Star Forge Titan

Everything in front of me was shrouded in endless strong winds. Even the clouds floating high in the sky were torn to the ground by the raging winds.

The endless sand and dust in the desert seemed to be given life and began its own carnival. Their dancing figures filled every corner between the sky and the land, making it impossible for anyone to see anything other than the dance of the sand.

Ecstasy, frenzy, and violent sand swept across the world with a hurricane.

The person at the front of the team had already changed three rounds. When the orc Gaoshan staggered and almost fell, Ivan held up the strong man who was over two meters tall and not much different from himself.

Even though his ears were filled with the sound of the wind, he could still hear the orcs' rapid breathing. Obviously, in such a harsh environment, even the extraordinary people's physical strength had been severely consumed and they would soon reach their limits.

"Let me take my turn." Taking two steps forward, Ivan came to the front of the team.

He didn't let go of Lilim's hand or Sanwang's hand, and just dragged them to the front of the team.

On the one hand, he took into consideration that the orc Gaoshan was already very exhausted and it was best not to add any more burden to him. On the other hand, he was worried about the small halfling thief in his hand. He was afraid that she would be blown into the sky by the strong wind the moment he let go, just like a husky that accidentally let go of the leash when it went out for a walk with someone.

Slowly, in addition to the strong wind and yellow sand, another more difficult obstacle appeared in front of the team.

That was the powerful magical fluctuation released by the Sandworm King, just like the [Sublimation Characteristic·Invisible Throne] that Ivan mastered after going through the second stage of the ritual. The extremely strong fluctuation was transformed into a tangible magical pressure, just like another rhythmic hurricane. Every time it made people feel as if they were hit hard by a blunt object like a hammer, and everything from the skin to the internal organs were impacted by external forces.

The stronger warriors were fine, but the half-elf mage had already vomited blood and fell into a semi-conscious state. Fortunately, after regaining consciousness, he immediately put on a layer of mage armor, and gradually recovered.

The situation worsened, and Ivan momentarily doubted whether he had made the right choice to move forward. Perhaps turning around and running would have been the right move. Although turning back would inevitably lead to a sandstorm even more terrifying than the one in front of him, at least he wouldn't have to face the magical fluctuations emitted by the Sandworm King head-on.

But now the adventurers could no longer hesitate. Hesitation would lead to failure. They must continue on the path they had chosen. On the contrary, stopping or retreating would be an even worse choice.

When another wave of magic power came, Alvin opened the Sun Shield without hesitation.

The semicircular shield constructed of white light darkened noticeably when it was impacted, but the golden light in the black-haired boy's eyes became brighter, and the shield that had just dimmed a little quickly became bright again.

"Captain, my shield can probably hold out for a while, but we must push forward with all our might! Have the Mountain King carry Lilim and Kalani! Leave everything else behind!"

Without caring about anything else, Alvin shouted directly:

"Okay!" Andre was also very decisive. He threw the half-elf wizard he was supporting onto the horse's back, and then began to quickly pick out unnecessary things and throw them away.

Lilith didn't say much. Even though she was severely exhausted, she still quickly climbed up behind the Mountain King. At the same time, she cleverly used a rope to tie herself and the wizard to the saddle.

The Mountain King, who originally did not allow anyone except Alvin to ride him, now behaved very quietly and well-behaved. Faced with the doomsday-like scene outside the shield, even animals knew that they should not cause trouble at such a time.

The orc tightened the longbow on his back, then stood side by side with Alvin, while on the other side stood Andre, who was lightly equipped.

"Run!" Without any nonsense, feeling the rapid consumption of magic power in his body, Alvin took the lead and ran.

He moved very quickly, and the Mountain King, who was so tired that he stuck out his tongue, followed closely behind him, followed by the orc Gaoshan and captain Andre who were the main force.

The three warriors were running at full speed, no less than galloping horses, and the Mountain King, whose physique far exceeded that of ordinary horses, was not behind at all even with two people on his back.

