Chapter 454 - Storm (2/2)

It didn't float up in the air like it should have so Alex went to the front compartment and checked the True Spirit stones there.

”I see,” Alex said when he realized all the spirit stones had grown dull. They has lost their slight glow and were simply a normal stone now.

”Wait, I'm sure I changed these a little while before I  came back to the Scarlet city. So, it must be the environment. Well, it at least proves my hypothesis of artifacts not working here, I guess,” Alex thought and put the boat back into the storage bag.

He then looked back and realized that he could barely see the silhouette of the cliffs now. They were so far away.

”How far have I come? 2 kilometers? 3 kilometers?” Alex wondered. The distance from the river shouldn't have been that far away when he really thought about it.

”If logic were to work in this place, given the way the Crimson Empire is set up, there should be an ocean at the top of the map, which is where I'm headed. But…” Alex thought as he looked further ahead.

”It should take me days to fully traverse the whole place. Given the average width of the crimson empire based on the maps, it's about a little longer than the distance between Scarlet city and the Cardinal city.”

”So, if I wanted to see the ocean… I would have to walk straight for days. But who knows how dangerous the beasts get as I go forward,” Alex thought.

”Whatever, let's just find whatever it is I am attracted to and retu—”

Suddenly, Alex felt a very low level of vibrations from the sand below him. He looked around and saw that the sands slowly slide down from the small dunes around him.

”An earthquake?” Alex thought but it wasn't. The low-level vibration persisted for a while and instead of going away, it got bigger and bigger.

Alex didn't dare move as he was unsure of what was happening and just looked around carefully. Finally, he saw what was causing the vibration.

'A storm?' he thought at first when he saw the clouds, but soon he realized that the storm was made up of yellowish-brown particles.

”A storm of sand,” Alex cried out in surprise. He looked around for places to shelter himself, but couldn't see anything aside from the dunes of sand.

He then once more looked at the storm and decided to handle it himself. He braced for the impact and took the full brunt of the storm's attack.

Surprisingly, it was very easy. It looked like the storm wall would be quite dangerous, but there wasn't any damage.

”Oh, it's quite f— COUGH COUGH-COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH” unknowingly, he breathed in a lot of sands in the air and started coughing very loudly.

Without hesitation, he took off his upper robes and hid his face with them. He started breathing through the cloth as he coughed out the sands he had just taken in.

He got onto his knees and hid his face in his laps while breathing through the cloth. He was currently a mortal. A very strong body cultivator, but a mortal nonetheless.

If he couldn't breathe for a few minutes, he would easily succumb to death.

Alex did nothing but keep his face hidden from the storm as the storm raged on for another 10 or so minutes. But these 10 minutes seemed t last an eternity for him.

He waited and waited and waited, and finally, the storm was over. He could finally let go of his cloth.

Alex tried to lift his head up to see if it was alright but soon realized that there was a lot of sand on top of him.

He quickly jumped out of the sand and dusted himself. He started spitting out sand and even took out some water to cleanse his mouth before drinking some.

”God! What was that? I don't want to experience that ever again,” Alex thought. He looked around and realized that the general location he was in just now was totally changed.

Nothing around him looked like what it used to just a few minutes earlier. 'That storm changed everything here?' he thought in surprise. He really didn't know a lot about deserts so he was surprised to see this happen.

”Huh? That's weird,” Alex thought and spit on his finger before lifting his finger up high. ”There was just a storm, why is there no wind anymore?”

This confused him quite a bit, but no matter what he did, he couldn't feel any wind. ' That's not how storms work, right?' he thought trying to remember if the calm after the storm was ever a thing.

Just as he was thinking that he heard something move in the sand. Alex immediately turned back and saw a worm wriggle its way out of the sand.

Alex looked at it and suddenly noticed another one wriggle out, then another and another. Soon, there were nearly 15 worms that came out of the sand at the same spot.

”That's quite unusual. Why didn't your guys come out before the storm? I'm sure I was making more noise before that. Or was it the storm that woke you up,” Alex asked and gripped his sword?

Without a single hesitation, he ran towards the closest worm there was. The worm saw Alex approach it and opened its mouth to attack, but a single slash from Alex killed it immediately.

Then, the other worms started making their way towards him too. One after another, Alex killed every single one of the worms.

He chopped in half the final worm and finally sighed. ”Damn, that was hard. These were either very high Bone Tempering realm, or low Organ tempering real beasts.”

”How are they even here? Aren't there only supposed to be weaker bone tempering beasts here? Or am I mistaken?” Alex wondered.

He looked at the corpses around him but had no way of finding an answer.. So, he just cleaned his sword and started walking in his original direction once more.