Chapter 185: Defenseless Ant?
*WOOOOSH!*
A cutting gust of wind burst from beneath Priam’s feet, propelling him forward at a mind-boggling speed.
The desert sand billowed up behind him like a massive trail of dust. But no matter how much Ether he burned to maximize the wind element, the creature behind him kept closing the gap little by little.
Priam had been discovered right at the absolute center of that Corrupted Beast’s territory. The territory itself was enormous, the largest he had seen anywhere in the desert. Even running at full speed, it would take him several minutes to escape its borders.
Earlier, even though he hadn’t found the owner of the territory, he had already concluded that something terrifying lived there after noticing that every other Beast avoided even getting close to that vast region. It was undoubtedly one of the strongest creatures—or perhaps the strongest in the entire desert.
Even so, Priam had trusted that he’d be able to spot it from afar and move around it quietly.
What he hadn’t expected was that this hellish worm didn’t rely only on energy perception or sight.
Now, the ruler of that desert had chosen him as its next meal.
The creature was closing the distance faster and faster.
But carefully judging the space between them, Priam felt there was still a chance...
"Damn..."
Then the creature suddenly changed its strategy.
*KBOOOOOM!*
The giant worm raised its head and dove back into the depths of the earth, sending a mountain of sand exploding into the sky.
The sound on the surface vanished.
The desert fell into a deathly silence for a single millisecond...
...and at that exact moment, a primal terror unlike anything Priam had ever experienced shot down his spine.
’It’s not slowing down underground... Quite the opposite. It’s burrowing, and moving insanely faster!’
Priam felt the vibrations from the ground travel up through his legs.
The monster was tearing through the depths of the desert as effortlessly as a fish swimming through water, closing in from below at an absurd speed.
That was the absolute power of the Earth element.
That Corrupted Beast specialized in that element, and the ground offered virtually no resistance to its movements.
Priam narrowed his eyes.
Three meters...
Two meters...
One meter directly beneath him!
In the final microsecond before it struck...
...the very earth above the creature’s mouth seemed to bend and warp.
It was activating its absolute mastery over the Earth element.
At that moment, Priam was certain that the ground would offer *zero resistance* to the creature’s charge.
It was a perfect predatory technique—conceptually impossible to dodge.
A surprise attack from beneath the earth, launched at extreme speed, designed to swallow its prey whole before they even realized what had hit them.
However...
That Beast had picked the wrong prey.
Priam possessed the Transcendental Soul.
At the exact millisecond when the Earth element beneath his feet began distorting at its peak intensity, his senses caught the change.
His reaction speed surpassed the very limits of what should have been possible.
Without hesitating for even a fraction of a second, Priam didn’t try to dodge sideways.
It would’ve been pointless.
Instead, he turned both fists downward and poured his Ether into a strike aimed at the ground.
"YOU BITCH!"
He unleashed Sky-Rending Wind without the slightest hesitation.
*BOOOOOM!!*
A highly concentrated, unstable wave of wind was violently injected into the earth.
The Wind element crashed directly into the perfect harmony of the Earth element the worm was using to glide.
The collision mixed the Earth and Wind elements throughout a vast underground area, preventing the Corrupted Beast from maintaining the maximum efficiency of its deadly movement.
After all, it couldn’t control the Wind element mixed into the ground.
The sand beneath Priam erupted into a geyser of dust and shattered rock.
The next instant, the creature’s circular maw, filled with spiraling rows of teeth, burst through the surface.
But it was nowhere near as devastating as it should have been.
Priam slipped past the monster by mere millimeters.
Its glass-like armor and poisonous aura grazed his body, biting into nothing but air.
The force of the explosion itself launched Priam dozens of meters into the sky.
His body spun through the air before crashing heavily onto the sand.
The moment he regained his balance, he resumed his desperate sprint without even looking back.
He was breathing heavily as cold sweat ran down his forehead.
That improvised counterattack had saved his life, but the price had been brutal. Both the constant running and the attacks had consumed a colossal amount of Ether.
*RUMBLE!*
The Corrupted Beast didn’t stop pursuing him.
*BOOM! BOOOM!*
Priam repeated the same process, fleeing while neutralizing its deadliest attack by striking the ground.
’Damn... my Ether is dropping way too fast. If it keeps attacking from underground at this rate... I’ll only be able to rupture the ground and disrupt its attack two more times!’
Now he was certain he wouldn’t escape in time.
Desperation began to take hold of him.
Priam could still create Power Runes and attack to buy himself a little more time. Still, he had very few materials left to create high-level elemental runes.
The materials he had brought from the Mortal Plane were almost completely depleted. Besides, they had become practically useless to him because their level was far too low.
"!"
Then, all of a sudden, he spotted a light ahead. Without hesitating, he veered to the left and sprinted toward it.
The light shone like a brilliant beacon.
Priam had noticed it before, but in the darkness of the night, while desperately running for his life, he’d assumed it was just starlight and paid it no attention.
Only now did he realize it was an incredibly intense glow coming from the ground itself.
How could such a powerful light exist in the middle of an endless desert? It was definitely something extraordinary.
Priam’s instincts told him that place might offer him some kind of protection.
The scene was surreal.
Under the darkness of the night, Priam desperately ran toward that distant light.
Behind him came a terrifying creature.
Every so often, brilliant explosions completely illuminated the dark desert.
*BOOOM!*
He ran as fast as he could...
...until he was forced to strike the ground once again.
*BOOOOM!*
"Fuck!"
His Ether was almost gone. He only had enough left to keep running.
Now, when the Corrupted Beast attacked him again, he’d be forced to spend every last bit of it to create one final Power Rune.
But...
A short distance ahead, the landscape began to brighten.
Priam had finally reached his destination.
It was an oasis in the middle of the desert.
It looked like a small lake surrounded by sparse green vegetation.
Its waters were crystal clear and unbelievably beautiful, almost as if they emitted their own light.
At the center of the lake stood a small mountain-like island with a narrow opening at its summit.
It was from that opening, at the top of the island, that all the light was pouring out.
The entire place was no more than three hundred meters across.
As Priam rushed forward, he felt an overwhelming heat envelop his body.
It felt as though even the air itself was about to burst into flames.
Even though it had chased Priam all the way there, the Corrupted Beast slowed down, seemingly deeply intimidated by that area.
Then...
"?"
Priam turned around.
He noticed that the gigantic worm had stopped.
A moment later, it turned around and quickly retreated from the area.
Priam finally relaxed a little.
At least he had managed to escape that disaster.
Even so, he felt somewhat frustrated that he’d had to run for his life like that.
No matter how much he trained and studied, he was still nothing more than a defenseless ant inside the enemy’s territory.
He sighed as he realized an important truth.
His enemies wouldn’t always fight him on terrain that favored his abilities.
If he truly wanted to become stronger, he needed to eliminate his weaknesses.
If he had mastered the Earth element the same way he had mastered Wind—able to manipulate it without relying on the system—everything would’ve turned out differently.
Suddenly, Priam realized something was wrong.
The Corrupted Beast hadn’t actually left.
It had only retreated a great distance before burying itself underground, remaining perfectly still and silent.
Clearly, it was waiting for him to leave that area so it could devour him.
The slightest vibration in the ground outside that place would be enough to alert it.
In other words...
Priam wasn’t getting out of there easily.
"Well... one problem at a time."