As for Alvin, he was like the only one with an umbrella among a group of people without one. He had to hold back a little so as not to let his teammates escape the coverage of the solar shield because he ran too fast.

It was like holding their breath and sprinting at full speed. The physical strength of several people was rapidly consumed, and in addition to physical strength, even Alvin's magic power was rapidly decreasing.

In just a few minutes, he had already used up more than one-fifth of his total mana. Furthermore, the mana circulation provided by his branch talent, [Star Soul - Perpetual Core], could no longer keep up with this rate of consumption. He had to be prepared to urgently activate the reserve mana stored in his spine, which was the additional mana pool from another branch talent, [Steel Blessing - Immortal Body].

Fortunately, the situation did not fall to the worst extent. When an unprecedented strong magical wave swept over, at the moment when the Sun Shield was almost extinguished and exploded, Alvin suddenly noticed that something was glowing under his feet.

Veins emitting faint light spread across the surrounding land, and where the light converged stood a tall wall that seemed to have no end in sight.

After a moment of hesitation, Alvin realized that the so-called wall was actually just a small part of the Sandworm King's body. It was only because the size difference between the two was too large that people had the illusion that it was a wall.

Leaning against the huge excavated pit, the huge body of the Sandworm King stood quietly in front of the adventure team.

The terrifying magical fluctuations before originated from the intersection of the luminous veins and the body of the sandworm king.

The light there is currently emitting a continuously increasing amount of light, which will obviously turn into waves and be released again after reaching a certain level.

"Quick! Charge!" Andrei shouted quickly.

The shield was obviously about to collapse, and everyone had to rush onto the body of the Sandworm King before the next round of magic fluctuations erupted.

Based on the scene just observed and previous experience, it is obvious that the fan-shaped magical fluctuations will weaken with the increase of height and distance. Even the sandstorms caused by them will only occur at a certain distance, so as not to interfere with the sandworm king's "sunbathing" behavior after the dust is raised.

Although they didn't understand why the situation was like this, Alvin and the team members understood that the only thing they needed to do now was to move forward!

run!

There was no hesitation at all, and there was no American time limit for hesitation.

Everyone took steps and sprinted at full speed, not even bothering to pick up their hoods and scarves when they were blown away by the wind.

At the same time, the light emanating from the source of the magic fluctuations was getting brighter at a speed visible to the naked eye. The light illuminated everyone's pale faces and made Ivan's eyes gradually sharper.

He summoned all his magic power, and the violent primitive magic power flowed through the metal skeleton and tough flesh. The magic power stimulated to the extreme made Ivan's extraordinary characteristics fully displayed, and even the oval azure crystal between his eyebrows began to emerge.

This prototype of a magic organ, which is usually hidden under the flesh and blood and appears prematurely due to the infection of high-concentration magic power, will only appear when the descendants of the Titans stimulate their own magic power to the extreme.

Now, facing the powerful magic fluctuations emitted by the Sandworm King and the super storm with a total energy volume equivalent to multiple nuclear weapons, Alvin must use all his strength without reservation.

At the moment the wave erupted, the Sun Shield emanated a blindingly intense white light. This light simultaneously counteracted the storm and the wave, and after gradually dimming to a certain extreme, it suddenly exploded into an omnidirectional shockwave!

Under Ivan's control, the impact force generated by the explosion of the Sun Shield was released outward, but the reaction force was not offset by him. Instead, it was transformed into a thrust that pushed everyone to jump high.

So the following exciting scene happened.

“Aa ...

Everyone in the Tracker Adventure Team, including their horses, screamed in unison.

They were now like innocent stones thrown out by a large catapult, temporarily freed from the constraints of gravity and all flying into the sky.

Gaoshan, an orc who had never been so far away from the ground, unexpectedly found that he seemed to be afraid of heights, but this little surprise did not make him happy. Instead, he subconsciously swung his limbs around as if he was swimming.

Andre, with his eyes wide open, didn't know what to say at all, but in his heart he prayed to all the righteous gods he could remember.

