and abdomen, half of his body was buried in the yellow sand in moments.

He wanted to lift his head to look at Shane, if only for a glance, but the heavy sand and his weakened body made it almost impossible to move.

He could only raise his hand with a tremble, watching the vibrant green light being stripped from his palm, slowly dissipating into the yellow sand.

The sand spirit was devouring his life force.

It was a strange feeling. It did not hurt; he only felt his body growing lighter bit by bit, his consciousness beginning to drift.

“Is this where it ends...?”

Elon's lips moved, but his voice was swallowed by the wind and sand. He felt a trace of regret, but no remorse.

The sand and wind rose past his shoulders, crept up his neck, and finally covered his head. Elon's face vanished completely beneath the sand.

Meanwhile, behind a bone wall, Ksaz was tightly holding Karu's shoulders, sensing that his clansmen were losing their strength.

“Karu! Karu! Pull yourself together!”

Karu lay in Ksaz's arms, his scales completely dull. His once-stout frame had begun to hollow out, and though his eyes were open, his pupils had disappeared, leaving only cloudy whites.

The other five clansmen were the same, their bodies stiff as if the force of life had been entirely drained from their physical vessels.

As for Ksaz, the golden scales on his body still flickered with a faint light, and the complex runes pulsed rapidly. However, he could feel an immense weakness eroding his body, and his vision was already beginning to go dark.

At this point, he could only force open one layer of his eyelids, barely searching for Shane's figure through the gaps in the howling sand.

“Sir... where are you...?”

Midst the sandstorm, Shane stood with his eyes closed, letting the wind and sand batter his body as he quietly sensed his surroundings.

The sand spirit's mana was flowing, and the aura of deathly power surged through the storm like a tide, wave after wave, endless and unceasing.

Had it been anyone else, they might have been devoured entirely by this power long ago. But for Shane, it actually allowed him to “see” more clearly.

Elon was already buried under the sand, Ksaz was struggling to hold on behind the bone wall, and his six clansmen were on the brink of death.

Yet those seabuckthorn, Red Willows, and Suosuo were still swaying violently in the gale. Countless branches had been snapped, but their roots still clutched the sandy soil in a death grip.

Though the wheat straw of the straw checkerboards on the ground had been partially buried by the sand, they were still doing their job. The wind speed near the ground was indeed slightly slower.

Furthermore, because the deathly aura had grown dense, the chaotic magical elements had actually become sparse.

The water in the pool was locked tight by the dense surrounding vegetation. No matter how fierce the wind and sand were, not much of it was swept away.

Thus, out of the three problems—wind, magical elements, and water—only the wind and the crack overhead remained.

Shane looked up, able to sense the position of the crack, high above the greyish-yellow sandstorm in the upper reaches of the sky.

It was like an eye, its pitch-black edge fringed with a dark purple glow, with the surrounding air currents spinning frantically around it as the center.

Shane opened his eyes and looked at the sky.

As long as that crack disappeared, the storm would stop.

He immediately raised his hand. Four skeletons emerged halfway from the sand, firmly grasping his legs and waist from four directions to help him stabilize his stance. Then, a dark green light began to gather in his palm.

A bone spear slowly took shape before him.

At first, it was just a faint outline, but as the deathly power was continuously poured into it, it began to solidify and turn pristine white, looking as though it were polished from the finest mutton-fat jade.

The bone spear was seven meters long, translucent throughout, and its surface was as smooth as a mirror. This was the result of the training he had undergone since his very first day in the Golden Sea.

The precise control he practiced day and night to stimulate the growth of plant roots had made his death magic finer and purer than that of any other necromancer.

And now, the surrounding deathly aura, dense enough to almost materialize, was providing him with a continuous supply of power.

It made him feel several times stronger than usual.

Then, silver-white runes began to surface on the bone spear, spreading one by one across its length. With the appearance of these runes, the aura at the tip of the spear grew increasingly sharp.

But the crack overhead seemed to sense the danger.

