Just then, I saw the sand vibrating toward me as something was moving straight for me and it was fast.
I didn’t even have time to think as I jumped and rolled on the floor away from what was coming towards me.
As I rolled away, I saw a giant worm emerging from the sand. Its massive body undulated and twisted, propelling itself forward with an unnatural speed as it moved in the sand. The worm’s skin glistened with an eerie sheen, and its mouth was a cavernous void filled with razor-sharp teeth.
I scrambled to my feet, my heart racing with fear. The worm lunged forward, its jaws snapping wildly as it pursued me. I sprinted across the ground, dodging and weaving to avoid its deadly attacks.
"What the hell, why is everything trying to kill me today?" I shouted, still running as fast as I can, but I could see the worm catching up to me. The worm sank back into the sand, already very close to me.
"Ahh!" I screamed, pumping my arms and legs as fast as I could, but I knew I couldn’t outrun the worm for much longer. Its sudden disappearance into the sand only heightened my fear; I had no idea when or where it would strike next.
As I ran, I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet, and I knew the worm was closing in. I leaped to the side, summoning the star bow.
The star bow emerged in a spark of black light. I could feel its curve, shaped like the wing of a bird of prey, its limbs swept outward in a jagged, elegant arc. I leapt into the air just as the worm was emerging from the sand. The wind rushed past my face, whipping my hair into a frenzy as I drew my bow mid-air, allowing it to soar through the skies, aiming directly towards the worm. The arrow was able to graze the worm, causing a small cut in its side where it was now bleeding from, but that injury wasn’t enough to stop the worm.
The injury barely fazed the worm as it coiled its massive body, preparing to unleash its next devastating strike. I didn’t waste much time after releasing my first arrow, already drawing my second one.
This time I drew five arrows at the same time, even though it cost me to spend more essence as I coated the arrows. I yanked back the string, unleashing a frenzied quintet of arrows that crackled with lightning essence, a reckless gamble that drained my reserves and left me reeling. The coating was a mess, the lightning sputtering like a dying sparkler, and I could feel the arrows straining to break free from my faltering control, but can you blame me, I haven’t trained on essence coating before.
It was a sloppy, imperfect shot, born of desperation and panic. I’d wasted a ton of essence trying to imbue the arrows with lightning, and even then, it wasn’t like I’d gotten it right. The arrows felt like they were going to go haywire at any second, and I was left praying to anyone listening that they’d somehow, miraculously, find their mark.
As they shot off towards the worm, I held my breath, my heart pounding in my chest like a drum. This was it, all or nothing. And I had no idea which way it would swing.
I unleashed the arrows, and they shot forth in a burst of lightning-tipped fury, their trajectories weaving unpredictably as my unstable essence struggled to maintain control. The worm lunged forward, its maw agape, and the arrows pierced its scaly hide with a sickening crunch, releasing a blast of electric energy that crackled and sparked wildly.
The worm thrashed about, its body convulsing in agony as the lightning coursed through its veins, but I knew I’d paid a steep price for this. My essence was almost depleted, and I stumbled backward, gasping for breath, my vision blurring from the strain. The worm convulsed for a while before dropping dead on the floor.
{You have slain desert worm}.
The system announced to me, but I was still trying to catch my breath from all that.
"Wait, I didn’t get an echo after all that, what the hell system?" I said after recovering a little. I sighed and then moved towards the desert worm’s corpse which was laying still on the floor.
"Too bad, I can’t take you with me," I said before summoning the obdesine dagger and fishing out its core. I looked at the worm’s corpse. "What does worm meat even taste like?" I asked myself. I had to stay in this dungeon for two days, as two days here was just a day outside, and after all that I was famished. I decided to cut a piece of the worm’s flesh before deciding to leave that area before I attracted more danger to myself.
Later I was eating the meat of the desert worm, which, by the way, was actually delicious after cooking it with the fire I started with a bunch of stones I gathered together to start a fire. "Okay, time to move on, since I was teleported south or was it north? Anyway, I was teleported somewhere. I had to head upwards as David was on the other side and also the dungeon boss."
Just as I was getting ready to leave, I saw the sand trembling towards me as something was approaching, but this time it was three of them. "Seriously, what did I do to this desert?" I shouted as I was already running as fast as I could, which wasn’t much.
Just as I was running away from the worms, I saw a huge rock and I ran towards it and climbed on top of it. Finally, off the sand, the worms couldn’t hurt me, but they still circled the rock like a bunch of vultures, and sometimes they would try to leap up towards me, but they couldn’t reach me as I was high away from them, but that also meant I was trapped with no way out.
Just then I had an idea that could solve my current problem, and it was a great one.
"Time to go worm fishing," I said with a smile. The source of this content ɪs NoveI-Fire.ɴet