The giant horse Mountain King, which was nearly three meters tall, let out the loudest cry of the entire team at this moment, and even Lilim, who was riding on its back, closed her eyes and screamed.

However, these two guys made the half-elf wizard, who was originally in a daze, wake up instantly.

The mage is worthy of being a mage. Even in this situation, he was not scared. Instead, he thought quickly.

So, when the Seeker team took off and drew a perfect parabola in the air, they were about to perform a hard landing full of tough guy spirit.

The half-elf wizard Kalani urgently opened another magic shield and took action faster than Alvin to offset the impact of the landing.

Even so, everyone still felt dizzy.

When they finally came to their senses, they immediately realized a somewhat subtle reality.

"Now, we..." Captain Andre stepped on the solid 'ground' under his feet, his expression was particularly strange.

"Depending on the situation, it should be..." Lilim stood up shakily with a hesitant expression.

If I'm not mistaken, the tracker team has successfully arrived—

——The surface of the Sandworm King!!!

Chapter 33: Relics Emerge

It is actually not easy to confirm the previous judgment.

After all, the surrounding scenery doesn't look like what the surface of a living thing should look like.

The open black shells on the top of the head cover the sky like huge inflated sails, and look like strangely shaped trees, blocking the direct sunlight.

The yellow-brown 'land' underfoot is very solid, giving people an unexpected sense of being grounded and solid, without the expected soft or other skin-friendly touch.

In some gullies filled with sand, just like the Komidon beasts known as the "mobile oasis", you can see various plants growing in them. Most of them are tenacious herbs and mosses, but there are also low shrubs and even trees stubbornly rooted in the soil.

The scene looked like a strange deserted island, which was completely unlike the surface of any living organism, so much so that everyone was a little dazed.

"Keep going up, otherwise the next round of magic fluctuations will come." Ivan, the first one to come to his senses, got up and went to check on the condition of the Mountain King.

As the heaviest creature on the team, this giant horse should have borne the most impact.

But compared to the elven wizard who was dizzy and fainted again, the mountain king who was carrying two people looked unharmed. It even wanted to stretch out its mouth to nibble on the "snacks" not far away, which were the tender leaves of the plants growing on the body of the sandworm king.

Before Ivan noticed, the Mountain King had already bitten a handful of leaves into his mouth and was chewing happily with a "Crunch! Crunch!"

"Hey! Stop eating random things." The black-haired boy slapped the horse's head on the back, forcing the mountain king to spit out the leaves in his mouth, but the guy had already swallowed a few leaves.

Fortunately, it seemed that the leaves were not poisonous. Anyway, a long time after Sanwang finished eating a few "snacks", he still maintained his energetic look, and even looked at the sandworm head at the highest point with some eagerness.

"Don't look at it, we may not have that much time." Alvin ruthlessly interrupted his mount's daydream.

At this moment, the King of Sandworms was leaning against the pit, causing part of its body to form a certain angle with the ground.

Therefore, Alvin and the rest of the tracker team could slowly move towards the top of the mountain as if they were climbing a steep cliff.

Even the horse, the Mountain King, can use some convenient footholds to slowly climb upwards. Honestly, if you think of its current movements as imitating those of a goat, it's quite similar.

Considering that the King of Sandworms might return to the underground to take a nap at any time, they had to find a way to leave here safely before this giant creature fell asleep after basking in the sun.

Before that, the members of the Tracker Team had to increase their altitude to avoid the impact of the magic fluctuations.

Fortunately, climbing the sandworm's body was simpler than expected. At the same time, no one encountered any thieves blocking the way, nor did they see any monsters suddenly jump out to scare people, nor did they see any cannibals rush out to drag away a few unlucky guys.

As I walked upwards, all I saw was a seemingly endless sea of ​​densely packed black shells, as if this was a sail forest made of shells, with tall and strange black sails scattered everywhere.

However, although the surrounding 'natural' scenery was very monotonous, the magical fluctuations coming from behind him did gradually decrease in intensity as Alvin had expected.