Suddenly, the wind and sand around Shane became even more violent. The force was so immense that even the four skeletons half-buried in the sand began to be blown out of place.

Then, from the edges of the crack in the sky, dozens of pitch-black tentacles shot out.

Each one was dozens of meters long, their surfaces covered in dark purple patterns, reaching straight down toward Shane.

Shane's heart sank, but he had no way to retreat. He could only watch as the tentacles lunged at him.

“Roar!”

Just as the first pitch-black tentacle was about to reach his face, a deafening tiger's roar descended from the heavens.

A pillar of pure white light suddenly shot down from the sky, precisely piercing through the wind and sand to explode around Shane.

The pitch-black tentacles crumbled and vanished under the light pillar, while the remaining ones recoiled to the side, writhing uneasily.

Furthermore, the pillar of light carved out a path for Shane, leading straight from the ground to the crack.

Looking at this somewhat familiar pillar of light, Shane was stunned for a moment and softly muttered a name: “Sern Lancaster...”

But before he could think further, a bright red figure dived rapidly down through the path cleared by the light pillar, landing precisely on his shoulder.

The falcon, crimson as a blazing fire, opened its beak slightly and uttered a few brief syllables: “You only have five minutes.”

With that, Shane felt a sudden lightness on his wrist. The dark, dull color of the Ring of the Exiled was fading, turning pure white in the blink of an eye.

Immediately after, Shane felt all of his suppression vanish.

Mana surged through his body without any hindrance. The power that had been suppressed by the Ring of the Exiled now gushed out like a torrent after the floodgates were opened.

Shane felt better than he ever had before.

He looked up at the crack in the sky. A dark green light exploded in his hand, and the silver-white runes on the bone spear began to spread wildly, dyeing the entire shaft silver-white.

Then, golden runes began to manifest like ancient divine scripts, radiating a dazzling glow.

Shane took a deep breath, an incredibly confident smile appearing on his pale face.

“Go.”

The bone spear shot forward like an arrow off a bowstring, letting out a deafening boom that shook the eardrums.

A silver-white shadow of light pierced the sky, carrying specks of starlight as it charged straight toward the crack.

The crack in the sky trembled violently the moment the bone spear approached. Dozens of tentacles flailed in an attempt to intercept it, but they shattered and dissolved the instant they touched the tip of the spear.

“Hum...”

Without any loud explosion, the bone spear silently plunged into the center of the crack.

In the next second, fine fractures began to appear on the surface of the crack, spiderwebbing outward like a breaking mirror. The dark purple light around it flickered a few times within the cracks before dying out completely.

The crack began to shrink, drawing inward toward the center. After a few breaths, the sky returned to its original state, the night sky filled with starlight.

The wind and sand also began to subside at the exact moment the crack vanished.

Shane stood there, looking up at the starry sky, motionless for a long time.

Only when the falcon on his shoulder took flight once more did he look down at his band. He found that the band had returned to its original dull color, and the sluggish feeling of being suppressed returned to his body.

Looking in the direction the falcon had flown, he said softly, “Thanks.”

On a distant dune, the falcon transformed into a stream of light, turning back into a magic orb before returning to Olen's hand.

Olen put it away and turned his head to glance at Sern, who was already preparing to leave beside him.

“Leaving just like that?”

Hearing this, Sern paused in her tracks. With her back to Olen, she replied in a cold tone, “I only wanted to see how far he could go, nothing more.”

Olen let out a soft chuckle, choosing not to expose her.

He looked back toward the oasis, staring at the night sky that had become exceptionally clear, and muttered to himself, “Some things simply have to be done by someone.”

Then, he turned around and drove his metal lizard to depart.

Sern also set off at the same time. The two of them went their separate ways, disappearing into the night.

Outside the oasis, on the dunes leading to Greystone Post, Alicia stood watching the gradually calming sandstorm in the distance, silent for a long time.

“Your Highness...”

The captain of the guard looked at the princess carefully. No one knew what was going through her mind.

But Alicia turned around, a brilliant smile blossoming on her face, and said, “Let's go home!”

“To welcome our hero!”