After climbing above 100 meters, the impact of the magic fluctuations was basically just a gust of wind that was not too exaggerated, but everyone's physical strength was almost exhausted.

The previous act of fleeing was as physically demanding as a battle, and even more so.

Although most people were severely exhausted, they followed the relevant regulations on natural disaster prevention and warning in the Adventurer's Manual.

The tracker team is now in a special situation that complies with regulations. They need to explore the situation of this sandworm to the best of their ability, and it would be best if they could find out its possible subsequent whereabouts and purpose.

You know, large creatures like sandworms are undoubtedly very dangerous and impossible to deal with for ordinary oasis farms.

Sometimes, they are even more troublesome than natural disasters such as earthquakes and sandstorms.

Therefore, if you encounter a sandworm that becomes particularly active for some reason, adventurers often need to pay special attention to its movements. It is best to find out what exactly stimulated the sandworm to avoid making the same mistake again.

However, the targets of those entries are generally ordinary sandworms that are tens or hundreds of meters long. The sandworm king in front of him is far beyond that standard and is completely unsuitable for investigation by ordinary people or even low-level transcendents.

To give the simplest example, if it turns around and dives into the deep pit that seems to lead directly to the center of the earth after basking in the sun, can the adventurers still follow it to take a look underground?

"It's a headache." Andre, who no longer had to worry about the fluctuation of magic power, now felt a helpless headache.

At this moment, Alvin suddenly stopped and noticed his abnormality. Everyone became alert.

"...Under normal circumstances, would iron scales grow on the surface of a sandworm?"

The black-haired boy, who had just arrived in the silent desert, stepped on a piece of 'skin' that was clearly reflecting a metallic luster, and his expression gradually became subtle.

"That's impossible. Even if a sandworm is huge, it should be a creature of flesh and blood. How could it possibly... grow iron plates?"

Turning around and seeing the metal plate under Ivan's feet, Andre's voice immediately changed from teasing to dazed and confused.

"Maybe it got stuck there accidentally."

Lilim shook her head after she finished speaking. She herself didn't believe this reason.

What made her even more emotional was that although Alvin was just a newcomer to the sandworm hunter business, he was able to encounter the Sandworm King, something that most sandworm hunters would never see in their lifetime.

"That's really careless." He said jokingly.

Looking at the metal structures everywhere in his field of vision, Alvin had some vague guesses in his mind, but he had not yet found the most powerful evidence to confirm his guess.

After careful investigation, it can be found that the metal structure on the surface of the sandworm is not simply metallized, but a special modification that replaces the original biological tissue with a mechanical structure, allowing the metal and flesh to be perfectly integrated.

Those places mostly appeared at the contact points between the wide shell and the body, as if something overflowed from the body, and then caused the flesh and blood tissue in those areas to be replaced by metallic mechanical structures.

But unlike the distortion of the demon engine, these modifications are instead harmoniously integrated with the original flesh and blood tissue, which makes Alvin recall some technologies in future science fiction works - cyber transformation, or prosthetic limbs and prosthetic body transformation.

The unprecedented scene made everyone more nervous.

"Do you want to continue moving forward? At this altitude, the aftermath of the magic fluctuations is not that exaggerated." The black-haired boy stopped and asked:

Although he personally wanted to continue exploring upwards to find the possible metal structure on the surface of the sandworm, he was now within the team and had to consider other people's concerns.

"Let me think about it." Andre pondered for a moment, but the team did not stop moving forward.

"Or, let's take a break..." The middle-aged soldier who was the captain was about to speak, but suddenly found that everyone stopped and looked up.

"What's wrong?" As he said that, Andre also looked up at the place where everyone's eyes were focused.

So he also stood there in a daze.

At this moment, the team just passed a shell as wide as a sail.

But what caught my eye next was not the same shell as before.

In the open space that was still some distance away from the adventurers, there was a magnificent ancient building full of classical architectural style, filled with columns and a solemn atmosphere.

Yes, behind the sandworm, in a previously invisible location, surrounded by countless upright black shell 'forests'.